The Night My Mother Made Strange Sounds
The same evening. In other words, the very day six-year-old me asked my mom, “Mom, why do you make those weird noises every night?”
After finishing dinner, I sat on the living room sofa facing her directly.
“Um, Wooju.”
“Yes, Mom?”
“Where exactly did you hear those… strange noises? You weren’t watching grown-up videos on YouTube and copying them, were you?”
Mom’s face was still flushed bright red, as if the heat hadn’t faded yet. She fanned herself with one hand while looking down at me.
“No, I didn’t see it anywhere like that.”
“Then… are you seriously saying you heard Mommy making sounds like she was in pain?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“……Huh?”
My innocent, straightforward answer made Mom’s expression freeze solid. Even though she always responded with a gentle smile and kind words no matter how ridiculous my questions were—often stroking my hair—this time she seemed genuinely flustered, her lips fumbling for words.
“Th-this is strange. That can’t be right. I made sure the soundproofing was perfect. It can’t be… it just can’t…”
“Mom.”
“Y-yes? What is it, sweetie?”
“So why do you make those pain sounds every night? Are you sick somewhere?”
“……I’ll tell you when you’re a little older.”
“How much older?”
“Hmm… maybe in about ten years?”
“What? Ten years is too long, Mom. Can’t it be sooner?”
“Why? Is there some reason you need to know right away?”
“Well, my friend’s mom also makes those pain sounds at night. I told him my mom does it too. Then he asked if all moms are always in a lot of pain, so I promised I’d ask you and give him the answer!”
“…….”
Mom clamped her mouth shut with the expression of a patriot who had just lost her country. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, then opened them wide again. As if nothing had happened, she gently stroked my hair.
“Their parents must be going through quite a lot too……”
“What? What did you say, Mom?”
“Oh, nothing. By the way, Wooju, what’s your friend’s name? Did you meet at English kindergarten?”
My young mind—though lacking in good judgment—had decent instincts. It began spinning rapidly. The friend Mom was asking about was Aki Fujiwara. But Aki wasn’t from English kindergarten; we’d met at the Embassy of Japan in Korea. If I mentioned that, it would lead to questions about how we’d snuck out to play together. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered if Mom found out, but at the time I was young and had the ridiculous thought that “All adults know each other. So if Mom finds out, the story will spread and Aki will get scolded by her grandfather!”
“Just a friend I met near the house. I don’t really know the name.”
In the end, I told a lie so obvious it practically screamed in front of Mom.
“……My son.”
But there was no way an adult who had seen it all wouldn’t notice a six-year-old’s clumsy lie.
“Did Mom say it’s okay to lie, or not okay?”
She had seen right through my awkward fib. Her hand stopped stroking my hair, and her voice grew stricter than usual as she scolded me.
“It’s not a lie! I really don’t know the na—”
“Ju Wooju.”
Mom rarely got angry, but whenever I lied or tried to do something bad, she would call me by my full name like this. Even though I was still little, I knew that hearing all three syllables of my name from her lips meant she was right on the verge of getting mad.
“I-I’m sorry. I actually do know……”
I apologized quickly before she could really explode. After all, nothing is scarier than a usually calm person losing their temper.
“My son, what did Mom say about children who lie?”
“That they’re bad children……”
“And what happens to bad children?”
“They can’t go outside and play……”
“Is our son a bad child? Or a good child?”
“A g-good child!”
“Good children don’t lie. Can our son promise not to lie from now on?”
“Yes! I won’t!”
“Good boy. Now, will you explain to Mom exactly what kind of friend this is? The name, where you met, and how you ended up talking about that. Everything. Okay?”
“Yes, okay. So it was like this—”
Having received Mom’s early character education from a young age, I told her the whole story. How I’d gone with my parents to the Embassy of Japan in Korea and met a girl with pink hair. Her name was Aki, we became friends, played house, even kissed, and promised to play together in Japan later. Then we discovered that both our moms made strange noises at night, so I promised to ask my mom why…… I told her every single detail.
