Chapter 118
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 118
Three more days passed.
During that time, Dokyun focused on teaching Eun-chae the basics of daily life, helping her learn to do simple things on her own.
And today, watching Eun-chae finally succeed in brushing her teeth by herself, Dokyun broke into a huge smile and clapped.
“That’s it! You did it!”
Ah, it had been a real struggle.
The memories flashed through his mind, filling him with a poignant sense of accomplishment: the times she’d tried to suck the toothpaste off the brush, the times he’d told her to brush her teeth and she’d brushed her gums instead.
“Did I do a good job?”
“Yes, you did a great job!”
Dokyun ruffled Eun-chae’s hair, letting out a laugh. Eun-chae looked at him and awkwardly, almost creakily, lifted the corners of her mouth into a smile.
“Is Eun-ah a good child?”
“Of course! You’re the best child in the world.”
“Okay.”
A small nod. Eun-chae’s head bobbed. Noticing some water still on her face, Dokyun wiped it away before heading to the living room.
He sat on the sofa, and as Eun-chae clung to him, he gently patted her back and continued his thoughts.
She still needed to use a fork to eat, but not being able to use chopsticks wasn’t a big deal, so that was fine.
The problem was…
‘I have to figure out what to do about showering…’
Since she couldn’t do anything by herself, he had been washing her, but it was an incredibly difficult situation every single time.
Eun-chae seemed to have no concept of shame, trying to cling to him even when she was completely naked. Every time he gave her a shower, Dokyun had to fight a constant battle with himself.
Suddenly, he recalled that morning.
—Honeybee.
—Yeah?
—My eyes sting.
He had been washing her hair when she said that and pressed her body against his. The feeling of helplessness had been overwhelming.
He let out a sigh at the memory, then shook the thought away. His gaze shifted to Eun-chae, who was dozing off in his arms.
‘She’s sleeping again.’
Eun-chae slept an unbelievable amount.
She spent more of the day asleep than awake.
Looking back on the past three days, most of his time had been spent just like this. Eun-chae would crawl into his arms, curl up, and fall asleep, and he would pat her back.
If he tried to lay her down to do other chores, she would wake up as if by magic and cling to him again, making it impossible to do anything else.
The thought made him let out another small, fond laugh.
‘She’s even more of a handful than Eun-ji.’
If Eun-ji was a bratty seven-year-old, Eun-chae was an alter like a one or two-year-old toddler.
She knew nothing, so she prioritized her instincts. As such, she was honest about her feelings and always tried to express herself with every means at her disposal.
The problem was that this expression sometimes manifested as fits or self-harm, but Dokyun believed that this, too, could be fixed with enough education.
Most importantly, she hadn’t had a single fit in the last three days.
If he kept teaching her like this, one by one, he was sure he could eventually teach her that she didn’t need to do that ‘good deed.’
‘Someday…’
As his thoughts continued, Dokyun felt his hand, which had been patting her back, come to a stop.
Later. Afterwards. The end.
The end with Go Eun-chae.
The thought struck him. He looked at Eun-chae’s peaceful face, reached out, and brushed his hand under her eye.
When thoughts like this surfaced, he was forced to realize it. This moment couldn’t last forever.
Eun-chae had to disappear. And this didn’t just apply to her. All of Eun-ah’s personalities were, in the end, personalities that had to disappear.
It was a heart-wrenching fact, but it was necessary to break Eun-ah’s delusion and turn back her frozen time.
As long as these personalities remained, Eun-ah would never escape her fantasy. Her time would remain stopped.
Eun-seol knew this as well. It was the very reason she had intended to disappear once everything was over.
This was why, even as he built these relationships and accumulated this time with them, a corner of his heart always felt uneasy.
Getting closer to Eun-ah’s other personalities felt something like lining up dominoes. The mechanism was the same: adding them one by one, only to knock them all down.
A line of dominoes that couldn’t be stopped, that mustn’t be stopped.
The thought brought a suffocating feeling, but after a moment, Dokyun clenched his jaw and pushed it away, steeling himself as he always did.
Even if the end was set in stone, the process was not.
