Chapter 80: Side Story - Mother (1)
Chapter 80: Side Story - Mother (1)
What is the measure of wealth?
I viewed it through the frequency of travel.
That’s not to say this logic was without its flaws.
However, like anyone else, I had established my own criteria to defend my reasoning.
That logic was as follows:
Ultimately, travel is an act possible only for those with "leisure."
Of course, I know. I know several counterarguments could be made here. My friends were the same way, so I’m aware there are people who would try to refute this in various ways.
First, the sheer cost of travel is significant.
While travel that doesn't cost money does exist, it usually involves a major expense.
At least, that was the case by my standards. The trips I went on a few times as a child were typically the expensive kind.
But that wasn't everything.
The biggest reason I felt so confident in my logic was the second point.
Livelihood.
Whether a person engaged in making a living can afford to take time off, and if they can, whether they can afford not to work during that time.
That was why I was certain that travel was a product of leisure.
The actual cost of a trip can be extremely low. If it’s a backpacking trip or a walking tour, the expenses are minimal.
But can someone who must work every day just to survive—someone who might go hungry today if they don't work today—really go on a trip?
Can someone who earns their meal money and rent through daily manual labor even think about traveling?
This remains true even if they happen to come into some money. They would rather spend that money on something else; they wouldn't be able to make a plan to go on a trip.
In that sense, our family had money, but we couldn't be called wealthy.
The last time we went on a trip was when I was a child. It was before my father passed away in a plane crash.
Since then, travel had become an event that had no connection to our family.
In that light, I suddenly couldn't understand what my mother was saying.
"A trip?"
"Yes."
Why on earth? She hadn't mentioned going on a trip once in her entire life.
It wasn't that we lacked money, but we had never enjoyed the luxury of having the leisure to travel.
Throughout my life, leisure was something that didn't exist, except for when I was sleeping or on the occasional holiday.
So, before I could even say whether I was happy about the proposal, I was utterly bewildered.
Though I was flustered and troubled, I couldn't bring myself to ask why.
It wasn't the kind of thing you could ask while naked on the bed in your mother's bedroom, huddled together, bodies soaked in each other's fluids from the act that had continued until just moments ago.
I thought about it as I felt the touch of my mother's familiar, soft, and voluptuous curves.
How did it ever come to this?
*
There are five people in our family.
If you include my father, who was with us for a time, it would be six, but it had been a long time since he passed away.
Because of that, the time without him felt more familiar than the time with him, and naturally, I viewed our family as a five-person unit.
Even then, I’d recently begun to think we were closer to a two or three-person family.
Time is not something humans can stop. My eldest noona, Kang Yu-dam, moved out to focus on the business after inheriting my father's company as the CEO.
Since Kang Yu-min, who could be called my second noona, moved out to attend university.
Naturally, the only ones left at home were me, my youngest sibling Kang Yu-ri, and my mother.
Among them, the person I encountered most frequently was my mother.
"Welcome home."
My mother greeted me in her own way, speaking quietly.
The wrinkles in her clothes followed her prominent curves. Even though she was alone indoors, she maintained her "dignity," wearing everyday clothes that wouldn't look out of place if she stepped outside, rather than comfortable loungewear.
Her loosely tied hair rested on her shoulders, and the nail polish that the affectionate Yu-ri had applied for her shone black as it glided across the paper.
With the orange glow of the sunset hitting the side of her face, anyone would have seen her as a sister with a slight age gap rather than my mother.
And behind that appearance, which looked to be in her late twenties at most, lay a self-discipline so thorough and ascetic it was palpable, maintained even after she retired due to an ankle injury.
To put it bluntly, it was an aura that instinctively made me feel intimidated.
"I'm home."
It was the same now. My mother, who had been sitting in the living room reading a book, greeted me today with her usual solitary, noble attitude.
In the fading sunset, she gracefully moved her hand to place a bookmark in the book and closed it. She looked at me with disciplined, charismatic eyes that held almost no emotion.
That mother of mine ranked first as the most "un-motherly" mother I’d ever known.
She was elegant and exuded an atmosphere that somehow made people feel small.
She was intellectual rather than emotional, supporting the family not with the kind of tenderness one usually associates with the word "mother," but with unwavering, steadfast support and cool-headedness.
In a way, she was more like a father than my father had been.
Finding her difficult to deal with, I averted my gaze from the pair of eyes directed at me.
"Where's Yu-ri?"
"She went out to meet a friend."
"I see. Then, dinner..."
"I'll warm it up for you."
"Ah, okay."
It was an incredibly awkward conversation for a mother and son, but it couldn't be helped.
In my entire life, I had never been severely scolded by her, and it was true that I was a good kid who had never committed such a fault.
Even so, my mother was not the kind of person who was easy to be around.
"Sit down."
"Yes."
I sat at the table as she instructed and waited for my meal in silence, feeling awkward.
