The Mothers-in-Law of Chaos
Surprisingly enough, in my past life I rarely ever caught colds. Sure, my strength and physique are far better now, but back then I never bothered spending energy on anything other than lying around in my room reading manga — maybe that was why. Either way, it was true.
Because of that, I barely had any memory of my mother nursing me through an illness, the kind of experience just about everyone has at least once. In fact, it was only after being reborn that I truly got to have it.
This body of mine might be fit and look sturdy on the outside, but it's surprisingly sensitive in all sorts of ways — I caught colds fairly often, and whenever the seasons changed or I overdid it in training, I'd inevitably end up bedridden.
This life's mother was slightly lacking as a model housewife, so her idea of nursing was closer to a botched imitation of something she'd seen on a TV drama than anything else. Still, the sincerity of a mother caring for her one and only son came through all the same.
And so, the first time I ever truly experienced someone genuinely worrying over me and taking care of me while I was sick, it was a feeling so complicated and melancholy it was hard to put into words.
Yes — like right now, when a cold towel that hadn't even been properly wrung out gets draped over my forehead. Feeling those droplets, warmed by my own body temperature, trickling down, I feel a flash of irritation mixed with being genuinely moved, all at once. That's the emotion I mean.
As I grew up, I caught fewer colds, and at some point it stopped being my mother at my bedside when I was sick — it was Ye-eun or Min-ah instead — so those moments grew rarer and rarer. But feeling that familiar sensation again after so long left me feeling strangely tingly all over.
Wrapped up in that nostalgic feeling, I somehow found my throat seized up, and forced out a single word in a voice that barely came through.
"Ugh... Mom..."
"Mom? That woman went on an overseas trip with your father, didn't she? Honestly, the woman really does know how to live large. Don't worry — Auntie's here instead."
Ah. So Auntie's here.
Come to think of it, that was true. This life's mother — Kim Yi-seon's striking looks came from her, but it wasn't just her looks; she was actually a bit of a player herself. It wasn't that she neglected the family, exactly, but she was hopeless at housework and childcare.
So she often got help with the everyday chores from my friend Ye-eun's mother. And whenever I got sick and she was busy making a mess of things pretending to nurse me, it was always Ye-eun's mother who came by afterward to fix everything...
.
.
.
Hold on.
I forced my stubborn eyelids open and pushed myself upright.
"Oh dear, you must be in pain — don't push yourself, lie back down. You only have three days left before you return to training, don't you?"
"That's right. An athlete's body comes first."
And then two other voices I didn't recognize.
I strained my bleary vision into focus and got a clear look at those faces — and my mind snapped awake as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head.
"...Mothers-in-law?"
"That's right, Yi-seon."
"Yes, our son-in-law."
"I don't think we're quite at the point where you can be called that yet."
All three of them answered my question at the same time.
The atmosphere froze solid in an instant.
---
I had never realized the living room of this villa was so small. Built in a cheap countryside neighborhood, it was actually quite spacious for a villa — two bedrooms, practically apartment-grade — but somehow it felt suffocating now.
Well, I suppose even a standard family apartment would feel cramped with seven adults packed around it.
I couldn't for the life of me understand how things had come to this, but I couldn't act like a child forever either. With my fever-addled brain, I squeezed out the best question I could manage.
"So... um... what brings you all here...?"
"What's this? Do I need some special excuse to come see you, Yi-seon? I figured I'd check on Ye-eun's condition while I was at it."
That was Ye-eun's mother talking.
"Son-in-law, are you feeling a little slighted? An agent checking on her athlete's condition is simply part of the job."
That was Min-ah's mother talking.
"I was just in the neighborhood."
Though that's what she said, Seo-hee's mother's ears had turned faintly red, as if she were a little embarrassed.
Right. I've heard the answers, and I still have no idea what's going on. All I know is the surface reason — they came because I'm sick. Whether it's the fever or not, my scrambled brain can't read any of the nuances underneath.
Helpless, I secretly shot the girlfriends a look, asking what on earth was going on. But no signal came back — nothing but the wavering eyes of three women completely at a loss.
I suppressed the sigh rising up my throat and turned my attention back to the mothers-in-law.
Simply visiting the place their kids live, now that it doubles as a newlywed home? That much is plausible. Awkward, sure, but when kids fresh into adulthood are living on their own, parents are bound to worry. Dropping by to look around and leaving is nothing unusual.