“And that’s how it happened.”
Mom, who had listened quietly to my explanation, had a strange reaction. When I mentioned meeting a girl with pink hair, she muttered, “A girl? Not a boy?” and tilted her head. When I got to the part about kissing, she exclaimed, “What? Our Wooju kissed another girl besides Mom…?!” And at the final part—about discovering that both our moms made strange noises at night and agreeing that I would ask why—she fell into deep thought.
“That girl’s name is Aki? Was she a foreigner?”
“Yeah, she said she’s half Japanese. Her mom is French, her dad is Japanese.”
“I see. What’s her last name?”
“Um, what was it? Fu… something……”
“Fu? ……It wouldn’t happen to be Fujiwara, would it?”
Click.
“Eunhye, I finished the dishes.”
“Oh, perfect timing. Honey, come here for a second.”
“Why? Do you have something to tell me?”
“Honey, remember how you took Wooju to the Japanese embassy this morning?”
“Of course I remember. I drove him there myself. Why?”
“Wooju met a girl at the embassy, and apparently he kissed her…!”
“Huh? Really? Wow, our son’s got skills. Must take after his handsome dad. He’s really popular with the girls.”
“What are you talking about? He takes after me more. ……Anyway, that’s not the important part. The girl he kissed has a foreign last name that starts with ‘Fu.’ Could she be the daughter of Kenichiro Fujiwara? You know, the Japanese ambassador to Korea?”
“Kenichiro Fujiwara? That guy’s in his sixties. If the girl is Wooju’s age, she’d be five or six at most. Isn’t he way past the age for a late-in-life child?”
“Oh, that’s true. So maybe not?”
“Probably not. Maybe it’s just someone with a similar last name. Or Wooju misheard completely. He’s a kid, after all—he might have gotten it wrong.”
“Yeah… now that you say it, that could be possible……”
Mom glanced down at me, letting her words trail off. Dad, sitting beside her with me between them, looked at me with a proud expression and gently stroked my hair.
“Wooju. That girl named Aki—was she pretty?”
“Yeah, she was super pretty. I want to play with her again!”
“Really? You don’t want to kiss her again, do you?”
“N-no! I don’t like k-kissing……”
“…….”
Our son has been completely bewitched by that seductive girl. Mom didn’t say it out loud, but her face suggested she was thinking exactly that as she quietly looked down at me.
“Son, should Dad contact her parents for you? Tell them our son really wants to see her and play together.”
“Ah, no! You don’t have to. I already have Aki’s phone number.”
“……What? You exchanged numbers in just one day? Is this how fast kids move these days?”
Mom muttered, “Hmm, how seductive… so seductive……” while Dad froze with a genuinely shocked expression before quickly grabbing my phone from the table beside the sofa.
“Wooju, shall we contact her right now?”
“R-right now? To Aki…?”
“Yeah. You said you want to play with Aki, right? Then we need to set a date. Don’t you think?”
“Um, well… even so……”
“What, are you shy about contacting her first?”
“It’s not that I’m shy……”
“……Hehe, how cute.”
When I started squirming, Mom burst out laughing. She wore an incredibly warm smile, as if thinking, He may act more mature than other kids his age, but he’s still just six.
“Here, I’ll give you the lines. Wooju, type exactly what Dad says. ‘Aki, hello. Did you eat dinner?’”
“But we’re contacting her to play… why ask about dinner?”
“Ah, son. When talking to a girl, you can’t jump straight to the main point. First small talk, then the main topic. It’s important to create a light atmosphere first. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it. ……Huh? She replied right away.”
“Let me see. What does it say?”
“It’s written in Japanese so I can’t read it!”
“Really? Wait a second. Dad knows Japanese, so I’ll read it for you. Let’s see… Ah, it says [Yeah yeah. I ate something delicious with Dad. What about you, Wooju~sang?] Wow, how does she know Korean to reply like this? Wooju, did you talk to her in Korean?”
