038 – Strong women usually have weaknesses #4
“Aiya!”
Baek Yeo-ul, who was frying Vienna sausages with a heavy iron wok, screamed. It was because the hot oil had splashed and troubled her hand.
Even for Baek Yeo-ul, an Awakened One, wielding a wok was tough.
It was something that consumed both physical strength and dedication in an extraordinary way.
Her mother, Dang Hwa-yeon, who had been watching her for quite a while, clicked her tongue.
“My daughter, but you are really clumsy, so clumsy.”
“Well, of course I seem clumsy to you! You’ve spent almost 30 years in the kitchen, and I’ve only been doing this for a month!”
“Not about cooking.”
“Not about cooking?”
“Is it about a boy?”
Baek Yeo-ul flinched sharply. She trembled like a raccoon caught stealing feed from a shelf when the landlord suddenly appears.
Dang Hwa-yeon sighed deeply with narrow eyes while looking at Baek Yeo-ul.
“Is he one of the kids who came to visit our house that time? There were three boys, right? Which one is it? Perhaps the handsomest one. What was his name again…?”
“T-That’s not it at all!”
With a sharp sound, Baek Yeo-ul turned off the heat and stopped her wok work. Even though they were mother and daughter, talking about boys felt somewhat embarrassing.
However, Dang Hwa-yeon had a more resilient, manly side compared to what her daughter thought.
“No matter how deliciously you cook and bring it to a boy, it won’t make him fall for you. To seduce a man, you need to exploit his weakness well. Everyone has a ‘weakness.’”
“Weakness?”
“Didn’t I tell you the story about how your father came to live with our family as a son-in-law?”
“…Wait, Dad was a son-in-law…!?”
“What do you think the money for your father’s business came from? Didn’t it all come from my family? Even though your father ran the business, the capital came from your mother, thus making it a ‘Baek-Dang’ family!”
“But Mom, you said you were an orphan! I’ve always said I don’t have any maternal grandparents!”
“…Well, it turned out that way for some reason. Anyway, the point is that you need to exploit the weakness well. You should know how to pinpoint what the man wants.”
With a swift motion, Dang Hwa-yeon picked up the nearest chopsticks and threw them. As Baek Yeo-ul watched them get lodged into a kitchen pillar, she felt dizzy.
It made her feel like her mom was someone else.
Still, this unseen side of her mom, who seemed only to be a housewife so far, felt dependable to Baek Yeo-ul.
So she asked her mom.
“But, the boy already likes another girl.”
“Are they married?”
“No, they’re students. Marriage’s out of question…”
“Well, then what’s the problem?”
“But, she’s pretty… and popular…”
“Your dad originally had another girl he liked. She was the kind who only knew how to act coy like a fox, but strangely enough, she was very popular. Do you know how I took your dad away from her?”
“I don’t know! In fact, I don’t really want to know!”
“I brought down that girl by using her ‘weakness.’ If there’s even the tiniest crack like a small needle, no matter how powerful someone is, they will fall. You don’t need to be better than her.”
“Then, what should I do?”
“Just make her look bad compared to you. It’s even better if you get rid of her. You can put poison in her water, or stab her neck with a needle while she’s sleeping.”
“I see!”
“Then, shall we start practicing with chopstick throwing?”
“…Huh? Why do I need chopstick throwing to seduce a boy?”
“Yeo-ul, didn’t you understand what I just said? You need to drive away other foxes, don’t you. Since you’re my daughter, I’m sure you can learn ‘chopstick throwing’ in no time!”
Baek Yeo-ul felt her mom seemed a bit strange but also felt a surge of courage. Her confidence in being able to do it somehow soared.
So, Baek Yeo-ul stopped cooking and threw chopsticks at the pillar. Of course, since she was extremely unlucky, not a single chopstick hit the pillar.
—
Seugal’s story came to mind.
There was a ‘weakness’ related to Yu Yeo-reum—her connection to the orphanage.
Afterward, I did a bit of research on that orphanage myself. However, searching on the internet only brought up no relevant articles or information.
I couldn’t even find its location.
In the midst of this, when Yu Taeyang, Yu Yeo-reum’s adoptive older brother, brought up a story about the orphanage first, I felt as if the Goddess of Fortune was smiling at me.
Although her radiant glow prevented me from seeing her face, she must have looked exactly like Seugal.
“It was after my mom had a miscarriage of the second child. She was going through a really tough time. To console her grief, my dad suggested adopting a child. So, we often visited the orphanage.”
Yu Taeyang said he first met 7-year-old Yu Yeo-reum there.
“Adoption isn’t something you can decide on as easily as bringing home a puppy, right? It’s something that needs careful consideration since you’re becoming a family. Hence, we got to know Yeo-reum for three years.”
From when she was 7 until she was 10, Yu Taeyang’s family often got close to Yu Yeo-reum. Back then, she was known to laugh often and loved playing around actively.
“However, when the orphanage faced management issues, the children started scattering, and Yeo-reum’s personality changed a lot. Back then, we thought it might be early adolescence…”
Adoption and the orphanage closure.
