040 – Inoi and the Small Stationery Store #4
“Uh, President Kim. It’s me, the parting man. The owner of the moving company! When I moved to Banpo, you helped me with the moving and opened all the boxes, remember? Oh! Yeah!”
Father was making calls.
From people who had left the neighborhood to those still living there.
Seeing this, my sister Sun-A said,
“It really seems like he’s planning to gather everyone. Dad has always been proactive. But can he really do it? Finding mom…”
Sun-A thought of our mother.
How hard it had been since she disappeared.
Especially for my younger sister, Lee Jin-A, who had taken it upon herself to fill our mother’s shoes with cooking and laundry tasks, it must have been particularly tough.
But Jin-A sighed with worry as she looked at our father’s back.
“Dad becomes a different person whenever mom’s name comes up.”
Jin-A knew well how much effort and disappointment our father had faced trying to find our mother. As time passed, she thought everything would be okay now.
It seemed the man who had come today had reignited a spark in our father’s heart.
“Jin-A, you should make some calls too. They say we can find mom if we try.”
“…”
While Sun-A was tapping on her phone, Jin-A’s attitude was rather reluctant, but Sun-A understood why her sister was behaving like that.
Of course, she didn’t say it out loud.
“My sister is too diligent for her age.”
Ever since that incident, Jin-A had become a child who lost her dreams in many ways. On the outside, she was colorful and vibrant, but inside, she must have felt monotonous and colorless.
Sun-A felt very sorry for this fact while also feeling uneasy about it.
“If we succeed in finding mom this time, everything will return to how it was. This time feels different. It really does. My illness has also improved, right? I must have eaten a golden apple or something.”
Sun-A glanced at the charms, crosses, and the stones from Jiri Mountain that she had scattered throughout the house, which were supposed to have miraculous effects.
It was the result of pouring money everywhere to find their mother.
“Look at these charms. Now that I think about it, I really just wasted money, time, and effort. Haven’t you decided to give up on expecting too much since the disappointment was too great?”
“…”
Jin-A didn’t respond.
Despite being her sister, she was a girl of few words.
She hadn’t always been like this.
In the past, they would hold hands and go out together, and Jin-A would follow her around saying, “I want to be like you.”
But everything had changed since that day.
Jin-A’s personality had sharpened and grown cold.
“It must be anger.”
Was it anger at the world?
Or was it anger toward the man who saved everyone else but couldn’t save their mother?
Or perhaps…
“Jin-A, are you upset because you let go of mom’s hand? If you had just held on to her hand tightly, we could have been saved together. You still think that and hold a grudge, don’t you?”
Whoosh.
Jin-A didn’t answer and entered her room.
Click-.
“Hey! You brat! If you have nothing to say, you still slam the door and go in just like before! Hey!”
Bang bang-.
As her sister knocked on the door, Jin-A put on her headset.
The loud noise shook her head, and after a moment, her mind cleared up.
“I want to see mom too.”
In truth, it was Jin-A who wanted to see their mother more than anyone.
She was only 11 when their mom disappeared.
However, she also understood people’s emotions better than anyone.
If this time also ended in ‘failure’—no, if this time truly ended in failure, their father would definitely give up all hope and fall into great despair.
So would her sister.
“I would too.”
She recalled a joke she heard from her sister’s boyfriend a long time ago.
About a man who won the 2 billion lottery only to accidentally lose the ticket and searched everywhere but didn’t check the inside of his jacket pocket because he thought he would go crazy if it wasn’t there!
“How about that? Isn’t it funny?”
It wasn’t a funny joke at all.
But that’s exactly how Jin-A felt now.
What if Haildo fails too?
“…”
Jin-A looked at her phone.
Her vibrant yellow hair reflected on the black screen of her phone.
“If mom saw me like this, what would she say? She got really angry when you hung out with ruffians.”
Jin-A wanted to see their mother too.
So she opened her phone and started calling old friends.
“Hey, Yeon-A. It’s me, Jin-A.”
Deciding to feel in her inner pocket—
Finally, she made up her mind.
# # #
“This Inoi hopes that the expected Core Jin-A can meet mom again…! This Inoi knows well the sorrow of losing a mother…”
It was Friday, almost the end of the weekend.
Inoi felt slightly down while recalling the appointment in front of the best stationery store the next day.
“Inoi, did you lose your mom too?”
Inoi was a fairy nymph.
It seemed that nymphs were not necessarily born from nature.
“This Inoi’s mother used to be this Inoi’s master…! However, the moment she became invisible….”
What does it feel like to be separated from a mother?
I still have both parents, but if either mom or dad went missing due to an unforeseen accident, it would surely break my heart.
Soon, Inoi continued speaking.
“This Inoi wonders what will happen if the master comes back from afar searching for this Inoi…! This Inoi cannot be found in this distant land!”
Indeed.
Inoi seemed to worry about such things too.
What if the master, who had gone somewhere, returned to look for Inoi, but now Inoi had fallen into a strange crack and left her hometown?
That would be quite a sad story.
“Inoi, I’ll also look into how you can return to your hometown.”
