TIN 132

Slowly, I reached out and lightly traced Yoon Ji-soo’s photo. It was an unconscious gesture, but the elderly woman asked with a gentle smile on her face.

“Would you like to have that photo?”

“…Ah, no.”

I quickly withdrew my hand. In the photo, Yoon Ji-soo was still smiling so brightly that it dazzled my eyes. While maintaining eye contact with the image, I whispered softly.

“It’s okay.”

I’d left many things behind while fleeing the city. My useful bag, my clothes, even water purification tablets and soap.

So a photo like this would be a luxury for me. Since I’d have to leave it behind someday, it was better not to create things that needed to be treasured. Besides, the cabinet with two locks would be much safer than my pockets, which would inevitably lose things.

“…Really?”

The elderly woman tilted her head to one side briefly before her expression softened. Then she pushed the album completely toward me.

“Then feel free to look through it.”

“…”

I nodded as if entranced. Though I couldn’t accept the photo, I didn’t want to decline this offer. As I turned a page with a flutter, the elderly woman continued on with her story.

“She only told me her name was Ji-soo, but I vaguely knew. That she had a surname, that she wasn’t just Ji-soo.”

High-class names come with surnames. Unlike those born on the streets without knowing their parents, it was proof of their noble bloodline. Usually, they inherited the surname of whichever family held more power.

“She wasn’t just any omega, and with eyes that blue showing dominant genes, she must have been from a noble family.”

The elderly woman’s finger pointed to Yoon Ji-soo’s eyes. It was a photo of her with her hair roughly tied up, holding a large basket. As I wondered what was in the basket, the elderly woman answered my curiosity.

“Seaweed.”

“…Ah.”

“We farm seaweed here.”

The porridge I ate earlier had seaweed in it too. Perhaps it was seaweed grown right here at this place.

“Ji-soo ate seaweed so well.”

As if proving this, the opposite page showed a photo of Yoon Ji-soo eating. She was drinking something from a bowl, either porridge or soup, and beside her was the little girl who had been in her arms earlier.

“That’s our Seo-kyung.”

I had guessed as much. The child’s features closely resembled the woman called Seo-kyung. Holding their bowls in the same pose, they almost looked like mother and daughter.

“Seo-kyung was very attached to Ji-soo. Just as if she was her own mother.”

For several pages after that, Yoon Ji-soo appeared with the child. Naturally, it occurred to me then that the elderly woman must have taken these photos. She must have captured these peaceful and lovely moments with her own hands.

“That’s why I told her to call her ‘unnie.’ It would be too much for a young lady if the child thought of her as her mother.”

When I heard the word “mother,” my mouth turned bitter for no reason. So that was why she was called Yoon Ji-soo unnie. In reality, Yoon Ji-soo was old enough to be a mother to such a small child.

“She stayed here quite a while. The seasons changed three times, probably.”

In the photos, the season turned to summer. I could tell from how Yoon Ji-soo’s clothing gradually became lighter. From spring to summer, the child with her slowly grew too.

“Then, we found our daughter’s body.”

“…”

I looked away from the album to the elderly woman. I wondered how she felt when they found the body of her daughter whom she’d hoped was alive. Was she devastated with grief, or perhaps relieved?

“…It was probably an accident. It wouldn’t have been suicide.”

But when I met her wrinkled gaze, I couldn’t say anything. Not because her eyes were moist, nor because contrary to that, a faint smile played on her lips. It was because the elderly woman’s voice was as soft as a dream while reminiscing about painful memories.

“Ji-soo said many kind things then. She looked after Seo-kyung for me and helped a lot with work…”

It was incomprehensible. Her face clearly emanated the scent of grief not yet overcome. The deep melancholy meant that she still hadn’t fully accepted her daughter’s death yet.

“I was so grateful for that.”

Yet the elderly woman smiled as if everything was fine, as if it was all in the past. The peaceful smile, like recalling happy memories, was something I simply couldn’t understand.

How could this be possible? The person I’d been searching for, my only existence, had passed away. Yet how could she be so unbothered?

