Kim Dokja and Yoo Sangah kept talking as they walked in the path.
"I told you Dokja-ssi, you didn't need to walk me home."
"Haha, if I knew that you lived closer to me, I would've walked you home everyday."
A call rang could be heard from Dokja's phone. He looked at the screen, but his face seemed darkened.
"Sorry, I need to take this call. Can you wait for me?"
"Ah, sure! It must be important call for Dokja-ssi!"
Kim Dokja smiled and entered a alleyway, so that Yoo Sangah couldn't hear the conversation. He sighed and received the call.
"What's your problem? Can't you leave me alone?"
["Shouldn't you be happy your mom calling you after all this time?"]
"Do you really want that?"
["A little bit."]
How funny. Kim Dokja smirked. He knew it was a obvious lie.
["It has been a long time? I don't remember when I saw you last time."]
He asked, "When did you get out?"
["A little while ago."]
There was a silence between them for a moment. Dokja knew his mother and he didn't look alike. No matter how hard he tried to remember, it was only a face in the late 30s. When he was a child, he often heard that she looked like his older cousin. Of course, that was when he still had his father.
"Do you live in Seoul?"
["I came to meet someone I knew."]
"Then why do you keep calling me?"
["Let's see? Perhaps it is out of a desire for atonement?"]
"...Atonement? You?"
["Every human is a prisoner. They have their own prison."]
Kim Dokja stayed quite for a while after hearing that from his mother. That shameless tone... She really hadn't changed.
["You are the only one who came to the prison to see me and told me about the novels you read."]
That was correct. He never had a proper conversation with his mother during all the times he visited her at the prison. Kim Dokja only talked about the novels he would read. Once he became tired of it, he stopped visiting. "I didn't have anything else to say apart from those novels."
["How can that be?"]
"Those novels were all I had."
An image of the past came to his mind before disappearing. If there hadn't been those novels or the Han Soongyun who wrote those stories for him, perhaps he wouldn't be in this world right now. Those stories were the only comfort to the Kim Dokja who didn't have a mother or a father.
His mother muttered, ["Those were at most a fantasy novel..."]
"In the end, I survived thanks to that novel."
They were silent for a moment.
There was a hint of sorrow in his mother's voice. Kim Dokja had no way of knowing if it was acting or not.
She asked, ["Are you still holding a grudge against me?"]
"I'm not here to talk about that."
["Your father was the bad guy."]
"I know."
There were certainly 'bad people' in this world. One type used violence against their wives, illegally gambled and threatened their family's livelihood.
Kim Dokja's father was a bad person. He knew it, his mother knew it and South Korea's laws said it. However...
"Your actions weren't right just because my father was a bad person."
["There are things we have to sacrifice for a better life."]
"There is no such law in South Korea. There is a law that any human who commits murder should go to prison."
["You are good at speaking because you only read novels."]
"For me, reality was more like a novel. Because of you."
At this point, it already wasn't a normal conversation between mother and son. This was why Kim Dokja didn't want to talk to her. He knew what would happen when they talked. They knew too much about how to hurt each other.
Kim Dokja's mother was the best at making bad people worse.
["Dokja. Look straight at reality. Even if fiction becomes reality, you shouldn't think of fiction as reality."]
He only heard a few words but his entire world seemed to shake violently. He knew for sure. To this, this person was the strongest reminder of the 'reality' Kim Dokja hated.
["Do you understand?"]
Kim Dokja couldn't bear it anymore and spoke up. "That's right. I think that fiction is like reality. Why? It is because I have always been living that way."
["..."]
"Maybe it seems pathetic to you. However, know this. At least I didn't sell 'reality as fiction' like you did."
"Don't call me anymore."
He hung up the call with these last words. Cool air entered his coat's collar and reached his body.
It was just a memory he wanted to forget.