All Dokyun had to do was his best. If it had to end, if they eventually had to part…
His job was to make sure the process wasn’t sad, that no regrets remained in the final farewell. His job was to do his best in every moment so that they wouldn’t be sad when the parting came.
When the moment finally arrived to push the first domino, his job was to do his best so they could smile as they watched the pieces fall, so that it wouldn’t all feel empty.
Dokyun’s hand resumed patting Eun-chae’s back.
Eun-chae wanted to live.
It was impossible not to know.
She expressed her will to live with such raw transparency.
She tried to swallow the other personalities, and even Eun-ah herself. She wanted him to see her, to acknowledge her existence.
And why wouldn’t she? The moments Eun-chae had her fits were when she felt ignored.
He understood now.
Eun-chae wanted to be a complete, whole existence in her own right.
Not the emotional dregs that couldn’t separate from Eun-ah, but a complete being.
Paradoxically, even while wanting this, Eun-chae also wanted to be Eun-ah.
Dokyun thought this was because, to Eun-chae, the most complete being she could imagine was Eun-ah. After all, whatever happened, the owner of this body was Eun-ah.
But—and this might be a selfish thought—Dokyun wanted Eun-chae to accept that she was Eun-chae.
That’s what he wanted to tell her.
That she didn’t have to be Eun-ah. That being Eun-chae was valuable enough. That she didn’t have to be a substitute for Eun-ah. That’s what he wanted to say.
And so, Dokyun prayed earnestly.
Please, let the coming end be a happy one.
Let the day come when she no longer has to call herself Eun-ah.
Let her be able to smile brightly and call herself Eun-chae.
*
Eun-chae woke up a full hour later.
She slowly opened her eyes, blinked a few times, then looked up to confirm Dokyun’s face before stretching languidly.
After twisting and turning for a while, she looked back at Dokyun, tilted her head, and asked a question.
“Are you hurting, Honeybee?”
“Hm?”
Her words made Dokyun realize his expression must have been dark. He forced a smile and shook his head.
“I’m not.”
“…You look like you’re hurting.”
Eun-chae’s hand reached out and touched his cheek. Swish. Swish. Her hand stroked his cheek, and then, with a stiff movement, she furrowed her brow and spoke again.
“If Honeybee is hurting, Eun-ah gets sad.”
Her words hung in the air.
Dokyun’s lips parted for a moment before he gave a bitter smile and asked a question of his own.
“Really? Then how does Eun-chae feel?”
“Huh?”
He’d asked out of pity for this girl who always called herself Eun-ah.
At his question, Eun-chae’s head tilted to the side. Dokyun stroked her cheek and spoke again.
“I’m curious about Eun-chae’s feelings, too.”
“Eun-chae doesn’t exist.”
“Really?”
Dokyun watched her flinch and tremble at his question. He moved his hand to pat her back and added gently.
“That’s a shame. I like Eun-chae, too.”
“…She doesn’t exist.”
It seemed it wasn’t time yet. It seemed Eun-chae still needed more time.
A dull ache spread through his chest.
Feeling it, Dokyun continued to pat her back.
*
Two more days passed.
Dokyun watched Eun-chae staring intently at the pond in the garden and let out a few small laughs.
Once a day, when they came out to the yard, the first place Eun-chae went was the pond.
She would stare at the koi until she got bored, and only then would she move on to somewhere else. Dokyun figured this must be one of the most important parts of her daily routine.
As he was thinking this, he saw Eun-chae’s mouth fall open in a silent ‘heh.’ Another laugh escaped him, and he asked in a voice full of amusement.
“Do you like the koi that much?”
“Huh?”
At Dokyun’s question, Eun-chae looked up.
She glanced back and forth between the pond and Dokyun for a moment, then buried her face in the crook of his neck and mumbled her reply.
“I like you more, Honeybee.”
“Of course you do.”
Dokyun’s hand began to pat her back.
Eun-chae closed her eyes, feeling his hand on her back, and was enveloped in a feeling of ‘comfort.’
She loved these moments when Honeybee patted her back, because her mind went completely blank.
Everything felt so languid and cozy that she felt like she could fall asleep right there.
