Chapter 20: Heartwarming

What will I do in the future?

I probably had that thought around the time the teacher at school told us to write down our future dreams.

I couldn’t imagine myself as an adult, so I scribbled on the blank space with a pencil.

There’s plenty of time to think, anyway.

I still have 3 years of middle school and 3 years of high school left.

It’ll work out somehow.

If not, I can always do manual labor.

I’m stronger than other kids.

I can easily do that kind of stuff.

I didn’t care about the future.

It was better to enjoy the present than to think about such things.

The teacher scolded me when they saw the survey form filled with scribbles on the blank space.

I was annoyed.

What do you want me to do?

Is it wrong for a person to have nothing they want to do?

The teachers at the orphanage have also been annoying lately.

So I bullied that kid.

I hated that kid, who was smaller and weaker than me, but who walked straight ahead somewhere.

She doesn’t resist. She just takes the beating.

I hated even that.

One day, that kid left the orphanage.

A famous person, whose face everyone would recognize if they heard their name, took her hand and left.

I heard a rumor that the kid was a genius.

So a great person came to support her.

Annoyance rushes in.

I don’t know the reason.

My stupid self couldn’t find the cause of this emotion.

Before leaving, the kid looked at me and shouted for the first time.

With a smiling face, she resisted me for the first time.

The insults that I can’t even remember now hit me directly, and I could tell that it was the emotion the kid had harbored towards me.

Pity.

The kid showed me pity.

I had to listen while frozen.

Because no one had ever shown such emotion to me before.

I watched the kid leave blankly.

That small kid moved forward.

She will continue to move forward.

‘Then, what about me?’

I was standing still, watching her.

The best way to quickly calm a young child is to give them something sweet to eat.

It’s one of the tips Song Jakga gave me on how to take care of children.

“Are you calmed down?”

…Yeah.”

Song Jakga’s tip was really effective.

With red eyes, Seo Yebin nodded while holding the popsicle I bought her in her mouth.

Since we needed a place to sit for a while, we came to a playground in an apartment complex and sat on the swings.

Seo Yebin sat normally, but my swing swayed slightly.

My feet don’t touch the ground.

“So, why was that? You were so angry at first, and now you’re holding me and crying.”

“……Shut up, I’m embarrassed even thinking about it.”

A face as red as her eyes.

She mumbled without looking me in the eye.

“Sorry….”

“For hitting me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It hurt.”

“It did hurt. But why are you apologizing?”

“……Because I hit you?”

“Then what about all the times you hit me before.”

“I’m sorry for that too.”

“You know this is a very ridiculous situation, right?”

“Yeah.”

A perpetrator who had been bullying me all this time meets me after a long time, slaps me, and then apologizes for everything?

Who would accept such an apology?

“If the teacher told you to do it, just don’t.”

“It’s not because the teacher told me to.”

“Then, what is it? You hit me every day, you hit me because you were annoyed, you hit me because you hated me. What did you say earlier?

You asked if I was living well by selling my body, didn’t you? And you made my cheek like this. But just an hour later, you changed and apologized? Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think I’d believe that?”

“I think so too.”

“You’re not making sense.”

It’s not that it’s absurd, it’s that Seo Yebin has no conscience. Still, she usually wouldn’t even be able to say these things and would just start punching.

Seeing such a docile Seo Yebin for the first time, I inadvertently continued the conversation.

“If you have something to say, say it quickly.”

“I’m sorry”

“Not that.”

I have a headache.

“I think I’ll keep saying the same thing, so I’ll change the words. Why did you get angry as soon as you saw me today?”

“I’m sorry.”

“If you say the same thing again, I’ll go straight to the police and request a restraining order.”

“Sor…, Ah, um.”

I don’t know if it’s possible, but Seo Yebin doesn’t know anyway. Seo Yebin, who shut her mouth at my threat, thought for a moment with her head down, and then started talking.

“……I was very envious of you.”

“Of me?”

“You’re small and cute, so everyone loves you. You’re smart, so you’re good at studying. And you’re even a genius in broadcasting? There’s no way I wouldn’t be envious.”

“So you bullied me?”

“…I don’t remember the exact reason, but. I think it was like that.”

“That’s the worst.”

“It is.”

Seo Yebin smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Do you know what my dream is? I don’t know. I don’t know what my dream is. I’m not good at anything, I’m not smart, and I don’t have anything I want to do.

So I hated you, who were doing something. Seeing you made me feel so insignificant. Then, when you left with that Mister, you yelled at us. It hit me hard. ‘Why am I doing this?’ I thought.”

That time when I left the orphanage with Mister and yelled at the bullies who were watching me for the first time. I had ridiculed them about their pathetic lives, without the parent-related insults of course.

I guess she thought about that after hearing it.

“So after you left, I looked for it. What can I do? What should I do? What do I want to do? Do I have any talent? What am I good at?

But I didn’t know. It’s not like I can remember something I’ve never thought about. So I decided to try everything.”

“Everything?”

“I didn’t want to join a runaway gang and sell my body or drugs. So first, I helped with the orphanage work. But it was difficult.

