Chapter 74
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 74
Another day passed.
Sitting side-by-side with Dokyun on the sofa, Eun-seol had been tapping away at her laptop all day, working on one document after another.
She’d been at it for hours, ever since morning. Curious about what could possibly require so much work, Dokyun glanced over out of the corner of his eye. The screen was filled with endless rows of numbers.
Numbers under numbers under numbers.
His curiosity piqued even further, Dokyun, who had been sitting a slight distance away, leaned toward Eun-seol and asked a question.
“What are you doing?”
“Year-end tax settlement.”
Ah, the year-end tax settlement.
He nodded at the clean, simple answer. For a moment.
“But is there really that much to do?”
He asked because, despite her typing at a considerable speed, there seemed to be no end in sight. Eun-seol let out a deep sigh before answering.
“Because I have to clean up the messes the others have made.”
As she spoke, she furrowed her brow. In that expression, he could feel the sorrow of a family’s breadwinner.
She hadn’t looked this haggard yesterday. The dark circles under her eyes made her look somewhat pitiful.
Looking at the exhausted Eun-seol, Dokyun suddenly felt self-conscious for just fiddling with his smartphone. He scratched the back of his head and offered a word of comfort.
“Um… hang in there. Can I make you some coffee?”
“That would be nice, thank you.”
“Just a moment.”
Getting to his feet, Dokyun headed to the kitchen and began making coffee with practiced movements.
When he first came to this house, the most he could manage was making instant coffee mix, but in his search for small things he could do, he’d gradually reached the point where he could now operate the coffee machine.
He took out the coffee beans stored on a corner of the shelf and put them in the machine. Then, after the brewed coffee dripped through the filter paper, he poured the concentrate into a cup, added water, and mixed in a splash of milk.
After completing the process, Dokyun sliced some of the bread they had bought the day before, arranged it on a plate, and brought it to Eun-seol along with the freshly brewed coffee.
Eun-seol, who had been focused on the settlement, glanced at the coffee Dokyun brought, picked it up, and offered a quiet word of thanks.
“Thanks.”
“It’s nothing. Well, keep up the hard work.”
With that, Dokyun picked up his own coffee and went back to his smartphone, but a sudden question prompted him to speak again.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
Dokyun watched Eun-seol for a moment before asking his question.
“Do you handle all the finances, Eun-seol-ssi?”
“That’s right.”
A brief silence followed. Without taking her eyes off the laptop, Eun-seol kept her hands moving diligently as she continued.
“As you know, Go Eun-ah can’t face these kinds of practical matters—it would force her to acknowledge the existence of the other personalities. And I can’t exactly entrust it to the others, either.”
Dokyun nodded, understanding the gist of it, and Eun-seol’s words continued.
“There’s no one else to do it, so I do it.”
Her tone was heavy with exhaustion.
At that, Dokyun felt he was beginning to understand why Eun-seol always looked so worn out.
Eun-ah herself, and Eun-ah’s other personalities—every single one of them was a formidable character. Cleaning up after them couldn’t possibly be an easy job.
He dared to guess that for over ten years, cleaning up their messes had always been her responsibility.
The thought stirred something in him, and he offered another word of comfort.
“You go through a lot.”
His words of consolation were delivered.
At that, Eun-seol, who had been glaring at her laptop, briefly turned to Dokyun. A small chuckle escaped her lips.
“You’re good with words, I’ll give you that.”
A short reply.
Dokyun quietly watched her as she turned her gaze back to the laptop.
Her fingers flew as she stared down the screen.
Even though she’d been in the same position for hours, her speed hadn’t slowed in the slightest.
She could just stop if she was tired, he thought for a moment.
‘Every personality is created for a reason.’
Her own words came back to him.
A personality created because someone was needed to endure the pain in her stead.
The pain she had to endure surely wasn’t just physical.
He now understood the irritated attitude she always showed when speaking of the fact that she was an alter.
No one in the world would want to live a life dedicated to enduring someone else’s pain.
Perhaps she was the most dangerous personality of all.