“Indeed, the lord of the house…! It is reassuring…! But it’s okay if I don’t have to return to my hometown…! Because there is no water purifier or shower there!”
Inoi, who had seemed gloomy just a moment ago, quickly brightened up.
It seemed water that magically sprouted from a shower and purifier was better than returning to a nostalgic hometown.
After all, once you taste the benefits of civilization, you can’t go back to the old days.
Anyway.
It was true that I also wanted to find the moving company’s lady.
The only survivor I couldn’t save.
In a way, this was my blemish.
“Though I didn’t say it, I wonder if Jin-A might be resentful towards me?”
Like, “Why couldn’t you save our mom?”—perhaps Jin-A truly held such a grudge against me. The owner of the moving company might also have wanted to express such resentment with at least one word.
I had seen countless times how bereaved families, unable to gather their emotions, unleashed blame at others.
“I wish I had more strength back then.”
Working as an Awakened often made me feel powerless.
Moreover, I was a perennial D-class man who was soaked in defeat and helplessness.
Could there be another Awakened like me who craved strength?
With such feelings, I went to sleep.
Hoping for tomorrow.
And when morning came, a car honked right in front of the yard.
It was an old truck.
“Get ready and come out. I’ll wait inside.”
“Hey, Kkungkkungi, let’s go. Ahn Ahn, you come along too.”
—Kkungkkungi…!
—Wheeze…!
Perhaps because I had slept well last night, Ahn Ahn and Kkungkkungi were both in very good condition. If we successfully opened the crack, there might be a battle ahead.
I had my beam shovel ready.
Vroom-.
Finally, the old truck started up with a rumble.
“This Inoi feels so good riding in the back of this truck…! This Inoi will recite a poem!”
As Inoi began reciting poetry in the back of the truck.
“I am a nymph…! A fairy without wings…. Dreaming of flying in the sky…. Feeling a bit envious of winged friends like a nymph…”
What a strange poem this was!
And it seemed Inoi truly wanted to fly.
“But this Inoi has a truck instead of wings…! Surely no nymph has ever experienced riding in a truck!”
So it seemed.
Puhhh—.
But suddenly, the truck broke down.
“This is suddenly breaking down.”
Jin-A tapped the tire with her foot and kept checking the time. It was half past five when the crack had opened. She must have been anxious about whether we could make it before that time.
I asked Jin-A,
“Isn’t it about time to change this old truck? It’s old, after all.”
“They say this truck has been used since mom and dad went on dates. I inherited it.”
“Though it’s old, I think it’s nice because it’s vintage.”
Just then.
Ahn Ahn, who was perched on my shoulder, began to bob its head side to side.
—Wheeze—.
“What is it?”
Maybe it was just my feeling, but I felt like Ahn Ahn was saying, “I can fix the car. I can control human emotions—.”
With a hopeful thought, I placed Ahn Ahn under the car, and it crawled underneath, and I heard sounds of it tightening bolts.
—Wheeze!
“I think it suggests to try starting the engine?”
As I brushed off the now dusty Ahn Ahn, I told Jin-A. When she turned the key, the car started up with a rumble.
It was truly amazing.
“Ahn Ahn, you really can do anything!”
A car-fixing ant!
While Ahn Ahn simply watched car videos on my smartphone recently, I thought it was just a coincidence, but it seems that wasn’t the case!
—Wheeze…!
Vroom—.
The car finally began to start moving again.
Soon, Jin-A’s expression brightened considerably.
“The engine sounds a lot better! We could run it for another five years!”
This was the first time I saw this grim-looking girl look so happy. It seemed this car was really precious to her. I decided to apologize honestly.
“I’m sorry for saying it’s an old car.”
“It’s okay. It’s actually old.”
“And I’m sorry I couldn’t save your mother back then. Your family must have lived each day repeating that day, but I forgot about it.”
“…”
Jin-A looked slightly shocked, her mouth agape.
Then she turned her head slightly and gazed out the window at the highway, saying quietly,
“No, it wasn’t your fault.”
Feeling that way, we soon arrived in front of the best stationery store, and both of us were left in shock at the sight of so many people gathered in front of the store.
They were the people from our old neighborhood.
To be honest, I had been half-wondering if anyone would come.
Soon, the stationery store owner came out and said,
“I heard you’re looking for the lady? We all liked the moving company lady. She was well-known in the neighborhood. Everyone came except old Mr. Seo, who passed away last year.”
Nineteen.
It wasn’t the exact same number of people as back then, but many familiar faces still remained recognizable to me.
Soon the stationery store owner said,
“Then let’s recreate how it was back then! To reduce variables and see if we get the same results, let’s stand just as we did back then!”
At the owner’s words, the neighborhood people began to recreate the streets from long ago.
The stationery store owner took out an old mini-car track, saying, “There used to be a mini-car track on this street,” which was a really cool course that went all the way around.
He also brought out an old arcade machine and placed it on the street.
It truly felt as if everything had gone back ten years.
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s a wonderful item!”
As Inoi showed interest in the mini-car track and the arcade machine—.
Sun-A reached her hand out to her sister Jin-A.
“We need to hold hands too. We were holding hands and walking back then.”
