Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can - Chapter 30.1
I speak to the person in front of me.
They are sitting in a chair, and I am standing with my hands clasped behind my back as though being punished.
“You’re saying ■■ has been bullying you?”
Unable to endure it any longer, I had turned to the adults for help.
“Have you tried working things out with ■■, just the two of you?”
I did.
For days on end, I begged, asked for forgiveness, and tried everything I could. I endured and endured, hoping that even a little mercy might take root in that child’s heart.
“What do you want us to do?”
Instead, the teacher asked me. What did I want? I wanted not to be put in situations I had to endure. I was asking you for help right now.
“Haa…. Just like this… This is why kids who are….”
The teacher muttered quietly enough that I could barely hear. Then she forced a smile at me and said,
“Alright, I understand for now. The bell’s about to ring, so hurry back to class.”
Nothing about the situation changed. I didn’t even know what she had supposedly understood. Distrust took root inside me.
I speak to the person in front of me.
She is sitting on the floor, and I cling to her in an embrace, acting spoiled.
“You want to transfer schools?”
Mom gently repeated what I had said.
“Did something difficult happen at school?”
Exhausted from another day of hard work, Mom was taking off her socks and applying ointment to her strangely bent feet. I buried my face against her waist and clung to her.
“My precious boy, is someone bullying you?”
Mom hugged me tightly. Her warm body smelled of pain-relief patches. I raised my eyes and looked at the stack of bills in her hand and the deep lines of worry around her mouth. For some reason, I thought those lines resembled the teacher’s.
The distrust that had once taken root raised its head again.
“I was joking. Studying is just hard, so I tried whining a little.”
I didn’t lie because I pitied Mom. I was afraid my exhausted mother might abandon me. Afraid that the troublesome, complicated me would feel too heavy for her.
I couldn’t speak to the person in front of me.
Because I was trembling, terrified of what words might come out.
“The cancer has already metastasized, so it has reached a stage where a complete cure through surgery would be difficult.”
But strange words came out of the doctor’s mouth. I couldn’t interpret them. It felt as though he were speaking a foreign language. Or perhaps my ears were refusing to interpret them.
I had definitely been a good child. I went where the adults told me to go and stayed where they told me to stay. I remained utterly still, like a dead fish washed ashore.
Very quietly, I dug a deep, black pit inside myself. There was nothing suitable to fill it with, but I endured the world on land by digging that deep, black pit. There was nothing else I could do.
“Life is only a brief time meant for loving.”
Mom said.
“Mother Teresa said that. Isn’t it a beautiful saying?”
I couldn’t answer. I sat quietly beside the bed with my head lowered, clutching the blanket.
“My life became complete when I met you.”
Mom smiled. I couldn’t say anything then, but the truth was, I wanted to ask. Then what about my life? Can’t my life become complete too?
The seasons changed several times, and there were moments when adults said things in front of me that I couldn’t understand. Unable to think at all, I was dragged around while doing nothing but repeating, “Yes, yes.”
Then I met someone who made my longing for Mom fade a little.
I loved that child. No, I ended up loving him. I had no choice but to love him. I was too lonely, and I needed someone who could support my unstable life, so I loved him with an ugly desperation. The way I had loved Mom.
I think the problem was that child’s hands, which resembled Mom’s far too much. If not for that, I wouldn’t have been rejected by him, and I wouldn’t have lost my family for a second time.
And so I was alone again.
“How can you show your face here?”
Along with someone’s words, the scene suddenly changed.
There was a fire. Something was burning before my eyes. I thought I had to put it out, so I moved my body, and the world turned violently upside down. Then everything went black.
It was a sensation close to death.
And that was how I was reborn as Baek Hanrim.
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