Daughters
"Huaaam...."
Hayang opened her eyes. Every inch of her felt heavy and languid, tenderly warm — the exact state where, if she made the mistake of closing her eyes again, an hour, maybe two, would vanish without a trace. All she wanted was to burrow into the blanket and roll around in it.
'I should really be getting up soon....' There was housework to do, and dinner to start preparing. ...So much to do, and yet not a shred of motivation would come. She didn't want to get up. It felt as if the bed itself had taken hold of her whole body. 'Maybe I'll just lie here a little longer....'
With a tiny yawn, Hayang sank back into the sheets and blinked her eyes open and shut, again and again. The sensation of hovering right on the edge of sleep came drifting up through her mind. It felt strangely, inexplicably good — if she could have, she would have stayed that way forever. 'Really... I don't wanna get up... this never happens to me.' For someone whose body was always in perfect health, this was a first. Today of all days, something about her was just off. 'Am I finally getting old...?' She'd heard that once the years catch up to you, your whole body starts to creak. Was that it, then? So this was 26 — the age when the slow decline sets in.... 'I'm basically an ajumma now, after all....' A touch of melancholy crept over Hayang, and with a small lament for the cruelty of time, she simply burrowed deeper beneath the blanket.
And inside that blanket, something warm and squishy was pressed against her like a hot water bottle, and it felt so, so good. ...Her eyes began to slide shut. '...Huh? Hold on.' They snapped right back open. 'Warm and squishy?' Why warm and squishy? The instant she sensed something was off, Hayang threw back the covers — and then she went completely still.
An unimaginable scene was spread out before her eyes. 'Why are the kids in here?' Tucked into the depths of the blanket were Serin — and Sea, clinging to her in a tight hug. She'd never once imagined they'd fallen asleep not in their own room, but right here, in the very spot where she herself was sleeping.
"Nnnh... mwaaah...."
Chilly now that the blanket had been pulled back, Serin wriggled her little body, trying to burrow deeper into the hug.
"Mmm... don't gooooo...."
And Sea, murmuring in her sleep, wrapped both arms around her and squeezed her close.
...Hayang could only stare at the two of them, dazed. 'They love me, don't they.' That was why they'd fallen asleep right there beside her. Looking at her daughters, she felt something go soft and tingly in her chest, and a fluttering warmth rising from somewhere deep inside pulled a smile across her lips. Heheh. A foolish kind of smile.
The heavy, languid feeling vanished in an instant, and — just like always — energy came flooding back in. 'Heheh. Hihi. My girls are so cute.' How was it that every single time she looked at them, it all felt brand new? Afraid they might wake and hear her, she simply watched them in silence, huffing little laughs to herself.
"Sleep tight, my little babies...."
And then — pat, pat. She patted Serin once, then Sea once, alternating between the two little bodies clinging to her.
"Mmm... hehe."
"Hehee."
At that, the two of them squirmed and wriggled sleepily in response — and just watching it was enough to make her chest swell. 'How on earth did angels like these come out of my body?' Even seeing them every day, she couldn't quite believe it. When Sea was born, she'd sworn, I am never doing this again!! And when Serin was born, she'd clawed at her own hair growling, Uuugh... oppa, seriously. Seriously, seriously — there is no next time! ...But with time, all that remained was the sight of her children, happy and sound asleep.
And right now, she was about two seconds away from pouncing on them and going walaralala all over—!
"Mmmh... Mommy?"
"Oh. Serin, you're up?"
The moment her eyes met Serin's — hazy, barely open — Hayang went stiff.
Her heart did a little drop. She felt like she'd been caught red-handed in the middle of something naughty — like the thoughts she'd been having just now had somehow been seen. A thin thread of tension pulled taut. 'She didn't happen to notice what I was thinking... did she?' Last time, after she'd gone walaralla on those chubby little cheeks, Serin had spent days bolting away screaming, Waah, I hate Mommy! the moment she so much as came near — and that had been a devastating blow. Ever since, at even the faintest hint of trouble, Serin would go slinking off away from her.
"Hehe... are you awake, Mommy?"
But thankfully, all Serin did was blink up at her with a hazy, lovable little smile. ...No. Not thankfully. 'Urk...!' That smile struck Hayang's heart dead center. For one thing, Serin's aegyo had gone through the roof lately. Out of nowhere she'd say thank you. Out of nowhere she'd say I love you. And now she was using polite speech while beaming up at her like that — this was flat-out cheating...! She's too, too cuuuute!!!
"Nnngh! What do I do...!"
"Hurgk."
Hayang squeezed Serin tight.
"...Mommy. You can let go now."
"Mmm... Serin...."
Mom lowered the hands she'd been holding up. Kneeling there with her head hung low, she was, to anyone's eyes, the very picture of the word dejected.
"I almohst died because of you, you know...!"
"I'm sorry...."
Because Mom's hug had very nearly finished me off a minute ago, that's why. Of course, I'm not such a terrible child that I'd make my own mother kneel on the floor and raise her hands over something like that. It's just — the second Mom finally let go of me and I went, Nnngh! Bad Mommy! and started to whine—
"S... Serin. Is Mommy bad? Do you hate Mommy?"
