Birthday
Birthday
The new year had begun, and nine days had already passed.
Was it because I was getting older, or did time just feel like it was rushing by faster and faster?
When I was young, each day felt so long it was almost tedious, but now days pass so overwhelmingly that they feel short.
And without fail, it had arrived again this year.
My birthday.
I didn't particularly like birthdays.
It was the day the mother who raised me found me and we first met, so for her, it was an incredibly important and precious day.
But for me, it was a day of nothing but sadness — the day I was abandoned as soon as I was born.
To be abandoned on a day that ought to be blessed.
At first, I had resented my birth mother deeply.
No, if you were going to put me in one anyway, you could have at least put me in a baby box that worked properly.
Because she put me in a broken baby box, I was left exposed to the cold winter weather, and my body has been weak ever since.
So until I graduated from elementary school, I had harbored a lot of resentment.
But the one who helped me work through that was Mom.
She told me that we didn't know what might have happened, and that I shouldn't hate her too much.
If anyone else had said that, I probably would have flown into a rage.
But when Mom said it, it was different.
She was the person who raised me.
If she said so, then it must be so.
After that, I put away my feelings of resentment.
Because resenting my birth mother in my heart would only hurt me anyway.
And then, after I became independent from the orphanage and met A-ra,
the birthday I had hated turned into a day of nothing but joy and happiness.
After A-ra's parents passed away, beginning from when I comforted her on the apartment stairs, we grew closer.
We met up from time to time to share meals and enjoy dates,
gradually building our relationship.
And I think that was when I started to like A-ra more and more.
The reason I can't say for certain is because I once lost these memories and then recalled them again.
I still haven't fully regained all my memories, but I had lived in this world from the very beginning.
It was just that for some reason, memories of another world surfaced and caused confusion.
The more time I spent with A-ra, the more I realized that fact and felt it in my body.
Anyway, had it been about ten months since A-ra and I had grown close?
We were spending time together at A-ra's house on my birthday when A-ra gave me a light kiss and confessed.
"Are you really okay with... someone like me?"
"If it's not you, it can't be anyone."
"I... have nothing to my name... and nothing I really know how to do..."
Before I could even finish my sentence, A-ra sealed my lips shut with hers once more,
telling me not to say another word, a faint tear trickling down her cheek.
That was when it started.
When I stopped hating my birthday.
After that, A-ra and I continued a secret relationship.
Then, on January 9th, 2017, the year I graduated high school... the very day I turned 19 in international age,
I received a proposal from A-ra, and we registered our marriage the next day.
Some might think it was too rushed,
but this was, undeniably, a strategy A-ra had already calculated in advance.
"I did it because I was afraid the people around you would try to stop you from marrying me!"
Well, it wasn't even much of a grand strategy.
The strategy was to just go ahead and do it before anyone could stop us, so no one could say anything.
It was a very A-ra-like choice.
And so, married and with high school graduation just ahead of me,
I attended school for about a week after winter break ended.
Going to school after becoming an adult, and going to school even after getting married —
I felt an immense sense of... impropriety.
And as I was quietly passing the time waiting for graduation,
the girls in my class were chattering so loudly that we all got punished as a group.
I used up too much stamina back then and collapsed...
and when I woke up in the nurse's office, different memories had been planted in me.
I wonder what happened to the me of the world that held those memories.
Surely not... did he die during that group punishment?
Ugh... thinking about it like that makes it a little scary.
***
- This time, don't come here. Go out to eat with A-ra or something.
"I said I got it."
- Your mother knows everything. You're planning to come to the orphanage anyway despite saying that, aren't you?
"I said I'm not going..."
Mom had called first thing on the morning of my birthday,
and just like at Christmas, it was an 'order' not to come, and to spend time with A-ra instead.
Isn't it only natural for a child to look after their parents first on their birthday?
Normally, you'd give thanks to your parents for giving birth to you,
but in my case, I give thanks for having been found.
"Hoo..."
"What did she say?"
"She said not to come, and to spend time alone with you, Noona."
I tossed my phone aside and lay down, using A-ra's lap as a pillow.
The touch of A-ra's hand gently stroking my head made me feel like I could fall asleep any moment.
"Is there anything you want to do?"
