PAX 20

However, because Mom and Dad had taken him away and returned without Yonghee, I was placing the responsibility solely on them. I was thinking that they had done something to a kid who could have lived, and, bluntly put, that they were the ones who ultimately killed him. That is how deeply I had become mired in the suspicion I held against Mom and Dad. Even though the person primarily responsible for Yonghee’s death was Ahn Yutan.

But no matter how I look at it, I can’t understand how I’m supposed to believe two people who announce that a kid—who was clearly beaten to a pulp—died in a truck hit-and-run, and I don’t know how on earth I’m supposed to accept that.

“Are you crying your eyes out inside right now, but just not showing it?”

Am I sad about Yonghee’s death?

Naturally, I am sad. It is sad that he was sacrificed in such a way. No. I don’t know.

Perhaps I am deferring my emotions. My body might be putting it off, saying I won’t grieve until I find out exactly who holds the decisive responsibility for Yonghee’s death.

If Yonghee had truly been receiving treatment at a hospital and had been recovering before suddenly dying, that death would be Ahn Yutan’s responsibility. If he had died inside the car while heading to the hospital, that, too, would be Ahn Yutan’s responsibility.

But if he died somewhere other than a hospital, it is Mom and Dad’s responsibility. Even if he died in the car while not heading to a hospital, it is Mom and Dad’s responsibility.

So, after identifying the person responsible, then what?

I don’t know what comes next. What I intend to do. What I would even be capable of doing.

I don’t even really know if I truly want to identify the person responsible.

I stared down at the pond for a long time. Just how deep is this pond? Is it deeper than Ahn Yutan’s height? Deeper than Mom and Dad’s, who are shorter than that? Or Yonghee. Or the family member who died of pneumonia. The family member who died of acute peritonitis. The family member who died giving birth…. The stillborn baby….

What on earth is inside there?

After thinking, I returned to my bike, started the engine, and left.

In the end, I did not go to the basement of the Plaza Building.

🎈🤍

I often climb the mountain and gaze at the crematory building in the distance. It is the place Mom and Dad mainly use. It is where they go when they need to handle the aftermath of a job they were contracted for, and it is the place they say they entrusted the cremation to whenever someone in the family dies.

Of course, excluding Mom and Dad, no one has ever seen a family member go inside the furnace. Everything is just a story passed down from Mom and Dad. No one has ever seen the deceased body of a family member who they said had died.

The Pachulso family grows every year. Children who have been abandoned in other cities or who have lost their families are entrusted to us, and children who have run away come to stay. As many leave as arrive. There are family members who died from accidents or illnesses, but there are also those who left abruptly after leaving a single letter saying they wanted to live independently.

And those letters, too, have only ever been read by Mom and Dad. They said they hold a ceremony of reading and immediately burning them, praying that the family member’s life would be smooth. That is why no one else has ever seen the letters besides the two of them.

It was about two years ago that I suddenly thought I saw something strange. When Sujin-noona, who was just weeks away from her thirtieth birthday, suddenly left the Pachulso one day, I realized there was no one among the cleaning staff older than thirty, and strangely, that kept lingering in my head.

In the two years since, five people have left in that same manner. They were all in their twenties at the time they left, and the pattern was the same. No signs whatsoever, then one night, suddenly leaving a letter saying they were grateful to Mom and Dad, disappearing, and never returning.

Once I became aware of the fact that it is always Mom and Dad who read the letters and convey the news among themselves, and that it is always Mom and Dad who convey the final moments of a family member who went to the hospital due to injury or illness, the two of them began to look different.

And this year, I am twenty-nine. I have become the oldest in the Pachulso, excluding Mom and Dad. From two years ago, when I first harbored doubts, until now, with thirty right in front of me, my head has been a mess every day. Doubting, ignoring it by thinking that couldn’t be the case, harboring doubts again, resigning myself, then becoming tense and anxious all over again.

Nothing is certain. It’s not as if I have seen any decisive evidence. Though I don’t even really know what that ‘decisive evidence’ would entail… regardless, the beginning of that anxiety is just a single pattern I discovered within the unfolding circumstances. So I cannot firmly believe in it, either.

Above all, I don’t like suspecting Mom and Dad at all. They are two people who live by taking in children who have lost their families, abandoned children, children with nowhere else to go, and children pushed to the edge after going astray, trying to give them love and feed them good food. It is not as if we are adopted, and unless it is a case where Mom and Dad have to give us a name, we all use our original names, so our surnames are all different, meaning we are effectively total strangers—but that is how they care for us.

It’s not as if there have only been suspicious circumstances. There have been a couple of times where I said goodbye to people who had lived together with us in the Pachulso for several years and then openly said they were leaving because this lifestyle didn’t really suit them. That is why everyone knows well that coming into and leaving the Pachulso is free. There have also been family members who were injured and went to the hospital but were treated well and returned. So it’s not that everyone died or disappeared in a suspicious manner.

That is why I keep suspecting myself as well—wondering if I am harboring strange delusions, or if I am suspecting innocent people just because I am fixated on that delusion out of the blue.

But when Yonghee left, loaded into Mom and Dad’s car, didn’t my expectation that he wouldn’t return ultimately prove correct? Even though I had gone so far as to think I would stop suspecting Mom and Dad if Yonghee returned.

Since my expectation was correct, I have no choice but to keep suspecting, and the talk of the truck hit-and-run only added fuel to my suspicions. The unfolding circumstances are all justifying my suspicions, yet I keep grasping at that suspicious heart of mine, bringing it to a halt and stopping myself.

It has been like this for almost two years. Suspecting and stopping myself, then suspecting again and stopping myself. It wasn’t as if I was doing this with a relaxed mind back then, either, but as I approached thirty, I started to become more impatient.

What will happen to me now? Will I be seriously injured in an unforeseen accident or suffer a severe cold and be loaded into a hospital with Mom and Dad? Will I leave a letter for Mom and Dad and suddenly disappear without saying much of a farewell to the other family members? Whether I am injured, sick, or disappear, will my final stop become that crematory over there?

No. I don’t know. I don’t want to keep thinking thoughts like this.

But because I have to reach some kind of conclusion by continuing to think, and yet that conclusion isn’t easily reached, it is frustrating.

After Yonghee died, I have often come here and gazed at the crematory. It is not because I am coming to see something. It is not as if I can see anything in there from here.

I am just, while looking at the crematory, continuing to stop myself. Telling myself not to think about going over there to find some kind of clue. Not to think about asking if it is truly the case that all the family members Mom and Dad said were cremated here—whether it be Yonghee or any of the Pachulso family from before—were actually cremated in this place.

My poking around could reach Mom and Dad’s ears. When the question of why I went around finding out such things comes up, there is no particular answer I can give.

I can’t very well ask them back if I, too, am going to die there soon—or more precisely, if it will be announced that I was cremated there, can I?

I truly do not welcome the moments when my faith begins to fade.

🎈🤍

I ignored the ‘Closed’ sign and opened the green door.

Kitae-hyung, who was sitting in the middle of the hall writing something as usual, looked up.

“You’re here?”

“Yeah.”

I went up to him and placed the bag on the table.

“You haven’t had dinner, right?”

“Hey, why are you buying something like this?”

While saying that, Kitae-hyung quickly took out the chicken box that was in the plastic bag.

“I’ll go steam some dumplings.”

Tearing into a chicken leg, Kitae-hyung went to the kitchen. I sat down and started eating as well.