55 – Independence
20 Years old.
I left the familiar nursery school and took my first step into a cold and scary society.
So I was busy preparing a lot of things in my own way.
After January 1st, January 2nd. All government offices and banks are reopened…
As soon as the year in the truest sense began, I was so busy that even two bodies were not enough.
The director might think it disappointing, but I didn’t want to be in a nursery school even after I became an adult. I was preparing to stand alone.
And just because I wanted to stay at the nursery school, I could stay.
When I turn 20, the government will give me independence support funds and other benefits, so I kept renting out the apartment I had, and I made a plan to live in a one-room apartment given as independence support funds.
After all, if you are at a nursery school, this is an automatic benefit regardless of whether you have property or not.
I’m fine, but there’s no reason to stop the government from giving it away, right?
This is what happened, as a child from an orphanage, I received all the government subsidies I could get, and the cup noodles and pot sets that the district office distributed for people like me. I also brought a complete set of gas burners.
And also, I moved all my belongings from the nursery school to the new one, and lastly, before leaving the nursery school, the Future Foundation sponsored winter items, and I ate all of them.
That’s why. It is already evening.
In fact, even saying “Home” Is a grandiose expression.
Room. Yes one room Today, I went to the bank with the director to get a subsidy and get all the benefits, and I looked into this and that.
I will live here for six months free of charge.
Looks like you have to pay monthly rent after 6 months. Well, it’s still a long way from the end of the charter contract, so I want to think about that later, pack up all the luggage I brought today, wash up quickly, and go to bed.
There is a mountain of work to do.
-Wooooong
I heard a vibration sound, so I picked up my phone to check, and the director called.
Perhaps he called because he was worried about whether I was living well..?
It’s only been 5 hours since we broke up after we brought all our luggage here and ate warm soup together…. Sometimes, the director seems to treat me like a child.
“Yes- Director..”
“Jung Yoo, is there a wired wire there?”
“…Yeah? That wire isn’t here?”
Right now, it’s been less than half a day since I came to this house, how could Yoo Seon-i know and come here…
“It’s not in the nursery school, it’s not even in the mountain behind it. It’s nowhere to be found… Where the hell did he disappear to…? First of all, thank you. Yujeong-ah!”
– Took!
The director just said what he had to say and then hung up.
Come to think of it, Yoo Seon still doesn’t have a cell phone.
The Mirae Foundation supports mobile phones, so I can make phone calls and chat a lot.
Yoo Seon is a member of Mirae Group. Whatever it was, once the sponsorship items came from there, the game started…
I don’t like Mirae Group either, but I use my cell phone.
“…You really know us…”
We are adults now. I am a person who can take responsibility for my own choices.
I feel a bit unusual for the director to call me right away to say that Seon Yoo is not seen at the nursery school.
Because Yoo Seon likes to take a walk. He might be able to climb the back mountain and look at the pond. He might be walking down a trail, or he might be. When I look out the window, white snow is falling.
-Puffing.
It rains a lot. I guess I’ll have to wear an umbrella and thick padding to go outside.
Because Yoo Seon doesn’t have a cell phone. I always worry about the director because I can’t even contact him. Did you say that you will leave early when you leave? When we meet, I have to tell you something.
Are you okay?
The last time I saw Yoo Seon, he looked much less energetic than usual.
That’s also true, because Yoo Seon-i didn’t receive any of the welfare benefits that I also received.
Like me, a little subsidy, a place to stay. This means that you will not receive any coupons.
Does this make sense?
Since she was a baby, she has been in nursery school ever since. Why can’t you support something like this?
The director and I went to the district office and argued and argued. I just repeated like a parrot saying no as a rule.
Since her father’s funeral in her old days, Yoo Seon sometimes stares blankly out of her window, or sheds tears. And she also… She was more spread out lethargic than active.
There is a part where I get nervous when I see an advertisement for Mirae Group on TV, but I am still a good kid.
