Chapter 400: The Mother and Daughter's Resolve (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 400: The Mother and Daughter's Resolve (2)
“Shin Yu-jeong! Come out and eat, quickly.”
“Yeah.”
Morning arrived, as it always did.
The side dishes were much the same as any other day.
And there they were, Seo Jeong-hee and Shin Yu-jeong.
A simple household of a mother and a daughter.
It was a scene that had continued uninterrupted until Kim Do-jin had started joining them for meals.
If one thing had changed, it was the mood between the two of them.
It’s damn quiet.
Why does it feel so empty?
It was silent.
The only sound at the dining table was the clinking of chopsticks.
And it felt empty.
As if something huge was missing.
The two of them quickly realized what it was.
It’s so damn boring without that bastard here.
It’s because Do-jin isn’t here…
The difference in atmosphere stemmed from Kim Do-jin.
Of course, that wasn’t all.
With the head of the household, Shin Hyo-seop, working out of town, Seo Jeong-hee and Shin Yu-jeong had only ever had each other as close family.
They cherished one another, held each other dear, and lived without formalities.
You could have called them friends rather than mother and daughter.
While those feelings hadn’t changed drastically, if you asked whether things were the same as before, the answer would be no.
Mom and Kim Do-jin… did that…
So Yu-jeong likes Do-jin, too.
The change had begun the moment they realized the feelings they held for Kim Do-jin.
They acted as if nothing was wrong on the surface, but things were clearly different.
This moment was proof.
The silence between them, two people who would normally have filled the morning with lively chatter.
Having Kim Do-jin with them was a problem in its own way.
—“Do-jin, try some of this, too.”
—“Hey, this is more delicious.”
They would subtly show off their closeness to Kim Do-jin while keeping each other in check.
It was like an unavoidable female instinct.
Shin Yu-jeong’s competitive spirit was as hot and fierce as an active volcano.
Whatever the contest, if she was involved, she wasn’t satisfied until she won.
This competitiveness was on full display in her relationships as well.
Even against her own mother.
However, she was overlooking one fact.
The source of her competitive drive was none other than her genes.
Of course, that was a story from the past.
Seo Jeong-hee’s competitive spirit had only burned as brightly as her daughter’s in her youth.
After having a child and moving from her thirties into her forties, that drive had naturally faded.
But now, she was young again.
The vitality of her new body had unearthed a part of her personality that had been buried in the past, leading to this very situation.
We can’t keep going on like this…
I need to talk to her at some point.
Both of them knew.
If things continued this way, their mother-daughter relationship would not only fracture, but they might even start to see each other as obstacles.
The best solution would be for Kim Do-jin to choose one of them and neatly resolve their feelings.
But Kim Do-jin showed no intention of doing so.
No, beyond having no intention, he even seemed to be enjoying the current situation.
In the end, there was only one way to solve this problem.
Seo Jeong-hee and Shin Yu-jeong.
One of them had to be the first to break the silence, speak frankly, and find a solution.
But how could that be easy?
Talk to my mom about a guy… How do you even do that?
How in the world am I supposed to bring this up?
A mother and daughter having to discuss being in love with the same man.
You could search the entire world and find very few examples of such a thing.
That wasn’t all.
What if we talk and our emotions get heated, driving us further apart?
If this goes wrong, Mom and I will just grow more distant… Ah.
The fear that their conversation could go in the wrong direction, that hurt feelings could spell the end of their mother-daughter relationship, was another factor preventing them from talking.
“Haa…”
“Hmph.”
Sighing softly at the same time in the middle of their meal, the two women thought.
That jerk.
Son of a bitch.
Kim Do-jin’s ears must have been burning.
*
After a flight of just over two hours, I arrived in Korea.
Getting off the plane and finally setting foot on my home soil felt… incredibly special.
“Mmm, there’s no place like home.”
For someone who had only been away for four days, the emotion that washed over me was intense.
It couldn’t be helped.
So much had happened to me in those mere four days.
Just as I was taking a deep breath of the air, which was practically pristine compared to China’s…
“You’re quite the patriot.”
I turned my head at the voice coming from behind me.
Professor Baek Hyeon-a, walking out at a slow pace, was looking at me as if I were strange.
“Aren’t you happy to be back, Professor?”
“Well… it’s not bad.”
She said that, but her expression looked quite pleased.
Of course it did.