She, who had lived in Eun-ah’s place for longer than even Go Eun-chae, who had always endured the pain, might truly be the most dangerous one. And yet, Dokyun felt no sense of wariness toward her.
Probably.
‘Because she doesn’t hate them.’
Because she didn’t hate the other personalities.
If he had to say, it was closer to affection. That seemed to be the reason.
In her words and actions, despite her persistent air of fatigue and irritation, there was an affection that she couldn't quite hide.
He recalled how she’d picked out clothes for Eun-ah, how she’d shown an expression he’d never seen before when asking him to take Eun-ji out, and how she’d apologized on Eun-sam’s behalf when he’d been tricked into losing money. Thinking of all that, it seemed to be true.
She was still a person he knew less about than he didn’t, but perhaps that was why he was slowly letting his guard down around her.
He didn’t know if this tendency was created to endure pain, or if she loved them by her own choice.
But that unconcealable affection made him think that she would never try to get rid of Eun-ah.
He continued to watch her, lost in these thoughts.
Flicker.
Suddenly, his vision began to flash.
‘Huh?’
Startled by the sudden flickering, Dokyun looked up at the ceiling. The light illuminating the living room was blinking.
He stared at it for a moment.
“Ah, I needed to change that too.”
His gaze shifted to the source of the voice. Eun-seol was looking up at the light fixture with an annoyed expression.
Thinking that something had finally come up for him to do, Dokyun stood up and spoke to her.
“I can change it.”
“No, I’ll do it. You just help. It’s different from the ones you’re used to, so it’ll be difficult.”
With that, Eun-seol stood, walked into another room, and came back out holding a light fixture of a design Dokyun had certainly never seen before. She then climbed onto the table.
“I’m going to unscrew it, so catch it and hold on to it.”
“Yep.”
When you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s best to just stay still.
With that thought, Dokyun stood beside the table as she instructed and watched her stretch her arm toward the fixture.
Her arm reached for the ceiling, followed by a straining sound.
‘She can’t reach.’
Dokyun shifted his gaze from the ceiling and glanced at her.
The ceiling she couldn’t reach, even standing on her tiptoes.
The lobes of her ears, tinged a faint red.
Dokyun spoke in a careful tone.
“Should I do it?”
“Shut up.”
The reply was harsh.
Just as he’d expected, she seemed to have a complex about her height.
Faced with her glare that looked like she was about to hit him, Dokyun flinched again and shut his mouth.
After straining for a while longer, she managed the impressive feat of removing two of the four screws holding the fixture, but he could tell her breathing was growing a little ragged as her strength began to wane.
Deciding he couldn’t just stand by and watch any longer, Dokyun gently pushed the table she was on to the side, turned his back to her, and bent over.
“The table’s too low. It would be better if you got on my back.”
He couldn’t bring himself to say, ‘You’re too short for the table to work,’ so he said that instead. Eun-seol stared at him for a moment, then bit her lip hard and climbed onto his back.
Then.
“Don’t say a word. I’ll kill you.”
After delivering a chilling whisper next to his ear, she leaned forward and began unscrewing the remaining screws.
Dokyun watched as she removed all four screws and then replaced the light fixture, observing the process carefully in case the same thing happened again. Suddenly, he felt an itch to speak.
Was it a contrarian impulse?
Why did he always want to do the very thing he was told not to?
‘I should hold it in...’
Even as he thought that, he could feel his lips twitching.
He was probably going to get hit.
‘It might hurt a little.’
As he continued that line of thought, another one popped into his head.
‘She wouldn’t actually kill me, would she?’
No, she wouldn’t kill him.
His thoughts reached that conclusion.
“How’s the air up there?”
He blurted out the question.
Thwack—!
“Aargh!”
The moment the words left his mouth, an elbow slammed down on the crown of his head.
As Dokyun’s body buckled in pain, Eun-seol used the opportunity to get off his back and muttered an apology in a nonchalant tone.
“Sorry. My arm gave out.”
Watching her turn and grab her laptop, Dokyun was about to protest but, at a loss for words, shut his mouth again.
The throbbing pain on the top of his head was quite sharp, but…
‘Still, I said what I wanted to say.’