Managing the kids, organizing things, I couldn’t lift things that adults could easily lift. I didn’t know what the paperwork was at all. Then, I saw you come back.”

“It was a very annoying moment.”

“Yeah. At first, I just wanted to annoy you. But when you said that…. No, when I was caught by the person I didn’t want to show what I was hiding. Suddenly, I got angry and my hand went out. I’m sorry.”

“No, so…. Sigh, never mind.”

Seo Yebin, who said that seriously, bowed her head as if this apology was not just lip service. I couldn’t easily accept that appearance.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive you.”

“I know.”

“So. So why did you stop me? Did you stop me and cry to say you’re sorry?”

“It’s not that I can’t control my emotions these days….”

Ah, it’s puberty now.

I forgot that girls come earlier than boys.

I understood that.

“There’s that too……. I had something I really wanted to tell you.”

“Something you wanted to tell me? It’s not ‘I’m sorry’ again, is it?”

“Thank you. Thank you for making me come to my senses. I just wanted to tell you that.”

After saying that, Seo Yebin got up from the swing.

She threw the popsicle stick she was holding in her mouth into the trash can.

“Thank you for the ice cream.”

And it was the moment she was about to leave the playground.

“Wait a minute.”

This time, I called Seo Yebin to a halt.

It’s uncomfortable like this.

I didn’t forgive her, but the adult me who pities her clashed.

So I decided to give her one path.

Seo Yebin, who looked a little surprised that she was called, looked at me.

“You don’t have a pen and paper, even if you didn’t study?”

“Uh…. Yeah, I have…?”

“Then write with it.”

“Huh?

“You said you’d do anything, right? Then, write whatever you want in your notebook, whether it’s a diary or a delusion.”

I don’t know what I’m doing while saying this.

“You never know. Someone might read it and offer to publish it as a book.”

“…What do you think?”

“What do you mean what do I think. You said you’ve repented, right? Isn’t that a good thing. You apologized too.”

“That’s true, but it’s somehow uncomfortable.”

While eating chicken for a late-night snack with Mister who came back late, I shared the story of what happened today. Mister listened while drinking beer, saying it’s all good, don’t worry about it, but I couldn’t do that.

‘I opened my eyes on the day after Christmas when I was 12…. I don’t know anything before that.’

The stories I heard from the director.

The stories I heard from Seo Yebin.

They were stories of Seo Sua before I opened my eyes.

The time Seo Yebin bullied me was less than a month.

That’s why I don’t resent her.

But, 12-year-old Seo Sua is different.

I can’t accept an apology on behalf of 12-year-old Seo Sua.

That’s why something that hasn’t been completely removed from my heart made me uncomfortable.

Moreover, I can’t tell anyone about this story.

“If you’re salty about things like that from a young age, you’ll suffer when you’re old? When you’re young, you should think simply like a child.”

“Mister, you’re an adult, but you seem to think simply….”

“That’s because my mindset is young. Hahaha!”

The bachelor over 40 said that.

“At least it’s over, isn’t it? Even if it ended uncomfortably, don’t dwell on it. It’s better to start something exciting that will make you forget the discomfort. That’s how people live.”

“Is that so…”

“It is.”

I don’t know well.

But that’s how people are.

Living without knowing well.

That’s life.

I convinced myself and reached for the chicken to satisfy my hunger.

But what should have been there was gone.

“…Mister, did you eat the legs?”

“Yep.”

“How many.”

“One.”

“Then what are these two long bones.”

“Those are wings.”

“If there are this many wings, isn’t that an eagle, not a chicken?”

“Wow, we were eating fried eagle?”

Mister, who widened his eyes as if he was really surprised.

As I glared at him coldly, he quickly cleared his expression and continued to eat the chicken he was eating.

I kicked Mister’s knee under the table and picked up the wing and put it in my mouth.

“By the way, is your work going well?”

“Internet broadcast editing? Yeah, well. So-so. Are you watching?”

“I’m not that free to keep watching that. I don’t see anything, I’m just helping.”

Thanks to Senior Bom’s hard work, YouTube has become even more visually appealing.

By receiving profile pictures, banners, and various poses of Osorin’s character, and using them in editing, the response was very good.

If you put something that catches your eye, rather than nothing, you can naturally immerse yourself in the video.

Now, we were working on a standing image to use in real-time broadcasts.

“Well, if you need me, tell me anytime. I’ll help you with whatever I can.”

“I got it.”

I probably won’t need Mister’s help, but I was still happy with the thought.

Then, the tablet next to me gave a notification.

It’s the tablet Mister gave me to use since I don’t have a cell phone.

I can only use it when there’s Wi-Fi, but since I only use it at home, it wasn’t a big inconvenience.

I pick up the tablet and check the notification.

It was a Discord chat notification from Osorin.

But the content was………

“……I think I’ll need Mister’s help.”

“Huh?”

I put down the tablet.

This was written in the Discord chat on the screen.

[Osorin]: Raccoon, do you have any free time next week?
[Osorin]: Let’s have a meal to celebrate the opening of the YouTube channel!!