“I felt I had to live somehow. I had our Seo-kyung, and I had Ji-soo.”

“…”

The words didn’t resonate. But simultaneously, I realized something.

“You know, after telling Seo-kyung not to call her mother, I myself must have seen Ji-soo as a daughter.”

I could never be so unbothered. Even if the elderly woman overcame her grief thanks to those two people, I could never understand that feeling in my lifetime.

‘It’s a kind of role-play. You’re the hyung, I’m the younger sibling.’

I didn’t have the money or power like Joo Do-hwa to find a replacement. I didn’t have precious people like the elderly woman did, nor work to focus on like Lee Yuna.

…Then what do I have?

“So…”

It was such an obvious question, yet I didn’t know why I felt so lost. As if the ground beneath me was sinking and my ears were filled with water, the elderly woman’s voice seemed to fade into the distance.

“Child.”

What pulled me back was this gentle call. With a start, I blinked as her wrinkled fingers gently grasped my hand. Carefully stroking my hand, the elderly woman softly asked.

“Are you alright?”

“…Ah.”

I abruptly knocked away her hand. The warm temperature felt too unfamiliar. Though even I was surprised by my action, the elderly woman didn’t mind and examined my complexion.

“Would you like some water?”

“No…”

I stuttered and shook my head. Though my mind was still foggy, I tried to compose my expression as if nothing was wrong.

“No, I’m fine.”

I tightly gripped the spot where the elderly woman’s hand had touched. Unable to meet her eyes, I kept my head down and let out a shallow sigh. The earlier feeling of being lost had disappeared, but my churning stomach hadn’t settled.

“Please continue.”

“…”

Even without checking, I could imagine the elderly woman’s expression. She must be looking at me with worry and pity.

It was similar to when Lingling worried about me. Such soft and tender kindness was too unfamiliar and uncomfortable for me.

“…Really, I’m fine.”

So I forced out those words with a strained voice. I lifted my head with an expressionless face and met her gaze, pretending everything was alright.

“I want to hear the rest of the story.”

It wasn’t a lie. No matter how he was feeling now, what mattered was her story. I had been thirsty for even the fragmentary information that Joo Do-hwa had thrown at me, so I couldn’t help but listen to such a vivid anecdote.

“…”

After a long silence, the elderly woman quietly nodded her head. She turned another page in the album.

“I found out later. That Ji-soo was pregnant too.”

“She was…pregnant?”

I examined the photos with renewed interest, but there weren’t any noticeable changes. The loose T-shirt made it impossible to tell if her stomach was showing or not.

“It usually doesn’t show much around this time.”

Noticing my confusion, the elderly woman added a kind explanation. She said it varied by person, and that Yoon Ji-soo was so thin that it was especially hard to tell.

“She said she couldn’t eat anything before coming here because of morning sickness. That’s why she was so starved…”

She said the only food Yoon Ji-soo ate well was what she cooked. Later, YoonJi-soo told her that she never knew seaweed could taste so good, since she had never even eaten it before.

“She didn’t tell me anything. Whose child it was, why she was here, things like that.”

As we turned the pages one by one, Yoon Ji-soo’s belly became more visible. At first just barely noticeable, later as round as if there was a balloon inside. There was even a photo of Seo-kyung hugging Yoon Ji-soo’s belly and pressing her ear against it.

“I told her to go to the hospital, but she said she couldn’t.”

My heart began beating faster and faster. The irregular rhythm felt almost like anxiety.

We turned one more page and it showed the heavily pregnant Yoon Ji-soo.

“So I helped deliver the baby…”

On the last page was a photo of a newborn baby. A photo of a baby wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes, eyes not yet opened. Yoon Ji-soo’s child with downy thin hair and a puffy, wrinkled face.

“It was a boy.”

“…”

I felt indescribably strange. Because of Yoon Ji-soo smiling so happily for some reason and the baby sleeping peacefully, knowing nothing.

And because of what the elderly woman said while looking at me.

“If he grew up well, he’d be about your age now.”