WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 107

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The Past

#Past (6), Psychological Therapy (3)

For the woman who visited the boy, psychological counseling was not just an excuse.

‘I hope this child is not in pain.’

That was the sincere feeling flowing beneath Song Su-a’s mask. She always blamed herself. Was she being too selfish? In the end, trying to confirm Gyeoul’s pain was really about comforting herself. Her concern for the boy came second. It felt like a pitiful excuse.

But she had already started. With each meeting they had, their bond grew. If she stopped now, that too would hurt the boy.

She was not sure what Gyeoul thought of her. People said you could never fully know another person’s heart, and this boy was far from ordinary. Even the actual counselor advising her had trouble reading him.

After reviewing multiple psychological test results that the woman had guided and the boy had completed, the counselor gave this assessment.

“It is clearly unusual.”

Then he shook his head.

“No, please do not be alarmed. Unusual and problematic are different concepts. Statistically speaking, if something falls more than two standard deviations from the social average, it is unusual. It simply means not typical. So in this context, unusual could mean mental illness, trauma that does not outwardly show, or exceptional talent.”

So the woman asked at the time,

“Which one do you think it is, Doctor?”

“That is... honestly, I do not know. In family and sexual domains, it can be analyzed as a suppressed model. But overall, it is very unique. If not for the brainwave analysis, I would not have trusted these results. I would have judged that the child was not showing his true feelings.”

Seeing the shadow on the woman’s face, the specialist added his opinion.

“I know why you are worried, ma’am. Given what he has been through, and with the common belief that wounds from adolescence last a lifetime, your concern makes sense. But that belief is not entirely true. Acquired mental illness is not irreversible damage. Assuming proper counseling and treatment are provided together, there is about 75% recovery resilience. Unless it is an extreme case.”

“I am not sure. How many cases are more extreme than this child’s past? Even if we stay optimistic, does that not still mean 25% of the trauma remains?”

“Oh dear. You have misunderstood. Ma’am, the human mind is not neat four-function arithmetic. And among modern people, those with no mental illness at all are rare. Everyone carries inner wounds, and those wounds accumulate into one axis of personality. It is just that this child, Gyeoul, is so unusual that it is hard to draw conclusions carelessly.”

“So in the end, nothing is certain.”

“I am sorry to disappoint you. Still, if I may add one thing, this child seems to be trying not to get angry at his parents. He appears to have a lot of pent-up emotion. Next time you visit, test the waters a little. Judging by how he responds to counseling, I think that much should be fine.”

The psychological counselor received video recordings of every meeting between the woman and the boy. For her, it was unavoidable if she wanted to keep wearing her mask, but it still weighed on her heart. Whatever the reason, it was not something she could feel proud of in front of the boy. Even if she acted out of goodwill, that did not change. But she had no alternative.

‘Every day feels unbearably anxious.’

And then came today.

After they became familiar enough not to feel awkward around each other, the woman asked the boy to do one simple test each time she came. One at a time. So even now, Gyeoul was filling in incomplete sentences. It was the second time with this same test, so he could have shown annoyance, but he just kept writing without pause.

There were no correct answers. You simply wrote down whatever came to mind, and that itself became the respondent’s mental image. There was only one condition: do not take too long if possible. It was a rule Gyeoul had grown used to.

Scratch, scratch. The sound of the fountain pen was steadying. The movement of the pen matched the boy’s temperament.

The woman felt as though she were listening to music.

「My parents and I 」

The performance hit a difficult point and briefly stopped. It was a short silence, but it felt long. After tapping his lips with the pen while thinking, Gyeoul wrote with no change in expression.

「My parents and I parted ways. 」

Compared to his long, sincere answers on the other items, this one was unusually short. It had been the same last time. In family-related areas, the boy tended to suppress himself.

What meaning was hidden in that suppression?

After getting through a few difficult moments, Gyeoul finished the rest smoothly and handed the completed sheet to the woman. She accepted it and stored it in her personal space. The paper dissolved into light.

Gyeoul spoke.

“Please go ahead.”

“Hm? Uh?”

“You seemed uncomfortable for a while. Is there something you wanted to say?”

The woman scolded herself inwardly. First, she had not hidden it well enough. Second, she had stuttered in surprise. The counselor advising her about the mask had given her several cautions. One of them was to neither panic nor tense up.

Late was still better than never. She quickly regained control and gave the boy an embarrassed smile.

“Sorry. I guess I made you uneasy. Yes, there is something I wanted to ask. I was hesitating because it might hurt your feelings.”

“Well... in cases like this, does not intent matter most? I do not know what it is, but you would not ask with bad intentions, teacher... You can ask. I will not misunderstand. But if it is hard for me to answer, I do not have to answer, right?”

“Of course. Anyway, thank you for saying that. Then, um, this question came up after I looked at your test results...”

She asked carefully. It was a sensitive trigger.

“Gyeoul, did something bad happen with your parents in the past? I mean something so bad that most people would struggle to imagine it.”

“Yes.”

His answer came so quickly that she almost lost her composure again. Thankfully for her, Gyeoul was not finished speaking.

“Was that a difficult question...? I thought you had naturally guessed it. The intent is obvious from the questionnaire items... Ah, that does not mean I wrote any lies. Being honest and understanding intent are on different levels, right?”

