The Apricot Tree That Would Not Be Cut
The old woman seemed to have no doubt that she would fall into hell. Shin-wol regarded her final display of pride with an expression of faint amusement.
[Are you afraid of that now?]
“I’m not afraid. I’m only curious whether I’ll be able to meet my husband and my son and his wife before I fall into hell. I want to say goodbye to them one last time.”
The old woman clearly believed she was destined for hell. Shin-wol watched her cling to her pride until the very end and found it almost laughable.
[If you are not a human burdened by karmic retribution, you will reincarnate. So perhaps you will meet them again someday.]
“I see.”
A faint smile bloomed across her face. Was the possibility of reuniting with her family more joyful to her than the prospect of descending into hell?
From their brief conversation and the emotions that drifted toward him, Shin-wol could tell that she was strangely at peace in this moment.
But he was in an unusually good mood today, so he chose to ignore it. In the end, she was nothing more than a human who would soon die; he had no interest in concerning himself with her.
He turned his gaze back toward the window. It would be about two hours more, he estimated. Shin-wol leaned against the windowsill, closed his eyes, and pictured Yeo-won in his mind. A soft smile curved his lips.
The sight of him was so still it seemed as though time itself had stopped. The old woman stared at his face as if entranced.
Because she now stood on the boundary between life and death, she could faintly perceive his true nature.
Beneath that mesmerizing beauty, something sinister writhed within his shadow.
The ominous aura that contradicted his flawless features made her clench her teeth tightly.
That face—so sensual it could shake a person’s reason—was nothing more than a mask to conceal the horror beneath.
Unable to bear her growing unease, she spoke.
“What do you intend to do with Yeo-won?”
[Did you find my command to keep your mouth shut difficult to understand?]
He frowned, clearly irritated at having his thoughts interrupted. His vertically slit pupils turned toward the old woman. The shape, utterly inhuman, sent a chill racing across her skin.
“Do you hate me for treating that child so cruelly?”
[No. On the contrary, I am grateful to you. Thanks to you, that child has completely broken.]
He tilted his head back and gave a mocking laugh. In contrast, the old woman’s face darkened.
[Do you regret what you did?]
“……If I were going to regret it, I never would have started.”
The old woman shook her head slowly and rose from her seat.
“Grim Reaper, may I open this door as well?”
[…….]
When Shin-wol glared at her, she gave a weak smile and answered.
“There’s no need to look at me so fiercely. I won’t run away. I simply want to take one last look at the courtyard.”
With those words, she opened one of the doors and sat down leaning against the threshold. It was already early April, yet the night wind remained bitterly cold. The old woman pulled her clothes tighter around herself and murmured.
“They said this spring would come late… and the flowers still haven’t fully bloomed.”
She gazed at the apricot tree, whose blossoms had not yet reached full bloom, and slowly continued.
“I originally planned to cut that tree down. Apricot trees are terribly difficult to maintain. Once we were gone, there would be no one left to take care of it.”
The old woman smiled faintly as she spoke of the past. Shin-wol narrowed his eyes and watched her. Her vacant, hollow gaze bore a surprising resemblance to Yeo-won’s.
“Neither my husband nor I particularly liked apricots. So every time they ripened, it was a nuisance. Even if we made them into pickles or dried them, there were always too many left over. We would share them with the neighbors or leave them for the birds.”
Deep longing surfaced on her wrinkled face. Yes, that’s how it was back then. She smiled faintly from time to time as she spoke.
“After my husband died, I hated even looking at it. So I asked the old man next door to cut it down for me, but……”
The old woman opened her mouth as if to say more, then firmly pressed her lips together.
She tried to swallow the surge of emotion, but it was not easy; the tension in her jaw was clearly visible.
After a moment, her mouth moved again.
“On the day we had agreed to cut it down, the flowers happened to bloom in full. Still, what could I do? Even though it pained me, I had made a promise. I was preparing to go through with it when I saw Yeo-won sitting in the main hall.”
Shin-wol, who had maintained an indifferent expression throughout, reacted the moment he heard Yeo-won’s name.
“The child who had locked herself in her room for days after her grandfather’s death had finally come out. Curious what she was doing, I looked closer and saw……”
He had caught glimpses of Yeo-won’s childhood through the Eodukseoni, but this was a story he had never heard before.
