Bom came back carrying a small box with her hands and appeared to be in a good mood as she hummed on her way in. Yu Jitae and Kaeul were standing awkwardly in the living room as they welcomed Bom. Kaeul said, “W, we, welcome backkk…!” and was confident it was naturally done.
“Nn nn. What are you two doing in the living room?”
“Nothing. The weather’s just very good…!”
“Right?”
Bom replied with a smile as Kaeul asked another question.
“W, what is that?”
“Oh this? It’s something I ordered online.”
“What did you order?”
“A flowerpot. It’s a gift for someone.”
“W, who…?”
In response to her repetitive questions, the green pair of eyes quietly looked into the golden eyes. Her eyes turned out of focus for a little, seemingly in a deep thought.
“Just someone.”
After replying with a faint smile Bom went into her room. Seeing that, Kaeul turned towards Yu Jitae and very slowly gave a firm nod.
What.
What’s that nod for.
“T, thenn~ Aii am going back to my roohoom~~♪”
Kaeul headed back to her room with soft steps like she was on the runway of a fashion show. The funny thing was that despite the situation at hand and her rigid steps, her walk would still make for a fine painting.
Since he wasn’t used to situations like this, he needed time to organise the situation in his mind.
…
It seemed that Kaeul was trying to gloss over it and pretend like she knew nothing about it.
He decided to go along with it to an extent. It was when he returned to his own room to wear a business shirt and wrap a tie around his neck.
[Kaeuli♥: Ahjussi]
[Kaeuli♥: Ajhsusi]
[Kaeuli♥: Ahjussi TT.TT TT.TT]
He got messages from Kaeul.
[Me: Ye]
[Kaeuli♥: It shuld bee fien rihgttt??????? TT.TT]
[Me: It should be]
[Kaeuli♥: Right? T.T We didn’t look at the book did we T.T. I think the water did go in a little but it might actually be quite dry right??]
Kaeul started trying to think about it as positively as possible.
That was probably not the case, but having a relaxed mind until the actual uncovering of the truth is always the best so he went along with it.
[Me: You’re right.]
[Kaeuli♥: Right? Wow]
[Kaeuli♥: Am I a genius?]
[Kaeuli♥: That makes so much sense!! Yes yes???]
[Me: Yes]
[Me: You never know]
[Kaeuli♥: That’s correct! You never know!]
[Kaeuli♥: No-one knowss hehe!]
[Me: The daughter-in-law doesn’t know]
[Kaeuli♥: You’re right. Gyeoul doesn’t know either!]
[Me: And Yeorum also doesn’t know.]
[Kaeuli♥: FR FR lololol]
[Kaeuli♥: Lolololololololololol~~~]
[Kaeuli♥: As long as nothing happens here, it will become a secret only the two of us will know of in the entire world ♥]
That was when Bom’s voice echoed from outside the room.
– Kaeul. Yu Kaeul.
– Are you in your room?
The noisy reply messages came to a sudden stop.
Unfortunately,
Neither the daughter-in-law, Yeorum nor Gyeoul knew about it, but Bom did.
***
“Kaeul. Look at this.”
Kaeul rolled her eyes around as he sneaked out into the living room and sat on the sofa. It was because he got a final SOS message from Kaeul but he watched the situation unfold for now without chiming in from the start.
“U, uuun~?”
Bom opened the notebook.
The letters were all smudged in water.
“The water spilled and now the entire diary is wet.”
“I, is that so…?”
“Do you know anything about this?”
Kaeul rolled her eyes. Since a silence too long would seem suspicious, Yu Jitae was thinking about intervening when Kaeul opened her mouth.
“Hmm. Who knows…?”
“You really don’t know?”
“Uun…”
“Ah. Maybe Nom Nom accidentally hit the glass and spilled it while catching some bugs?”
“…”
Kaeul made an expression that read ‘Maybe?’ on her face while sweating buckets.
However, Bom had a very serene look on her face. Looking at the notebook with all its letters smudged and illegible, she murmured, “What should I do. This is a big problem…”
She looked very concerned instead of being angry and Kaeul asked after finding it strange.
“Why why? Was there something important written inside…?”
“Nn…”
“But, can’t you restore it with magic?”
“I can’t.”
“Why? O, or maybe you can write down what you remember into a new book?”
“The problem is that I can’t do that. You see, this is not my diary.”
“Uinng…?”
Kaeul blinked her eyes.
Bom explained the situation.
Zhuge Haiyan of the Association had gotten a boyfriend, and to commemorate their upcoming 100 days together, Zhuge Haiyan was writing a diary entry each day regarding love. But since she was inexperienced at male-to-female relationships and thus bad at writing beautiful sentences, she had been asking Bom for help regarding how to write them.
“Ehng? Is that how it is? It, it looks the same as your notebook though…?”
“That’s because I bought her the same one as mine as a gift.”
“Hukk…”
No wonder. The original cover page had something written on it but this one only had a single heart instead.
