She was no different from a beast

Chapter 24

—–CROW—– 

“Daughter, what is the meaning of this?”

“That’s what *I* want to know.”

A pathetic father and daughter sat under the twinkling night sky, listening to the crashing waves, with two steaming bowls of ramen in front of them, warmed by a gently glowing burner.

Beneath Turtle Rock, bathed in the now-mild night breeze, they glared at each other, their voices drained of energy.

Yeah, what’s there to say? We’re both guilty, thoroughly scolded, kicked out of the house, and stuck eating ramen for dinner.

“When did you get caught?”

“That sashimi restaurant is Jeongwoo’s mom’s relative’s place.”

“Wow.”

Ulleungdo is scary!

Everyone knows everyone.  With such a small island, if you get a bad reputation, you can’t even have a casual day drink.

“I sold you out so I wouldn’t get scolded as much.”

“?? No, why did you sell me out *there*?”

“Isn’t it better for four people to share the blame for what three people did?”

What kind of nonsense is that?!

I wanted to flip the ramen boiling on the burner and yell, but…!!

“You sold me out to Mom plenty of times too, you rascal.”

“…”

As Dad said, I’ve sold him out to Mom many times, so I couldn’t argue back.

This is how karma comes back around.

“We can still go home tonight, right? …Ah, the noodles seem cooked.”

“I hope so. If not, this dad can sell you out to Mom and go in. …Hey. Put your chopsticks down, you rascal. Don’t you know elders eat first?”

“I’m the food taster. The food taster. Isn’t it proper for a child to have a bite first to see if it suits the adult’s taste?  And you’re going to sell me out again? What’s that about?”

“Haha. What kind of food taster tries to shove half the noodles in their mouth? Our sturdy Yuna might be fine, but this old dad will catch a cold sleeping outside. So I’ll sell out my daughter and go home first… Hey! Don’t take the whole pot!!”

We bickered back and forth, exchanging jokes and lighthearted banter while wielding our chopsticks.  We slurped down the precious ramen, a gift from Supermarket Grandpa, even the broth, then rubbed our bellies, sated but still slightly hungry.

“I finally understand why Jeongwoo called you a pig. How can you eat more than half by yourself?”

“Oh, Dad. Should I throw you in the water?”

While we were having a somewhat twisted, brutal, yet heartwarming father-daughter conversation, something occurred to me. Just a little something. Since it was almost my birthday, I got a bit curious.

“How did you and Mom meet?”

I sat on the stone wall, looking at the silently twinkling stars in the black sky and the vast, endless sea beyond, and asked Dad, who was sitting next to me.

My birthday is the day I was born.

So isn’t it natural to be curious about how the two of you met so I could be born?

And I’m curious how a super beauty like Mom, kind, pretty, with a great body and big boobs, ended up with a four-dimensional weirdo like Dad, a normal-looking guy.

“Hmm. So you’re curious about that? Hmm… Well, your mom and I have a rather unique story, unlike other people.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

I wondered if he used some kind of hypnosis app…no, there are no smartphones yet, so maybe he learned hypnosis and put a suggestion on her. The difference in their looks is so big that I had some rather unpleasant thoughts.

“Daughter? Your gaze is a bit suspicious.”

“Considering Mom’s looks…it’s understandable.”

“Pfft. Well, even my friends asked if I had some dirt on her when they heard I was dating…no, marrying your mom.”

Oh. So I wasn’t the only one who thought that.

That’s how extraordinary Mom’s beauty is…yeah.  It’s beyond the realm of ordinary people.

When we’re out and about, she’s so stunning that people might mistake her for a model.

Dad chuckled at my teasing reply and looked up at the sky with a slightly nostalgic and happy expression, as if reminiscing about the past.

“Your mom and I used to live in Incheon, on the mainland, where you have to take a boat to get there.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. Well, after we got married, we came to live on Ulleungdo, but I’ll tell you about that later. Let’s see… I first met your mom when she started middle school, and I had just graduated high school and started university.”

“???”

Huh? What? Wait. Hold on. What did I just hear?

So, you met when you were 20, a young man free from the hell of being a high school senior, and Mom was a little 14-year-old?

Crazy. Is this for real?

Did you really hold something over her head or something? How can a person…wow. Just wow.

“Dad, didn’t people call you a scumbag?”

“My classmates still do whenever we talk.”

