Young Jae couldn't help but smile at the thought of calling his mother. His cousin sister Chin Sun told him she would call when she takes his mother to a safe place in the house without anyone else knowing. All thanks to Yang Min Jee, aka baby doll. She helped him navigate through the new phone his cousin Chin Mae got for him. She even helped him in saving his phone number as he recited it.
He almost said Ki Hoon Joo's number and held himself back. He needs to accept the betrayal of the double-faced jerk who ruined his life. Young Jae couldn't decide which hurt him the most.
The broken promise of always being there and loving him or calling him plagiarising jerk before throwing him out of the office like a sack of garbage.
He gave his heart to Ki Hoon Joo and got himself played. Young Jae felt a massive weight over his chest whenever he thought of Ki Hoon Joo and falling in love with someone like that trash. He believed that they would have a happy life. But in reality, all Ki Hoon Joo did to him was grab his heart with bare hands and tear it apart like some trash.
He startled back to reality when he felt a hand cupping his cheeks. The hand tenderly wiped his tears as if the hand's owner was scared to break the porcelain doll. The cotton bind over his eyes was drenched with tears, and the wet tears started to roll down.
"I am a fine baby doll. Just thinking about talking to my mother makes me emotional." He tried to assure his newly found sister. It came naturally to him to call her baby doll like his cousins. Even though her nickname was a baby doll, her personality was far away from the doll.
"Geojismal!" she called him out on his lie without any hesitation.
Even though she always treated him physically like a porcelain doll, she was always harsh with her words. Like she never lied in her life to comfort others. She didn't probe more after she declared his lie. Neither about the tears nor the lie.
He felt her take a seat in the garden's stone bench right next to him. Without any word between them, they fell into a comfortable silence for a long time, basking in the evening sun and listening to chirping birds in the garden.
"I know I should not feel this way. But can't help... I am jealous." Young Jae finally admitted what was eating his head and making him feel guilty.
For truthful revelation like this, all the response he got back was "about?" from baby doll as a short question.
"I am jealous of my cousins. I am jealous of you… and jealous of…" his voice wavered as if he was about to cry.
He didn't expect a warm hand to hold his cold hand.
"We might be in a slightly better position than you at the moment. But that doesn't mean we have a perfect life. or we always had one. We have our share of the burdens. Our share of issues. Kang Chin Mae used a wheelchair most of his childhood and teenage. Whatever the confidence you see in him was something he built in the last few years than something he innately had. Moon Chin Hae was kicked out for something he didn't even do. He refused his mother's help and worked for every penny he has now. He struggled a lot. As for me… it was nothing pleasant. If we talk about my past, and it will take forever for me to explain my fucked up family. Now tell me what was even there to be jealous of?" she asked him casually, and there were no anger or irritation in her voice.
"I am jealous of what you have. The bond with each other…" Young Jae couldn't say anything loud and just murmured.
A pearl of laughter surprised him shortly after she said, "We don't have any other choice but be there for each other. We don't trust others easily. So, it is easier for us this way, to keep between ourselves. That's it… nothing special between us..." She said everything in a light tone. As if they were discussing typical weather and not the pointless jealously.
Before Young Jae could ask more about them, the phone in his hand rang.
Baby doll took the phone from him and picked the call before giving it back to him.
"Yeoboseyo!" he said the hello slowly.
"Young Jae Oppa… I will give the phone to aunt…" Sunny spoke first.
They called her as they were unsure if Young Jae's father was observing the mother's action. They didn't want to create her more problem than what they already have. Chin Hae bought sunny's phone, and no one can monitor it as it was customised for her with a different type of security settings.
"Eomeoni", Young Jae called her.
Ko Yun broke down to tears listening to her son call her mother after years.
It's not that he didn't want to call her mother in years, but he could not call her mother if they were not in a social gathering putting a façade of a happy family. If he called her outside the social event, his mother would not be allowed to eat for three days, and his father and grandmother would beat her. Sometimes his Uncles second wife joins her hand to beat her up.
"Young Jae ah… Young Jae ah… how are you? Where are you? Eomma misses you… mianhaeyo… eomma mianhaeyo… I couldn't protect you… eomma mianhaeyo…" Ko Yun was repeating her apologies again and again. She was chanting his name and begging for forgiveness without stopping.
The guilt she had was weighing her down. The inability to protect her son and to witness him unconscious in the pool of blood was still fresh in her mind.
She always wanted her children away from the Moon family. Especially after knowing her son's sexual orientation, she asked him to cut ties with the family and lives the life he wants happily. She was very well aware that her son could never be happy if he stayed in the Moon family. Nothing mattered to her more than her son's happiness. She never wanted him to be trapped in a loveless marriage like her and suffer every day.
"Eomeoni… I am fine. Cousins and their friend is taking care of me. I am really fine. There is nothing wrong with me. Please don't say sorry. You did everything to protect me. You are always my superhero. Please don't cry…" Young Jae spoke to her with tears running down his cheeks continuously.
All he wanted to do was hug his mother and bury all his worry away in her embrace. As if realising his need for physical reassurance, an arm held him around the shoulders and hugged him slightly. He felt more grateful for the warmth he experienced in a long time.
After crying for some time, both the mother and son spoke as if nothing was wrong in their life and everything was perfectly fine.
He hid the loss of vision, other injures and multiple concussions to his mother and cousin sister. He didn't want to worry about him.
They couldn't even speak for the heart content as Moon Min Seok, Young Jae's so-called father, screaming for his mother to make the coffee for him. She had to leave the call abruptly as they didn't want their call to be found by anyone.
Even though there was excruciating pain in him, nothing could remove the happy smile he sported on his face that day. Even the fear of getting operated on in two days would not.
He just sat there for the rest of the evening in the garden, in his wheelchair next to the baby doll who sat on the stone bench, being his silent companion.