WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Malfoid
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◈ The Dynamics of Pure Love and Overprotection ◈
Chapter 22
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When a horrific tragedy struck Dogyeom's home, Chaewon clung tightly to Kang Uihyeon’s side. Her older brother, who should have been someone she could rely on, had gone blank as if he had given up on everything. In her own way, she had found the safest place.
Uihyeon became her shelter. It was not as though he had done his very best. Feeding Chaewon, who had lost the parents she loved and clung to him as if he were her entire world, or offering her his shoulder was easy enough. Everyone had a little shallow sympathy in them. He believed he was only being generous to a pitiful girl. Any ordinary person would do the same.
Things changed after Chaewon returned home from the funeral.
While Dogyeom smoked, he and Uihyeon were discussing what Dogyeom would do about school from then on when Chaewon called. Not her biological older brother, but him, her brother’s friend.
“Oppa, Mom is at our house.”
His mind went blank at the utterly impossible sentence. As he stood there, only moving his lips because he did not know how to react, Chaewon’s crying broke through his daze. It sounded like the grief she had finally let out a few hours before the funeral procession, after holding it in the whole time.
Uihyeon hurriedly snatched the cigarette from Dogyeom’s hand. When his friend asked what was wrong, he only kept repeating that he needed to go upstairs and check. As they got into the elevator together, a strange, unfamiliar anxiety swept over him.
Chaewon was trembling in the hallway. Unable to go inside or run away, she was crouched against the front door. When she heard their hurried footsteps, she looked up. Her face was already damp with tears.
“Ah, fuck. What’s going on?”
Dogyeom asked, but Chaewon did not answer. She only looked up at Uihyeon. The moment he met her stubborn gaze, he knew she was not lying. Still, she had barely slept properly for three days. She could have been seeing things.
“Let’s go in together.”
Uihyeon took Chaewon by the elbow and helped her up. He could feel her trembling through the hand clutching his sleeve. So he gripped her hand tightly instead. Otherwise, it felt like the poor girl would stagger and collapse.
The house was silent. Perhaps Chaewon had tried to air it out after coming home earlier, because the living room window was only half-open. The sunny house had grown so warm that it felt stuffy.
And Chaewon stared fixedly at the middle of the sofa. Uihyeon could only see an empty sofa, but Chaewon must have been seeing her dead mother.
“Is she there?”
Uihyeon chose his words carefully. Chaewon slowly nodded.
“What? What are you talking about?”
Dogyeom snapped impatiently. His friend and sister were having a serious conversation while staring into empty space. It seemed instinctive fear had taken hold of him.
“She says your mother is over there.”
Uihyeon gestured toward the middle of the sofa.
“Can you see her too?”
“...What?”
Dogyeom’s face turned pale in an instant. His eyes darted between the sofa and his sister. His upper lip trembled before settling again, and his chest rose and fell sharply beneath his rumpled shirt.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Then Uihyeon caught the flash of disappointment and despair in Chaewon’s eyes. Her dead mother had appeared before her, yet the one remaining member of her family would not believe her.
“Don’t bullshit me, Yu Chaewon. You think I don’t know you’re doing this for attention? You’re in high school, for fuck’s sake. Do you enjoy using our parents like this? That’s unforgivable!”
Dogyeom raged as if he had been insulted. He did not seem to notice his sister shaking all over as he yanked at his tie and breathed heavily.
“Why would Mom be here? You think you’re the only one having a hard time? I’m having a hard time too! I’m upset, I’m sad, and my head hurts like hell! We’re already fucked enough without you starting shit too! What else are you trying to pile on us?”
It was not that Uihyeon could not understand Dogyeom’s reaction. Their parents had died on their way to pick him up. He must have been going mad because he could not forgive himself for being alive and unharmed. He probably wanted to turn away from everything and run. He could not even accept reality. How could he have room in his mind for his younger sister? That was why Uihyeon had stepped in to take care of Chaewon.
Dogyeom shuddered and ran out of the house. Uihyeon did not follow his friend. He stayed by Chaewon’s side instead. Pulling her into his arms as tears silently rolled down her face, he patted her shoulder. Her muffled sobs warmed his chest.
...There was a ghost over there.
