Chapter 89
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 89
Eun-seol was discharged from the hospital exactly one week later.
She hadn’t fully recovered, but she judged that there was no need to stay any longer, as she could manage daily life with crutches.
After finishing all the discharge procedures, Dokyun walked up beside her and spoke.
“You went through a lot.”
“Right. You did, too.”
She replied with an indifferent nod.
Watching her move forward awkwardly on her crutches, Dokyun continued.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay? You don’t need to stay longer?”
“I’m fine. It’s just stifling in there.”
With that, she got into the passenger seat of the car, leaned back, and added, “Let’s go. I want to go home and rest.”
“Ah, yes.”
Dokyun nodded and, after putting her luggage in the trunk, drove them home.
About thirty minutes later, Dokyun opened the front door and watched Eun-seol pass through, a strange feeling washing over him.
After just over a month of living alone, the two of them would be living in this house together again.
The thought made her discharge feel real.
Then, the idea that the silence that had enveloped the house for the past month would finally be broken brought a sense of gladness.
A feeling of slight excitement began to bubble up.
Overcome with emotion, Dokyun offered Eun-seol a small smile and spoke.
“Welcome home.”
At his words, Eun-seol’s head turned toward him. She let out a short, dry laugh and replied in her characteristically flat tone.
“Why are you talking like this is your house? This is my house.”
Flinch.
Her response made Dokyun jolt.
This woman never gave him a moment to get sentimental.
Feeling awkward, Dokyun narrowed his eyes slightly. Eun-seol coolly ignored him, took off her shoes, and stepped inside, speaking to him as she went.
“Make food. I’m hungry.”
Watching her head to the living room without a single glance back, Dokyun let out a hollow laugh before taking off his own shoes and calling out a reply.
“After I unpack your things. Just wait a bit.”
“Fine.”
A short reply came back.
Seriously, he thought, she’s a queen and then some.
*
After they had unpacked and eaten, Dokyun took a shower. When he came out, he saw her sitting in the living room, cracking open a bottle of liquor, and his jaw dropped.
“Seriously? The first thing you reach for after being discharged is alcohol?”
He knew she liked to drink, but this seemed a bit much. When he posed the question, Eun-seol answered in a nonchalant tone.
“I haven’t had a drop in a month. How much longer do you expect me to wait?”
“But your body hasn’t even healed… Isn’t that alcoholism?”
He’d said it hoping she would cut back on the drinking, but all he got in return was a frosty rebuke.
“Shut your mouth. Are you my mother?”
Her brow furrowed as she spoke, and Dokyun’s mouth snapped shut.
Arguing any further felt like it would just lead to him insulting her parents, so he found it hard to say anything more.
As he stood there silently, a thought suddenly occurred to him, and he tilted his head.
But would it matter if I insulted her?
The woman he knew as her mother was someone anyone would call evil. Besides, Eun-seol herself had shown a clear dislike for her mother, so there was no real reason he couldn’t curse her.
That thought led to another, slightly stranger question.
But should I even consider that woman Eun-seol’s mother?
Biologically speaking, Eun-ah’s mother was also Eun-seol’s mother. But if you broke it down, Eun-seol was a personality that had split off from Eun-ah. In that case, wouldn’t Eun-ah be Eun-seol’s mother?
No, that’s not right. Calling her a mother feels off…
A mother is, by definition, the one who gives birth to you. She wasn’t some planarian; you couldn’t call a piece that broke off a child. So calling her a mother didn’t fit.
Then does she not have a mother?
It was a bizarre question that had popped into his head.
As Dokyun fell deeper into his thoughts, Eun-seol, who had been taking a sip of her drink, looked at him and spoke.
“What kind of fucking thoughts are you having now to make a face like that?”
Her question cut through his train of thought.
In a daze, Dokyun answered.
“I was just wondering if you don’t have a mother.”
Thump.
The moment he finished speaking, every sound in the room seemed to die.
Sensing the strange atmosphere, Dokyun replayed what he had just said in his mind, then his face went pale as he cursed himself internally.
Shit.
For a moment, he’d forgotten to use his filter.
Feeling a chill run down his spine, Dokyun shifted his gaze to check her expression.
What he saw was…
“You’re one bold bastard, aren’t you?”
It was Eun-seol, glaring at him with wide eyes.
I’m so fucked.
He had insulted her personality without even realizing it.
Feeling cold sweat trickle down his back, Dokyun hastily added an explanation.
“N-No! Please, listen! I wasn’t insulting you! Eun-seol, you’re a personality that split from Eun-ah, right? So I was wondering if your mother is the person who gave birth to Eun-ah, or if it’s Eun-ah herself. Or if we should consider you as not having a mother at all! Really! It wasn’t an insult!”
The excuses tumbled from his rapidly moving tongue. After he finished, he took a subtle step back.
Would she actually hit me? Would she grab that crutch next to the sofa and throw it? As he tensed his body, he heard a sigh and cautiously looked up at her.
What he saw was Eun-seol staring at him, her face now a mask of utter contempt.
He felt a sense of déjà vu.
Racking his brain, Dokyun realized he had seen that expression before.
The day he first met Eun-ji, she had looked at him with that exact expression as he rolled around on the floor, wailing.
An awkward atmosphere filled the space.
As Dokyun swallowed nervously…
“Please, do me a favor and keep your fucking thoughts to yourself.”
Her voice, dripping with contempt, reached him.
Embarrassment, mixed with a hint of indignation, welled up inside him.
He knew he had misspoken, but Eun-seol was the one who had asked him what he was thinking.
He wanted to argue the point right then and there, but of course, he couldn’t let the words out.
Dokyun simply pressed his lips together and nodded.
Then, feeling awkward just standing there, he scratched his cheek, walked over to the sofa, and sat down next to her.