Eun-chae wasn’t afraid of falling asleep anymore. Because when she slept, Honeybee would hold her, and when she woke up, he would be looking at her with a smile.
She wasn’t scared of sleep at all anymore.
After basking in the warmth surrounding her for a long while, Eun-chae looked up at Honeybee.
The corners of his lips were turned up, and his eyes were curved in a pleasant smile.
Watching his expression, she tried to copy it, curving her own eyes and pulling her lips up, but her reflection in his pupils showed a different expression from his.
Why was that? As she stared into his eyes, wondering, Honeybee let out a soft chuckle.
“You don’t have to force it like that.”
He always said that to her. But Eun-chae found it hard to understand what he meant.
She just nodded, thinking that since Honeybee said she would understand someday, she would.
A moment later, Honeybee’s hand, which had been patting her back, moved to her cheek and gently pushed the corners of her mouth up.
Feeling the warmth on her cheek, Eun-chae closed her eyes.
When she closed her eyes like this, something else came to mind.
Sometimes, Honeybee would look at her and call her ‘Eun-chae.’ So she would tell him that Eun-chae doesn’t exist, but then Honeybee would look hurt, and that made her sad.
‘Does Honeybee like Eun-chae?’
When she thought that, she started to dislike Eun-chae. I’m Eun-ah, but Honeybee only thinks about Eun-chae.
…Who was this Eun-chae that Honeybee thought so much about? Eun-chae must be a very enviable person.
Even though she wasn’t here, Honeybee thought of her. Even when looking at someone else, he was reminded of her. Eun-chae was probably the happiest person in the world.
*
Two more days passed, and Dokyun removed the shackle from Eun-chae’s ankle.
He was now certain that the shackle no longer served a purpose.
Eun-chae didn’t have fits anymore. Even when he took a risk and touched on her triggers, she would just stare blankly and tilt her head.
Perhaps his efforts were finally paying off. Dokyun placed the removed shackle on the shelf by the head of the bed and looked at Eun-chae.
Eun-chae looked at her freed foot, swished her ankle back and forth, wiggled her toes, and then immediately clung to him.
Dokyun let out a dry laugh, patting her back as he spoke.
“You can walk by yourself now, you know.”
“Eun-ah has to stay stuck to Honeybee.”
Eun-chae said this, then looked up to meet his eyes and continued.
“Without Honeybee, Eun-ah becomes useless.”
Dokyun found himself flinching at her words without realizing it.
He knew… he knew all too well why she would say something like that.
‘It must be because of that ‘good deed.’’
She must think that the ‘good deed’ could only be completed with him there.
His heart ached again. After a moment, Dokyun patted her back and spoke in a soft, gentle tone.
“You’re not useless.”
“Huh?”
“You’re not useless to me. Even if you’re not stuck to me, just by being yourself, you’re so precious to me.”
“Why?”
Dokyun looked at Eun-chae, who tilted her head as she asked the question. He paused, his lips parting as he chose his words carefully.
How should he explain it? He mulled it over for a moment, filtered his thoughts, and finally spoke.
“Memories.”
“Memories?”
“Yeah. Because I remember the things that happened with you. The day you used a fork for the first time, the day you brushed your teeth by yourself, the days we fed the koi together… all of it will stay in my memory. For the rest of my life, I’ll think of those moments and be happy.”
Dokyun saw Eun-chae’s brow furrow, as if she didn’t quite understand. He let out a soft laugh, then used his index finger to gently smooth her brow as he continued.
“That’s how people are. When life gets hard, we think back on happy times. We gather up all our precious moments, one by one, and recall them when things are tough. Then we use the strength from those memories to overcome the hard times.”
Her face was still covered in confusion.
Dokyun realized he had grown so accustomed to her that he could now read her emotions from her face. He went on.
“So, you’re not useless. Everything that happened with you is a precious memory to me. You gave me memories I can look back on when life gets hard. To me, at least, you are more than precious enough.”
“…Even if I’m a bad child?”
The question came only after he had poured out all his words.
Dokyun stroked her head and answered.
“Even if you were the worst child in the world.”
After he finished speaking, he watched Eun-chae ponder his words for a long time before finally giving a small nod. He smiled softly and nodded back.