"No... we've been going out and about so much lately, there's nothing in particular I really want to do."
"Hmm... then that's a bit of a problem."
I didn't know what the problem was, but A-ra scratched her head.
Since there wasn't really anything that changed just because it was my birthday, I began to think it over carefully.
"Hmmmm..."
"Should we just do what Mom said and have a quiet time together at home?"
"But then it won't be any fun."
A-ra, who had started thinking again while stroking my hair.
Then, as if a good idea suddenly struck her, the hand that had been stroking my head
suddenly grabbed a tight fistful of my hair.
"Right!"
"Aghk!"
"S-sorry."
Realizing she had grabbed my hair with near-superhuman strength,
she hurriedly let go and blew on my head while stroking it.
The moment she yanked my hair tight,
my vision went white...
"Anyway! Seong-hwan-a!"
"Yes, yes, go ahead."
"Shall we go adopt a puppy?"
"A puppy..."
The moment the word 'puppy' came out of A-ra's mouth, my face began to grow hotter.
Lately, I'd been endlessly watching Qtube videos, telling myself I was studying about dogs,
and the desire to adopt one had grown so strong it was almost unbearable.
Even so,
I had been putting off adoption, worried about whether I could really raise one well.
"I told you not to worry. A puppy raised by you, Seong-hwan-a, will definitely be happy."
"You think so?"
"Where else in this world is there someone as meticulous and kind as you?"
"There's you, A-ra Noona."
"N-noona... well... uh..."
Maybe because I said it so suddenly, A-ra's face started turning red too.
She really didn't know that she herself was a kind and diligent person.
Isn't someone who doesn't know it truly a kind person?
*
"So cute..."
"She's still just a baby, only two months old... the previous owner gave her up for rehoming."
The shelter staff member smiled wryly as she stroked the puppy's head with her finger.
Maybe she liked having her head stroked, because she flopped right over, belly up, making an absolute fuss for more pets.
"What was the reason?"
"Sigh... they said she was different from what they expected..."
"Sigh..."
A sigh escaped automatically from both A-ra and me.
I really wished people would think it over dozens, hundreds, thousands of times before adopting a dog.
Raising a living being is an act that demands that much responsibility.
Whether it's a puppy or a hamster.
The little one waddling around in front of me now
was a baby Pomeranian, barely two months old.
The one we had seen at the park was already a fully grown adult,
but this little one was still so tiny, she looked just like cotton candy.
"On top of that, this baby has a short muzzle, so it seemed like they paid a very high price to adopt her."
"And yet they still gave her up...?"
'Muzzle' — to put it simply, you can think of it as the length of a dog's snout.
Apparently, if the muzzle is long from a young age, it will grow even longer when they become an adult dog,
and some people end up giving them up even for that reason.
But this little one had a short muzzle, and even though she had been adopted at a high price, she was still given up.
"I think they were the husband of some company president... we couldn't help but sigh."
The shelter staff member looked at the puppy with pitying eyes.
I could tell at once that she was a staff member who truly cherished and cared for the dogs.
It made sense, because ever since we arrived, the dogs around us
had been swarming to her, rubbing their heads against her to ask for pets.
"But this one, her nose isn't black, is it?"
"That's because she's still a baby. Probably in about a month, her nose will turn fully black."
"Ah-ha..."
That was a piece of information I didn't know.
I'll file that away in my head.
"Seong-hwan-a, what should we do?"
"I want to take this little one home."
"You want to?"
Somehow, I felt a sense of kinship with her — that she had been abandoned.
Just as Mom had picked me up, wouldn't it be fine if I picked up this little one and raised her well?
I'll just raise her as a daughter, not a pet.
*
While A-ra was finishing up the last of the adoption consent form,
I went to a nearby pet supply shop and started buying things.
Food and water bowls were, of course, absolute essentials.
I bought ones made of stainless steel.
And since she was past two months old, I bought specialized puppy food.
I was also cautioned that because she wasn't yet three months old, dry kibble would be too hard for her, and I had to feed her by soaking it in water first.
"A cushion and pads... a brush and nail clippers... shampoo and a toothbrush with toothpaste... I need to buy a leash, too..."
Oh, whatever.
For now, I just put everything I saw into the shopping cart.