Mint Is Pure Love - Chapter 76

January 2004

Outside the window, white snowflakes fluttered down.

Ah… winter. That belated thought slipped into my mind.

“Your bingsu is ready.”

My gaze, which had lingered outside for so long, dropped to the bowl being placed on the table.

“You can always get a refill on the toast and bread, so just come over anytime. And, um—”

The employee, who had been hesitating as if there was more to say, glanced at me once before leaving without finishing. Only then did I pick up the spoon.

Inside the bowl was a colorful mix: frozen fruits clearly out of season, syrupy condensed milk scattered carelessly, and other additives. I slowly stirred it around.

For some reason, as soon as I woke up, I craved this. After finishing my dawn shift, I even waited around until this place opened so I could come inside. Come to think of it, ordering shaved ice in the middle of winter—it was ridiculous.

Well, there are just days like that. It didn’t mean anything. I just hadn’t felt a sudden craving in a long while, so I followed it without hesitation.

The first spoonful I put in my mouth was piercingly cold, painfully sweet. I even tried spreading thick white cream on toast and eating it, but I couldn’t quite tell if it was good or not. Still, I pushed it into my mouth slowly.

Lately, I could say I’d been doing… fairly well.

Sure, I got an academic warning, but at least I wrapped up last semester. With the start of vacation, I regained a kind of routine. My father always said people need to work. Instead of delivering newspapers like before, I was lucky enough to find shifts at the dawn labor market.

Working on construction sites all day left no room for stray thoughts. My body exhausted itself into sleep, and hunger forced me to eat.

Most of all, I wasn’t wasting time anymore, and that was the most encouraging part. If I had spare hours after work, I would either visit the temple where my brother stayed or drop by my father’s. I no longer made the foolish trip to the Chungju terminal, buying a ticket just to ride the bus again.

There was no one around to bother or pester me. Professor Yoo Jaeman and a few others who had my number kept calling, but keeping my phone powered off solved that neatly.

Like this, I was finding my rhythm again, recovering myself by erasing, one by one, the things that unsettled me.

“…What if he actually likes Lee Jung?”

The sound of crying turned my head.

A girl, maybe middle school age, pressed her face into a cushion as she spoke, her expression crumpled with tears.

“Hey, don’t cry… It’s not for sure yet. Maybe he’s just trying to make you jealous. Why don’t you confess first?”

“…You think so?”

At her friend’s words, her furrowed brows loosened a little, as if she’d found courage.

Crying, laughing, getting angry, getting anxious. The age when things that seem like nothing later feel like the end of the world.

But even if someone told her she’d forget it all someday, she wouldn’t understand. If someone said there’s no need to fuss, she’d only argue back that it’s easy to say when it’s not your problem. Just like I once did.

That’s why I told myself, if it’s like this, then I’d rather face it head-on. Even to myself, I would stab the words—easy for you to say.

But even that was all in the past now.

I was getting better. Returning to the original me—Cha Seokyung, unmoved by anything.

Maybe shaved ice in the morning was too much. I stood, tray in hand, with the half-finished bowl still on it. Without sparing a glance at the scribbles covering the café walls, I stepped outside.

The biting January wind brushed across my neck. Though my destination was obvious, I hesitated like someone with nowhere to go. And then, in that pause, something appeared in my mind, something I should have finished off long ago.

It had been three turns of the year, yet only now was I admitting I’d been waiting. It had stayed silent all this time, but… this too, I needed to settle.

Without further hesitation, I pushed open the glass door of a phone shop.

Let’s erase it completely this time.

“I want to change my number.”

A white puff of breath shattered as I spoke.

Walking along the familiar street of houses, I tried to put my thoughts in order. What I could do from here. What I shouldI do. Tomorrow, I really would list the house with a realtor. After my dawn shift, I’d come home and sleep the whole day away. Deep, deep sleep, the kind you don’t wake from easily.

Had I always been this short on sleep? Climbing the villa stairs slowly, all I wanted was to reach my room, collapse, and pass out.

But a few steps up, I froze.