I don’t know what happened, but in my mind, Dad was always a funny weirdo, fun to tease and easy to be around…

But right now, he’s been branded as a top 0.1% scumbag.

“I’m glad you didn’t end up eating prison food.”

“Haha. Stop talking nonsense and just listen to your mom and dad’s story. Hmm. My family has a motto: When you turn 20, you’re on your own. So, as soon as I started university, I looked for a tutoring gig.”

Luckily, back then…and even now, sending kids to academies is popular, so it was a time when people spent a lot of money on academy fees and tutoring.

Even though it wasn’t a prestigious university in Seoul, I was lucky enough that the owner of the gukbap restaurant I always went to asked me if I wanted to tutor his daughter.

“And that gukbap restaurant owner became my mother-in-law a few years later.”

“Wow. So you were a thief who stole his daughter after he paid you to tutor her.”

“Haha. Your grandpa tried to smash my head in with a ttukbaegi.”

I would have done the same.

The fact that he didn’t actually do it makes him a saint.

Grandpa, whom I’ve never met…how could you send your daughter to such a thief?

“But tutoring doesn’t lead to marriage, right? If tutoring leads to dating and marriage…wouldn’t all school teachers be playboys?”

“That’s true, but this dad was quite popular back in the day.”

“…”

“No, really! Huh. Look at you, not believing me.”

“…Yeah, sure.”

You don’t look like someone who was ever a popular guy or an alpha male.  What kind of ridiculous boast is this?

Say something that makes sense.

Just because it’s a time I don’t know, you’re talking nonsense.

“Even now, but especially back then, your mom was very lonely and timid.  At first, she used to hide behind her mom whenever she saw me…but with my amazing eloquence, I coaxed and charmed her, and we quickly became close.”

“Wow. It sounds weird when you say a 20-year-old coaxed a 14-year-old.”

“That’s just how I put it, you rascal. Anyway…after tutoring her for about a year, we became very close, and your mom’s grades went up, so your grandma was very happy. But then!  Right then! I had to move out of the room I had managed to find.”

It was a time when I might have had to take a break from university and tutoring and work at a factory or something for a while.

I honestly told them everything and said that tutoring would be difficult for a while… Do you know what your mom did?

She grabbed her mom and dad’s legs and cried, “I don’t want to break up with Oppa Yubang! Can’t Oppa Yubang live with us?”

There were other things too, but let’s skip those.

“While I was in university, I lived with your grandma and grandpa… I tutored your mom, helped out at the gukbap restaurant on weekends, and that’s how I lived.  About two years passed like that? Your mom confessed to me right before I was about to graduate.”

“?? Mom did? Why?”

That’s so random. Why would Mom?  What did she have to gain?

“I don’t know, you rascal. We were all eating together at her house, and she climbed on top of me and confessed.  In front of her whole family.  Man, I thought I was going to die.”

Wow. Mom is amazing too.  A public confession in front of her family?

Now I understand why Grandpa wanted to kill Dad.

“So, did you accept?”

“Are you crazy? Even for me, dating a kid is a bit much, you rascal. I let her down as gently as I could, bowed to your grandma, thanked her for everything, and said I’d join the army while Suyeon sorted out her feelings, so I’d disappear for a while.”

Oh.  So Dad wasn’t a complete scumbag.  That’s right. I knew it.

Even if he’s a weirdo, he’s still a human, not some beast in human form. I can vouch for that, having lived with him for eight years.

But this is…Dad made a difficult decision.

He didn’t intentionally seduce her, but he still took responsibility and made a sacrifice.

Some might say he ran away to the army, but he couldn’t just stay there and do nothing.

“So then how did you end up dating and getting married?”

“Your mom came to visit me.”

“…Huh?”

“She came to visit me in her school uniform, grabbed my boots, cried her eyes out, and begged me not to leave her, saying she could wait forever.”

“Wow.”

Mom…she wasn’t just quick to fall in love; she was almost frighteningly devoted.

If she went all the way to the base to do that, I would have been scared into accepting too.

“Yuna, want to hear something even funnier? Your grandpa used to have a full head of hair. Do you know why he’s bald now?”

“???”

“Your mom pulled it all out, thinking he had chased Dad away.”

…Mom, what did you do in your teens?

It was a time when I realized that Mom had a much more fiery and passionate filial side than I did.

—–CROW—– 

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