Soaked in Sorrow — The Moment I Buried My Face in Auntie Min-jung's 75J Breasts, I Felt a Massive Change... [Awakening]
"...."
Geum Tae-yang stared in silence at the final line of his father Geum Il-bong's last diary entry.
The tears in his eyes had already stopped.
"....."
The tears had stopped. The explosive surge of emotion had stopped, too.
His face sat somewhere between numbness and a complete absence of expression.
Shff...!
Then Tae-yang turned his head toward the side of the desk.
"....."
He looked at the wall there for a long moment.
Leaning against the wall beside the desk was the steel pipe written about in Geum Il-bong's diary.
What was Tae-yang thinking?
That because his father had given him permission, he could at least ease the guilt a little as he cleaned up what remained? Judging by his usual nature, he would almost certainly believe that, right now, he must not show even a single trace of sorrow. That this was the only way his father Geum Il-bong could close his eyes in peace and go to his mother, Seo Ye-jin.
The look on his face now was the look of a man carrying out a last will.
In other words, he was administering an emotional anesthetic to himself.
Gripping tight...!
Tae-yang rose from his seat and took the steel pipe his father had left behind into his hand.
Thud...!
Sliip...!
He slipped his father's diary into the thick pocket of his jacket, then calmly picked up the steel pipe and prepared to leave the room.
Clank!
There was no hesitation in him.
Without so much as a second of buffering, he opened the iron door of the inner room in the night-duty office that had been shut so firmly.
"...."
And with a face still under emotional anesthesia, he looked ahead.
"Kreeeeeh... Kiet...! Kreeeeeh..."
Shamble...! Shamble...! Shamble...!
Near the outer door of the night-duty office, Geum Il-bong — now a zombie — was shambling about.
"—Kieeeeeeeeeeh!!!!"
In that instant, Geum Il-bong registered Tae-yang's presence.
"—Kraaaaaaaaaah!!!"
—Thudthudthudthudthudthud!!!
Geum Il-bong charged at his son with savage ferocity.
Step...! Step...!
Thud..! Thud..!
Tae-yang walked forward two paces and wrapped both hands around the steel pipe as if gripping a spear.
—Chwaaaaaaah!!!
Then, timed perfectly to his father's charge, he drove the steel pipe upward from below.
—Pooooooooook!!!!
It punched straight through.
The steel pipe Tae-yang had swung up tore through Geum Il-bong starting from the jaw and all the way up near the crown of his head.
Since the gag was already in place, Tae-yang chose to free his father Geum Il-bong in a single blow.
"Kueeeeh...! Kueeeeh...!"
With his brain pierced, Geum Il-bong's thrashing grew weaker and weaker.
Shuuuuuuk...!
At last, every bit of strength drained from Geum Il-bong's body.
And so Geum Il-bong's movements as a zombie came to an end.
"..."
A zombie whose brain had been run through by his own steel pipe, breathing its last.
But to Geum Tae-yang, that zombie was unmistakably his father, Geum Il-bong.
Tae-yang stared in silence at that pitiful existence with a face still under emotional anesthesia.
"Has Tae-yang still not texted?"
Park A-young, who had been bustling around the bunker, asked her mother Kim Min-jung, who was pacing the first-floor living room like a madwoman.
It wasn't really in A-young's nature to ask something like this, but Min-jung was so restless that she couldn't help herself.
"Nothing yet..."
Not wanting to burden her daughter with worry, Min-jung managed her expression as carefully as she could and kept her voice under control as well.
But she couldn't do anything about the low, heavy breathing that sounded as if the ground itself might give way beneath her.
"He'll come. I guarantee it. That guy could get stripped naked and launched into outer space and still survive."
"He's not vicious, but his sense of responsibility is rock solid. In a situation like this, he'll be even more like that."
A-young offered comfort in her own characteristic way.
"Y-yeah... I think so too..."
Grin...!
It was a comparison that matched the image of Geum Tae-yang that Min-jung had always held perfectly.
And today she had experienced it firsthand, fleeing zombies all the way here from Songrae-gu.
Because of that, the restless tension on Min-jung's face seemed to ease just a little.
—Vrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
At that moment, the phone in Min-jung's hand vibrated.
"It's Tae-yang!!!!!"
It was a text from Geum Tae-yang.
Confirming his name, Min-jung's face lit up with color again in an instant.
Geum Tae-yang had reached the area near the bunker and sent a text ahead to let them know before he came in.
"Haa...."
Finally confirming that Tae-yang was safe, Min-jung let out a long, deep sigh of relief.
"Guess Geum Tae-yang's okay, then."
Seeing her mother's reaction, A-young grasped the situation as well.
"Well then, I'm off~~"
Step! Step! Step!
She headed straight up to the bunker's second floor.
"A-young, you're not going out to meet him?"
In other words, A-young had no intention of greeting Tae-yang. Min-jung asked with wide, round eyes.
"I'm busy!"
Step! Step! Step!
Even so, A-young climbed the stairs with cool indifference.
"Alright, then Mom's going out for a bit!"
But Min-jung knew.
A-young had been deliberately going back and forth between the second floor and the basement the whole time — keeping an eye on her restless mother.
Min-jung spoke to her daughter in a gentle voice, smiling.
If I'm standing next to him, even the tears that were about to come out will probably suck right back in.
Arms folded as she climbed the stairs, A-young wore a listless expression.
She had only heard that Tae-yang was returning — nothing about his father, Geum Il-bong.
Sharp as she was, A-young pieced it together from that alone: Geum Il-bong was dead.
Which meant Tae-yang's mental state right now would be completely wrecked. Having his rival standing next to him would be far less helpful for his mental care than having only her mother, Kim Min-jung, at his side.
As expected of the tsundere Nightingale who had secretly nursed Geum Il-bong through his severe back injury.
