If You Want Me - Episode 64
<Episode 64>
While thinking for a moment and lightly rubbing his slightly bulging belly, the old woman who had already emptied a few glasses of makgeolli turned her gaze this way and asked.
“Does your belly hurt?”
“No. It’s not that…”
“Then why are you touching your belly with such a serious face? You’re scaring me!”
The old woman frowned, saying it felt like her liver would fall out. It was an added look implying not to do that unless something was wrong.
He didn’t mean to scare her. Seo-won apologized and gave a wry smile.
“Well, there’s no obstetrics clinic on the island. So I was just thinking… if it would be okay.”
The island village was a blind spot for medical institutions. Not only obstetrics, but there was no hospital at all, so to receive treatment, one had to take a boat and leave the island.
He had asked the villagers, and they said for minor illnesses like colds, they just let it heal on its own, and if it seemed serious, they took a boat off the island to see a doctor. Occasionally a doctor comes from the mainland, but it’s so infrequent that when you’re actually sick, there are countless cases where you can’t get help.
As for giving birth, in the old days they delivered babies at home and cut the umbilical cord, so there would be a way somehow… But there were many things to worry about besides giving birth. Even though it was a stable period now, the baby was very sensitive, so you never knew what might happen.
As Seo-won answered with a worried voice, the old woman looked at him for a moment and opened her mouth.
“You look okay… You said you were a recessive omega?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, then it’s understandable to be worried. The doctor comes occasionally to check up, but wouldn’t it be better to go to a hospital off the island? The one who comes isn’t unskilled, but he doesn’t specialize in obstetrics.”
The old woman advised seriously. It wasn’t about criticizing the skill of the volunteer-like doctor, but that specializing was different, so if possible, wouldn’t it be better to be examined by someone good at it off the island?
It was true. And though it was his own greed, he also regretted only being able to take one fetal photo for his pregnancy omega booklet.
It would be best to go to the obstetrics clinic he used to go to… But if he went for the baby’s sake and got caught by Do-gyeom and ended up getting an abortion, it would all be for nothing, so he didn’t think he could go there.
“I think I’m okay for now, so I should go if something seems off.”
“Right. Last time I saw you got terrible seasickness. That’s bad for your body too.”
“……”
Hmm… Besides getting caught, he was also afraid of riding the boat again and experiencing that hellish time. If he had known, he should have asked if he could take motion sickness medicine before boarding and bought some.
As a late regret washed over him and he let out a small sigh, a question suddenly came to mind.
“Come to think of it, why did you go down that time?”
“Me? I was just…”
The old woman who had always blurted out anything without hesitation suddenly played dumb.
It was unlike her usual self. Maybe there was a reason that was hard to say? He hadn’t told her in detail why he suddenly left for the island village either, so he had no intention of prying into something difficult.
As Seo-won didn’t ask further and was cutting and eating the pancake with his chopsticks, the old woman belatedly continued.
“I have two daughters on the mainland.”
“Wow. You must have seen them after a long time. That must have been nice.”
He had thought he asked something awkward to answer from her hesitation, but unexpectedly, the old woman’s answer was nothing special. Rather, it was a good thing.
He had worried the atmosphere would turn gloomy because he asked something unnecessary, but fortunately that wasn’t the case. As Seo-won brightly replied, the old woman’s reaction wasn’t very good.
“It was nice. I only got to see one of them though.”
“Ah… Your daughter must have been busy.”
“She died. A long time ago.”
“What?”
At the unexpected answer, Seo-won almost dropped the pancake he was holding.
No way… What was this all of a sudden? If she said she only got to see one of the two, wouldn’t anyone naturally think like him? He felt like he had asked something unnecessary from the beginning after all.
He felt like he should comfort her, but he was so flustered that he couldn’t form a sentence. As he pressed his lips together and tightened his grip on the chopsticks, the old woman filled her empty glass with makgeolli and muttered as if grumbling.
“She suddenly came back pregnant. Said she would marry some strange guy she brought. Said he would take responsibility since she was pregnant.”
“……”
It was a disjointed start, but it seemed to be about her dead daughter.
When he was in school before, a close friend had shared a difficult story about her family.
Seo-won didn’t have a father and got along relatively well with his mother, so he couldn’t empathize with the story. So he couldn’t give her any special comfort, but that friend smiled brightly and thanked him for listening. She said it felt refreshing to let it out rather than keeping it suppressed in her heart.
Suddenly remembering that time, he had a feeling that it would be okay to just listen. As Seo-won swallowed what was in his mouth without a word, the old woman continued with a hollow laugh.
“It was ridiculous. It was stupid to believe that guy’s promise to take responsibility. Of course I opposed the marriage and told her to come home right away and not see him.”
“……”
“Raising a child is hard, you know. I tried to make her get an abortion saying there was no need to raise that guy’s child, but…”
The old woman was indifferently recounting the past as if it no longer hurt, but suddenly trailed off as if something was stuck in her throat.