"Is your studying going well?"
"Yes, I think it's going well."
"And the competition next week?"
"I remember it."
The conversation over the meal was also far from a typical mother-son relationship. The words exchanged were strictly out of necessity.
I stole glances at my mother while I ate.
Even her eating was just like her. She was faithful to the recipe, eating a standard meal without any reinterpretation or variation in a truly refined, elegant, and graceful manner.
It would suddenly make me wonder if she really was my mother.
Looking in the mirror made it plausible, but her attitude and way of life were so distinct from the rest of the family.
Even now, my mother didn't ask her son, who was staring blankly at her face, if he had any worries, if there was something on her face, or if he had something to say.
She simply met my eyes steadily, her chopsticks paused, as if waiting for me to act on my own.
The intensity and firmness of that gaze were something I could never hope to match.
But that didn't mean I disliked my mother.
Quite the opposite. She was someone I respected, and she cherished the family in her own way.
If there was a problem, it was likely with me. I regarded her more as a master or a superior than as a family member.
Even though I loved her as my mother.
Having lived that way my entire life, there was nothing I could do about it.
And there was no way my mother didn't know how I felt.
"Are you tired?"
"No, I'm not that tired. It's just..."
"If you don't want to do it anymore, tell me anytime."
I recalled a scene that remained vivid in my memory.
The day my mother, who already seemed cold and detached, had a huge fight with my eldest noona.
The first time I heard my mother's voice rise slightly.
When she tried to stop my eldest noona from quitting ballet, only to be refuted point by point, eventually conceding and allowing her to quit and focus on the business.
That had clearly left a kind of scar on my mother. It was evident even now.
She spoke as if she respected my will, yet she seemed to hope I wouldn't quit.
"...Still, I'd prefer it if you didn't quit, Yu-jin."
"Yes."
"It's good for your health to keep up at least one sport in your life. If you don't want to, I'll respect your decision, but I'd prefer it if you had another sport to replace it..."
Even now, while saying she would respect my will, she was persuading me that it would be better if I didn't quit.
Even though I hadn't said I was going to quit.
"I'm really okay. I'm a bit tired, but I have the holidays."
Silence fell over the table again, and as I ate with my mother, I inwardly swallowed a sigh.
As expected, being alone with her was awkward.
*
After finishing the meal, I showered and returned to my room.
Lying down, I stared blankly up at the ceiling.
I had said those things earlier, but it wasn't as if I hadn't thought about quitting.
In fact, I had thought about it many times.
Balancing fencing and studying enough to get into a good university was quite a hassle.
Because of that, I really had considered quitting.
The reason I hadn't quit despite that...
Was simply because I saw my mother's cool-headed, almost inhuman perfection and wanted to emulate it.
I knew that if she hadn't been there, I would have quit long ago.
I wasn't particularly persistent or diligent.
Aside from her being anxious about it, there was also the fact that there was no reason to quit now.
I had built up quite a bit of experience, my skills were decent...
And above all, wasn't I starting to find it fun?
Quitting in the midst of that wasn't a rational move. It would be a waste of all the time and money spent on it.
"...Maybe I should tell her."
Thinking about it, my mother seemed very worried that I might want to quit.
She didn't express her emotions openly, so it wasn't obvious, but as her son, I could tell.
As a son, it wasn't good to make her anxious, so it would be best to clarify things.
With that thought, I left my room, but my mother wasn't in her usual spot.
Instead, I heard the sound of water from the bathroom.
That's unusual.
She was someone who always showered in the morning after waking up, yet here she was showering again in the evening.
I was about to move away, thinking I should wait, when...
Vrrr, vrrr.
I rolled my eyes at the low vibration I suddenly heard.
My mother's smartphone, left on the living room table, was ringing.
Is it a call? If it's for her, it's probably important.
My hesitation didn't last long. I picked up the smartphone, approached the bathroom, and knocked on the door.
"Mother, you have a phone call."
What I expected when I knocked wasn't anything special.
I expected her to tell me to leave it there, or to answer and say she'd call back in a bit. At any rate, I didn't expect the door to open right then.
Creak!
Suddenly, the door opened, and my mother appeared.
She was holding the door, so I couldn't see everything, but she looked different than usual.
She wasn't in her usual perfectly dressed indoor clothes, standing with a dignified, straight posture.
She wasn't the mother who possessed a perfection that seemed designed to intimidate any man.
Without a single thread on her, her alabaster skin was exposed, and I could clearly see the water droplets rolling down her body.
Seeing her like that, I flinched and froze.
I saw breasts larger than any I had ever seen in my life, a slender waist below them that made one forget her age, and yet, the hips that had clearly given birth to four children, including myself.
Only after faltering for a long time did I hold out the smartphone. My mother took it and slowly closed the door.
Leaving a lingering enchantment etched into my retinas.