Is It My Fault This Time Too?
Apparently the conversation Bae Deuro's mother had been having outside had carried through to the viewers as well. To their ears, too, it had clearly registered as something strange.
There was no point explaining why I'd stepped out for a moment. They'd already heard the whole thing. Instead, I asked them.
"What am I supposed to do about this? I thought I'd never have to see her again, but she just showed up like that. It's a little scary."
I agreed with the viewers.
She seemed to understand that her son had done something wrong, and she'd at least made a gesture of sincerity toward me, the victim. But that didn't mean she had given up on Bae Deuro being her son. Judging by the way she talked, she was the kind of person who would take on a certain share of the responsibility — and then do whatever it took for her boy's sake. Whether that meant buying off a prosecutor or a judge, or hiring a brilliant lawyer, she would pull whatever strings she could to keep his sentence light.
From the yellow peeking through the envelope, it looked like she'd stuffed it thick with fifty-thousand-won bills. Which meant she had that kind of money to throw around. I could understand why the viewers were furious, going on about how justice had failed. It was that kind of situation.
But that wasn't why I felt so unsettled.
Whether he got five years or two, I was planning to be dead before my own mother got out anyway. What happened to Bae Deuro after I was gone was none of my business. Saying I was scared had just been something to say.
It was just that I couldn't stop thinking: what if Bae Deuro and I had swapped parents?
There was my father, who had rejected my entire life the moment I became a woman and taken all his rage out on me. And my mother, who never said a single word to me after I became a woman — not one — and then stabbed my father to death and went to prison.
I hadn't even done anything wrong. I could have taken a year off school, quietly swapped out my student ID, and gone back, and nobody would have recognized me. Noel isn't that rare a name. The people who knew the old me would have just figured it was a coincidence — a different person with the same name. Looking back, I had only become a woman. There was no reason I couldn't have gone on living the way I used to.
And yet my father and mother had been in such a hurry to look away.
Meanwhile, what about Bae Deuro's mother? She wasn't the type the viewers had described, the kind who blindly covers for her son and insists he couldn't possibly have done it. She acknowledged his wrongs, and still stepped forward to take responsibility in his place. A mother who wouldn't give up on a son like that. Who still called him her son.
That was what felt so unfair.
Bae Deuro had hit me. Before that, he'd hurled abuse at me, calling me a cheater and worse. He'd lived like a complete bastard — and his mother was still like that.
I had never done any of those things. So why did I have to live like this, for no reason other than that I had become a woman?
I had been taught since I was little that if you lived kindly, you would be rewarded. Maybe my father and mother had only taught me that because they needed a son who did as he was told. But as I grew up, I had learned for myself that goodwill reached people more reliably than malice. So whenever I had something to spare, I helped my friends. Nothing major, but I helped the neighborhood adults too.
And the result of living that way was a missing eye and a missing leg.
If I had lived recklessly instead — if I had blocked the blows and hit back when my father raised his hand against me — I might not have been a sturdy warrior like the ones I drafted as my champions and sent onto the Rift. But at least I wouldn't have just sat there taking it, over and over, for no reason at all.
Sitting alone inside that unfairness, watching the viewers' chat scroll by, I suddenly wanted to blame them.
Of course, not all of them. But most people had called me a cheater and cursed me out, and that was why Bae Deuro had piled his own grudge on top. If nobody had paid any attention to me at all, I would have just kept playing games, and I never would have had to feel this wretched.
It's all your fault.
Obviously, I couldn't say that. I knew perfectly well that this was just me wanting someone else to blame. It was the same as teammates typing in chat like none of it was their fault, even though a loss is never on just one person.
If I really traced it back — the problem was that I had played too many games. Or I could blame my father for putting me in that situation. Or the fact that I had become a woman, which was why my father had beaten me like that. Follow the chain far enough and the real mistake was being born at all.
Was that why some religions said people were born carrying original sin? That every misfortune and every pain you suffer in life, you suffer because you were born. That was why they sold indulgences, too. And why some people called death a salvation.
But I was a coward. I talked about dying all the time and never once had the courage to put a rope around my neck, or to jump out a window. If I didn't even have that much courage, I certainly couldn't open my mouth and blame the viewers.
A pathetic person who didn't even have the courage to be hated.
"Ah. So this is why people want to drink, I guess."
The viewers kept the nonsense going right in front of me, same as always. It was funny. It really was funny. I just somehow didn't have it in me to laugh right now.
In a situation like this, drinking didn't seem like such a bad idea. Alcohol dulled your judgment, for one thing, and it made you feel better. Which meant that if I drank some now, while I was this unsettled, I might feel a little more all right.
Before, I never would have bought any. Too expensive. But the settlement money had already ruined my spending habits. Surely it was fine to spend this much.
"So I'm going to go out and buy some drinks. Just wait a little bit."
The moment I announced it, the viewers tried to talk me out of it. I supposed the version of myself I'd shown them so far didn't inspire much confidence. Maybe they thought I'd start wrecking the place the second I had a drink.
But I had my own logic on this side, too.
"Like you all said, I don't have much of an appetite. You told me I should eat things that are small in volume but high in calories. And alcohol fits that perfectly. High in calories, and it doesn't sit heavy on the stomach."
The moment I quoted their own words back at them, the viewers stopped trying so hard to stop me. And I was reasonably confident I wouldn't do anything too strange. I'd never blacked out from drinking, and I didn't drink that much to begin with. I didn't even like the smell of alcohol, or that bitter taste that just sat on your tongue and made everything worse.
I just needed that floating feeling. The one that kept the extra thoughts from coming.
"All right. You all said it was fine, so I'm going out to buy a bottle right now."
I picked up my phone and left the house just like that. The same way I had when I'd gone out to pick up fried chicken, I switched the stream over to my phone.
If the conversation with the viewers cut off, I had a feeling my mood would truly plummet.