“She was sobbing bitterly while forcing herself to eat the dried apricots my husband had preserved.”
The old woman had doubted her own eyes when she saw Yeo-won, who had refused to eat or drink and had remained shut away in her room, finally emerge.
She thought eating dried fruit on an empty stomach would surely upset the child’s stomach, yet for some strange reason she could not bring herself to stop her.
Yeo-won, with heartbreaking stubbornness, kept gagging but stubbornly continued until she had eaten every last one of the dried apricots.
“When I came to my senses, she had already finished them all. When I demanded to know why she had done it, do you know what she said? She thought that once the apricots ripened again, we would have to throw them all away. Since I didn’t eat the dried ones, she believed she had to eat them herself.”
She let out a small, incredulous laugh, as if the memory still astonished her.
“She said she couldn’t throw them away because they were the last ones Grandfather had made.”
The old woman’s face, which had worn a hollow smile, twisted in pain.
It was because she had suddenly remembered the young Yeo-won sobbing and hiccupping as she spoke to her.
Little Yeo-won had believed the dried apricots had a shelf life of exactly one year.
There was no way she could eat all the fruit from such a large tree, so the remainder had been carefully dried by her grandfather and stored.
Since the old woman herself disliked dried apricots, Yeo-won and her grandfather had secretly enjoyed them together, savoring each one over the course of a year.
So when another year passed and the apricots began to ripen again, it was only natural for the child to assume they would have to discard the previous batch.
And she had loved sharing the dried fruit with her grandfather and talking with him.
That was why Yeo-won had said that when the apricots ripened again, they would have to throw away all the ones Grandfather had dried.
‘Hic… sob… if I leave them… Grandma… Grandmother will throw them away… hic…’
She had eaten them so desperately because she knew that once food passed its expiration date, her grandmother would discard it without mercy.
In the end, Yeo-won suffered a stomachache that night and had to be hospitalized. While receiving an IV drip, the sleeping child cried pitifully all night, calling out for her grandfather.
“That child hadn’t even cried at her grandfather’s funeral, yet that night she wept so bitterly.”
The old woman’s voice, which had remained steady until now, trembled slightly.
“So I couldn’t cut it down.”
Her eyelids quivered.
“It felt like cutting that tree would steal away the child’s last memory of him. I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
A single colorless tear fell onto the back of her dry hand.
“It’s not that I enjoyed doing this. At first, I truly loved that child. I tried to love her again. No matter how much I resented or hated them, the dead would never come back.”
There had indeed been a time when she had tried to accept Yeo-won with that very thought. But it had all been in vain.
“That child’s eyes resembled my son’s, and the shape of her mouth was exactly like my husband’s. Every time I saw her smile, such crushing guilt washed over me that I sometimes wanted to die.”
Her body slowly began to collapse.
“……I simply couldn’t endure it. If I didn’t push that child away, I thought I would go mad.”
Ancient, long-buried emotions poured out endlessly.
For years—no, for decades—she had suppressed them while continuing to live.
Why would she not have wanted the same? If possible, she too had wished to love her granddaughter like any ordinary grandmother.
But the more she tried, the greater the guilt that overwhelmed her.
How can I be the only one who is happy when my entire family is dead?
My whole family is dead—why is Yeo-won the only one who refuses to break?
Why is it that no matter how much I push her away, she can still smile while I cannot?
Has she already forgotten her family?
Those questions gave rise to uncontrollable rage, and that rage soon turned into resentment.
In truth, she had known all along. She had known that Yeo-won was right and she herself was wrong.
But if she admitted that, where was this bottomless anger supposed to go?
“Grim Reaper, at least tell me the reason. Why did it have to be us? Who exactly am I supposed to resent?”
As she clutched at her chest and wept, Shin-wol let out a low, scornful laugh.
His voice was so soft it might have been swallowed by the wind, yet the old woman reacted faintly.
[Are you sad that you lost your family? Does the pain feel unbearable?]
“How can you even ask that right now……”
[Then you should be able to understand the sorrow that child must have felt.]
His face as he spoke remained as dry and indifferent as ever.
“I… I… hic……”
[In the end, you drowned in self-pity and drove away your only salvation with your own hands.]