For a moment, I doubted my ears. With a blank expression, I looked back and forth between the doctor and the woman.
“Who? That noona… no, no… she’s my *mom*?”
I’m twenty-two now. No matter how I looked at her, that woman seemed to be in her early thirties, mid-thirties at the very most.
“Um… you’re joking, right?”
“Huh? What do you mean…”
At my words, the doctor made a face as if asking what I was talking about, and I couldn’t help but make a dumbfounded expression.
“I’m twenty-two years old, you know? But her, she looks like she’s in her early thirties at a glance, no, even if I’m being generous she looks like she’s in her mid-thirties?”
Flustered by my reaction, the doctor coughed and averted his gaze. But then. In that serious and grievous atmosphere, a very alien reaction was captured.
“Oh my, this kid… why are you like this in front of everyone?”
She covered her reddened cheeks with her palms, mumbling shyly but in an extremely pleased voice.
“Saying I look like I’m in my early thirties when I’m old enough to be a mom… Hoho, the doctor must find it a bit embarrassing to hear, right?”
(Hey… she’s smiling…)
(She’s smiling?)
But everyone saw it. The corners of her mouth trembling and rising on their own…
“Son, why are you hurting your mom’s feelings~? I’m forty-three this year. Born in ’78, Year of the Horse~?”
She twisted her body like a young girl, throwing out a nuclear-bomb-grade number that would warp the space-time of this hospital room.
“……Forty, what? Three?”
Instinctively, I narrowed my eyes and ‘scanned’ her face.
Crow’s feet? None. Zero.
Nasolabial folds? What are those? Something you eat?
Neck wrinkles? You’d get more wrinkles ironing with an actual iron.
Based on my experience having met countless ‘aunties’ and ‘mothers’ while working as a delivery driver, for a forty-three-year-old Korean woman to look like that wasn’t just good self-care. It was vampire-level, the kind that chews up the very concept of time and swallows it whole.
“Lies… This is absurd…”
Without realizing it, my honest thoughts popped right out. And at that very moment. The corners of her mouth, which had been twitching as she forcibly held back laughter threatening to burst forth, were finally unsealed.
“Oh my, oh my! Look at this kid! Hohoho~ Oh goodness, I don’t know, I just don’t know~!”
*Smack—!!*
Unable to contain her joy, she smacked the doctor’s back and did a joyous tap dance.
“Ahem, hmm! Guardian, please calm down…”
The doctor seemed to be in considerable pain from the red handprint stamped on his back, retreating in an awkward posture. He seemed to have intuitively realized that his HP was woefully insufficient to handle the crazy tension of this area.
“The patient’s condition… since there are no physical external injuries for now, please rest until the detailed examination results come out. Well then, I have rounds to attend to!”
Watching the white coat’s back as he fled the hospital room, I reached out my hand in despair.
[Hey, don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me alone with this unidentified lifeform(?), damn it!]
But cruelly, the door closed firmly, and in the hospital room, only me and the unidentified ‘youthful beauty (self-proclaimed mom)’ remained. As if the tap dance from moments ago had never happened, she instantly switched expressions to ‘elegant Cheongdam-dong madam mode’ and sat properly on the chair.
“Our son… your head must really hurt. You can’t even recognize your own mom.”
The moment she stroked the back of my hand, I instinctively snatched it away. A warm and soft touch. The scent of roses. A luxurious hospital room. And a mom who looked like she was in her twenties. Everything was so perfect that it felt zero percent real instead.
(…Wait. Calm down, Kim Minho.)
I swallowed dryly and organized the situation in my head.
I was hit by a truck. I almost died.
When I opened my eyes, my body was perfectly fine.
A beauty I’d never seen before claims to be my mom.
What is the most rational deduction here?
Option 1. This is a dream.
Option 2. Someone is trying to pull a hidden camera prank on me.
Option 3. This is an otherw… no, another world…
Of these three, the best way to check if it wasn’t a dream first was pain. I pinched my cheek hard enough to hurt, and of course, a curse word burst from my mouth.
“Ow! Fuck! It hurts!!!! Since it hurts, it’s not a dream, right?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Ah… sorry. I wondered if this was a dream…”
“Goodness…”
The stinging pain in my cheek meant this was definitely not a dream. At that moment, the touch of her—no, this lady—no, the woman calling herself my mom on my cheek was incredibly warm.
