Chapter 12: The Sweet Scent of Fear

The answer that came back felt a little deflating. My face flushed with embarrassment and mortification.

“Just how desperately were you crying, Yoon In-tae?”

“Oppa, seriously! Our mom is sick, isn’t it natural? Why do you keep picking on In-tae? You’re not even trying to start a fight. Ban-ri said he was the one who helped first earlier.”

As soon as Jo Gi-tae spoke mockingly, Ye-eun retorted as if she had been holding back for a long time.

“No, when did I ever pick a fight…? That’s just how I’m speaking. I can’t say anything, can I?”

“I think, Oppa, you’ve been quite drunk for a while now. Our Gi-tae Oppa wasn’t usually like this, it’s strange… How about you just go to sleep?”

Several of Ye-eun’s close friends quietly agreed. It now seemed that Ye-eun was the only one among their peers who could truly get the better of Jo Gi-tae.

Jo Gi-tae, whom everyone expected to explode in anger, merely grumbled, declared he was going to sleep, and then said nothing more.

One by one, the male friends close to him also began to slump over, fast asleep.

The situation was over. As his mind eased, the tension slowly drained, and he became aware of the abdominal pain he had forgotten.

In-tae rubbed his aching stomach and closed his eyes. ‘Is Jung Ban-ri going to sleep now too? Then I should get up.’

However, Jung Ban-ri didn’t stir. The hand patting his back remained, steadfast. In-tae’s eyelids grew progressively heavier.

“If I were In-tae, you see…”

Ye-eun continued the conversation that had momentarily paused.

“Oh, if you were In-tae, what do you think it would have been like?”

Jung Ban-ri picked up the thread of the conversation, performing a perfect act of genuine curiosity.

“I think it would have felt like meeting a real prince on a white horse.”

In-tae let out a small chuckle, thinking to himself.

‘Wrong. It felt more like a princess than a prince.’

“When he asked, ‘Little one, why are you crying?'”

‘Wrong again. Back then, Jung Ban-ri didn’t ask, ‘Why are you crying?’ The monster…’

[What do you need?]

That’s what he said.

***

‘What do you need that makes you cry?’

Jung Ban-ri’s words were correct. It was the young Ban-ri who had spoken first.

However, the ‘words’ he uttered were intuitively strange even to young In-tae, whose communication skills were still immature.

‘Crying because you need something?’

Perhaps ‘bizarre’ was a more fitting description. To speak of crying as some kind of… means.

‘Was he mocking me? Or playing a trick?’ In-tae had wondered, but the tone was far too calm to suggest either.

At the time, In-tae was crying, his face buried in the old cloth he clutched. Wiping away the ceaseless tears, he looked up to find a child, beautiful as a doll, staring back at him.

Forgetting his intention to ask the strange child why he had said such a thing, In-tae opened his mouth.

“My mom is sick.”

The little one tilted his head.

“And?”

“Uh, but, the doctor said he can’t treat her.”

“Tell him to?”

“No, the doctor said he wants to, but he can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because he can’t, I guess…”

“Is that doctor lying too?”

‘Lying? Is he just a pretty fool?’ In-tae seemed to have thought something like that.

The conversation was entirely different from what he expected. Words that should have volleyed back and forth like a game of ping-pong instead shot off in strange directions.

After arriving at this hospital by ambulance, three or four other people, besides the doll-like child before him, had asked In-tae for his story.

When he said his mom was sick, everyone understood. And when he answered that she couldn’t be treated, some would click their tongues and even weep with him.

“…No.”

In-tae decided to simply stop talking. The conversation, which he expected to end, continued roughly.

“Then why on earth are you crying?”

He retorted, as if exasperated. No, he must have *acted* exasperated.

Though In-tae now knew Jung Ban-ri harbored no such feelings, at the time, he truly believed the boy was frustrated, given the slight crease in his beautiful face.

“Because…”

The moment In-tae opened his mouth at Jung Ban-ri’s prompting, his entire face grew hot. The heat surged into his eyes, blurring his vision.

Jung Ban-ri’s barrage of peculiar questions was chiseling his vast, vague sorrow into a distinct, tangible form.

‘Mom is sick. She can’t be treated, so she will die.’ However, his tears weren’t simply ‘because he was sad’ about the impending tragedy his only family member would face.

In truth, for a young child, illness, pain, and death were ambiguous concepts. They were things he understood intellectually but couldn’t truly grasp, never having experienced them.

So, rather than sadness…

“If Mom disappears from this world, I will…”

“You will?”

“I’ll be all alone.”

The terror of being left alone, now looming right before him, was far more vivid and intense.

Loneliness was an emotion he had often experienced since his earliest childhood, yet one he could never truly grow accustomed to. At that moment, it surged over him in an unprecedented, colossal wave.

“What’s wrong with being alone?”

“…I’m scared.”

Uttering his rawest, most honest emotion, In-tae abruptly embraced the beautiful fool before him.

He unleashed the sobs that had welled up from deep within his chest. It was a wail entirely for himself, casting aside even his worries for his mother.

“I’m so scared.”

‘If I had cried into Jung Ban-ri’s chest, would he have seemed like a prince?’ But at that time, Jung Ban-ri was smaller than him, making it more like In-tae had enveloped the boy in his arms.