He was afraid of the rest that would follow. As Seo-won looked at the old woman with anxious eyes, she let out a deep sigh and opened her mouth with a slightly trembling voice.
“She left saying she would raise the child alone, and died while giving birth.”
“……”
“She left without taking a single penny, so there’s no way she got proper hospital care, and that so-called baby’s father said he would take responsibility but ignored her… Like you, as a recessive omega, she endured alone. And that’s what happened.”
It was difficult for recessive omegas to safely give birth. Either something would happen to the baby or the recessive omega. It was one of the two.
In addition to having a constitution that made it hard to give birth, their bodies were very weak and in poor condition. That was why others avoided recessive omega constitutions and grieved at the news of manifestation.
So that’s why the old woman lost one of her daughters…
Seo-won tightly closed his eyes at the miserable story. Fortunately, nothing had happened to him, but it was something that could have easily happened to him too, so it hit him as even more terrible.
The old woman said that, then downed a glass of makgeolli and looked at Seo-won.
“I told you I had seen someone like you before.”
“…Yes.”
When he first arrived on this island after getting off the boat. When he was retching from seasickness, the old woman had said that. He clearly remembered because he had followed a stranger after being comforted by those words.
“It reminded me of our daughter.”
“……”
“That day, I had gone to the columbarium. When I was returning to the island, I saw you. At first I didn’t know you were pregnant because your belly wasn’t showing, but even while seasick, you were preciously cradling your belly.”
When he was taking the boat to the island, his belly hurt every time he dry heaved from the terrible seasickness.
He was so severely seasick that he worried if something would happen to the baby from it. He regretted countless times thinking if he had known, he would have just kept running away on land.
“I saw our daughter’s image overlapping with you, but to think you were a recessive omega too.”
“……”
At the old woman’s continuing words, Seo-won bit his lower lip hard.
When he stayed in the countryside village before, he also learned that not everyone in the countryside or old age was kind. It wasn’t that they were bad, but they were no different from other places and all the same people.
But the old woman he met after coming here treated him so well despite him having nothing, and the villagers accepted him not as an outsider but like family.
He had brushed it off thinking maybe it was the atmosphere of this village, but there was no way the island villagers would have done that without any reason. They all accepted him because they knew the old woman’s pain.
He didn’t think it was kindness without reason, but he never imagined there would be a story like this behind it. As Seo-won mumbled his lips not knowing how to react, the old woman let out a sigh full of regret.
“I don’t know for sure, but you couldn’t go to the mainland to protect the baby and came here, right? You said the baby’s nickname was Sticky Rice?”
“…Yes.”
“I’m taking care of you so you don’t end up like our daughter in a place where no one knows you. But it would be best to return to the mainland if possible. There are many hospitals there. And…”
For the sake of the old woman who took him in when he had nowhere to go, he felt he should do that. As Seo-won was about to nod, the old woman trailed off as if trying to say something more.
In the short moment of silence, the sound of the rain pattering filled the space between them. Like pulling a thread from both ends, Seo-won couldn’t take his eyes off the old woman even for a second in the invisible, taut tension.
“Always think of yourself before the baby. If you break down, you’re of no use.”
“……”
Come to think of it, both his mother and the old woman on the island paid more attention to him than the baby he was carrying.
Seo-won had the same thought, but he felt there must be a reason everyone said that when they looked at him.
Did he seem like he would only care about Sticky Rice and not take care of his own body? That might be how it looked since he said he came all the way down here to protect the baby.
As Seo-won introspected on his actions with a fresh perspective, the old woman tilted the makgeolli bottle. It seemed to be empty, as nothing came out even when she shook the bottle. The old woman smacked her lips as if quite regretful, then noticed the pancakes she had fried were cold and opened her mouth.
“Shall we clean up? I drank way too much while talking.”
“Ah, yes! I’ll take care of cleaning up.”
“Can you clean up by yourself?”
“It’s just washing dishes, of course. Go in and rest first.”
“Then I’ll ask a favor.”
When Seo-won spoke affectionately, the old woman made a slightly apologetic face but patted her lower back and went into the room. She added a comment that her joints ached because of the rain.
Left alone on the wooden porch, Seo-won took the empty bowls and cups to the kitchen and washed the dishes. Having quickly finished cleaning up, Seo-won came back out to the porch and looked up at the sky. It kept raining endlessly from the sky full of dark clouds.
He often thought of his mother after coming to the island village, but today, perhaps because he had such a conversation with the old woman, he missed his mother even more.
The hardest thing about the island village was not being able to see his family when he missed them. He missed them more because he had only left a brief message at the end before leaving.
He could have at least called, but he held back. His current life wasn’t so arduous or unbearable that he would collapse, but he felt like he would cry and go back if he heard her voice.
Seo-won barely pulled himself together from the piercing loneliness that made his heart shudder and went into the room.