Chapter 5: A Mother’s Love

“Cheche, I know what you’re worried about. You’re afraid the children will fail the screening, aren’t you? But we have no genetic problems!”

‘Genetically…’ Yeosu’s eyes darted around.

She was short. Even at 11 years old, she was a hand’s length shorter than her peers.

Would there really be no problem? Of course, her mother, Cheche, was the tallest woman in the shelter. She could meet most men’s eyes.

But her daughter…

‘Will I grow as tall as Mom…?’

Yeosu felt a sudden surge of emotion and lowered her head.

“No criminal record either! Have you ever stolen anything, Cheche? No! Unless you’re a wanted criminal who escaped to the incinerator, there’s no problem with Yeosu’s screening!”

Leroi even spread her hands out, as if preaching in a public square.
Cheche ignored her and quickened her sewing pace.

Yeosu recalled once stealing a cookie from the exchange counter.
She wondered to herself if that would count as a criminal record.

“Besides, your daughter is the smartest among the shelter kids. She’s 11! Her brain is still soft!”

Finally, Cheche glared at Leroi.
Leroi, mistaking Cheche’s rare reaction as attention to her words, smiled broadly, shrugging her shoulders as if asking if she had said something wrong.

“How long are you going to feed your daughter only stone cookies? Look at her, she’s shorter than a 7-year-old. She’s so malnourished.”

Yeosu’s ears twitched.
Hearing such words inevitably made her shrink.

“Cheche, think about it again. Our neighbor Oteb said he’d look at the map for us at dawn tomorrow. If you change your mind then, come to our shelter. Okay?”

Leroi urged one last time before leaving the tent.
Cheche was mending the other sock.

Eventually, saying goodbye fell to Yeosu.
Without anyone telling her to, she bowed deeply, then meticulously closed the tent flaps as soon as Leroi left the shelter.

By then, Cheche’s sock was completely mended.
Cheche put on the sock, whose tip was blunt from continuous repairs, and looked at the child standing idly in front of the tent.
Then she moved her lips.

‘Cookies?’

“Ah!”

Yeosu hastily pulled out two cookies she had put in her pocket.

These were the two cookies she had received in exchange for some pebbles before entering the shelter.
Cheche stared at the cookies, then put down her needle and walked towards Yeosu.

Whoosh!

The two cookies in the child’s small hand were snatched away.
Yeosu didn’t seem to feel wronged by having the fruits of her day-long digging taken away, only blinking her big eyes and not even reaching out her hand.

Cheche pressed her lips together at the child’s innocent gaze looking up at her, then returned one cookie to Yeosu’s hand.
She also broke the remaining cookie in half and gave it to her.

“Uh, Mom?”

Yeosu, who received one whole cookie and half of another, looked up at Cheche with bewildered eyes.
Hadn’t she taken them to eat them all?
She didn’t have to give any back… In fact, she had secretly eaten one or two earlier while digging for stones because she was so hungry.

Cheche deliberately put only the small half-piece of cookie into her mouth.
Crunch, crunch. The nutritionally void stone powder, meant only to fill the stomach, passed with difficulty down Cheche’s throat.

Yeosu, who had been staring blankly, then bit into her cookie, following her mother’s lead.
It tasted as bland and dry as always, but being a growing child who got hungry every hour, a satisfied smile spread across her face.

“So… tasty.”

At that one word, the corners of Cheche’s mouth trembled.
Yeosu, who even licked off the stone powder stuck to the corners of her mouth, smiled sweetly at her mother again.

It had been a long time since she and her mother had stood face to face like this.
She had to go out every day with a trowel to dig for stones.

But such peaceful moments were brief.
Cheche abruptly turned and prepared the bedding.
She found the flattest spot and laid out the blanket she had mended with needlework for a whole month.

The blanket, made of mismatched scraps of cloth and with burn marks, looked miserable at a glance.
It couldn’t even be called a ‘blanket.’
It was merely a minimal tool to prevent freezing to death.

But for Yeosu, it was the most comfortable family haven in the world.
She loved the blanket and pillow her mother had mended for her more than anything.

