11. I'm Coming to See You Now (2)
Curled up and stifling my sobs, I froze just like that.
It felt like someone had splashed a bowl of cold water over me.
Would it feel similar to an incredibly beautiful woman showing up at a blind date, only to let one rip as she takes her seat?
Bewilderment.
Embarrassment.
Complex emotions like those.
*Slap-!*
"Ah~ Oppaya! I asked you to bring me something to eat!"
As I stayed frozen, face down, my mother whacked my back a second time.
"You little brat! How dare you raise a hand against your oppa!"
"Eommui. Oppa ran away saying he'd buy something tasty. It's Oppa's fault!"
My burst of tears vanished in an instant.
I raised my head and looked back.
Bobbed hair.
Tears and snot streamed down her face, perhaps because she hadn't washed properly.
Even so, her inherently gentle eyes and neatly proportioned features made her look incredibly adorable.
Cuter than I thought. Prettier than I thought...
The image of my mother was perfectly melted into that little child's face.
She really was my mother.
"Hmph... I'm hungry. Waaah..."
And then, she plopped down on the spot and started kicking her legs wildly.
Demanding food.
Complaining of hunger.
I quietly held her in my arms.
It's nice to meet you.
How do you do?
My twelve-year-old mother...!
*
"Ouch, ouch~ It's hot. Everyone be careful."
Min-su hastily pulled his hand away after opening the cauldron lid and grabbed his ear.
"You punk. No one else here is dumb enough to touch the cauldron with their bare hands already. Who are you telling to be careful? Haha."
When I scolded him, everyone burst into laughter.
I felt so good that even I wondered if I could ever experience such joy.
Min-su's family, our family, and even Choi Hui—there were just under twenty of us, a large group.
There wasn't enough space inside the house for all of us to eat together, so we spread a straw mat in the yard of the thatched-roof house and sat down.
The sun had faded, making it dim, but with lights spread out here and there, it was serene and rather atmospheric.
"Hey. Stop it!"
"Hey, stop it~."
"I told you not to copy me!"
"I told you not to copy me!"
The twins among Min-su's younger siblings were playing around and ended up fighting.
We watched them and giggled.
The late Min-su's father was ten years older than Min-su's mother.
So whenever Min-su's mother was angry, she called him an old fogey, but in truth, they were the most affectionate couple in the village.
That Min-su's father was said to have died after taking two bullets.
Min-su's mother, clutching her husband, would always yell 'Double!' at that old fogey, but when he died, she wailed 'Double!' so loudly it shook the entire neighborhood.
Below Min-su, there were four twins.
That was the reason Min-su had eight younger siblings.
Since this was a time when the aftermath of the currency reform still lingered, proper trade was impossible, so before coming down, I had packed my hands full with nothing but heavy meat.
I didn't know Min-su's family of ten would join us, but since I had packed as much as I could carry from the start, there was enough to set out a lavish feast with Min-su's family and still have leftovers.
"This makes up for the beating I gave you. Let's eat this and have a drink like you said. My friend."
At his glib words, I just gave a faint smile.
Min-su's mother and our mother busily set the table, and the little kids, perhaps impatient from waiting, rolled up their sleeves and helped the two mothers.
"Your wieners are gonna fall off."
"You too, punk, help out."
"Ah, why! Hyeong-nim. Men shouldn't do stuff like that. You moron?"
Jun-ho, now a middle schooler, talked back, but Su-ho flicked him on the forehead and dragged him by the arm.
"Haven't you been beaten by your eldest hyung lately, huh?"
At that, Jun-ho, in the rebellious storm-and-stress period of his life, lost his spirit of defiance and silently started following Su-ho to carry the side dishes.
In the past, I had used my two younger brothers as errand boys or subordinates, and when they rebelled, I beat them without mercy.
Of course, I didn't hit them as hard as I would hit others, but the ones who got hit remembered it with their entire bodies.
There wouldn't be such a thing to my beloved family in the future, but it was a bit convenient.
One clearing of the throat, and they moved swiftly on their own.
Surprisingly, accepting Jun-ho, Su-ho, my father, and my mother as my real parents and siblings was natural and easy.
Oddly enough, Lee Dong-ho's original memories left in my body seemed to retort, asking me if it wasn't the most natural thing in the world.
However, one person.
That one person was thought of as a younger sister in my heart, but at the same time, she still existed as my mother.
Finally, five chickens were thoroughly boiled and served steaming hot in each person's bowl.
The pork was boiled as suyuk, appropriately divided and placed on each table.
Father, I, and Min-su sat at one table.
Our mother (who was originally my maternal grandmother), Min-su's mother, my younger sister who was my real mother in my past life, four of Min-su's younger sisters, and Choi Hui sat at one table, while the rest of the younger brothers sat together.
"Eommui!"
"What? Why are you yelling while eating?"
"Why do my oppayas' bowls have a whole chicken, but mine only smells of chicken!"
When my younger sister whined, I turned around and looked at her baeksuk bowl.
It was funny, really.
Father, I, and Min-su each had a whole chicken in our bowls, and looking at the table where the other younger brothers sat, the remaining two chickens were divided, and the meat was distributed by age.
Naturally, the table where the women sat was filled only with the aroma of baeksuk that had been dipped in and taken out. Only Choi Hui had a little meat as a gesture of hospitality for a guest.
The pork suyuk was the same.
On the women's table, there was merely a sliver of pork suyuk.
