Mother and I
My father was trash. I realized that when I was ten years old, at my biological mother's funeral.
“Say hello, Changjae. This is your new mother.”
The man who had never once shown his face while my mom was alive—my father—brought a woman to my mother’s funeral. She looked barely half his age, even though he was already in his forties.
“My deepest condolences for your loss.”
My new mother greeted me awkwardly as I stood there in my oversized mourning clothes. The moment I saw her face, I understood. This was the woman who had stolen my father from me and my mother.
Even through a child’s ignorant eyes, she looked far younger and prettier than my dead mother. My father must have been bewitched by her and abandoned us. These people were desecrating my mother’s funeral. I should have screamed at them, demanded to know what right they had to be there, and told them to get lost.
…But I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to ruin my mother’s final journey. She hadn’t been a good mother, but she was still my only mother. So I simply bowed my head, forced myself to act like a grown-up, and performed my duties as the chief mourner.
After the bleak funeral ended, my father said,
“Changjae, you’ll stay with your new mother for a while. Once things settle down, I’ll come get you.”
He left me with her and disappeared to yet another woman. My father wasn’t just trash. He was an irredeemable son of a bitch. I only realized that after being left in her care.
My new mother was just like my dead biological one. Another pitiful woman used and discarded by my father. The only difference was that she didn’t spend her days wallowing in resentment.
“Think of this as your own home. This is your father’s house, so it’s basically yours too, Changjae.”
Did this woman have no shame? How could she smile like that? My mother had died cursing my father until her very last breath.
Yet my new mother tried to treat me like her own son. She always smiled and spoke to me first, constantly checked if I needed anything, and prepared the foods I liked every single day. For ten long years, she never once complained about raising someone else’s child.
But I couldn’t accept her as my mother. I only ever called her “Mother” out of formality. I never once treated her like a real mom.
Maybe it was because my biological mother had brainwashed me for so long. She had constantly drilled into me how heartless my father was, and how evil the woman who stole him away had been. Naturally, my view of my new mother was clouded by prejudice. Her kindness looked like hypocrisy. Everything she did seemed to have some hidden motive.
“Your father will come back soon. When he does, let’s surprise him by turning you into a wonderful young man, Changjae.”
I never really waited for him. I just hoped my new mother would eventually get tired of me and leave. I wanted her to prove that she really was the wicked woman I imagined.
And so ten years passed. Just as expected, my father never returned. And just as expected, my new mother never abandoned me.
Ten years. A whole decade of her twenties—her most beautiful years—spent raising someone else’s son.
My heart began to change. Even I knew that no one could care for another person’s child for ten years out of sheer pretense. She had gained nothing by raising me. That was when I finally realized how childish and stubborn I had been.
I felt ashamed. How could I possibly repay her? How could I give back the ten years of her life that I had stolen?
After thinking and thinking and thinking some more, I made up my mind.
If my mother still couldn’t forget my father—if that was why she had raised me all this time—then I would make her happy instead. I decided I would become her man in his place.
But… that decision wasn’t a good one.
My hasty actions only left scars on both of us. Afterward, once I graduated high school and became an adult, I ran away from home and enlisted in the military.
Even after joining the army, I never once contacted her first.
──And yet.
“Changjae. Don’t worry. Leave everything to Mom, okay?”
“Mother…”
How the hell had it come to this?
“Close your eyes and think about a girl you like. Mom will take care of the rest.”
Her slender, trembling hands unbuckled my belt.
──On the brink of life and death, my mother was taking off my pants.