—with a stricken look on her face, Mom sat me down in a chair, plopped herself in front of me, knelt, and raised her hands. Probably her way of coming down to my eye level and showing me how sorry she was. Case in point: even while taking in my pouting face, she was grinning from ear to ear in the spot just below where my gaze could reach...!
But setting that aside. 'Nnh... ugh... something's wrong with my heart.' At first, the moment Mom had knelt down, I'd panicked. And yet, strangely enough, the words get up wouldn't come out. Because watching Mom kneel there in front of me, something had come creeping up — a fizzy little sensation that pricked at my heart and left it tingling. I pressed my hand down hard on the corners of my mouth. ...Because, watching Mom go all crumpled and droopy, the corners of my mouth had started to rise entirely on their own.
I could recognize, perfectly well, that this was a strange reaction. What I couldn't understand was why it was strange. All I knew, on pure instinct, was that I absolutely could not let Mom see it. ...So — sorry, Mom — I hid it. Haa. And here I'd promised never to lie to her. And I'd gone and broken that promise first. It left me feeling a little gloomy. ...No, wait. '...Hmm. This isn't even a lie. I didn't deceive her, you know.' I just... didn't show her. That's all. So it should be fine, right? ...Come to think of it, I hadn't done a single thing wrong. Ahem. Fully confident in my innocence, I feigned an angry voice.
"And another thing, Mommy! No more weird games! You made Serin all flustewed!"
"Oh? Caught me, huh?" Mom lifted her face. And there it was — smiling, of course. A face absolutely brimming with mischief. More than her usual kind, grown-up expression... this one suited her so much better. So this was the face Mom naturally used to make, huh. Strangely enough, I liked this mischievous look on her more than the gentle one.
"Oh my, oh my~? Is our little princess sulking?"
"I'm not thulking!"
"Mmm... I'd say you are, though?"
...Scratch that. Scratch it right now. Cancel everything I said about liking this version of Mom better. Why did she keep deciding that I was sulking? I told her, I'm not sulking...! But if I said that out loud, she'd only go, Aha, so you ARE sulking...! And if I kept my mouth shut instead, she'd just as surely go, Sulking so hard you won't even talk, huh...! This was exactly why frames were terrifying. Whatever I did, the one and only conclusion Mom would ever reach was sulky little Serin. Which meant an endless loop of You're sulking! Am not! was all but guaranteed. So I decided to skip the pedantic, exhausting process altogether.
"Fine. I'm thulking."
"Oh no~ whatever shall I do about my sulky little Serin?" Apparently that answer satisfied her, because Mom scooped me up with laughter riding in her voice.
"Eeeek!"
My body floated up into the sky, just like that.
"Seriin~ Mommy's sorry~"
Beaming, with both arms stretched out straight as she gazed up at me — Mom looked so, so pretty like that. It felt like endless love was pouring into me, and my chest went warm. ...Seen like this, Mom really was young. Maybe even younger than my past-life self. I honestly started to think she might be the more childlike of the two of us.
"My little Seriiiiiin!!"
"Nnnghk! Thop iiiit!"
And then, unable to hold herself back a moment longer, Mom tucked me right back into her arms and scrubbed her cheek against mine — and once again, I was reminded of the simple truth that Mom, forever and always, was younger than me. ...But there was still plenty of time left, after all.
Someday.
"Teachewww!"
"Serin? What is it?"
I made my way over to the teacher in charge of the Flower Petal Class. With a yellow apron tied at her waist and her auburn hair gathered into a long side-tail that spilled over one shoulder, she had a graceful, almost stately air — the kind of presence that set every last child's heart aflutter.
"Can I athk you thomething??"
There was no grand reason I'd gone to her with a question. I simply liked it when I did — the faint smile she'd offer, the cozy warmth about her, that pretty, graceful face of hers speaking in a soft, unhurried murmur. And it wasn't just me. Arin did it too. The other kids as well. At heart, we all just loved pretty things, which was why we found ourselves drifting over to her so often. Everyone loves what's beautiful — that's simply how people are. If there was one shame in it all, it was the ring on the teacher's finger. Which meant, presumably, that someone already had a claim on her. Such was the way of the world. The lovely and the wonderful always belonged to someone. Valuable goods, after all, were the easiest things to lose if you didn't secure them first. ...Not, of course, that I had any intention of taking what belonged to somebody else.
"Serin?"
Her voice snapped me back to my senses.
"Ah — yeth! Teachew!"
"Hehe, back with us? So, what did our Serin want to ask~?"
...Now, what had I been thinking about just now? The moment our conversation began, whatever it was that had set my heart pitter-pattering melted quietly away. Hmm... something to do with my memories again, no doubt. Ugh... it left such an uneasy feeling. But right now was the time to focus on the teacher in front of me. After all, the entire reason I'd come sidling up to her playing the sweet, innocent little child was because I had something I wanted to ask.
"Teachew... what'th an Awakener?"
I needed at least the general, common-knowledge information about Awakeners.