Ye-eun's mother, for one, has always visited this place fairly often — it's contracted under Ye-eun's name, and it's where Ye-eun lives. Min-ah's mother comes by a lot too, being my agent, and Min-ah has been living here since she started preparing for her exams.
Seo-hee's mother is the only one I don't see regularly, and she's never set foot in this house before... but if she came to visit, I'm confident I could welcome her warmly enough.
And yet the reason I and the girlfriends are this tense is none other than this: those three showed up at the same time.
"Anyway, if the athlete's sick, he should rest. No need to sit up all stiff just because I'm here. Here's some cold medicine — take it."
"Oh dear, absolutely no cold medicine. Plenty of over-the-counter cold remedies contain ingredients that would trip a doping test."
"Everything I brought has been cleared with his personal physician."
"Are you certain? Permitted substances differ from sport to sport, so unless it's a doping specialist, a regular doctor's prescription isn't exactly reassuring."
"Yi-seon, dear, should Auntie make you some porridge? Your mother can't cook a proper pot to save her life — I've been the one making it for you every time you were sick since you were little."
"We brought porridge as well. Prepared as patient meals by the Korean restaurant at the Goryeo Hotel — I'd imagine it beats anything made by an amateur."
"Oh, come now. There's still such a thing as nostalgia and a home-cooked touch."
Everyone is clearly smiling, everyone conversing so pleasantly — and yet the mood is freezing over into a sheet of ice.
This isn't even a battle of wills, or a contest between women. Every single sentence is a bald-faced jab, without even a pretense of tact. They're openly declaring war with a smile on their faces — that is not a good look, mothers-in-law.
Ye-eun, Min-ah, and Seo-hee don't even seem capable of intervening; they've clamped their mouths shut and are just darting their eyes around. I've seen that expression on Seo-hee's face before, but watching Min-ah or Ye-eun like this is a first in all my years of knowing them.
Under normal circumstances I'd be thinking how adorable they look and wanting to steal a kiss — but sadly, I don't have that kind of leisure right now. If I looked in a mirror, I'd probably find my own eyes darting around much the same way.
I barely managed to grip my trembling eyeballs still and closed my eyes for a moment.
How did it come to this?
Wasn't I supposed to have coordinated things so thoroughly that a situation like this could never, ever happen?
To confess one fact: my girlfriends and I have, until now, done everything in our power to keep the mothers-in-law from ever crossing paths.
It goes without saying. Even if we hadn't known it would be this bad, it's obvious that running into each other would be awkward. You keep things split apart as much as possible.
So not only had the three of them never gathered in one place, no two of them had ever even met face to face. Ordinarily a chance encounter might happen now and then, but Ye-eun and Min-ah had coordinated everything precisely so that would never occur — there was nothing to worry about.
So how, how on earth, did even those two's efforts get blown to pieces today, letting loose a catastrophe of world-war proportions?
---
Naturally, the girls had tried their hardest to block it this time too, determined to keep the mothers from meeting. Normally they managed it just fine, carving up schedules and time slots so the women never crossed paths.
The problem was that Kim Yi-seon was sick in the middle of the season, and the other girls were in situations where they needed looking after too. It made sense that the parents worried — and so there was no grounds to talk them out of coming.
Left alone like this, a full-scale summit and total collision were guaranteed. Even so, they tried their best to hold the mothers off, resorting to borderline tantrums and shameless sophistry.
"Mom, I'm telling you, you really don't need to come? Ha-yul comes by all the time to help, and it's just body aches and a cold — nothing contagious."
"What's a pregnant girl like you saying right now? What if you catch it — you'd be the one in danger. And what's Ha-yul going to do about it? I won't feel settled until I go see him myself, so don't go saying things that put pressure on Yi-seon."
"Mom!"
"There's really no need to come, Mother. I'm handling the nursing just fine, and Ye-eun's entering her stable phase — she seems to be managing on her own."
"Isn't our daughter a test student right now? I'll handle the nursing, so you focus on your studies. And I'll have you know that athlete health management is among an agent's duties?"
"No, Mother. You must be busy with other work..."
"Other work? I turned down everything this time. Where would I find the time to take on other clients when our one and only son-in-law is sick?"
"...Yes, Mother."