He had no regrets.
*
It was several hours later when Eun-seol finally finished her work.
Seeing her stretch with a groan, Dokyun stood up and spoke.
“You worked hard. Shall we get something to eat?”
“Sure.”
A slight nod.
“Just wait a moment.”
Dokyun nodded back, headed to the kitchen, and whipped up a simple meal. When he placed it on the dining table, she came over from the kitchen and sat down.
As the meal began, Dokyun, who was scooping up rice, looked at Eun-seol sitting across from him and spoke.
“You finished pretty late.”
He commented, seeing that she had been stuck at it all day.
“Because there’s one who goes around causing trouble.”
That was the reply he got.
An image of someone popped into his head, and Dokyun asked another question.
“Go Eun-sam?”
“No, another one.”
Halt.
At her answer, Dokyun’s hand, which had been lifting his spoon, froze.
“…The one who hasn’t appeared yet?”
When Dokyun said that…
“Yes.”
…a crisp answer came back.
What could it be? What kind of person was she?
What kind of person causes even more serious trouble than Go Eun-sam, who got her credit cards blocked?
If it was trouble that had to be sorted out during the year-end tax settlement, it must have been a financial loss.
A person who inflicted even greater financial damage than Go Eun-sam.
‘Someone worse than Go Eun-sam?’
At the thought…
Shudder—!
…a chill ran down his spine.
His fingertips began to tremble. A cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
“…Is she… manageable?”
Dokyun asked with trembling eyes. Seeing him, Eun-seol thought for a moment before nodding.
“She’s a good kid.”
No, I’m not asking if she’s nice, I’m asking if she’s okay!
Dokyun glared at Eun-seol for a moment. At his expression, she let out a deep sigh and spoke again.
“She doesn’t come out in the winter, so you don’t have to worry for now.”
“What?”
She doesn’t come out in the winter. Dokyun couldn’t understand what that meant and tilted his head. Eun-seol added an explanation.
“Because there’s nothing for her to do even if she did.”
It was still an incomprehensible statement.
His head tilted to the side again, his face a mask of confusion.
“What I’m saying is, stop talking about it and just eat.”
Watching Eun-seol resume her meal, Dokyun tried to rein in the emotions churning inside him—a mix of curiosity and fear—and forced down his anxiety.
She said she was a good kid.
‘She’s got to be better than Go Eun-sam, right…?’
He spent a long time trying to calm himself. By the time he did, she had finished her meal and opened her mouth.
“Hey.”
“Yes.”
When she called him, Dokyun answered. She put down her spoon and spoke to him.
“The day after tomorrow is the day Go Eun-ah goes to the hospital.”
The sudden statement contained something he hadn’t expected at all.
“…A psychiatric hospital?”
It was the first place that came to mind when he heard the word “hospital.”
Considering her condition, the medicine she took periodically, and her outings every two weeks, it was an easy conclusion to draw.
As Dokyun looked at Eun-seol, she gave a slight nod and continued.
“This time, you’re going with her.”
“What?”
“I said, go with her. Go and meet the doctor.”
Seeing her serious expression, Dokyun, unable to discern her intentions, simply stared at her for a moment before finally speaking.
“Will Eun-ah-ssi allow it?”
“Getting her to go out with you won’t be difficult. Having a private meeting with the doctor is another story, though.”
He mulled over her answer for a moment. Thinking there must be a reason she was telling him this, Dokyun nodded and asked another question.
“What should I do when I get there?”
“Tell him about Go Eun-chae’s condition. He’ll give you a rough assessment.”
So that was the reason.
It made sense. An expert would know a better way to handle things than a layman like himself.
Dokyun nodded. Realizing she was about to leave, he asked a question.
“Are you going back in now, Eun-seol-ssi?”
“Yes. I didn’t come out for the usual reasons in the first place, so there’s no reason to stay out any longer.”
“Ah.”
His face flushed slightly at her words.
“Ahem…”
As he let out an awkward cough, she shot him a look full of pity and said…
“Pace yourself. You’ll wear your bones out.”
“Y-yes…”
He was at a loss for words.