Kim Min-jung's Heartfelt Request to the Man She Loves
I'm such a careless mother... I know exactly what kind of girl A-young is, and yet... as her mother, I never saw it. I never noticed until now...
Kim Min-jung gazed toward her daughter's room with a face full of regret, where Park A-young lay.
Since she had started dating Geum Tae-yang, Min-jung had gained something precious. First and foremost, her own direct happiness stood out as the most obvious gift. But as time passed, another gift had quietly accumulated without her realizing it. It was the chance to look back over the path her daughter Park A-young had walked through life.
If it hadn't been for Tae-yang... I don't think I ever would have understood...
Kim Min-jung had always thought of Park A-young. Her daughter was her Achilles' heel itself — or perhaps a thorn driven deep into her flesh. She had carved A-young into her heart as a presence she could never once let leave her mind. She had fretted over her and watched over her every single day — or so she had believed.
But the A-young who had come into view while she was dating Geum Tae-yang revealed so many things Min-jung had missed. The A-young she had forgotten. The A-young she had overlooked.
My little girl... so shy she could never openly show that she liked someone... and even when she liked him herself, if another friend took a fancy to him, she'd gladly step aside and give him up...
She was like that as a child... and she's still doing the same thing now...
Only the changed face of her daughter had filled her eyes, and so Min-jung had never managed to recognize the parts of A-young that had never changed at all.
She had thought that inside the prickly, snappish daughter who only ever seemed to pick the most hateful things to do, the little girl she so longed for still remained. But that wasn't it. That little girl had already been right there beside her all along.
All this time... consistently, without fail...
Park A-young had forced herself to change so she would never be hurt again. Or rather than changing, she had put herself under such severe self-hypnosis that she was simply wearing a mask. But all of it was only a mask that covered the surface. After puberty, A-young's unconscious self had remained exactly as it was in her tiny childhood. Even while living the life of a half-delinquent, traces of her true self had lingered throughout her teenage years. Put more essentially, they were actions that wanted to say, I'm still here...
Dyeing her hair... shaving everything... all because she wanted to show Tae-yang the look he liked...
As a boy, Geum Tae-yang had once looked at a blonde foreign woman with a sense of wonder. Park A-young had held that memory in her heart for a long time, and from her third year of middle school onward she had stuck stubbornly to blonde hair. Not only that — once she entered university and began living with Tae-yang, she had started openly removing her pubic hair. In front of him she would snap and snipe and drag him around in the most irritating ways, but behind it all she had been constantly appealing to him with her heart. It was the same as ten years ago, when Tae-yang first moved into Park Do-chul's storage room — the timid little girl who had pretended to be bold, befriended the new boy, and helped him settle into school.
And then, because Mom fell for Tae-yang and was so happy... she wanted things to go even better for us...
Lately A-young had grown suddenly affectionate toward her mother, seeking out conversation far more often. And the topics of those conversations had been truly puzzling. Min-jung had simply thought an unexpected miracle had come her way. But now she understood clearly. Her daughter had known about her and Tae-yang all along.
If she hadn't been a complete fool, Min-jung should have realized her daughter had caught on to the two of them. But she had been so thoroughly love-struck that she really had become a fool. Only now, seeing her daughter collapse with a dagger driven through her chest, could she finally read the meaning of A-young's recent behavior with perfect clarity.
How lonely... how desperately lonely must my little girl have been...
She had loved Geum Tae-yang so much she could die — and yet, wanting to protect the miracle of her mother escaping the hell that was Park Do-chul and finding happiness, Park A-young had no choice but to fold away the tender feelings she held for the man she loved. Beyond that, she had tried to help her mother and Tae-yang do even better together.
Into Kim Min-jung's heart came the bitter emotions her daughter must have felt while making that decision and walking that path. A mother's chest tore open.
She clenched her fists tight.
And with eyes full of resolve, Kim Min-jung made her decision.
Sniff... sniff... sniff...
In Park A-young's room, the soft sound of sniffling filled the space. It was A-young crying. She had been living and sleeping mostly in the main control room, but she was so exhausted in body and mind that she just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
Shit... making Mom worry again... fuck... I'm all grown up now...
Sniff...! Sniff...! Sniff...
Kim Min-jung and Park A-young each felt sorry for the other. The mother pitied her daughter, and the daughter pitied her mother. The two of them held a deep love for one another. But the wounds ran so deep that the shape of that love could never flow smoothly.
As she was regretting now, Min-jung had never managed to look at her daughter with a wide enough view. And A-young could not lean on her mother. In A-young's mind, Kim Min-jung had become someone her daughter needed to protect — someone she needed to look after — someone she must never worry again. The moment she allowed herself to depend on Min-jung, A-young would remember the instant her mother had given up on divorcing that human garbage Park Do-chul because of her.
Tae-yang... I can't even snap at him anymore... he's Mom's boyfriend now. I can't do that...
