Chapter 5 Part 1

Gihyun was a child who attracted attention from a young age. When young Gihyun ran through the market, the older ladies would often stop to talk to him. They would marvel at how fair-skinned and beautiful he was, sometimes even giving him a gentle pat. As he grew accustomed to the touch and attention of strangers, he became more sensitive.

What made Gihyun even more sensitive was his family situation. Gihyun didn’t have a father. His mother raised him alone.

To young Gihyun’s eyes, his mother was beautiful. She was tall and slender, with long hair and a delicate face. Despite the commonality of these descriptions, people around Gihyun would think of his mother whenever they heard them.

Her appearance was beautiful, but her life was not. Every day, Gihyun’s mother took him out. She would sit him down in local bars while she drank. When she had no money, she bought soju and drank in their small room.

Young Gihyun didn’t understand that his mother suffered from depression and alcohol addiction. He thought it was normal. All he knew was that every time she drank, he would sit beside her and listen to her ramblings.

“I was the first, Gihyun.”

Every time, the story that accompanied her drinking was about his father.

“I was the one who truly loved him.”

Stories Gihyun heard repeatedly started fitting together like pieces of a puzzle.

A woman working part-time at a store near a university met a man. She said the graduate student from a prestigious university looked very impressive. She showed interest in him, and he reciprocated. The young couple quickly became passionate, and soon, Gihyun was conceived.

The woman dreamed of marriage. However, the man was different. He only told her to get rid of the baby. She went to his house and cried, but the man never came out. In the end, he married a woman of his own social status.

The man’s father sent money to the woman. He called it compensation. Despite this, the woman couldn’t bring herself to terminate the pregnancy and ended up becoming a single mother.

Gihyun’s story about his mother was ongoing. She held onto her youthful memories deeply and spent her days drinking. This often led to severe mood swings, with Gihyun being the recipient of her fluctuating emotions.

At times, his mother would strike Gihyun on the head. Then, when the effects of the alcohol wore off, she would cry and hug him. Initially, young Gihyun, not understanding the situation, would try to show affection to his mother, but she would react with a look of horror. Yet, she would later embrace him and cry again. Her inconsistent behavior left Gihyun unable to fully hate or love his mother.

Despite this, as a child, he yearned for his mother’s affection. As he grew a bit older, he would secretly throw away the leftover alcohol and diligently clean the floors in place of his mother. Trying to please adults, he became a model student at school.

He discovered that the times when his mother was happiest were the days he brought home test papers marked with circles. If there were many circles, it meant he resembled his father, who was good at studying. His mother would smile brightly, saying:

“Do well in school, and let’s go to your father.”

Gihyun’s father taught at K University, and his grandfather was a company president. His mother believed everyone would be proud of Gihyun, smiling brightly at the thought.

When walking through the market with his mother, people would praise Gihyun, saying he should become a celebrity because of his good looks. Each time, his mother would disdainfully respond:

“Gihyun will focus on his studies. I won’t let him do things that will just make his face known!”

In response to his mother’s hysterical reactions, Gihyun believed that studying was the only path available to him. From then on, he devoted himself entirely to his studies. Even during times when he could have been socializing with friends, he spent his time reading books. He would mindlessly underline his textbooks with a pencil and pick up discarded notebooks to use for his own notes. Initially, he received praise from his teachers and soon became an object of envy among his friends. He felt good about this. As long as his mother smiled, it seemed that everything would be happy.

***

As soon as Gihyun entered middle school, he grew astonishingly tall. His shoulders broadened, his back widened, and he looked almost like an adult man at a glance. Teachers even predicted that he would grow even taller in high school, given his physique.

Despite going through a significant growth spurt and the turmoil of adolescence, Gihyun never complained. That day, he was carrying his drunken mother on his back as he returned home. His mother muttered excuses from his back.

“…I want to jump out of the window whenever I see one.”

“…”

“I should have died earlier. A ruined life… What’s the point of not being able to die…”

“…Did you take your medication today?”

“…No.”

“Why not? That’s why you’re so depressed.”

Gihyun expressed his irritation, but his mother continued to mumble drunkenly. He sighed into the night air and absentmindedly adjusted his grip on his mother.

A ruined life. In fact, Gihyun wanted to say that to himself. While strangers might have seen him as a refined, privileged young man, at home he felt a heavy chest. The end of his day often involved cleaning up the alcohol his mother had consumed in their threadbare room.

“I’m tired of it too. Stop with the self-pity if you’re not going to die.”

He spoke harshly, thinking she wouldn’t take it seriously, given her drunken state.

***

It was the day Gihyun entered his second year of high school. His mother, who had been drinking soju since the morning, spilled alcohol on Gihyun’s school uniform shirt. Distracted and frustrated, Gihyun yelled at her.

“I told you to stop drinking! Why the hell are you drinking from the morning? Do you want me to go to school smelling like alcohol?”

When Gihyun lost his temper, his mother looked at him with a sorrowful expression.

“Am I such a burden to you?”