Thank goodness... If he'd been any later, I was going to go look for him myself... At least it didn't come to that...
Tae-yang had told her absolutely not to come outside and wait — and yet Kim Min-jung was standing out in the front yard of the landlord's house, waiting for him anyway.
In a few more hours the sun would set. If Tae-yang hadn't returned by then, she had planned to search the surrounding area before nightfall.
She simply wouldn't have been able to bear it otherwise.
But that would almost certainly have led to a fight with A-young. Min-jung was grateful that things hadn't escalated into such an extreme confrontation.
—Thud! Thudthudthudthud!!!!
At that moment, she heard the sound of someone kicking off the wall and climbing up.
"Tae-yang!!!"
It was him.
Seeing Tae-yang settle into position atop the wall, Min-jung let out a soft cry of joy.
"Huh? Auntie, why are you outside~? You should've stayed inside! Hurry, go back in~!"
Tae-yang spotted Min-jung as well. He gestured for her to get back into the bunker at once.
"Haa... How could I not come out..."
Step! Step! Step! Step!
Min-jung let out a sigh thick with almost petulant complaint and walked quickly toward the wall Tae-yang had climbed.
She had been so on edge for so long that the moment it all melted away, a wave of wounded feeling rushed in.
Our Auntie Min-jung really was worried sick about me...
Even Tae-yang could see how restless she had been for hours.
She still hasn't changed clothes or taken a shower... Her hair is exactly the same as when I left the house...
Just like his father.
Even with death closing in, Geum Il-bong had assessed the situation from his son Tae-yang's perspective and acted accordingly.
Kim Min-jung was the same.
Her mind had been so completely occupied with Tae-yang outside that she hadn't even registered how sticky she was with sweat, how messy and bothersome her hair had become, or the rising smell of blood on her clothes.
And the shoes she was wearing now were the slippers she used indoors.
"Hup! I told you not to worry, seriously..."
Thud!!
Tae-yang landed at the base of the wall.
"Are you hurt anywhere, Tae-yang? Come here — Auntie needs to take a look at you."
Min-jung came right up to him where he had landed.
"T-Tae-yang...!!!"
Her face suddenly went wide with shock.
"Huh? What is it, Auntie?"
Still in his landing stance, Tae-yang looked up at her.
"Ah...!!!"
He understood immediately why Min-jung had been so startled.
Fuck, the tears are pouring out...
The moment he looked up at Min-jung's face, his vision blurred behind a wall of tears.
Seeing her, the tension in Geum Tae-yang finally broke. The tears he had suppressed with emotional anesthesia came flooding back.
"Tae-yang...! Tae-yang, come here... Come to Auntie..."
Step...! Step...!
From the text alone, Min-jung had already sensed Geum Il-bong's death. She quickly steadied her startled heart and began to gather Tae-yang in.
She opened her arms a little and stepped closer, ready to hold him.
"Ah... so, Auntie, the thing is... I mean..."
Tae-yang was flustered.
Since puberty, he had never cried in front of anyone. Especially not in front of his father — and he had been even more careful about it in front of Kim Min-jung.
Because he liked her so much.
He wanted to be the dependable Geum Tae-yang for her. He had wanted to be the one who took care of Kim Min-jung when Park Do-chul's dogshit behavior left her heart aching.
I threw so many tantrums at Mom... I don't want to show Auntie that side of me...
When Tae-yang was nine, his mother Seo Ye-jin had passed away. The image of himself that remained in his memory of her was of a boy who threw fits and made demands.
And so, somewhere in a corner of his heart, he had always wondered whether his mother had left so soon because of the way he had been.
Perhaps because of that memory, with this precious woman Kim Min-jung, he wanted to present himself not as someone who leaned on her — but as someone she could lean on.
Even if that wasn't the full truth, he had wanted to feel that way about himself.
"It's okay, Tae-yang... You can cry... I've known for a while now that you've been reluctant to let Auntie see you cry..."
"But if you cry in Auntie's arms, it actually makes me happy... So it's okay to cry, Tae-yang..."
"Just like that little Tae-yang from back then..."
Squeeze...!
With a maternal, tender expression and warm hands, Kim Min-jung wrapped him in her arms.
She wanted it so badly — not a relationship of two unrelated people simply helping each other, but a bond where she and Tae-yang could feel for each other like family.
She wanted to feel that kind of happiness.
She had already tasted that blessed catharsis through him once before.
"Holding you like this reminds me of the first time our Tae-yang opened his heart to Auntie... That rainy day when you bawled your eyes out in my arms..."
After Seo Ye-jin's death, Tae-yang had closed himself off. When Min-jung's own efforts finally opened that heart again, she had felt as if she were receiving salvation itself.
Back then, her self-esteem had been at rock bottom. Beside a husband who cheated, her life had grown as shabby as it could get, and she had been unable to do anything about it. She couldn't even stop her own Achilles' heel — her daughter Park A-young — from being dismissed by that same husband.
And then, because of the little Geum Tae-yang who sobbed in her arms, she had begun to think that maybe she, too, was someone of some use after all.
No — that she could be someone who became a support, someone who left a deep impression on another person.
Having learned that happiness, Kim Min-jung had always waited, and waited again.
And because of that longing, she was able to comfort the Geum Tae-yang who now carried such a terrible wound.
"Hwaaaauuugh... Auntie..."
Clank...!
At last, Tae-yang's defense mechanism crumbled.
The steel pipe he had been gripping so tightly — the one stained with his father's blood, the one left behind like a keepsake — fell to the floor.
Geum Tae-yang leaned on Kim Min-jung completely and poured out his tears.
Chosen One Geum Tae-yang, you awaken as a Homekeeper.
And in that moment, an awakening notification window appeared before his eyes.