"Um... Mom? I've been really busy lately too, so I barely have time to visit Yi-seon... and the club's team doctors are taking care of him, so."
"You're telling me the club's president has something more important than looking after the team's biggest star? And the team doctors? Are they more capable than our Director Jeong? If you won't go, then I'll go in your place — so keep that in mind."
"Mom!"
"What is wrong with Seo-hee these days? One relationship and she's completely lost her mind over a man. Anyway, I'm coming, so consider it settled. Goodbye."
Not a single word got through. That was how firmly the mothers had made up their minds — firmly enough that the girls' clumsy efforts meant nothing.
As a last resort, they tried splitting up the schedules so no two mothers would ever cross paths — and even that proved impossible.
Aside from Ye-eun's mother, the other two were busy women with only limited time they could spare, and Kim Yi-seon, though bedridden now, had to return to training within days. With the window fixed, how could splitting schedules possibly work?
On top of that, the mothers all inexplicably wanted to see Kim Yi-seon so badly — and the girls were bitterly realizing that his devilish charm had bewitched even the mothers.
Left this way, an unintended three-way confrontation would clearly unfold in the most dramatic form imaginable.
In the end, abandoning their last shred of pride and any hope of even minimal damage control, the girls were forced to play their final card.
That is — telling the plain truth: that the other mothers were coming, so please stay away.
"...Is that so? I'd been thinking I ought to see his face at least once. Works out well."
"Mom? You're seriously coming? I told you, you can't!"
"Ahaha, so that's why our daughter was trying to stop me so urgently? It's fine. I'll handle it myself."
"...You mean you'll come at a different time, right?"
"No? That's when I'm going. And I'm going properly prepared."
"And so what? Is there some reason I can't come at that time?"
"No, Mom, that's not what I..."
"Enough. I'm not like you, Seo-hee — I don't get uncomfortable just because there are more people around. So I don't care."
"Mom!"
And even that backfired spectacularly. For whatever reason, the mothers' fighting spirits blazed up, and they insisted all the more fervently that they absolutely had to come at that exact time.
The confrontation could no longer be avoided. Everyone would gather in that cramped little villa on the very same day, at the very same hour.
The girls were certain of it. Exchange a polite, friendly greeting, keep up appearances, smile and gloss everything over? These were their own mothers we were talking about — that was never going to happen.
Ye-eun's mother had loved Kim Yi-seon more than her own daughter from the very start. Ever since her daughter and Yi-seon became close as children, she'd doted on him like a real son — to the point Ye-eun could whine that the woman was more like her mother-in-law and her own mother more like Yi-seon's.
For that reason, though she never showed it outwardly, she had been quietly disappointed when Kim Yi-seon brought home girlfriends beyond Ye-eun. The girls themselves were still kids, and if they were happy together, fine — she'd hold her tongue. But the parents?
Ye-eun knew her own mother's temperament better than anyone: there was no way the woman would let this slide easily.
For Kang Min-ah, it was hardly any easier. She didn't know the reason, but her mother had taken quite a liking to Kim Yi-seon from the very first moment she saw him. She seemed to hold no particular ill will toward Ye-eun or Seo-hee, but she was by no means the sort of woman to be steamrolled into yielding ground to those mothers.
She rarely showed it in front of her daughter, so all Min-ah could do was worry that the cold, razor-sharp side her mother displayed at work might come surging out.
As for Han Seo-hee, it went beyond certainty into the realm of prophecy. Chairwoman Choi Hee-jung, yielding ground to someone else — and another woman her own age at that? Impossible. Her mother was someone whose very nature demanded she press others down to feel at ease, and with a concrete reason on top, all the more so.
And in Seo-hee's eyes, her mother had already fallen completely for Kim Yi-seon while pretending not to and dodging any responsibility — and if that got pointed out, her pride might well set off a spectacular firestorm.
However she turned it over, nothing remained but catastrophe — and yet the tide was already unstoppable.
All the girls could do was tremble as they watched the calamity draw near.
...Though somewhere in that process, they made the small blunder of forgetting to tell Kim Yi-seon any of it.
---
Mrs. Kim Hee-young looked at Kim Yi-seon rolling his eyes around and felt laughter bubbling up inside her.
Truly, every time she saw him, he was the spitting image.
Yes, he was her friend's son — but every time she looked at him, wasn't he just her friend with the genders flipped? A bit scatterbrained like the kid's father, that was all.
