TTS Vol 1 Ch 6.2

The dining room of the mansion, surrounded by beautiful autumn foliage. Usually, the only sounds accompanying breakfast were the clinking of cutlery, but recently, a new noise had been added to the scene.

Tap, tap, tap. 

The unfamiliar sound of Chigyeong repeatedly tapping his phone against the marble dining table. He had brought this habit and its accompanying noise from work to home.

Gong Yunseon, stirring her salmon salad, tilted her head and looked at the eldest son of the family with puzzled eyes.

Lately, not only did he never let go of his phone, but he couldn’t seem to leave it alone, a disconcerting change in his usually composed demeanor.

If Park Sihyun had acted this way, it would have been a trivial farce, ending with a smack on the back of his head and a scolding for being disruptive at the table. But when Park Chigyeong acted like this, it felt like something ominous was about to happen in the Korean peninsula.

Something was definitely off. Was something bad about to happen to South Korea? Could it be a nuclear war? Nothing short of a major disaster could explain her eldest son’s behavior.

“Chigyeong. Mr. Prosecutor. What’s wrong with you these days? You’re scaring Mom. You’re not acting like yourself, really. Is there going to be a war? Are we all going to die?”

“Mom, don’t be so morbid first thing in the morning!” 

“You little…! Morbid? How dare you talk to your mother like that? Everyone dies eventually, you brat! It’s just a matter of when! That’s it. I’m going to start living life to the fullest from today. I can’t go out like this.” 

Gong Yunseon put down her salad fork, her expression serious. As soon as she finished speaking, as if responding to her words, the phone that had been trapped in Chigyeong’s grip and repeatedly hitting the table also stopped moving.

Park Sihyun, stuffing toast into his mouth, looked at his older brother with a questioning look in his eyes.

His brother’s sudden stillness was, how should he put it, decisive, like someone who had come to a conclusion.

“Sir, eel extract is good for hangovers, they say.”

Mrs. Shin offered Chigyeong a pouch of eel extract, knowing he had come home drunk again last night.

He put his phone down completely and obediently took the eel extract and drank it. His adam’s apple, particularly prominent as he swallowed the liquid, seemed unusually sharp today.  After finishing the extract, he placed the empty cup on the table, met Gong Yunseon’s gaze, and said something strange.

“I’m thinking of taking in a guest.”

“Huh? Who?”

Although Chigyeong spoke in the same language as them, both Gong Yunseon and Park Sihyun looked completely bewildered.

“Prepare a room. I’ll be bringing her today.”

“Um… so… what?”

Leaving behind only a concise request without further explanation, he rose from his seat.

Screech- 

The sound of the chair scraping against the floor mirrored Gong Yunseon’s perplexed expression.

“Sir.”

Chigyeong took the briefcase Mrs. Lee handed him and left the dining room. Gong Yunseon followed him to the front door, flustered, “Chigyeong! Chigyeong? So who?! What?!”

“See you later, hyung! Have a good day!”

Park Sihyun, unconcerned about the guest, continued to eat his toast and leisurely sipped the freshly squeezed juice Mrs. Shin gave him.

* * *

“Mom.” 

Taeri spoke as she opened her bedroom door, having fully emerged from the deep mire of the past ten days, but the house was silent.

“Mom?”

She looked around for Seo Jungeun, feeling a pang of disappointment when she didn’t see her mother.

Taeri took a water bottle from the refrigerator and filled a glass on the table, scanning the kitchen.

The untouched kitchen looked as if no one lived there. 

Trickle, trickle, the sound of water filling the glass still echoed in her ears.

After what happened to her father, her mother had become a completely different person. If Taeri had always been her father’s top priority, her mother’s had always been her father. Having lost the center of her world, her mother began to push Taeri away, her father’s top priority, completely out of her mind.

Her mother lived busily. She lived each day as if it were 72 hours long. And in her mother’s time, Taeri seemed to no longer exist. That was why Taeri could work at the gaming hall. Her mother no longer had any interest in Taeri’s life.

At first, she only resented her mother for not paying attention to her, but now she understood her mother better than anyone.

Taking care of others is only possible when one had the capacity in their own life. No matter how much you loved your child, if you were struggling to survive, would anything else matter? They said a mother’s love strengthens in times of crisis, but perhaps that maternal love only surfaced when one was in a sound state of mind.

Her mother was on the verge of being consumed by the terrible monster of depression, and perhaps she was running forward with all her might, looking straight ahead to escape the gloom chasing her from behind, trying not to be devoured by it. Perhaps that was why she was living so desperately.

In the end, wasn’t it also for her family? Wasn’t it for Taeri, the one left behind?

Trickle, trickle, the sound of water continued in her ears until the clear liquid overflowed the glass and dripped onto the floor at her feet.

Finally snapping back to reality, Taeri put down the water bottle.

Wiping the floor with a dry cloth, she called Jungeun. When her mother didn’t answer, she sent a short message.

[Mom. I’m okay now. Just in case you were worried.]

She sent the message and put down her phone. As she continued wiping the floor, a smile escaped her lips. It was a bitter smile, like someone who had eaten unripe fruit.

After wiping the floor, she grabbed her underwear and went into the bathroom.

From today, she has to go back. She needed to go back to her normal life. As if nothing had happened to her. As if nothing had ever existed.

Thinking of it all as a bad dream made her feel much more at ease. Contrary to her resolve, her still-healing wounds throbbed.

“Taeri!”

As soon as Yijoon saw Taeri come out from the gaming hall after ten days, he rushed towards her and embraced her.

Taeri stood still in his arms, breathing steadily. In a gentle embrace, not a ruthless one that disregarded others.

“Haven’t you eaten anything? Why are you thinner?”

“I ate a lot.”

“Your voice sounded weak… I’m glad your complexion is better than I feared.”

“I’m sorry, op…” 

Taeri slowly lifted her head from Yijoon’s embrace, unable to finish her sentence.

“…….”

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

Like a fish struggling to breathe out of water, she simply stared at one spot, her lips opening and closing. Her eyes held the fear of imminent suffocation.

“You should have told me he was your cousin earlier.”

Taeri looked over Yijoon’s shoulder, her face pale, as if she were seeing a terrifying ghost no one else could.

“I was really worried about you, Taeri. Your cousin too.”

Yijoon released Taeri and turned to the other man with a gentle smile.

“Your cousin has been waiting for you.”

Where Yijoon gestured, Park Chigyeong stood. He had been watching Taeri, who had been nestled in Yijoon’s arms, all along, tapping the corner of his phone against a gaming hall machine. 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“…….”

His face was expressionless, his breath held in, but his simmering eyes looked as if they were about to pounce on her and tear her apart.

“Why didn’t you tell me the person you left with that day was your cousin? I wouldn’t have worried if you had…”

Yijoon seemed to say something more beside her, but Taeri could no longer hear him. His kind voice was completely muted by the ringing in her ears, now screaming like a warning siren. 

Beeeeeeep.

“Taeri.”

The man called her name. Hearing her name from him was so unfamiliar that sometimes it didn’t even feel like her own.

“Taeri. Kang Taeri.”

As if he’d read her thoughts, Park Chigyeong approached, calling her name repeatedly in his low voice. As if to make her get used to it.

The closer he got, the louder the ringing in Taeri’s ears became— Beeeeeeep —her body warning her that an obstacle was approaching. That the distance was too close. That she needed to get away. 

But she couldn’t move. Not even a single step. Like a fish caught on a spear, she could only open and close her mouth.

“Come.”

The heavy scent of his cologne invaded her senses without permission, without consideration, and then brushed past her. The ringing in her ears continued. 

Beeeeeeep.