Chapter 119
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 119
Ever since her feet were freed, Eun-chae had become much more active.
She still refused to stray too far from him, but now she had started pulling him along as she roamed the house and the yard all day long.
Dokyun figured this was a reaction born of curiosity.
And why wouldn't it be? Whenever Eun-chae was wandering about, if something caught her interest, she would plop down and stare at it for the longest time.
The pond was a frequent subject, as was the flowerbed in the corner of the yard. Today, it was Eun-sam’s garage.
Dokyun’s heart pounded as he watched Eun-chae enter the garage and look over the cars.
“H-Hey, you can’t touch them carelessly, okay?”
“Okay.”
A small nod.
But he still couldn’t relax. These weren’t just any cars; each one was a luxury vehicle worth a fortune.
If Eun-chae were to scratch one of them…
“You got a problem, bro?”
A shiver ran down his spine.
Dokyun shuddered at the thought.
He did not want to kneel before Go Eun-sam. He did not want to apologize to that girl.
If a situation like that arose, there was no telling what kind of demand that psycho would make.
As he followed anxiously behind her, Eun-chae walked up to one of the cars—the one Eun-sam had named ‘Chunshik’—and ran her hand along its side.
He flinched.
His body trembled at the gesture.
Please, please don’t use your nails.
The thought crossed his mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her to stop. As he fidgeted nervously, Eun-chae thankfully lost interest in the car and clung to him again.
Dokyun watched her stand on her tiptoes, grunting as she tried to climb onto him. He let out a belated sigh of relief and lifted her into his arms.
“Should we go now?”
“Okay.”
An answer that brought immense relief.
A wide smile spread across Dokyun’s face as he left the garage.
On their way back to the house, Dokyun noticed Eun-chae’s nails had started to get long and pointy. Realizing it was about time to trim them, he spoke.
“We should go inside and trim your nails.”
Seeing Eun-chae tilt her head at his words, Dokyun let out a small chuckle, adjusted his grip on her, and opened the front door.
“Wait here a moment. I’ll go get the nail clippers.”
“Okay.”
Dokyun set Eun-chae down on the sofa, retrieved the nail clippers from a shelf across the room, and sat down next to her again.
“Come here.”
He patted his lap, and Eun-chae climbed onto it, staring blankly at him.
Dokyun gently stroked her hair, then placed his hand over hers and brought the clippers toward her fingers.
“This will be quick, so just stay still for a moment.”
As he said this and moved the clippers to her nail, Eun-chae flinched and yanked her hand back. A look of confusion crossed Dokyun’s face.
Wondering what was wrong, he studied her expression. Her lips were pressed into a tight line.
“What’s wrong?”
Eun-chae’s gaze met his. After studying his face for a moment, she answered.
“Are you doing a good thing?”
The question made him flinch.
He hadn’t thought of that.
To her, bringing a sharp object to her body was the same as self-harm.
Realizing this, Dokyun felt a wave of sorrow. He set the clippers down beside him and stroked her cheek.
“…No. This isn’t a good thing. This is cleaning.”
“Huh?”
Her head tilted to the side.
Dokyun carefully chose his words, wondering how best to explain it to her.
He was in the process of teaching her many things, but there was still far more she didn’t know than she did.
He had to explain it within the limits of her understanding. With that in mind, Dokyun looked directly into her eyes and began to explain softly.
“You said you get sad when I get hurt, right?”
“Yes. When Honeybee is hurt, Eun-ah gets sad.”
She nodded in reply. A small smile touched Dokyun’s lips as he continued.
“It’s the same for me. If you get hurt, I get very sad. So this is to prevent you from getting hurt.”
Saying this, he took her hand and held her nails up for her to see.
“When your nails get long like this, germs can get trapped underneath. Then bad germs might bother you. And when your nails are long, they can easily catch on things and break. That’s why we trim them beforehand. Because you can’t get hurt.”
Dokyun watched her nod and stare intently at her nails. He let out a small chuckle and added.
“So, because I don’t want you to be in pain, I’m getting rid of something that could cause you pain.”
“…When Honeybee is hurt, I get sad.”
She replied with a small nod.
Seeing her entrust her hand to him, Dokyun gently stroked her hair and picked up the clippers again.
“It’ll be over soon. Do you want to close your eyes if you don’t want to watch?”
“No. I’m going to watch.”
At her words, her focus immediately shifted back to her nails. Dokyun let out another laugh and began to trim them.
Snip. Snip. Careful not to cut the skin, he left a small margin as he clipped. Seeing Eun-chae’s nails become neat and tidy, a satisfied smile spread across his face.
What had begun as a precaution against her scratching him had, at some point, transformed. The purpose was now simply the act of trimming her nails itself.
It was one of those things, wasn’t it? Wanting to do something for someone, you end up doing things you don’t necessarily have to.
For Dokyun, trimming her nails was exactly that.
He could have asked one of the other personalities to do it, or he could have told Eun-ah to do it herself. But Dokyun had come to love the quiet atmosphere that came with trimming her nails, and so he had claimed the task as his own.
The soft snip, snip of the clippers, the sound of her breathing tickling his ear, the warmth from their skin touching—for some reason, these things brought him a deep sense of satisfaction.