Do you want to wear clothes that cover your arms and legs? Do you want to eat food that actually makes you gain weight, instead of filling your stomach with pebble cookies and ant egg jam? Do you want to sleep in a warm bed instead of on a cold sandy floor?

So Yeosu had no reason to participate in the Human Run.
She had already found all her happiness within this shelter.

But didn’t everyone feel that way?

“Will she pass the screening?”

“This kind of opportunity won’t come again. What more can she do here but die?”

“But…”

“Look at her. She’s getting a bent back from malnutrition! We need to send her somewhere she can get proper food before it’s too late.”

Yeosu’s ears twitched at the sounds of conversation from the neighboring shelter.

Yeosu also knew the child living in the neighboring shelter.
It was a boy who was only 5 years old.

Her mother must have heard the neighbors too.
‘Will Mom send me to the screening center too?’
Yeosu, watching Cheche with anxious eyes, finally reached out her hand.

Cheche flinched and looked down at Yeosu.
The unfamiliar warmth touched her hand.
Cheche looked at the child’s tiny hand with an unreadable expression.

It was the back of a hand covered with scratches from stones.
The hand of an 11-year-old, suitable for holding a pencil, was rougher than any laborer’s.

Then Cheche moved her lips.

‘Yeosu. Bring the book.’

The touching hand slipped away.
Yeosu, looking at her mother’s departing hand with disappointment, nodded.

The book was hidden inside a pile of firewood next to the stove.
When she untied the bundle of sharp twigs, a box was taken out.
Inside it was a worn-out book that had been read many times.

‘Read.’

The quite thick book, bound with yellowed paper, was good enough to be used as firewood.
It was a fairy tale book in a barbaric language that Cheche had obtained from a wanderer in the previous shelter in exchange for food.

The book seemed to be over 100 years old and was full of grime.
Yeosu always wondered if this book was published before the colonization of Earth.

She always read this book before going to sleep after her day’s work.
She had always had this time since she had mastered the barbaric alphabet.

At first, she was ashamed of her stumbling voice and didn’t want to read, but it was the only time she could be in her mother’s arms like a baby, so Yeosu eventually began to look forward to the nights.

Yeosu glanced at the wall tent and sat on the bedding, opening the book.
Cheche sat leaning against a stack of pillows.

Soon, a barbaric language, much softer and more gentle than the harshly pronounced common language, flowed from Yeosu’s lips.

“[O-only children know wh-what they are lo-looking for. Ch-children spend all their t-time playing with rag d-dolls made from pie-pieces of cloth…]”

The soft, halting narration blurred the noise from the next-door shelter.
After watching her mother, who was breathing softly with her eyes closed, Yeosu continued to read the book.

“[…Ch-children are happy. The r-railway worker said.]”

That night, a clean rag doll appeared in Yeosu’s dream.
Her room had a comforter filled with cotton and a tin case full of chocolate cookies.

When Cheche called her name from the doorway, Yeosu, with the doll tucked under her arm, smiled brightly and ran out.

Cheche stroked Yeosu’s head and led her to the bed.
By the bedside lay a book that Cheche always read to her.

In the dream, Cheche read the book to Yeosu, who couldn’t sleep.
The perpetually cold and taciturn mother was no more.
She was a gentle mother to her only child.

“Children are happy. The railway worker said.”

Her mother’s voice, which she had never heard in her dreams, flowed out.
Here, where there was no language to learn in hiding, there was no mute Cheche.

Cheche and Yeosu headed to the exchange as soon as dawn broke.
Food ran out by noon, so to get a decent amount of provisions, they had to aim for opening hours.

Especially the stone cookies, which were used as currency in the incinerator, were the most popular exchange item at the exchange.
It was a system of getting a good meal for a few cookies.

But how strange.
Today, there were few people at the cookie exchange counter.

There were no adults bringing sacks full of stones, nor children loitering and begging for stones.

“Because they all went to the screening center. Eating stones is over now.”

The exchange worker said, as he handled the stones in the exchange box.
Had he instinctively known that business would be bad?
He sneered and cast a glance at the basket Cheche had brought.
His eyebrows rose in displeasure.

“Is this all?”

Cheche nodded.
The exchange worker, placing the sack on the scale, clicked his tongue.