Yu Taeyang believed that Yeo-reum’s personality changed after experiencing these events. He seemed to want to add a few more words but soon closed his mouth.
“Where is the orphanage located?”
“Speaking of location, here’s a business card I have. If you visit, it’s probably lying empty now.”
I slipped the handed business card into my pocket.
It was a more useful meeting than I had expected.
As the expensive sedan roared and drove off somewhere far away, I was finally able to enter the basement.
“Pervert, do you know what time it is now? It’s 9:40 PM. If you keep wandering around so recklessly, why don’t you throw away the watch on your wrist?”
Yining sitting cross-legged on the metal floor shot a cold verbal dagger my way. What was strange was that the guy accurately knew the time despite the fact there was no clock in this basement.
“Don’t know the concept of time due to someone else who doesn’t follow the time. Thanks to whom I learned about the ‘watch’ concept.”
As if reading my thoughts, Yining added a comment.
The ‘concept of time.’
Learning it is better than nothing, but I don’t think the training and tempering requested by the future Seugal was supposed to mean acquiring these kinds of concepts.
Still, just the fact of acquiring a new concept is something worth celebrating.
“Are you not worried even though you kidnapped me? If I were you, I’d be nervous to the point where I wouldn’t dare go to school. What will you do if I escape or shout for help from people around?”
Seugal who appeared to be extremely bored today complained more than usual. Yining was lying beneath her like a cushion.
━Gweeey…
Poor Yining.
Thinking about how Yining endured Seugal’s hysteria alone while I was away, I thought it would be nice to add sausages and bacon to his instant noodles today.
“I didn’t take a long time playing around. Actually, I just went to Yeo-reum’s house.”
“Really?”
The rapid fire words of Seugal abruptly stopped. Taking on a composed look again, she crossed her arms, raised her chin slightly, and assumed an air of arrogance.
“What did you do there?”
“Together we watched adult films. When Yeo-reum got excited, she shot laser beams from her eyes. Seugal, wasn’t the weakness of Yeo-reum you mentioned adult films?”
“Huh? Adult films? What are you talking about? What kind of weakness?”
“Also, I met her mom and older brother. I thought that because she came from an orphanage, they might have had an unfortunate family situation, but they seemed far more harmonious than expected.”
Though severe, Yeo-reum’s adoptive mother seemed full of love and loyalty, and her older brother cherished her like a younger sister. Even the dolls that Yeo-reum liked in her room seemed to reflect her happiness. Reflecting on this, Seugal tilted the corner of her mouth in a forced manner.
“Seems harmonious, huh? That’s why I said kidnap her.”
“Really?”
“If I can’t be happy, then it’s just a matter of pulling others down to my level.”
I was amazed at Seugal’s thought process. This Seugal was really a wicked girl. No wonder the future Seugal had described herself to me as “the worst kid” with a tinge of self-deprecating humor.
“Why do you keep doing this? Why are you constantly hurting yourself?”
“What are you talking about? What am I doing that’s hurting me?”
“Whenever you treat others badly, your inner self gets equally hurt.”
“Huh? How funny. All I feel is disgust from hearing this from a kidnapper?”
“You weren’t originally like this, right? You’re not truly being yourself right now. Just because you’re unhappy doesn’t mean you need to pull others down. You know very well that’s not what you really want.”
My goddess Seugal was a person with a gentle heart like a heavenly maiden. Because I knew her true nature, this current demeanor of Seugal felt unnatural.
During these few days, Seugal had been behaving relatively well, but it seemed like some kind of button had been pressed, causing her to lose her temper.
“What do you know about me? What kind of person was I originally? You only fell for me based on my outward appearance in the end. You only saw what I acted out, right?”
It was a cold voice.
━Gweeey…
Yining, who had been lying beneath her, flew to Seugal’s face and began to rub against her body, but Seugal pushed him away like chasing away an annoying fly.
“Go away.”
━Yiningya Ying…
It had been about half a month since Seugal was kidnapped, and she still meticulously scratched and irritated me, seemingly focused on nothing but hurting me.
The Scorpius CD-ROM was a lie, wasn’t it?
“Like the young prince who wanted to get along well with the rose but also wanted to leave her, I think I finally get the feeling now. Seugal, you are the best thing in the world to me. At the same time, you’re the most annoying thing in the world.”
“Huh? Little Prince? What nonsense again?”
“The Yeo-reum you mentioned, I’ll definitely bring her here, so don’t worry.”
After handing Seugal the packed lunch from Baek Yeo-ul, I headed to my room.
It was a night that made me think deeply about various things.
My biggest concern for the day was what kind of adult film would be the best choice to conclude the day.
Just then, Seugal’s call bell rang.
Given the events from just a while ago, I thought she wouldn’t talk to me for a few days. But here she was, calling me.
Still, I was a man among men.
I didn’t want to get swayed by a woman’s emotional side.
Should I wag my tail happily and go to Seugal now?
Doing so would only certify that I was a sucker.
Ignoring Seugal’s call bell, I reached into my pants pocket instead as something a real man must do.
“The Seedling Orphanage”
The address from the business card given by Yu Taeyang appeared.
With my legs, it wouldn’t be too late if I left now to get there.