As Uihyeon stared at the sofa Chaewon had pointed to, he thought about what to do next. He would ask his parents to find a reputable shaman. If they soothed her mother’s spirit and sent it on properly, everything would be fine. Chaewon would feel better too. It would be good to get a few talismans as well. Maybe red beans or garlic would work too.
At the time, he thought it was only a passing incident. If Chaewon ate well and rested, she would get better. If a shamanic rite brought her comfort and enough time passed, the siblings’ relationship would recover too.
But Chaewon only grew more strained. The girl who had once smiled so easily became rough as sandpaper and stopped spending time with her friends. After school and academy classes, she spent her days sitting in the cafe in front of her home until late at night.
It would have been nice if Dogyeom could at least be someone she could rely on, but Uihyeon’s friend had even quit school and drifted between the cramped studio apartments of young women. He never once checked whether his sister was eating properly.
It showed when a young girl had no guardian to look after her. Perhaps the cafe workers and customers noticed Chaewon’s fragile state, because more and more of them asked for her phone number. Without caring that she was in a school uniform, they tried to slip into the cracks left by her misfortune.
“Do you want to move?”
Uihyeon asked as he forced Chaewon to eat the side dishes he had brought from home. Nothing got better on its own. Things found it much easier to head toward disaster than improvement.
“If I move...”
Chaewon glanced toward the living room.
“What if someone else moves in, but Mom keeps sitting there?”
Her thin wrist looked as though even using chopsticks was difficult.
“I don’t want to run away and leave Mom behind. I just want her to disappear on her own, without any lingering attachments.”
He had thought she stayed outside because she was scared, but Chaewon had already reached her own conclusion. She would bear the burden of her mother herself. He could not decide whether that was admirable or reckless.
Living with her dead mother. He had watched from the beginning, right beside her, but it was still difficult for Uihyeon to imagine how frightening and exhausting it must have been. What bothered him most was that this hallucination made Chaewon come home late every day, wandering around unpredictably and drawing men’s attention.
What if she got taken in by some shameless bastard and dumped the rest of her life into a shithole?
At the thought, Uihyeon slowly clenched his fist beneath the table. Pitch-black rage briefly swept through his mind like yellow dust, then settled.
“Should I stay with you?”
As he said it, Uihyeon realized he could no longer think of Chaewon as nothing more than a cute puppy at his friend’s house. Petting her because she was pretty and giving her a few snacks was not enough. A life that needed to be washed, dressed, walked, and cared for had suddenly fallen into his hands.
A heavy sense of responsibility settled inside him. It was presumptuous for someone who was not even her real older brother, yet the weight on his shoulders felt strangely welcome. He had no official title and no one would acknowledge it, but when he thought about caring for her with his own hands, some desire inside him felt fulfilled. As though he had been waiting for this weight to be placed on him for a long time.
“I’ll come here after school. We can study together, and once you fall asleep, I’ll go home.”
A faint light slowly entered Chaewon’s gloomy face.
“So when your academy class ends, don’t go to the cafe. Come straight home. Got it?”
Before he had even finished speaking, Chaewon was already nodding eagerly.
“Yeah, I’ll listen to you, oppa. I’ll study hard and come straight home. I won’t go anywhere else.”
Something in Uihyeon’s chest swelled tightly at her obedient answer. He had often thought Chaewon was cute when she followed him around, but this was the first time he felt something deep inside him being satisfied.
“Oppa, then will you come every day starting tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll clean up and wait for you. I won’t go to the cafe anymore.”
There was satisfaction in having someone say they would only listen to him and move as he wanted. Uihyeon knew this feeling was something he had to hide from others too. He was fortunate that he could tell the difference between what was ordinary and what was not.
And Chaewon truly listened to Uihyeon.
She began eating every meal instead of skipping them whenever she pleased, and she woke crying less often. Her resentment toward Dogyeom grew by the day, but she showed everything plainly to Uihyeon, who did not share a single drop of blood with her. She did not hide her phone password or the diary where she wrote down curses. During dinner, she freely told him about a boy from the same academy who kept messaging her.
“Want me to have a word with him?”
“Yeah, do it. He’s annoying me to death.”
At a glance, it looked as though Uihyeon was generously giving her his time. But beneath the surface, Chaewon was accommodating him completely. She did not do what Uihyeon told her not to do, and she did what he told her to do, even when she had to force herself. The food she ate, the academy she attended, the way she studied, and even when she slept were all decided with Uihyeon’s permission.
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