Chapter 147
Chapter 147
Looking back, in a house that big, there were surprisingly few things I could truly call mine.
The mansion itself was my property, of course. I'd inherited it legally from Father and had been using it as "my home" ever since I was nine.
But it never felt like one.
Only a handful of the things inside it were items I'd actually wanted to buy. The furniture and decor had all been fully arranged before I ever set foot in the place.
I wasn't short on objects, obviously. At least, not in the physical sense...
Yet whenever I was there, it always felt as if someone else had lent it all to me. As though nothing truly belonged to me.
Maybe that was why everything I'd packed fit neatly into a single large suitcase. A few changes of clothes, underwear, my school uniform, plus some notebooks and letters from a drawer, along with a handful of odds and ends.
Even among those, though, most of the uniforms and underwear hadn't been clothes I'd chosen myself. The only items I'd properly picked were a few casual outfits I'd bought bit by bit over the past two months while going around with friends.
Some of the accessories really were things I'd bought. Though most were unremarkable little items from so long ago that I couldn't even remember where or how I'd come by them. Probably things I'd picked up from street stalls while I was out with Father or Mother.
There weren't many of them; they all fit into one small box. And even if I couldn't remember where or how I'd gotten most of them, every tiny object was proof that I'd once had a happy past. They were fragments of memory.
The pin I always wore in my hair whenever I went out was one of those things.
So-hee's room, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of my mansion.
You didn't need to ask for the story behind each item. One glance around told you everything in this room was steeped in So-hee's tastes.
With close friends, So-hee approached like an energetic puppy, but with people she wasn't close to, she kept her guard up—a little prickly.
If you only saw that side of her, she might come across as having a somewhat rough personality. Some people might even think she seemed a bit androgynous, or that she had a brash, boyish side—
Well, judging solely by what was in front of me, her real personality was apparently the one that surfaced around friends.
There were hardly any dark-colored items in the room.
When I'd first glanced in, I'd vaguely thought the room looked well-organized and tidy, but now that I looked again, it seemed oddly cluttered.
Not that it was dirty or messy.
It was more like—the things on her desk and the big stuffed animals on her bed were all arranged neatly, but all that stuff caught your eye so much it somehow made the room look unstyled. So... it was clearly tidy, but it somehow looked chaotic. That kind of room.
...Okay, I honestly don't know what I'm even trying to say right now.
"Alright, let me give you the tour. This is our room for the next while!"
"Yeah..."
It was narrow.
Not the room—the bed.
So-hee's bed was unmistakably a single. This room clearly hadn't been designed for two, in the first place. Not that it was so cramped two people would be packed in shoulder to shoulder.
"Oh, if you think the bed's too small,"
She must have noticed my gaze resting on that pink bed, because So-hee spoke up quickly.
"I'll sleep on the floor. I'm the one who asked you to stay. No reason to make a guest sleep down there."
"No, even so, it's your house."
"Hmm? Oh, then should we both sleep on the floor? If we lay blankets down, there'd be more room on the floor anyway."
"..."
Isn't that a little strange too, in its own way?
Not that the floor wouldn't be heated—there'd be no problem sleeping down there together. But... if she joins me on the floor because she feels bad about making a guest sleep on the floor, isn't that kind of backwards?
"It's fine. We've been sleeping in the same bed anyway."
So-hee's habit of going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and then confusing the beds hadn't been easy to fix. Because of that, I kept waking up each morning on a strangely cramped mattress. It was technically big enough for three, but I suspected both So-hee and Su-a had a habit of gravitating toward a warm body—they'd always end up pressed right against me.
...Honestly, though, I think I still prefer that to waking up alone on that big bed.
Even if it was a single, it looked wide enough for the two of us to lie down together. A little tight, though. If it got really uncomfortable, we'd figure out then who takes the floor... or just go with So-hee's idea and both sleep on the floor.
"Really!?"
So-hee's face brightened at my answer.
...Could it be she just hates sleeping alone?
Huh, now that I think about it, that might actually be the case. She usually slept with So-ri, after all. Maybe crawling into bed with everyone had just become a habit.
Was she the type who got lonely without her family around, having grown used to having them close?
"Yeah, let's try it like that for now. We did agree to sleep in the same room."
"Awesome!"
So-hee's reply was clearly aimed at my words, but with her facing me like that, it still felt a little flustering.
*
"..."
The house was what I'd call big enough for a family of four. I figured the total square meterage was probably more than my own room, but maybe because it was divided into so many compartments, everywhere I stood in So-hee's house felt a little smaller than my room.
Going by the area of the living room or each individual room, that might even literally be the case.
But more than that, I think the reason I felt it so keenly was because this family of three was almost always in the same spot.
I'd only arrived this evening, so I'd only seen them gathered in the living room or preparing a slightly late dinner in the kitchen—that probably biased my impression too.
In my room, it was common for the four of us, me, So-hee, Su-a, and Ha-neul, to hang out, and sometimes Yang Hye-in would come in when there was something to do, but there wasn't much to do inside a room besides talk, and over half the room was simply empty, so even with four people it never felt full.
Here was different.
It wasn't a single vast empty space. It was rooms divided by purpose and reason, plus a living room and kitchen the family shared.
The TV was on, but nobody was watching it. Against the background noise of the TV chattering to itself,
"So-ri, bring this over to the table for me."
"Okay!"
So-hee's practiced movements scooping rice into bowls and pulling side-dish containers from the fridge, So-ri's chatter as she took each one and placed it on the table,
"..."
and So-hee's father's quiet focus as he grilled sausages on the frying pan—all those sounds mingled together, making it feel bustling with just three people.
It didn't feel loud. More than that, it looked warm and affectionate because it all felt so natural.
So-hee had clearly been away from home for quite a while, but the moment she came back, she dissolved right back into the family.
No, "dissolved" is the wrong word. So-hee had been part of this family from the very beginning.
No matter how long she was gone, there's a family here waiting for her when she returns. No matter when she comes back, she can naturally live with them as a family again, just like this.
That kind of bond isn't something someone else can sever on a whim.
"Hye-in."
"Hmm?"
So-ri had approached without my noticing and was staring up at me intently.
Ah, had I just been standing around doing nothing?
Right now I was sitting at the kitchen table. So-hee had told me to just sit, so I had, but even so, watching the homeowners work while I just sat here seemed kind of rude.
Just as I thought that and began to lift myself from the chair,
"Sad?"
So-ri said something completely unexpected.
"Huh?"
I tilted my head, not understanding for a moment, but So-ri, still studying my face, spoke again.
"You looked like you were thinking about something sad."
"...Did I?"
This little kid had read my emotions?
Now that she mentioned it... maybe I had been feeling something like that.
Unlike this family that was so clearly connected, I was in the middle of severing ties with Mother.
That was the biggest reason I'd come here in the first place.
"No, I'm okay."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Even after watching me nod, So-ri kept her eyes on me for a long time.
"Okay. I'll believe you."
And then she placed her hands on her hips, saying it like she was being generous.
In other words, she didn't believe me at all.
"Yeah, you're very kind. Thanks."
But I just smiled a little bitterly and answered like that.