“No, we used the translation app Mom told me about. I’d say one thing, then she’d say one thing.”
“Oh, really? Our son used his head, huh? As expected, Wooju takes after me and is so smart.”
With Dad stroking my hair in admiration beside me, I tapped out a reply on the phone. The message was [Yeah, I ate something delicious with Mom too.]
“Dad, she replied again!”
“Okay, let’s see. It says—”
“Wait! Hold on, I want to see too. Let me look… Ah, it says [I’m jealous of Wooju~sang. I want to eat with Mom too!] Wooju.”
What Aki had meant was that she missed her mom back in Tokyo, but I was too young to understand that. So I went through the thought process: Aki wants to eat with her mom → I have a mom right here → Then wouldn’t it be good if Aki ate with my mom? I reached that strange conclusion and immediately sent it in a text.
Then.
“Mom, what did Aki say?”
“[Yeah yeah, I want to eat with Wooju~sang’s mom! But Wooju~sang, my papa also wants to eat together—is that okay?] ……Wooju, what exactly did you send her?”
“Aki said she wanted to eat with her mom, so I asked if she wanted to eat with my mom!”
“……Huh?”
Ring, ring-ring—!
“Huh? Aki’s calling! Papago, how do I turn on Papago?”
“Wooju, calm down first and answer the phone. Put it on speaker and Mom will translate for you.”
“Ah, okay! Hello, Aki?”
──. (Hello.)
I took a deep breath and answered, only to hear a deep, husky voice. It wasn’t Aki’s beautiful, bell-like voice from earlier in the day. Instead, it was the rough voice of an adult man. My body instinctively shrank back, and I whipped my head toward Mom.
“Uh, Mom…?”
“Let me have it. …… (Hello, I’ve taken over the call. Excuse me, but who is this?)”
(Excuse me. I am Aki’s father…….)
I couldn’t understand the conversation since it was in Japanese, not Korean, but even I could tell that Mom’s face had grown quite serious. I stayed glued to her side, waiting for the call to end.
About three minutes later, Mom hung up and handed the phone back to me.
“Mom, who was that on the phone? It wasn’t Aki, right?”
“No, it wasn’t Aki. It was Aki’s father.”
“Aki’s dad? What did he say?”
“He didn’t say much. He asked if we could meet this weekend. So I said yes.”
“Really? Then can I play with Aki this weekend?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Whoa! Thank you, Mom…!”
Six-year-old me threw myself into Mom’s arms. She gently stroked my hair.
“Eunhye, are you going alone with Wooju? Will you be okay?”
“What are you saying? Of course you’re coming too.”
“Huh? Me too?”
“Yes. I’m curious what kind of education would lead a child to ask such embarrassing questions. I need to see their faces for myself. So you drive.”
“I was planning to rest at home this weekend……”
“Then you want us to go by ourselves? You know I’m a beginner driver. What if I get into an accident with Wooju in the car? Could you live without me and Wooju?”
“Okay, okay. I’ll go with you. Why are you getting so angry……”
Though they had made their resolute decision, I was simply overjoyed at the thought of playing with Aki again.
“Yay! I get to play with Aki again…!”
Nestled in Mom’s arms, I looked forward to the meeting three days away.
* * *
And three days later, at the appointed place.
“Ah, Wooju~sang. Hello……!”
“Hello! Aki, have you been well?”
“Yes, I’ve been well. Have you been well too, Wooju~sang…?”
Aki and I greeted each other happily in the playroom, leaving our parents behind.
(Nice to meet you. I am Sumimoto Fujiwara.)”
“Ah, hello. I’m Wooju’s mother. This is his father. ……Um, if it’s not too rude, may I ask what your relationship is to Kenichiro Fujiwara…?”
"(He is Aki’s grandfather and my father.)”
“…….”
“…….”
And with that, both my mom and dad were stunned by the completely unexpected encounter.