What had filled the gap in the two women's incomplete love was none other than Geum Tae-yang. Kim Min-jung, whose self-worth as a woman had fallen into the abyss, had endured thanks to the existence of Tae-yang, who followed her more devotedly than anyone in the world. It was the same for A-young. Even with the mother who had always taken her side as a child, from puberty onward A-young had had to hide her wounded true self. But hiding it was all she had done, and so eventually it was bound to burst. At least Tae-yang had been by her side in those years, and that was how she had held on until now. Dragging him around wherever she went, playing her foul-tempered little pranks — that had been the only psychological escape she could enjoy.
But now Tae-yang was her mother's lover. It wouldn't be easy, but she was trying not to throw tantrums at him anymore. So on a day like today, when a great wound left her reeling, the pain was as bad as it had been when she was a little girl.
I have to get through this alone... I can handle it... a few good nights of sleep and I'll be fine... honestly I'm not sure, but...
Even so, Park A-young was trying to endure. She had to. But she was lonely, and she was in agony. She didn't want to hurt her mother's heart, and she didn't want to lean on Geum Tae-yang, who had now become her mother's man. And so A-young thrashed and struggled, forcing herself to bear the wound that felt ready to tear her insides apart.
Ah, shit... shouldn't I go in anyway? A-young flat-out ordered me not to come in, but still...
Geum Tae-yang was in his room, arms crossed, pacing back and forth with a deeply thoughtful look on his face. After bringing A-young home, he had been the one to carry her upstairs to her room. But as she lay down on the bed, A-young had spoken to him in a firm, cold voice: until she said otherwise, he was absolutely not to enter her room. So Min-jung had gone in to comfort her, while Tae-yang was left pacing around downstairs. Then, catching Min-jung's eye, he had retreated into his own room.
Normally she would've been all over me like a cat with a mouse... and every time she did I'd be cursing up a storm myself, but now that it's like this I'm so damn restless and on edge...
Given the situation, Tae-yang had been fully prepared to serve as a punching bag so A-young could vent her rage. When that fell through, something in him started to panic.
A-young must be so depressed...
Separate from all her ridiculous sniping, the truth was that even before the apocalypse Tae-yang had always been A-young's punching bag. Every time she acted that way, he knew perfectly well deep down how desperately lonely she was.
"Tae-yang..."
The door to his room creaked open. Kim Min-jung stood there.
"Yes, Auntie! What is it? Is there something you need me to do?"
Tae-yang answered as if ready for any order she might give.
"Could you talk with me for a little while?"
Min-jung carefully requested a conversation.
"Look at this. Do you remember this photo?"
"Haha, of course I do, Auntie! This is from A-young's eleventh birthday!"
In Kim Min-jung's room, Tae-yang and Min-jung shared a brief, warm moment. The two of them were looking through photo albums.
"You had this many albums? Did you bring them all to the bunker on the very first day?"
Most of the photos were of Geum Tae-yang, Kim Min-jung, and Park A-young. Pictures that included Park Do-chul were almost nonexistent outside the very earliest albums.
"Of course. After you two, these albums are my greatest treasures."
Min-jung answered with a full, blooming smile as she looked at the photos.
Man... this zoo picture... Park Do-chul had cleared out of the house for A-young's birthday of all days, and she was completely depressed...
I put on every show I could think of just to lift the mood...
Looking at it now, it must have worked pretty well. A-young's expression is really good.
Even as a deeply perceptive little kid, Geum Tae-yang had always noticed with uncanny accuracy whenever A-young was hurt by her father Park Do-chul. The moment this photo was taken had been no different. He had pestered Min-jung to take them to the zoo just to cheer A-young up. Remembering it now, a flood of emotions crossed his face.
"....."
Kim Min-jung watched Tae-yang's distant expression in silence.
"Tae-yang."
Then she spoke his name in a tender voice.
"Looking at these photos, what do you think they all have in common?"
She asked a riddle-like question.
"Something in common... Auntie is beautiful, A-young is cute and pretty, and I'm handsome?"
Expecting that Min-jung's heart must be in turmoil, Tae-yang answered with as much playful bluster as he could manage.
"Haha... that's true too. But as I've been looking through them carefully..."
She received his banter with a loving smile, then continued in a quiet voice.
"A-young is always looking only at you."
In every photo, Park A-young could not take her eyes off Geum Tae-yang. Sometimes she looked straight at him, sometimes from the corner of her eye, sometimes with a quick glance. She was utterly smitten.
"Ah... you're right..."
Tae-yang nodded slowly, accepting Min-jung's words. And that nod, that look in his eyes, carried the sense that he already largely understood what she was about to say.
"A-young... she loves you so much, as a man..."
And Kim Min-jung said it out loud. The thing Park A-young had held onto for more than ten years — the thing she had given up for her mother's happiness — Min-jung was speaking it in her daughter's place.
"So what I'm asking is... Tae-yang... our A-young... could you hold her?"
And so Kim Min-jung entrusted Park A-young to Geum Tae-yang.