“…”

“…Your father felt the same way, and now you do too.”

Gihyun sighed heavily. The meaning was clear—he truly found it tiresome.

“What does that matter?”

“Why wouldn’t it matter…”

“Just stop already. People break up and move on; it doesn’t mean you have to spend over a decade drinking yourself into oblivion and lying around.”

“…”

“I don’t understand why I have to live like this. Dad’s a professor, but because of Mom, I’m stuck like this. Wearing a worn-out school uniform and cleaning up alcohol bottles in a tiny room! Why do I have to live like this? Why? Do I have to spend my life wallowing in misery over the past?”

The vacant look in his mother’s eyes momentarily flickered with light, giving Gihyun the illusion that she was actually listening. Spurred by this, he continued to shout.

“It’s because of you that I’m just an illegitimate child! You must have been abandoned because you were so pathetic! And me too! You should have found a way to live on your own from the start. Why do I have to bear the consequences of your foolishness? I never asked to be born!”

At Gihyun’s words, his mother faintly smiled. It was an enigmatic smile. That smile brought a surge of guilt and anguish. Gihyun fled toward the door, but a voice came from behind him.

“Yeah… if it weren’t for me, our son might have grown up in a better place.”

“…”

“In a good school… wearing new uniforms that fit his size.”

Unable to say what he wanted, Gihyun ran out of the house. As he dashed down the stone steps, he noticed his school uniform pants. They were short and had been that way since his enrollment, ill-fitting since the beginning. The knees were worn, and the length was even shorter now.

It was cold outside, but it felt warmer than home. Gihyun sat down right there, not wanting to do anything. For the first time, he skipped school.

***

The next day, Gihyun left the house wearing his stiffly dried school uniform shirt. When his homeroom teacher asked why he had missed school, Gihyun explained that his mother had been ill, and he hadn’t had the chance to contact them.

Back in class, Gihyun buried himself in his work to make up for his absence. He focused on memorizing and writing notes, diligently catching up with the lessons.

While solving math problems, the classroom door suddenly burst open, and the teacher’s urgent voice cut through the silence.

“Park Gihyun, pack your bag and come quickly.”

Without understanding what was happening, Gihyun packed his bag and followed the teacher outside the classroom, looking at him with confusion. Only then did the teacher speak.

“…Your mother.”

Just that morning, his mother had been lying in bed, and Gihyun had left without even saying goodbye. He felt a chill running down his neck.

“We’ve received notice that she has passed away.”

His mother had died from a fall from the rooftop of their building.

The funeral was simple. Only his school teachers and classmates attended the wake. Gihyun stood as the chief mourner, waiting for a father he had never met. As soon as he regained his composure, he was the first to call the K University office, asking the assistant to inform Professor Park Ju-sung about his mother’s death. However, his father never showed up, and Gihyun had to send his mother off alone, carrying her picture with him.

His once beautiful mother had become nothing more than a handful of ashes. With no money, Gihyun had to place her in the topmost niche of the columbarium, barely reachable.

Returning home, Gihyun immediately sought out water. As he walked toward the refrigerator, his foot brushed against something. Looking down, he saw scattered pills.

It was supposed to be time to fetch her medication. It dawned on him then how severe her depression had been—so bad that she hadn’t even been able to take her pills. Gihyun bent down and picked up the pills one by one, throwing them away. He lingered on the last one, staring at it.

Would taking it bring peace of mind?

In the end, he simply threw it into the sink. He took off his clothes and instead reached for a pencil. Almost on autopilot, he pulled out his workbook and sat in the corner of his room, propped against the wall, and began solving problems.

Snap.

The pencil broke as he was writing. He continued to write with the broken pencil, feeling the unpleasant texture of the wood on the paper. As he tried to write more formulas, his vision suddenly blurred. Tears began to fall onto the paper.

The first relationship he had ever formed was one of love and hatred. He hated her, but he loved her too. He yearned for love but felt anxious. Despite wanting to rid himself of his family, his mother’s death, which came without even a will, felt like a final, crushing judgment that shattered him.

“Because of you, I live like this. Pathetically.”

Why could he only say such things? He had wanted to tell her he would give her a good life someday.

He threw the pencil away and cried out. He could learn academics at school, but love was something he could never learn anywhere else.

He had no chance of truly loving anyone.

After losing his mother, Gihyun grew significantly taller. At his last physical check-up, his height was measured at 181 cm. At the same time, his back had straightened, and his arms had become solid. Occasionally, people around him showed him kindness, noticing the shadow on his face. But Gihyun looked down on them.

Most people were captivated by the kindness and neat appearance Gihyun showed when he was in a good mood. A few who wanted to understand him more deeply could only get so far. Gihyun’s tendency to push people away with his occasional sensitivity caused others to distance themselves.

Gihyun was indifferent to this. He focused solely on his studies, sitting and working through problem sets. What others found to be a tedious exam preparation period passed quickly for him. As his grades came out, the time to apply to universities was approaching.

“With these grades, you should try applying to S University.”

“I’m planning to apply to K University.”