That look of his, like a guilty pet glancing warily at its owner — even while keeping her exterior stiff and composed, inside she had melted completely, soft as pudding.
She always thought the same thing: she simply couldn't get angry at Kim Yi-seon. How could a boy be so guileless and pure? Whatever he was thinking was always written all over his face. When he was little she assumed it was just his age, but he was exactly the same now that he'd grown up.
Not to mention he had the face of a textbook bad boy. Or was I wrong? Trying to take two more wives behind our daughter's back — maybe he is a bad guy after all.
Still, he was cute, so she'd decided to forgive him. Even in that, he really did take after someone so, so much.
But forgiving Kim Yi-seon was one thing; this was a different matter entirely.
For a moment, she studied the other ladies chatting with their respective daughters.
Min-ah's mother, was it? A lawyer, apparently — she certainly looked capable. Anyone could see she'd deliberately dressed to project power, but even so, her style was sharp and businesslike rather than flashy or expensive, which said a lot about her personality.
And on the other side, the chaebol daughter-in-law? She really was in a different league. There was a refined air about her — rich families really were built different, you might say.
An ordinary housewife would, by this point, have been cowed into submission, glancing around guiltily like a criminal. But who was she? Kim Hee-young, wasn't it?
The legendary delinquent of Wirye who, alongside her high school friend Yi-seon's mom, conquered Jeongyeon Girls' High — no, who crushed every last high school girl in all of Wirye City under her heel.
She was far too flamboyant and feral a creature to be cowed by the genteel pressure of fine ladies like these.
Perhaps they sensed her aura, because the two of them now seemed somewhat wary of her. But true to form, they showed no sign of backing down. The opening skirmish of small talk had concluded, but the battle of wills was clearly far from over.
It was old Joseon-era thinking, and people said the times had changed and all those old customs were gone — but in a household with multiple wives, a wife's standing came from her natal family.
Only when her own family backed her up — whether with money, social influence, or simply a close bond going back generations — could a wife hold her own against the other women and stand tall in that house.
She didn't think her Ye-eun would be easily pushed around by the other girls. But the families were another matter, weren't they? Of course, Yi-seon's mom would never just stand by and watch Ye-eun be made to feel small — but still, she herself, the mother of Ye-eun's birth family, could not afford to be underestimated.
From what she could see, the chaebol side was subtly showing off the family's wealth while slipping this and that to Yi-seon like bribes, and Min-ah's mother — an agent or whatever she was who also practiced law — seemed to be offering him legal assistance of some kind.
So she would have to assert her intimacy — her position as the old family friend who'd known him since he was a child — to claim the upper hand in this fight.
And so, onto the topic that best displayed that closeness.
"Say, Yi-seon — do you know how your fan cafe's been running lately?"
"My... fan cafe?"
"Of course. It's not like Auntie's just anyone — how much do you think I care about our son-in-law? Been keeping up with your fan cafe activities, Yi-seon?"
"That's... a little embarrassing to talk about..."
"And by the way — Auntie's one of the staff there, you know."
"Wha— don't say it like that, all serious."
"Come to think of it, we posted a few pictures of you as a kid there — that's all right, isn't it? Ye-eun signed off on them, so there's nothing questionable in them."
She'd started out as just a regular member, but how could there be only one or two pieces of insider knowledge or rare material about Yi-seon that she knew? She'd shared a bit of it here and there — bragging modestly, without ever crossing any real lines — and by the time she came to her senses, she was cafe staff.
Anyway, watching her banter lightly with the flustered Yi-seon, the others would surely feel the distance between him and themselves. There — see? Both of them look shaken, as if they've already felt the wall go up.
But what came out of Chairwoman Choi Hee-jung's mouth next was entirely unexpected.
"Pardon me... but would you happen to be... Yi-seonsAunt...?"
"I'm sorry?"
"I... I'm DaHeesMom."
Lawyer Han Mi-young squeezed her eyes shut for an instant against a sudden tremor, then forced out her own words.
"...And I'm GeniusPitcherKimYiseon."
In that instant, nicknames they'd all heard somewhere before — and the trail of activity behind them — came flooding back, and the three mothers-in-law had no choice but to fall silent.
"...Huh?"
The only one who couldn't follow what was happening, blurting out something utterly clueless, was Kim Yi-seon alone.