Chapter 18

On rainy days, her leg always gave her trouble.

Soyoon fell asleep last night while waiting for his call. If he really had been busy, then that was why the call had come at two in the morning.

And yet, even that busy, he had still insisted on taking her home.

Soyoon pouted. Anyway, she did not like it. He always got on her mind so easily and made her worry.

She had fallen asleep, then woke because of the pain in her leg. When she checked the time, it was six-thirty in the morning. From below her knee down to her ankle, it throbbed, and she slowly rotated her foot around and around to loosen it. Even so, when the pain did not improve, she had no choice but to take out the painkillers she had kept in the desk drawer and head to the kitchen. She poured water into a cup and swallowed the medicine.

She should have just taken the medicine from the start instead of enduring it. She always ended up taking it only after putting up with it for too long. It was because she kept thinking, for no good reason, that medicine would not be good for her body. Finishing that pointless train of thought, she turned her head and saw that it was raining heavily outside the window.

So heavily that she could hardly see ahead.

When had it started? Had he gotten home safely?

Even when she told herself not to think about him, she kept doing it anyway. Like an automatic vending machine, all it took was pressing a button and thoughts of him came out on their own. Of course, she was the one pressing the button too.

She touched her phone and opened the call log. There was a missed call from him.

Unlike his usual persistence, there was only a single missed call, and her heart turned cold.

Why did something like this make her feel hurt?

With a smile that looked as though it might crumble at any moment, Soyoon weakly set down the phone she had not let out of her hand for even a moment on the coffee table.

The house was so quiet it felt suffocating. On rainy days, everything was more silent, as though every sound had been swallowed by the rain. As expected, she really hated rain.

Was mother still not awake?

Normally, the kitchen should have been full of the smell of food by now, but strangely, it was far too quiet. If only the surroundings were noisy, then maybe she would not think such pointless thoughts.

Well, maybe she must be very tired.

She was just thinking that, although it was a little early, she might as well start getting ready for work.

“Unnie!”

All at once, the bedroom door flew open, and Hayoon came running out of the room shouting. Soyoon hurried toward Hayoon, who was standing there in her school uniform, pale as death.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“M-mom…… Mom is….”

Unable to finish speaking, Hayoon only trembled violently, and Soyoon took hold of her hand. The trembling passed into her through Hayoon’s fingertips. Because of that trembling, Soyoon’s own shoulders shook without her realizing it.

“What about Mom? Hayoon, calm down and tell me slowly.”

“Unnie…… Mom is at the police station right now.”

“What?”

Her head buzzed as if she had been struck from behind. Why would her mother, who should have been asleep at home, be at the police station at this hour? Nothing about it made sense.

“Why? Why is she at the police station!”

“I don’t really know either…… She told me not to tell you, but even so…… I thought I had to.”

“Which police station?”

The moment Hayoon told her which police station it was, Soyoon changed her clothes.

“You go to school. I’ll go see what’s going on, so don’t worry too much. Okay?”

“Okay.”

After calming the tearful Hayoon several times, she left the house. That short time riding down in the elevator felt like forever. As she tightly tied her disheveled hair back, her hands trembled.

What kind of trouble had her mother caused to end up at the police station? On the way there by taxi, Soyoon kept fidgeting with her hands in frustration.

As time passed, Soyoon only grew angrier. After causing all that trouble because of shopping, now it had gone as far as the police station.

She felt like throwing herself into the rain that was pouring down so hard she could barely see. Just when she had thought things might be getting better, dark clouds had gathered again. Because of her childish mother, she did not know how much longer she would have to keep cleaning up after her.

Other mothers, they said, raised their children showering them with endless love, cherishing them like gold and jade, worrying they might get hurt or fall ill. Thinking about it, not even once had her mother given her—no, given her daughters—anything called love. It had always been her mother first.

I’m sick, I’m tired—those words were always on her lips.

Soyoon had been clenching her jaw so hard that it actually hurt. She was that angry. This time, she swore she would not just let it pass. All this time, how much had she given up and how hard had she struggled in place of her sick mother?

Now she herself was far too exhausted. It felt as though she were living while cradling a bomb.