From the nape of his neck, where In-tae’s nose touched, an unbelievably sweet scent emanated.

It was subtle yet potent enough to completely erase the sterile, cold smell characteristic of the hospital. In-tae buried his face deeper into that soft skin.

***

That day should have been a sweet one. It was late summer, when the scorching heat had begun to wane.

It was the day his mother, who used to sell silkworm pupae near the park, began selling cotton candy inside the park.

While selling pupae, she had never allowed In-tae to even approach, but on that day, she gripped his hand tightly and stepped inside the park.

It was a place where, ordinarily, due to the expensive entrance fee, they were cautious even to go near, let alone enter.

The park’s name was Mawon Park. It was a symbol of Mawon City, the city where In-tae lived.

Inside the park, it felt like another world. Lush green grasses stretched everywhere, and herbivores roamed across them.

From small creatures like rabbits to the handsome horses that symbolized Mawon City, they were all there.

His mother would give In-tae a small cotton candy whenever children passed by. Seeing this, the other children would pester their parents to buy them cotton candy.

It was a truly clever and effective way to attract customers. However, at that moment, In-tae simply loved eating cotton candy, for any reason at all.

“In-tae.”

At some point during that time, which felt like playing among the clouds, his mother called In-tae. He lifted his head, and there she was, against the backdrop of the clear, open sky.

Beneath that refreshing expanse of blue, his mother’s face was flushed crimson, drenched in sweat.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen her like this. Even when selling pupae, his mother’s face would often be flushed with heat.

In-tae had asked first.

“Want more cotton candy?”

A large car had been circling nearby for a while. The subtly gleaming black vehicle was the most magnificent he had ever seen.

In-tae thought he had caught a glimpse of a child’s silhouette within the car’s darkly tinted windows, as black as the car itself.

“Money belt…”

Suddenly, his mother’s voice abruptly faded.

“…Grab it.”

“Huh?”

“Grab the money belt tightly!”

With that squeezed-out cry, his mother collapsed. Her crimson-flushed head struck the ground first, making a dull thud.

On the stone pavement where her head had hit, crimson blood spread sluggishly.

“Mom!”

He called out with all his might, but his mother did not see In-tae. There was something else she desired more desperately than meeting her son’s gaze.

Her convulsing hand fumbled at her waist. The money belt. She was trying to grasp the money bag tied beneath her t-shirt.

But her sugar-dusted hands merely groped at empty air.

“Mom. I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”

Only upon hearing that cry did his mother lose consciousness. Young In-tae, utterly at a loss, simply clutched the old cloth tightly, just as his mother had instructed.

Upon arriving at the hospital, the first words the medical staff uttered after examining his mother were, “We knew this patient would return.”

Although he learned that his mother had been brought to the hospital before, the shock wasn’t as great as one might expect.

Was it about two months prior? He had suddenly gone hungry for several days. His mother hadn’t gone to work, lying down, clutching her money belt, and weeping.

Her groaning voice, saying, “Those bastards… Oh dear,” was imbued with a colossal rage that transcended mere sorrow, making him hesitant to approach her.

Nevertheless, when his hunger reached its limit, he had no choice but to speak. “Mom, I’m starving to death.”

With swollen eyes, his mother laboriously rose. Her back, as she headed towards the entrance, seemed ethereal, as if it might vanish at any moment.

Fortunately, less than a day later, his mother returned home with several packets of ramen in her hands. After barely surviving a few days on that, she began her cotton candy business.

Until his mother regained consciousness, In-tae imagined what she must have gone through. What was it like when she collapsed before?

If this wasn’t the first time, how many times had she fallen in the past? Since she sold pupae while seated, she likely wouldn’t have sustained severe head or body injuries when collapsing, unlike today when she was standing.

It seemed, however, that someone had tampered with her money belt while she was unconscious. That must have been why she resolved to secure the money belt first if she ever collapsed again.

“It’s going to be difficult.”

“This patient, she left last time without treatment. Even if she comes back again…”

In-tae approached the medical staff, who wore grave expressions. He seemed to instinctively sense that something was wrong.

At that moment, the only thing In-tae could do was offer the money belt. It was, after all, everything he possessed.

Instead of accepting it, the medical staff looked embarrassed. In-tae grew even more flustered the moment they tried to open their own pockets to take out money.

It wasn’t because of the meager, insignificant amount of money.

[Yoon In-tae. Mawon Elementary School, 1st Grade, Class 3. Homeroom Teacher: Im Won-joong. No other relatives.]

A single white sheet of paper contained his personal details.

In-tae repeatedly read the handwriting, which was clearly his mother’s, before tearing his gaze away to look at the crumpled banknotes.

He was not old enough to understand hospital fees, but he knew that the money was by no means a large sum. Some children would spend that amount at the stationery store in front of school in about a week.

The reason his mother had so desperately urged him to secure the money belt was not for her own treatment.

If that were the case, his mother—who clearly knew she would collapse again—would have asked him to call an ambulance before clinging to her money belt.

She would have taught him how to get to the emergency room instead of secretly writing his personal details on a white sheet of paper.

A chilling realization struck him.

He would lose his only family.

Perhaps he was already alone.