She is a kind and gentle child like Yu Seon wandering the streets at night, but what does she do when she goes down a bad path ..?
She has seen such cases often since she lived in an orphanage until now.
No big deal.
I could just be going up and down the hill behind her without thinking.
Why… I don’t know why I run like this. It’s not in the pond on the back mountain that I always climbed with Yoo Seon when I was at the nursery school.
Also… The arcade and cafe where the two of us go to play sometimes..! And there were no wires in the library either!
That… Where else is Yoo Seon? He… I’ve been looking around her, looking for a place to go.
“…So what did I say to that teacher then…”
Between buildings.
You can see yellow, pink, blue… Colorful heads in the back alley.
A pierced ear and mouth piercing. Tattoos on his hands and neck.
Looking at those kids who don’t seem to have much of an age gap with me, why do I think of Yoo Seon..?
I have a picture of him squatting over there, smoking a cigarette with blank eyes.
…That’s… I really hate that. I really hate it when Yoo Seon does that.
I didn’t want to think that I would stray down that dark path.
If I was going to do that kind of bullying with common sense… I would have done it in high school, now I’m an adult. There’s no point in doing something like that.
Since Yoo Seon is a kind and gentle child, I want to believe that he will definitely not do meaningless things like that.
“..Ah..”
Help-
Really, after searching around the neighborhood all day, I was able to find Yoo Seon in an unexpected place.
There is a turtle-shaped bunker in the playground. Yoo Seon-i was hiding in it, squatting, avoiding the snow pouring down into the sky.
I really want to. I rubbed my eyes! No matter how you look at it, it was wired.
“Hey!”
I am so upset and angry to see Yoo Seon-i, who spends all day squatting in a bunker after having made all the worries about people worry about her.
Again… I was so worried that I might walk the wrong way.
“Kang Yoo-seon! What are you doing here…!”
I don’t usually get angry like this, but today I need to get angry.
As soon as I shouted, Yoo Seon-i’s body flinched and trembled – she raised her head. That… Yoo Seon-i was weeping profusely, unsuitable for her size.
Ah. Seriously… That, you shouldn’t be weak. I can’t watch it just because I’m crying.
“…It’s cold to go back”
Originally, I was just going to nag you about how much the director was looking for you and why you left the nursery school.
I shed so many tears. I thought that getting angry was something I couldn’t do to Yoo Seon.
“…I won’t go back”
“Why?”
“Other people may get hurt because of me”
…. It’s not like they’re shooting some kind of spy movie- it’s like they think they’re the main character of some kind of Bourne-series.
Because of one stupid orphan, the future group sent someone to monitor it and harm the other person.
I’ve felt it for a long time, but since Yoo Sun-ie and Mirae came out of high school, the Mirae group has been harassing me. Watch over I was lost in that thought.
Me and the director have been together with Yoo Seon until now, but nothing happened.
“…Are you afraid that the friend who gave you a present in the past might harm you?”
This is a story that only Yoo Seon and I know.
From noble mtl dot com
You might think that could be the case for Yoo Seon, who was severely bullied by him because he had been given a luxury gift worth tens of millions of won in the past.
You give such a gift to someone else- Again… I lived through a lot of suffering from a kid with the ability to harass a guy of the same size so easily.
I don’t think it makes sense to be obsessed with an orphan without a rat, but… I can’t say it’s a delusion because something like that has happened before.
But… No matter how… You catch a cold in a cold place like this.
“Yoo Seon-ah, wake up first. Then let’s go home.”
“…What?”
“He said he didn’t want to go to the nursery school! But are you going to stay here…? Look at your hands- it’s as cold as ice. It snows a lot like this, so don’t be stubborn for nothing. Come to my house and for now… The snow… Shouldn’t you be avoiding it?
And our house is closer than the nursery school. Wake up soon I’m going to catch a cold like this!”
I pulled Yoo Seon’s arm as he was squatting and dragged me to my house.