He continued trimming for a while. When all ten fingernails were neatly clipped, he praised her.
“You did a good job. It must have been hard to stay still.”
He said, stroking her hair.
Eun-chae rubbed her head against his hand before finally replying.
“Yes. I did a good job.”
Nod. Her head bobbed.
Whenever he had told her, “You did a good job,” Eun-chae used to ask, “Did I do a good job?” Seeing her now begin to acknowledge it herself, Dokyun felt a faint sense of satisfaction.
Eun-chae could now praise herself for something that didn’t involve pain.
*
In the days following the nail-trimming, a certain concern had been circling Dokyun’s mind.
It was one of Eun-chae’s fundamental problems: her distorted perception of certain objects.
How could he solve it?
After wrestling with the problem for the past few days, Dokyun came up with what seemed like a pretty good solution.
‘Let her build experience.’
The method was to let her realize, through experience, what an object was used for and what kind of results it could produce.
Dokyun spoke to Eun-chae, who was staring blankly at the cooking ingredients arranged on the table.
“Today, we’re going to cook together.”
“Cook.”
“That’s right. We’re going to make our food together.”
Seeing Eun-chae nod at his words, Dokyun gave a small smile.
Eun-chae had always engaged in destructive acts. While the mood was good, he wanted to teach her the joy that comes from productive ones.
He wanted her to experience gaining fulfillment from the results of her actions, not pain.
That was the reason he had prepared all this.
Dokyun stroked Eun-chae’s hair as he explained what they would be making today.
“We’re going to make sandwiches. We’ll put in some meat, which you like, some vegetables, and we’ll make a sauce, too. Then we’ll put it all between two slices of bread.”
“Meat.”
Dokyun felt another laugh escape him as Eun-chae perked up at the word “meat.” He then picked up a kitchen knife, placed it in her hand, and covered her hand with his own.
It was an action born from a sliver of anxiety.
She was, after all, the personality for whom holding a knife was dangerous, so he needed to be there to apply the brakes.
Positioning himself behind her in a back hug, Dokyun guided her hand.
“First, we’re going to chop the vegetables. The onion, the garlic… and this green stuff here.”
As he spoke, he placed the vegetables on the cutting board one by one. He then placed one of her hands on the vegetable and the knife-wielding hand beside it, slowly guiding her.
“Okay, if you press too hard, you might cut your finger, so be very careful… That’s right. When you use a knife, relax your hand a little and use a pushing motion.”
He praised Eun-chae as she followed his lead, her hand moving to prepare the vegetables one by one.
“Good job. Now for the garlic, lay the knife flat like this and press down firmly on the back of the blade…”
A smile formed on Dokyun’s lips as he watched Eun-chae, her mouth set in a firm line, gradually focus on the task.
Thankfully, she seemed to be interested.
Her hand had twitched a little when he first gave her the knife, but now she held it gently, preparing the ingredients with uniform cuts.
The vegetables were being prepared quite skillfully.
‘Hmm, is that to be expected?’
When it came to knife work, wasn’t that Eun-chae’s area of expertise?
The only thing that had changed was that she was cutting vegetables instead of flesh. There was no reason she wouldn’t be good at it.
He chuckled to himself at the stray thought. Seeing Eun-chae look up at him with a questioning expression, he feigned nonchalance and finished preparing the vegetables.
He gathered the chopped vegetables to one side, put the knife away, and ruffled Eun-chae’s hair with a word of praise.
“You did great. When it comes to knife skills, you’re the best.”
Eun-chae nodded at his words. She looked at him for a moment, then her gaze fell to the vegetables she had prepared. She poked them with her finger.
“It’s strange.”
“Hmm?”
The words came out like a mumble. When Dokyun tilted his head, she looked at him and asked.
“Is this a good thing, too?”
What does she mean by that? As he pondered her question, he recalled Eun-chae’s perception of using a knife and replied with a small smile.
“Not ‘this too.’ This is a good thing.”
“This is?”
Her expression clearly asked, Just this? Dokyun used his thumbs to pull the corners of her mouth up into a smile.
“Yes, this is. Because a knife is a tool you use to make or prepare things.”
Of course, there were knives made for cutting people, but that was something Eun-chae didn’t need to know. This explanation would suffice.
“A knife isn’t a tool for hurting. It’s a tool for making people happy. When you use a knife like this to prepare ingredients and make food, the person who eats it will be very happy. Just the thought that someone cooked for them is enough to bring joy.”
“Eun-ah isn’t hurting, but she’s still happy?”
“That’s right. You can be happy without being hurt. I’m very happy right now because of you, you know?”
He said this with a smile that came straight from the heart.
Eun-chae looked at his face, furrowing her brow slightly, then smoothing it out again, twisting her own features as she tried to imitate his expression.
Of course, it didn’t work very well. What emerged was another grotesque expression.
Watching her, Dokyun realized he had grown so used to that face that he now found it amusing, and he let out a chuckle.
“Alright, now that we’ve prepared the vegetables, let’s cook the meat.”
“…Okay.”
Dokyun watched as Eun-chae furrowed her brow, as if something displeased her, only to see her expression instantly recover at the word “meat.” He laughed again.