Chapter 154
“Let’s hear what the police have to say first… it’s not confirmed yet. It may not be true.”
“It is true. Why would the police lie?”
“I don’t know, I just don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Will denying it solve the situation? Get a grip. This is the person who did that to your father, and if something happens to you too, if he does something terrible to you as well?”
Choi Jung-eon pressed Eunseong, who was confusedly trying to avoid the truth without getting close to it.
“No. It can’t be.”
“What do you mean it can’t be? Look at his face. You can’t tell what he’s thinking at all.”
“Ahjussi isn’t that kind of person. I know him! Ahjussi isn’t… isn’t that kind of person.”
It can’t be. Ahjussi couldn’t have done this.
Eunseong shook his head and then shouted that it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be. The tears he had been holding back throughout the journey finally burst forth. Eunseong was angry at himself for not trusting Yoo Siwoon, and angry at Choi Jung-eon for being so certain that Yoo Siwoon was a murderer.
He should be defending Yoo Siwoon, even if it meant beating Choi Jung-eon senseless to insist that it absolutely wasn’t true, that Yoo Siwoon was innocent, but instead he was just shedding tears and vaguely begging that it wasn’t true, that it shouldn’t be true. He was also furious at himself for this pathetic display. And most of all, he was angry at Yoo Siwoon—for making him unable to confidently deny these accusations.
After getting off the elevator and finally calming his tears, he entered Choi Jung-eon’s home. Jung-eon’s parents were waiting for Eunseong with eyes full of concern.
“My goodness… look how thin you’ve become. Well, we need to feed you something first. Eunseong, come here. Sit down.”
Jung-eon’s mother was shocked at Eunseong’s gaunt appearance and led him to the dining table, embracing and patting his shoulders that seemed ready to break into sobs at any moment.
Jung-eon’s father, who had heard the general situation from Lee Joon-seung, a detective from the Violent Crimes Unit, had come home early to wait for Eunseong, taking it upon himself to be Eunseong’s guardian.
Eunseong shook his head, saying no, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to eat anything. He needed to quickly refute the claim that Yoo Siwoon was the kind of person who would kill his father. He needed to tell them they were mistaken, that he didn’t believe what they had sent him. That the mark on his body was just some kind of skin disease.
Lee Joon-seung, who had been waiting for Eunseong while drinking coffee on the sofa, also stood up.
“Seo Eunseong? You saw the text messages, photos, and videos I sent, right?”
“…Yes.”
“I need to maintain confidentiality for the investigation. I’d like to speak with you alone, if possible? I just have a few questions. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Looking at Eunseong, who was murmuring weakly and regarding him with caution, Lee Joon-seung gently asked Jung-eon’s parents as if seeking permission. Since Eunseong wasn’t a minor and this wasn’t a formal witness interview requiring a guardian’s presence, Jung-eon’s parents agreed to Lee Joon-seung’s request.
Eunseong went into Jung-eon’s room with Lee Joon-seung. Jung-eon’s mother brought orange juice and fruit, placing them on the desk. Lee Joon-seung, who had just sat down on the bed, stood up awkwardly again and thanked her.
Eunseong sat in the chair that Lee Joon-seung indicated. Jung-eon’s mother anxiously looked at the two until the very last moment before carefully closing the door as she left.
Lee Joon-seung downed the orange juice and put the glass down. Then he took out his phone from his pocket and unlocked it as if to show something. Eunseong’s eyes naturally followed his hand. The supposedly very simple password was 1818.
“I’m not sure where to start, but let me first confirm that the texts I sent you… they aren’t lies. You must have had some suspicions to come all the way here.”
“Director Nam said that Detective was on our side… I don’t know what ‘our side’ means, but that you were working together.”
“We worked together once, yes. We had the same goal.”
“I don’t care about that. I don’t believe any of it anyway. I’m… I’m a male, so saying I can get pregnant is nonsense. The people who believe that are the strange ones.”
“…Yet Yoo Siwoon believed you were the real thing?”
Lee Joon-seung, who had been scrolling through his photo gallery, sighed and raised his sharp, veteran detective’s gaze.
“I’m not like that. It’s a lie!”