“Still, isn’t this a pretty philosophical question? You know, like an inquiry into existence, that sort of thing.”
He said it, thinking it was a reasonably serious topic of conversation. She let out a deep sigh and replied.
“Sure, maybe it is. But think about it by yourself. It’s fucking annoying for the person listening.”
Her expression was tinged with exhaustion.
Finally nodding, Dokyun offered an apology, his tone thick with awkwardness.
“…I’m sorry.”
“If you know, then just shut up.”
Another rebuke was fired his way, and Dokyun flinched. For a moment, she just sighed deeply before starting to drink again.
One glass, two, then a third.
For a long while, the level of the liquor in the bottle steadily dropped as the number of empty glasses grew.
Suddenly, she, who had been drinking in silence, spoke.
“If you break it down, Go Eun-ah’s mother is my mother. Because I am a part of Go Eun-ah.”
At her words, Dokyun’s head snapped in her direction.
Their eyes met for a moment before Eun-seol looked away first and continued.
“Don’t you think it’s ridiculous to even try to separate us? No matter what anyone says, I’m just a fragment of Go Eun-ah. Everything I say and do is ultimately done by Go Eun-ah.”
She told me to shut up, but it looks like she was thinking about it pretty deeply.
Realizing she was the type of person who never said anything honestly, Dokyun chuckled to himself before replying to her.
“Come on, why would you think of it like that?”
At his rebuttal, her gaze returned to him. Dokyun met her eyes and continued.
“Eun-ah is Eun-ah, and Eun-seol is Eun-seol. At least, that’s how it is for me.”
I feel like this topic is going in a weird direction, he thought, but seeing the dark look on her face as she called herself a fragment of Eun-ah, Dokyun shared what was on his mind.
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that all the personalities integrate someday and you, Eun-seol, disappear. When I look back on this conversation, I won’t remember it as a conversation I had with Eun-ah, will I? I’ll remember it as a conversation I had with Go Eun-seol.”
He felt like he was tangling his words as he spoke, but he wracked his brain to explain as coherently as possible.
“Um… so it’s like this. The reason I was wondering who your mother was is because, to me, Go Eun-seol is a separate being from Go Eun-ah. Just like how I remember it was Eun-ji who went to the amusement park with me, and Eun-sam who wiped out my crypto.”
After saying that, Dokyun met Eun-seol’s gaze, then let his eyes fall to the glass in her hand as he continued.
“And you, too. Right now, you’re thinking and acting as Go Eun-seol, aren’t you? Then you’re not Eun-ah.”
He’d said it all in a rush, but feeling that something was still off, he frowned and tried to recall something he’d heard somewhere to bolster his explanation.
He was sure that was the phrase.
“What was it… I think, therefore I am. That…”
Who said that again?
As he struggled to remember, Eun-seol supplied the answer.
“Descartes.”
“Ah, right. That guy. Just like he said, as long as you think of yourself as Go Eun-seol, and as long as I perceive you as Eun-seol, you can’t be Eun-ah. Both you and I distinguish the person Go Eun-seol as separate from Eun-ah, don’t we?”
As he spoke, Dokyun thought this attempt sounded a bit better.
As expected, when you wanted to sound profound, quoting someone famous was the best way to go.
“So, Eun-ah and you are separate. Well, not completely separate, but still.”
Having finished, Dokyun caught his breath and met the eyes of Eun-seol, who was staring intently at him.
The same dark circles were settled under her eyes. Her expression was as hard to read as ever, her face revealing only the slightest changes upon close inspection.
Seeing her blank face, he began to worry he’d said something wrong. Just as his tension was rising, he saw Eun-seol let out a small laugh and breathed an internal sigh of relief.
The atmosphere softened a little. She refilled her glass, the corners of her mouth lifting as she spoke.
“Are you trying to comfort me?”
She saw right through him.
Feeling sheepish, Dokyun put on an awkward expression and replied.
“Was it that obvious?”
Did I lay it on too thick? he wondered for a moment, but then decided he had nothing to feel guilty about and spoke again.
“But I wasn’t lying. I really do think that way.”
He said it while looking her straight in the eye.
Eun-seol let out another dry laugh, then a small smile touched her lips as she spoke.
“You ridiculous bastard.”
With that, she began to tilt her glass again, and silence fell over the room.
Dokyun sat there, about the width of a small child away from her, and quietly observed her.
She didn’t seem to be in a bad mood.
When she was truly angry, her brow would furrow deeply, so he figured this was probably fine.
Maybe my passionate speech paid off.
Deciding he shouldn’t do anything to spoil her mood, Dokyun sat awkwardly, listening to the clink of the bottle against the glass and the sound of ice cubes shifting inside.
The quiet atmosphere stretched on.
Letting himself sink into the calming feeling, Dokyun was closing his eyes when another bizarre idea popped into his head, and he let the words slip out.
“By the way.”
“Speak.”
Hearing her permission, he cautiously glanced at her. Convinced that she was in a relatively good mood, Dokyun spoke, his face full of mischief.
“If we say you’re Eun-ah’s daughter… and I marry Eun-ah… does that make you my daughter?”
Freeze.
Her hand, which had been lifting the glass, stopped.
A cold aura erupted from her. Glaring at Dokyun with eyes full of contempt, Eun-seol opened her mouth.
“You son of a bitch, why do you have to say things you don’t need to and ask for a beating?”
After speaking, she set down her glass and picked up the crutch that was leaning against the sofa.
“You moron.”
As she raised her arm, the crutch shot upwards.
Dokyun’s body trembled.
And then.
“W-Wait a minu—”
THWACK—!
The swinging crutch slammed into Dokyun’s back, making a dull, heavy sound.