(It’s not a dream since it hurts, but…)
So, with deduction #1 ‘this is a dream’ definitely deleted, I was now harboring suspicion toward #2 ‘this is a hidden camera.’ However, I soon shook my head left and right.
(Who would pull a hidden camera prank on me unless they were crazy?)
It’s not like I’m famous. Would anyone really set up a hidden camera on me, a dirt spoon among dirt spoons whom not even a passerby would notice? No matter how much I thought about it, that was absurd, so I boldly passed on it, leaving exactly one option.
(Then is this another world? Ugh… where would that be?)
Then was the truck that hit me from behind a reincarnation truck? At such a nonsensical thought, I let out a bitter smile and shook my head.
“Um… noo— ah, no… what should I call you? Anyway… my memories are kind of jumbled right now, so I need to check a few things.”
I spoke in as dry and calm a voice as possible. Whether I was crazy, this woman was crazy, or the world was crazy. I needed a fact check.
“What is your name?”
“They said you might have amnesia, but you really can’t remember… Mom’s name is Shin Hyejeong! Shin, Hye, jeong.”
When she said her name, I couldn’t help but panic.
(Huh? The name matches my mom’s name…)
It was definitely the name of my wretched mother that I remembered, but the problem was, even if people differ, she was too different. The mother in my memories was a woman with a face wrinkled from a life of hardship and fierce eyes. But the woman before me?
Skin taut enough to believe she was in her twenties, a body wrapped in luxury brands, and above all, this infinite affection and devotion directed at me. I set aside the confusion in my head for a moment and decided to check the most important practical matter.
“Um… then what is our home address?”
“Address?”
“Yes. I think I need to know where the house I should return to is.”
At my question, she took out a resident registration card from her handbag and handed it to me.
“Here. It’s your ID. Mom brought it just in case.”
I took the plastic card with trembling hands.
[Resident Registration Card] Name: Kim Minho Resident Registration Number: 980512-1XXXXXX
The name, the first digits of the resident number. They matched my memories exactly. Even the face… but the moment my gaze reached the address stamped on the bottom line, I had to take a breath once more.
[Seoul, Gangnam-gu, X-guX-dong, X Apartment, Building 1XX…]
“……X-guX-dong?”
For a moment, I doubted my eyes. Apgujeong-dong. A symbol of wealth in Korea, a blast furnace of desire.
The address of our house that I remembered was ‘the top of a mountain village in SeongX-gu, a 10-pyeong semi-basement where mold grew on the wallpaper when it rained.’ Of course, that was even before we got evicted. But this resident registration card was telling me that I lived smack in the middle of Korea’s prime real estate.
“Um… Mother?”
“Yes?”
“Is our house… here?”
I pressed hard on the address with my trembling index finger. Please tell me it’s a different place with the same name where a namesake lives.
But she answered all too calmly.
“Of course, where else would it be? We moved there when you started elementary school and have lived there ever since. Why, can’t you remember the house either?”
(Since elementary school… a native of X-guX-dong for over 10 years?!)
The calculator in my head started spinning at a crazy speed. How much is the apartment price in that neighborhood? It would easily exceed 100 million won per pyeong.
The difference between my bank account balance of 30,000 won and that apartment’s market price was roughly more than 100,000 times.
‘This is…’
This wasn’t a setting change on the level of ‘my mom got prettier.’ This was a complete genre change.
From one genre, to another.
(Then if it’s not a hidden camera and not another world either… could it be that I’ve possessed the body of a Kim Minho who lived in a different world?)
If not, this situation couldn’t be explained. With trembling hands, I respectfully, very respectfully, returned the resident registration card to her with both hands. And I equipped myself with the eyes of the most good-natured and filial son in the world.
“Ah, I think my memory is coming back a bit now….”
“Really? You really remember?”
“Yes, vaguely.”
With trembling hands, I respectfully, very respectfully, returned the resident registration card to her with both hands. And I equipped myself with the eyes of the most good-natured and filial son in the world.
“Um… if you don’t mind….”
“Yes? Go ahead.”
“My memory is a bit on and off, so….”
I gulped, swallowed, and asked grimly.
“Perhaps… may I call you… no, may I call you Mother?”