Eunseong firmly shook his head, denying that he could possibly be such a thing, saying it was nonsense. Though that terrible mark was clearly on his flesh, between his legs, and he could almost feel it even now as he sat in the chair, he chanted to himself with disgust that it wasn’t true. Eunseong couldn’t bear the fact that such a thing was an inseparable part of his body. His skin itched. It felt as if thousands of insects were clinging to him, slowly eating away at his flesh, or like a revolting snake was wrapped around his bare skin.
Eunseong deliberately suppressed the rising nausea as if swallowing his fist. It was all horrifying, including how obsessed Yoo Siwoon had been with that mark.
“Why didn’t Director Nam come with you? You two are usually stuck together like gum, but I saw only Yoo Siwoon came earlier.”
Lee Joon-seung gestured with his chin toward the window, though it wasn’t in the right direction, implying Yoo Siwoon who was waiting downstairs.
“…He said he went on a business trip far away. Director Nam said he couldn’t come for a while until his work was finished. He went far away, he said.”
“Haa, shit. Director Nam was the only one with his head screwed on right… Haa, that crazy bastard Yoo Siwoon.”
Lee Joon-seung cursed as if Yoo Siwoon had done something to Director Nam and muttered dejectedly. Eunseong also suspected this might be true but was too anxious to ask. He had overheard their argument on the day when Yoo Siwoon suddenly said Director Nam had gone on a business trip. Director Nam had been protesting something wrong to Yoo Siwoon, and Yoo Siwoon’s emotionless tone hadn’t shown even a crack. Eunseong’s fingertips trembled slightly as he was already accepting this as fact.
Eunseong took out his mother’s wedding photo that he had hidden in his inner pocket. It was the intact photo he had found in Yoo Siwoon’s room. His mother’s face, smiling in the photo with a strange man instead of his father Seo Jeong-gi, was still refined and beautiful.
“…Do you know what this is?”
Lee Joon-seung took the photo Eunseong held out, examined it, and then looked at Eunseong’s face. He sighed. It was a sigh that showed he knew.
“This person… this woman here is my mother. But who is this man? It’s not my father… Do you know who he is?”
Uncomfortably chewing the inside of his cheek, Lee Joon-seung looked at Eunseong with frustration, as he clearly had no idea, hadn’t even considered the possibility. Compassion rose in him for the enormous gap that Eunseong had instinctively rejected, knowing that Eunseong had never asked to become what he was.
“This man is… well, you should know this first. Seo Jeong-gi is not your biological father.”
“…What?”
“Oh Yunhee, your biological mother. Park Myung-hoon, your biological father. This man is your biological father.”
Lee Joon-seung pointed to the woman in the photo and mentioned the name of Eunseong’s mother that he knew, then pointed to the man beside her and said a name he had never heard before. And he was saying this man was his biological father.
“This person… this man is my biological father, and my dad isn’t my real father?”
Unable to grasp what Lee Joon-seung was saying, Eunseong just repeated what he heard like a tape recorder. Then, as if he had misheard, he shook his head once and looked at him with an expression that said, “What did you just say?”
“This person, Park Myung-hoon, is your biological father. Seo Jeong-gi has no relation to you—no, that’s not right—he was your biological mother Oh Yunhee’s college boyfriend.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
As if he had been hit hard, Eunseong asked again, unable to collect his thoughts. He had the perplexed look of someone hearing an incomprehensible foreign language.
Lee Joon-seung cleared his throat and began to explain calmly.
About the connection between Oh Yunhee, Park Myung-hoon, and Seo Jeong-gi.
“I don’t know the details, but Oh Yunhee probably had that disposition… I mean, a disposition similar to yours. She must have resonated with Seo Jeong-gi while dating him in college. I heard that family calls it ‘resonance.’ Anyway, Seo Jeong-gi must have been uncomfortable continuing to see Oh Yunhee, knowing his family wasn’t normal. They broke up over family issues, and Oh Yunhee married a few years later. To your biological father, Park Myung-hoon. After that, you were born, and as you’ve seen in the prophecy document I sent, when they discovered you had that mark, Oh Yunhee seems to have asked Seo Jeong-gi for help.”
“…Where is my biological father now?”
Eunseong’s expression showed that he wasn’t taking in anything else, just curious about where his supposed biological father was.
“Have you heard how your biological mother died?”
“…I was told she died in a car accident.”
“Your biological father, Park Myung-hoon, was there too. While trying to escape from Yoo Siwoon’s father… records show he died in the same traffic accident with your mother.”
“…What did you say?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