She’d returned alive from a situation where she was sure to die. Wouldn’t it be stranger if she wasn’t happy?
Sure, she’d said she would have rather died, but that was separate from the joy she was feeling now.
I’d been there myself.
My body and mind had been so exhausted from such a painful injury that I’d desperately wanted to die, but when I actually woke up alive, I felt pretty damn good.
Holding her arm with one hand and pulling my suitcase with the other, I walked out of the airport and asked.
“Should we go to the hospital? Or your home?”
“…I’m not sure.”
Her expression turned gloomy as she gave a vague answer.
For a moment, I wondered what was wrong, then I realized my question had been a mistake.
It was only natural that she wouldn’t want to go back to the hospital.
Aside from some stiffness from being unconscious for quite a while, her body was in top condition.
She wasn’t sick, so what reason was there to return to that suffocating place?
The problem was her home.
“…Your home would be the most dangerous place.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
The house she had been staying in as a professor was provided by the organization.
Furthermore, she was now a traitor to the organization, officially dead due to the constraints of the oath.
If she went back to that house and was discovered by the organization, it would all start again.
The organization’s relentless pursuit to kill the traitor.
So, what should I do?
Should I have her stay at a hotel for a while?
Or…
While I was pondering…
“There’s somewhere else I’d like to go first.”
I questioned her tentative words.
“Somewhere else?”
“…The hospital where my sister is admitted.”
“Ah.”
Right, she’d been unconscious for so long that she hadn’t been able to check on her sister’s condition yet.
“Alright. Let’s go see your sister first, and we can figure out the rest later.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She saved my life. This is the least I can do.
She didn’t just throw away her own life to save me.
She also gave up the life of her sister, who was surviving on the money she earned.
Not only that, but she also abandoned the peaceful life she had so desperately longed for.
Therefore, I had a certain obligation.
An obligation to get her derailed life back on a normal track.
As I’ve always said, I can’t stand living indebted to anyone.
“We’re here.”
We took a taxi to Korea University Hospital.
Her sister was lying asleep as if dead in a special ward here.
How did I know?
I went to the Black Market Information Guild and paid a hefty sum to find out.
When she told me to guarantee her life, I realized.
It wasn’t simply because she was afraid of dying; she had a reason she had to live.
So I had the information guild dig into her background, and sure enough.
I learned that her sister was suffering from an illness.
And that she was admitted to a special ward in the very same hospital as her older sister.
“Hyeon-jin…”
Baek Hyeon-jin.
She was in a special ward that gathered and managed patients with incurable or untreatable diseases that had emerged since the dawn of the Hunter society.
The child lying there as if dead, her body gaunt and lifeless, was her younger sister.
“I’m so sorry… I had a bad thought for a moment, leaving you behind, Hyeon-jin. I’m so, so sorry.”
Ironically, the reason she, who had been determined to live for her sister’s sake, had willingly accepted her approaching death was also because of her sister.
Congenital Mana Deficiency.
An enormous amount of money was being spent not to cure her, but just to keep her alive.
If she hadn’t been a successful Hunter, it wouldn’t have been strange for her to have gone bankrupt long ago.
And even after spending all that money, it was only prolonging her life, not curing her.
It was amazing she had held on this long.
“Sob… sniffle.”
Baek Hyeon-a cried silently, hugging her sister’s frail body.
I gently patted her back, hoping it would help release some of the pent-up sorrow in her heart.
About thirty minutes passed.
Finally, she stopped crying, gently caressed her sister’s face, and stood up.
“…Let’s go now.”
Visiting hours in the special ward were only thirty minutes a day.
I could have used Ju-yeon’s name to extend it as long as she wanted, but it seemed she didn’t want that.
After leaving the hospital, I asked her.
“Are you feeling a little better now?”
“Yes, a little.”
Her voice was much lighter than before.
There were still many problems to solve, but it seemed the tears she had just shed had helped.
Now that she had seen her sister, it was time to solve the original problem.
Where on earth should I put this woman?
The most straightforward option was a hotel… but I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that either.
Although she was fully healed by the Saintess’s power, she still needed some time to recuperate.
It felt wrong to leave her alone in a hotel in that state, and I was also worried about a potential attack in the meantime.
“Hmm…”
What to do?
As I groaned in deep thought, an idea suddenly came to mind.
“Professor.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go to my place.”
“Yes, wh-what?!”
An explosive reaction erupted from her.