“What do I do…”
Bom said while heaving out a deep sigh.
“Today is their 99th day together…”
“S, so tomorrow’s the day?”
“Nn…”
The situation felt more painful for Kaeul than before.
“It’s my fault for being too much of a fool. Why did I go outside with a glass of water next to Nom Nom? It’s also my mistake that I only read half of it for their privacy… I should have read the whole thing beforehand just in case…”
Bom raised her hands and covered her face.
“…How am I supposed to tell her this?”
Kaeul turned blank.
She faced Bom with blinking eyes for a little and soon, the child wriggled her toes as well as her fingers. Anxiously, she fidgeted with her left index finger using her right hand.
“Oh right. Sorry for interfering with your rest, my dear. You should head back to your room.”
After caressing her hair, Bom turned around with Nom Nom’s flowerpot and the diary in her hands.
While she was on the way back to her room, Kaeul endlessly fidgeted with her fingers before slightly turning her head to throw a glance at him. Yu Jitae returned her a nod after seeing the anxiety hanging on her face as Kaeul then went up to Bom while calling out, “Unni.”
Bom turned around.
“Sorry.”
“Nn?”
“I did that…”
Her eyes widened into circles. But at the same time, her lips also curled up as Bom smiled with a mischievous look on her face.
“I know.”
Those unexpected words made Kaeul turn blank. With a slightly brighter look on her face, Bom gathered mana at her fingertip.
“You know, this is actually restorable.”
Before long, the water started to leave the book. The wrinkled papers returned to being stiff as the smudged letters also returned to normal.
Slowly Kaeul’s face started to turn dark. Bom had been pretending to be clueless despite knowing everything.
“Kaeul.”
She knew what question would soon leave Bom’s mouth, and that question would be a very very scary one.
“Why did you lie to me?”
***
Kaeul came out honest.
It’s because I was very surprised. I’m sorry.
She honestly revealed everything since she was caught anyway. With a slight grin, Bom pinched her cheeks and pulled them out like rice cakes.
“You did something wrong. Yes?”
“Yes…”
“You need some punishment.”
She was sentenced to holding her arms up high on her knees, so Kaeul had to kneel at the corner of the living room (the protector’s place of exile) with her hands in the air. Bom placed Nom Nom’s flowerpot on top of her outstretched hands which she wasn’t allowed to drop. Kaeul nodded with a sunken look on her face.
“But still, thank you for coming out honest.”
“Uh, really…?”
“Don’t put your hands down though.”
“Yes…”
Kaeul constantly heaved deep sighs with a dark expression with her hands in the air.
Soon, the members of the house began to come back.
The protector after coming back from hiking tilted its head wondering why she was in the area of exile instead.
Gyeoul returned from school and observed Kaeul, before taking a piece of banana and feeding Nom Nom on top of her hands,
And Yeorum teased Kaeul by poking her ribs and armpits with a chopstick.
Even though things had seemingly come to a good conclusion, Kaeul still did not have a very bright look on her face and looked quite gloomy. Was she feeling guilty even after being forgiven? Thinking that, Yu Jitae took her outside after the punishment had ended.
What should we have today? He asked and Kaeul shook her head.
“I’m fine. I don’t feel like eating…”
Okay. Then how about a red velvet cake at a nearby cafe?
“…Why is it tasty.”
Red velvet cake – the moment she had a taste of that sweet cream cheese, Kaeul widened her eyes. A cheese cake and a chocolate crepe… after having several sweet desserts, Kaeul returned to her bright self.
“Ahjussi. As expected, when you’re feeling down–”
“Sweet stuff is the best.”
“Uun…!”
Kaeul chuckled out loud with cream on her lips. But suddenly, she widened her eyes from a sudden trail of thought and looked at him.
Blink, blink.
She continued thinking while blinking her eyes and soon tilted her head with the fork still in her mouth.
“You know what? Sometimes, ahjussi, you are very amazing.”
“What.”
“How do you know me so well?”
“Do I.”
He was wondering what idle talk this was going to be and quietly drank the coffee but Kaeul continued with a slightly more serious voice.
“It’s to the point I can’t understand… Look. When I was lying just then and asked you to turn a blind eye to it, you were on my side right? When I was in my room feeling nervous and not knowing what to do, you said it was fine, yes? Staying next to me when I was about to be scolded by unni was to be on my side right? And after it’s all done, you are cheering me up as well!”
“What are you trying to say.”
“It’s as if you know how to make me feel the most comfortable.”
“Of course I should. How much time have we spent together.”
As if she had discovered something intriguing, Kaeul clapped her hands.
“Wait, wow. No. It’s not because of the time we spent together…”
“What do you mean.”
“It’s not! It’s from the first time we met. Honestly, we weren’t close back then but you still bought macarons and bread for me.”
“Well… that’s because kids all like that.”