Then Gyeoul asked her back.

“Are you curious about what happened?”

“No, no. You do not have to tell me that. It would help if you did... but what I want to know is not what happened in the past. What I wanted to know is why you suppress the emotions that came from it... You know, when old emotions keep piling up, they become an illness of the mind. Just opening up to someone can help a lot.”

I hope you do not become ill. That was how Gyeoul heard it, and he nodded. Then he hesitated. Should he avoid answering?

He let out one sigh and came to a conclusion: no. In truth, it was not that big a deal.

“I am trying not to resent them.”

“Hm?”

“My parents were very bad people. I think they did many wrong things to me. But I am trying not to resent only them. It feels like misdirected anger...”

Misdirected anger? Trying not to resent them? Was this not something he had every right to rage at, curse, and cry over? Confused, the woman waited for his next words.

The silence was brief.

“After coming here, I had a lot of time to think alone.”

The last moment of life that Gyeoul remembered was the white, cold operating room. He could not clearly remember where that scene ended. At some point he fell asleep, and when he woke up, he was already in a world all by himself. Nothing would weigh him down anymore. The sorrowful sense of release he felt then still returned vividly. He cried for a long time in that emptiness where ten million stars shone. He did not need to hold it back. There was no one here whose heart would break at the sight of Gyeoul’s tears.

After that, he did nothing and simply let time pass. No, he drifted with time.

“At first, the more I thought, the more hatred grew. I hated my father, and I hated Mother. I thought I was here because my parents did not love me. But after feeding that hatred over and over... it started to feel wrong, like this was not enough.”

Listening to him, the woman’s pulse quickened. Did that mean the people he hated were not enough? If that swelling hatred had turned in a new direction, who had it turned toward?

But her worry was unnecessary. Gyeoul’s next words were not what she expected.

“Even to me, their child, my father was immature. He lacked responsibility, and he had no self-control. His own emotions mattered so much to him that he rarely showed Empathy toward other people. My mother... was not much better. But were they like that from birth? There is no fixed fate that says, you will grow up to become bad parents, right?”

Still unable to fully grasp his point, she gave a vague agreement.

“That... is true.”

“I think inborn temperament does exist. But people become human by learning, and they mature as they live... So I started to think that this world is what gave me parents like that. If my parents’ parents had loved them a little more deeply, if my parents’ friends had been a little better, if my parents’ teachers had taught them a little better, maybe things would not have turned out this way...”

“So what you meant by not enough was... if you were going to hate, you would have to hate everyone in the world?”

“Yes, exactly. Back then, I thought that way. The real cause was somewhere else, so hating only my parents felt like giving up halfway... Pretty childish, right?”

As he asked that, Gyeoul smiled brightly. The woman struggled to read that smile. Was it real, or fake? With unreadable emotion, Gyeoul continued.

“I hated my parents, so I hated people too, and I hated people so much that I hated the whole world. I wished this world would disappear. I imagined that every day.”

“Gyeoul, then you do not feel that way now?”

“Yes. I realized I should not.”

“Why?”

“Because the people I love also have to live in that world.”

Gyeoul clasped his hands on his knees, looked down, and spoke quietly.

“There are two people I truly want to be happy. If there is one thing I realized again after coming here, it is that people have to live among people in the end. I do not think unhappy people can make others happy. So we should wish for people to become happier. Not keep hating without end.”

The boy added one last line.

“But it is very hard.”

The woman felt deep sorrow.

============================ Afterword ============================

#Q&A

Q. Agrappa: @How will the Harris incident be made public?? If they keep rerunning it across the U.S. like a drama the way they did with Santa Maria, cast members like Guilherme and Jeffrey will become national actors! lol

A. Like the regimental commander said, it has a lot of dramatic elements. It is about time Jeffrey got something too...

Q. GeujipJjukkumi: @When it is finished, around what year and quarter do you think it will be?? In my heart, I wish the serialization would be long enough to stay with me for life.

A. If it goes that long, the work quality will not hold up. No way I have that kind of ability...

Q. LifeSaver: @BingeComplete I paid and finished everything in two days. I actually recommended it to a friend while reading, but my friend refused, saying there is so much childlike innocence that reading it twice would send him to the underworld. I feel bad for a friend who cannot understand childlike innocence. p.s. Amon whispered in starlight that I should all-in my coupons on the author. Therefore I give 27.

A. So much childlike innocence that it sends you to the underworld, is your friend giving away free childlike innocence?... I need it as an author...

Q. Jzelia: This is the most polished novel I have seen on Joara. Also, in many ways, the hype is insane. While reading this I even reread The Little Prince and looked up terms that came up in between. Maybe that is because I only read smut novels on Joara? But how do you receive support and manuscript-fee coupons? Actually, never mind. Just post one bank account in the afterword and I will deposit monthly chicken-money.

A. For support, I will gratefully accept the thought alone. An unfinished novel can always fall out of your taste.

Q. 14C2A58H2: @A paper book... no limited edition? Like a vacuum plasma tube with one picogram each of Tunguska-nim’s childlike innocence and antimatter, or maybe the author’s signed copy that fills you with childlike innocence just by looking at it.

A. I am thinking about doing an event with signed copies.

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