When Soyoon arrived at the police station, she asked the desk employee where Detective Team 2 was and headed there. The hand gripping the door still had not calmed down and was trembling. The moment it touched the cold doorknob, goosebumps rose on her skin.

The moment she opened the door, she saw her mother sitting on a chair far off in the distance with her head bowed. Her face was not clearly visible because she was hanging her head, but there was no way Soyoon could fail to recognize her mother.

“Mom!”

At the way her mother’s shoulders flinched and her head lowered even further, Soyoon grew so angry she felt like she might cry. The sight of her mother sitting there hunched like a criminal felt unbearably cruel.

So.

“Mom, what on earth is wrong with you? Are you trying to watch someone die?”

“……”

“You’ve gone so far that now you end up at the police station? Why are you doing this to me? Huh? Say something. Why do you keep making life so hard for people?”

“Soyoon……”

As Soyoon looked at her mother lifting her head to call her name, she bit her lip hard. Her right eye was bruised, and when she looked closely, there were injuries here and there on her neck too.

“Are you a child? Going around getting into fights? Aren’t you ashamed for Hayoon and me to see this?”

She was fuming as she looked at her mother lowering her head without a word.

Then—

“Are you Ms. Choi Hyemi’s guardian?”

“Yes.”

“Please take a look at this for a moment.”

One of the detectives, sitting at a desk, called her over with a gesture of his hand. When Soyoon stepped closer, the detective turned the laptop so that she could see it.

“We checked the CCTV from the apartment fitness center, and Ms. Choi Hyemi is the victim.”

“…What?”

Soyoon’s heart dropped.

She had naturally assumed her mother must have caused trouble.

Soyoon’s face turned deathly white as she checked the CCTV. Come to think of it, not long ago her mother had said she was going to use the fitness center.

On the screen, her mother was clearly shown being hit. While she was exchanging words with some woman, that woman struck her across the face and grabbed her by the hair.

When Soyoon turned to look at her mother, tears sprang to her eyes. What had I just said to her?

She saw a woman sitting boldly beside her mother with her legs crossed.

“W-why did you do that?”

“This beggar-like woman was lowering the tone of the apartment. Are you her daughter? Keep a better eye on your mother.”

“……”

“She comes to the fitness center without even a proper pair of running shoes, and what was that she was wearing for workout clothes? So I said one little thing, and look at her pride! I called a lawyer, so talk to the lawyer.”

She wanted to demand whether that was really enough reason to slap and grab by the hair a complete stranger she had never even met before. But before she could even argue, her mother stood and grabbed her arm.

Unable to bring herself to face her mother’s wounded expression, Soyoon lowered her eyes.

She was the one who had angrily made her mother return the sneakers she had bought with the card Cha Do-ha had given them. If she had not returned the sneakers, would her mother have been spared this humiliation?

She bit her lip so hard it nearly bled.

“Soyoon…… I want to go home. I don’t want to stay here.”

She gripped tightly the hand with which her mother was holding and shaking her arm like a child.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Both her mother and she herself were utterly worn out. Not even when they had been chased by debt collectors and gotten into a traffic accident, nor when she had gone straight back to work with a body that had not yet healed, had it felt this hard.

What tormented her so much was the fact that she had hurt her mother.

On the way out of the police station with her mother after she had finished giving her statement, thankfully, the rain had stopped. Her mother walked ahead. Seeing the back of her mother, looking so unbearably sad, Soyoon’s chin trembled.

“Mom……”

“I’m fine. So don’t let your shoulders slump either.”

“I’m sorry……”

“I said I’m fine. Come on, straighten your shoulders.”

Instead of answering, she nodded. Until they arrived in front of the house by taxi, neither of them said a single word.

“Mom, go in first.”

“What about you? You have to go to work.”

“I’ll take care of it myself. Go in and rest.”

She could not look straight into her mother’s eyes as she forced a smile for her. She remained standing right there until her mother was completely out of sight.

The rain, which had paused for a while, began falling again, but Soyoon could not take a single step. She shed more tears than the rain itself. With her head lowered deeply, she let out the tears she had held back so hard in front of her mother.