Despite bringing as much meat as possible, enough for everyone to eat sufficiently...
Women of this era were accustomed to sacrifice and concession.
Perhaps it was because they were indoctrinated by flawed Confucian culture, growing up thinking it was only natural.
Before even arguing what is right or wrong, a wave of pity surged within me for my mother, older sisters, and younger sisters who always yielded.
If women past their twenties couldn't even taste a chicken leg, what would they think in the future Chicken Republic?
"Gyeong-sook. Let's swap and eat mine."
"Really?!"
I stopped my mother from scolding my younger sister Gyeong-sook and swapped the baeksuk bowls myself.
"Ahem... You little brat..."
Seeing me do that, Father swapped his baeksuk bowl with Mother's, and Min-su with his mother's.
"There's plenty of pork here, so don't worry and just eat."
At Father's intervention, the whole family picked up their spoons.
"Oh my. Eommui! The chicken leg is really delicious! It melts in my mouth. To think only Father and Oppaya got to eat such good stuff!"
My younger sister devoured the meat she hadn't had in months, humming continuously as if in a good mood.
Seeing that, a faint smile appeared on Choi Hui's face, who had been expressionless and silent.
Looking at my younger sister and Choi Hui like that, my head started to ache again.
Oddly enough, even though my family seemed to pay a lot of attention to Choi Hui, aside from the initial greetings, they hadn't said a single proper word to her yet.
Even my father and mother just watched Choi Hui helping with the chores as if observing her, only offering faint smiles or occasionally nodding their heads, seemingly having no intention of initiating conversation.
If they just asked her directly, I could give a clear answer that she was a company employee, but since they didn't ask and only kept dragging it out, my insides felt stifled instead.
Was it like being the only one staring at a powder keg bound to explode someday?
-Grin.
Amidst all that, Su-ho, who made eye contact with me, raised one corner of his mouth and nodded as if he knew everything.
'Sigh... Whatever. Let's eat. If they're really curious, they'll ask.'
Resigning myself, I looked back at my mother—no, my younger sister Gyeong-sook.
"Let's eat a lot. From now on, Oppaya will buy you lots of meat. Eat as much as you want."
And then I silently buried my face in the baeksuk bowl and ate.
At first, I was bewildered by my younger sister's whining and tantrums, but that made my heart ache even more.
Twelve-year-old Lee Gyeong-sook was so bright and pure, expressing what she wanted without reservation and acting childishly.
The Lee Gyeong-sook I knew as my mother spent her entire life silently licking empty bowls.
I believed the words that my mother preferred vegetables over meat even until I was fully grown.
How much would twelve-year-old Lee Gyeong-sook, as she grew up and faced the harsh storms of the world, have suppressed herself, beating her chest in secret to comfort herself...
My heart ached at the boundless disparity between twelve-year-old Lee Gyeong-sook and Lee Gyeong-sook as my mother.
How much she must have killed her true self to live her entire life was something I couldn't even begin to imagine.
-Mom doesn't like meat. The lettuce is delicious.
Suddenly, a day from the past came to mind, and I couldn't lift my head from the meatless baeksuk bowl.
*
*Chirp—Chiririr—*
The sound of insects chirping tickled my ears.
The moonlight faintly illuminated the outside, but it wasn't bright.
Rather, I considered it a relief that this moderate darkness hid my troubled inner thoughts.
The weather, although it was night, was cool and perfectly fine—neither too cold nor too hot.
-Creak
"Oppaya. You won't suddenly leave now, right?"
Unable to easily fall asleep, I was sitting on the straw mat in Min-su's yard when my mother... no, my younger sister Gyeong-sook followed me out.
"I'm not going anywhere. Where would I go leaving our Gyeong-sook behind."
When I smiled softly at Gyeong-sook, who was both my mother and my younger sister, she lay down using my lap as a pillow.
And then, looking up at me, she spoke.
Large and dark.
Her eyes, reflected in the moonlight.
The moment I saw those eyes, in my heart, she wasn't a younger sister, but still my mother.
"I'm not a fool, you know. I know Oppaya ran away because it's hard being with us. I won't make it hard for you. So please don't go anywhere, okay?"
"No. I really won't go."
"Really? You promised, right?"
"Yeah. I promised. And being with you guys isn't hard at all. I feel so good I could die."
*Chiririr—*
The insects chirped once again.
At this very moment, Mother and I.
It felt as if only the two of us existed in the world.
The sound of the insects chirping sounded like a spell that made it possible.
"I think Oppaya is the coolest in the world."
My mother spoke to me once again.
"What's so cool about me?"
"Oppa is always cool. You're handsome, and you treat me the best."
"......"
"But, Oppaya."
"What?"
"Then, are you going to be a gangster, Oppaya?"
It was a question she asked because the original Lee Dong-ho had lived such a ruffian's life.
"What do you want me to do? I'll do whatever my little sister tells me to."
I said 'Oppa' and asked my mother.
Because this was the primary reason for my reincarnation in the first place.
Neither some grand purpose,
Nor any ambition.
Nor even a desire to achieve immense success because reality was hard.
I.
Simply wanted to make her happy.
That was the reason I was reborn.
"I want Oppa to do what he wants to do."
"Huh?"
"Do what you want to do, Oppa. If you want to be a gangster, be a gangster. If you want to be the president, be the president. You can do anything, Oppa. I know it."
She...
My twelve-year-old mother...
Still spoke of my happiness.