“Who buys bread when first meeting someone? With every one of them being sweet? And things that I like? And, uuum, since when was it? There’s been this thought that was constantly on my mind you see?”
It seemed that the small child from back then had turned quite clever now.
He shook his head before raising the plates from the table to go back home. That was when Kaeul said with a bright smile.
Ahjussi,
“Did you, by any chance, know me beforehand?”
“What do you mean.”
“You didn’t?”
“Do you think what you’re saying is possible?”
He avoided a direct answer.
“Let’s go.” He was about to get up but Kaeul chuckled while pulling his arms back down.
“Can I have one more cake?” she asked. Even though he felt uncomfortable, he did not turn her down.
This time, she had a strawberry shortcake and stabbed her fork through the soft cream, strawberry puree and the raw strawberries to munch through them.
“Mhmm, so nice.”
Meanwhile, Yu Jitae quietly sat there with an indifferent look and gazed at her.
The emotions that he had managed to push aside a little by forcing himself away from Unit 301 began to rear its head again.
He felt like asking her a question.
It was perhaps because it was Kaeul he was talking to, that his heart was slightly more relaxed.
“Why…”
He carefully opened his mouth.
“Why did you confess that it was a lie?”
“Sorry?”
“You were trying to deceive Bom. Why is it that you told her the truth later on. Was it because you found her pitiful?”
“Ah…”
Mumbling with the fork in her mouth, Kaeul gave an embarrassed smile.
“…Actually, I wanted to say everything honestly from the start.”
“Really?”
“But I couldn’t do that because I was very scared. I was scared that unni would be angry… but lies are bad.”
“Isn’t there a trigger that made you change your thought though?”
“Uum… It felt like she would notice it. And I can’t have Bom-unni be in trouble because of me right…?”
Kaeul’s choice was, in the end, the best choice because Bom had known everything from the start.
But,
“What if Bom did not know about it.”
“Hnn?”
“Then wouldn’t you have just caused trouble for yourself?”
“Uum, I guess?”
“What if it was Yeorum’s diary and not Bom’s.”
“I probably would have still said it.”
“Why.”
“Because lies are bad…”
The uncomfortable feeling inside urged him to add more words.
“What if it’s not a lie?”
“What do you mean?”
“Without telling a lie, you can still say less of the truth right?”
“For example?”
So instead of saying ‘I didn’t do it’;
Going with ‘Whoever did it must be a terrible person’.
“That’s not a lie is it?”
“…”
In response to his question, Kaeul looked up at the lights of the cafe with blinking eyes.
“Isn’t it in the intention though?”
“The intention?”
“If your intention is to deceive someone, then saying less of the truth will still be a lie…!”
“What if there’s a good intention behind it?”
“You mean a white lie?”
“Yeah.”
“…”
Kaeul looked directly at him with her undisguised, undeceiving and innocent gaze.
In this moment, he found her gaze to feel extremely burdensome – even more so than Bom’s eyes that looked like she was seeing through everything.
‘Uum…’ While Kaeul was contemplating the answer, Yu Jitae thought about what she might say. Would Kaeul say it’s okay to tell a white lie, or not?
In the end, he decided to not put too much significance in whatever she would say. If ‘yes’, that would mean she is putting emphasis on the goodness behind the lie, and in the case of ‘no’, that would mean the truth is more important to her. Like that, he pre-determined the intent of her response without even hearing it.
However, her reply crushed apart those thoughts of his.
“Is it an important lie?”
“Yeah.”
“Lying like that must mean there are circumstances right?”
“So, do you mean it’s okay to lie?”
“…”
Kaeul looked into his eyes before carefully asking back.
“What do you think, ahjussi?”
In reply, he said what his heart told him.
It was mainly linked to his sense of guilt.
“I don’t think you should.”
“Uum, why?”
“Because deceiving is a bad thing to do.”
“But I actually think it’s possible.”
“Why is that?”
“A white lie means the speaker is aware that a lie is bad right. And they’re telling a lie despite knowing they’re doing a bad thing, yes?”
“But the one who got deceived would feel hurt after knowing the truth though.”
“That is true…”
“So it shouldn’t be done.”
In the end, a relationship built with deceit should not exist. That was the conclusion Yu Jitae had drawn and it was a trail of thought that had stemmed from his mind that wished to condemn himself for his own sin.
However, it seemed that Kaeul thought otherwise.
“But, what about the one who lied?”
“What?”
“It’s not like the person likes lying, right. They’re not lying because they want to, and they’re lying while accepting the fact that it will make them a bad person right?”
“What about that. How is the mind and the thoughts of the liar any important?”
“How is it not important?”
Her golden eyes looked straight into his eyes as if they would pierce through it.
“They’re hurting the hearts of the people that are being deceived.”
“But that’s not always the case,” Kaeul rebutted.
There was a type of innocence in this world. One whose cleanness was sometimes sharper than spears and swords of hatred.
“It might hurt more for the one who lied right…”
And Kaeul’s reply was one of them.