Our front door was wide open. The lock on the knob was broken clean off. A thief? Not that there was much worth stealing. Even if something was gone, it didn’t matter.

Lately, I’d become a forgiving person. A thief broke in? Well, that happens. Let things be.

I stepped inside, shoes off.

At the computer desk sat my mother, collapsed in the chair like a soul half-absent.

That desk had once belonged to Father. When he left home, it was the only thing my brother brought with him. We can’t forget Father, Seokyung. That’s what he’d said.

Every time I visited, guilt and regret kept me from even approaching that desk. But today, my mother sat right there. Eyes swollen, expression vacant, as if hollowed out.

Noticing me, she turned her gaze, fumbling. Her eyes lit with something sharp—anger, or sorrow. She strode over, raised her hand, and struck me across the face. The slap rang, heavy with feeling.

“Cha Seokyung! Where the hell have you been?”

“…”

“You kept your phone off for days! Have I ever told you to call me first? You could at least answer when I call! Do you even know how many days I’ve been coming here looking for you?”

…Maybe she had. I’d either been at work or asleep. I wouldn’t have known if anyone came.

“Are you even living properly? The house is empty, the fridge is empty. How the hell are you surviving like this?”

I’m living fine, Mom. The house looks empty only because there’s nothing worth filling it with.

I could have said it, but for some reason no words came. Talking felt tiring, bothersome. When I stayed silent, her furious voice cracked into something wetter, trembling.

“…Seokyung… Why are you doing this too…?”

As if her strength gave out, she sank into the chair. Covering her face with her palms, she wept. Thin words spilled between sobs.

“I thought something had happened to you… That something terrible… That maybe you—just like your brother—”

I knew the words she couldn’t finish. I don’t understand. Why? I’m fine. Why assume otherwise?

I wanted to say it, but again, my mouth wouldn’t open. Misunderstanding or not, it didn’t matter. I was too tired, too drained. I just wanted to sleep.

But I couldn’t ignore her tears. Couldn’t just walk past into my room. I couldn’t do that anymore. Not with faces like hers—faces that always made me think of someone else.

So I sat against the wall, watching her cry. The sunset bled outside the window. When had it gotten so late? I closed my eyes, waiting silently for her to pour out every last drop of emotion.

“…Seokyung.”

Her voice, sunken from long crying, reached me.

“I know it must’ve been hard on you, after your brother… after he left.”

Was it? Was all my loss and loneliness rooted only in him?

“You know, when he was little, even then, he couldn’t kill an ant. Even grown, he wouldn’t pluck a flower by the roadside. Always gentle, kind, yielding… but sometimes, that hurt me. I felt like my son was only losing, always giving everything away.”

“…”

“I told him—‘You have to live claiming your own share too.’ But both of you, you were the same. Stubborn, headstrong, never listening no matter what I said.”

Thinking back, it was true. My brother and I were so different, yet when it came to our obsessions, once we locked onto something, neither of us would ever back down.

“And then one day, do you know what he told me? He said he was actually selfish. That every word, every action toward others always comes back to you. So it was all for his own good anyway. So I didn’t need to feel bad.”

It was something he would say.

“After he was gone, that’s the thought that pierced me over and over. He didn’t do anything wrong. But then I thought—ah… then it’s my fault. Because I was bad. Because I sinned. That’s why it all came back to him.”

“…”

“So now, Seokyung, every day I live like I’m walking on thin ice. Careful not to crush even an ant or a blade of grass. Careful with every word, every move, so that my sins don’t pass on to you. I pray instead that all the good I should’ve had will go to you instead.”

There’s no such thing in this world. I wanted to say it, but my throat burned.

“So please, Seokyung—live well. Okay?”

I am getting better. I am healing. But I couldn’t say it, because that would be a lie.

“Please, Seokyung.”

Please.

I wanted to beg too. Please, let me live as I used to. Let me return to who I was.

I am not Cha Wookyung. I am not Jin Namhee. I am different from them. I do not have to follow their paths.

And yet, in that moment, I realized— I can’t help but resemble them.

The depression is eating into me too.