Pen and Paper Translations

After the recording wrapped, Jang Jin-woo, saying his voice hadn’t cracked like this in years, bolted out of the studio.

“Um, composer.”

Jo Yeri, who had pried and pried at the time of casting until she confirmed it was an “HS” track, was clutching her trembling limbs and forcing herself to stay.

Right, where would she find another chance like this?

“If you’re not busy, could we talk separately for a bit?”

If she could establish a connection, then even if not right away, couldn’t she someday get at least one solo song?

But she was flatly refused.

“I’ve got post-production to do, and I already have a prior appointment with this person.”

Yeri slid her eyes, sharp as blades, over Jo Kyungmi and let out a quiet snort only she could hear.

“Well, it can’t be helped.”

She handed over a slip with her contact info, saying to please call her again next time without fail, and then left the studio.

Clack.

Silence briefly settled over the now two-person studio.

“How was today’s session for you?”

The one who spoke first was none other than Hyunseung.

“It was tough even for a veteran like me. But I enjoyed it.”

“Then how about doing one more project with me?”

“I’m sorry, but I barely managed to make time for this one as it is.”

At that, Hyunseung nodded. He had more or less expected she would refuse.

Still.

Wouldn’t there come a day when they could work together again?

Yes, like in the previous life.

Without pressing, he continued in a calm tone.

“Yes, I know full well you even blew off a performance to make precious time for your daughter.”

At those words, Jo Kyungmi smiled with a trace of bitterness.

“Yes. I really wanted to see my daughter’s face just once, and… if only by borrowing the power of lyrics… to tell her I love her.”

“So, having seen your daughter’s face for the first time in a while, and having told her you love her, even if only through the lyrics, are you satisfied?”

To that question, Jo Kyungmi hung her head low.

The truth is…

Jo Kyungmi and Jo Yeri were mother and daughter. In his previous life, while working with Jo Kyungmi, Hyunseung had discovered it by coincidence, and that was all.

It wasn’t public knowledge; no one knew.

So.

You could call it cunning, but he’d used that to cast her.

He’d leaked that her daughter, Jo Yeri, would be working on the song too. Because Jo Kyungmi or rather, a mother, would put her whole heart into it.

Sure enough.

She snapped up the offer, briefly explaining her circumstances and asking that she be allowed to record on the same day as her daughter.

But the two parted without even properly exchanging greetings, their mother-daughter relationship all but invisible.

“No. I’m not satisfied.”

Shaking her head, Jo Kyungmi answered.

“But what can I do?”

In a voice laced with a touch of sorrow, she added,

“My daughter won’t even look at me anymore. So I wonder… did the words ‘I love you’ really get through?”

With that, she sank into the deep wells of memory.

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Way, way back…

In other words, the year she had just become an adult.

There’d been a man she loved. The only man who ever made her feel what it means to “live and die” for someone.

To visit her, as she endured an endless study-abroad life for her dreams, he would cross borders and rush to that faraway foreign land.

Even if it sounds childish, back then, she endured her grueling study-abroad life with a single resolve: “Hurry and get settled so I can marry this man.”

For Jo Kyungmi, that man was the world, her entire world.

Then.

An accident happened.

Pregnancy.

She ended up with a child in her womb.

For Jo Kyungmi, who was young and studying abroad with nothing but the clothes on her back, it was a bolt from the blue.

But she steadied herself. It was their child, hers and his. Surely if she talked with him, they could arrive at some kind of answer.

Without a second thought, she emptied everything she had to buy a ticket back to Korea.

She thinks she even considered giving up her dream then.

If he said, “Let’s get married, have the baby, and live a simple life,” she genuinely would have done it.

Foolishly.

But in Korea, after all that struggle, the words she heard were:

“I’m getting married to another woman.”

Just that one line.

He made excuses about how, as an opera singer, he had to travel the world, so even if they married, it would be difficult to live a normal family life…

But she already knew.

The real reason they couldn’t marry was because of her family’s circumstances.

So…

Without ever even showing him the pregnancy test with two bold lines, she had to accept their breakup.

And then her world collapsed.

She loitered around the front of a hospital, planning to abort the child.

But back then, she didn’t have the courage to cross the threshold, the money to pay for the procedure, or even the spare time to do it.

Honestly…

Those were days when the only thing she had was her voice.

Stubbornly, she hid the child in her belly and let time pass.

Eventually, just before she was due, she told her parents and hurriedly returned to Korea to give birth.

Then without even time to recover, she left the baby with her parents and fled Korea again.

She didn’t want to see a child who resembled him, and she didn’t have the confidence to raise that child when she had nothing.

She made a vow then.

She would succeed so grandly that her name would reach that man.

And once she was successful and settled, she would play the role of a mother to her daughter… she told herself that and, for a while, turned her back on everything.

A mere two years.

Like a racehorse charging forward with blinders on.

As a result, upon early graduation, she swept six international competitions and made a dazzling debut as an opera singer.

After that, everything went smoothly, like following steps that had already been laid out.

There was just one thing.

She continued to turn away from the unresolved problem in her heart…

– Kyungmi, the child’s starting elementary school. Aren’t you going to come see her? Mom and Dad can’t keep raising her forever. Yeri, once she gets older, it’ll be even harder to become close.

But she couldn’t let go of the success looming right before her eyes.

Right.

Couldn’t she somehow replace being a mother with money?

Looking back now…

It was such a pathetically flimsy rationalization, pushing the existence of “daughter” out of her life one more time.

Year after year passed.

The daughter who called occasionally saying she missed her eventually stopped calling.

Around that time, she received her daughter’s middle-school graduation photo in the mail. The moment she saw the child’s face, the one that looked so much like her own, tears just burst forth for no reason.

She’d thought she didn’t even have maternal instinct, but it turned out that even a wretch like her was still a mother.

Honestly, that day, she cried endlessly, then suddenly bought a ticket to Korea.

Just like that day she’d gone to see him, buher daughter had grown far too much.

“If you’re trying to play mom now, forget it. I’ll live thinking I don’t have a mother, so you go on thinking you don’t have a daughter. Just like you’ve always done.”

Her world collapsed again. A sorrow far different from what she’d felt when he broke up with her swept over her like a typhoon.

No… no.

It was a guilt far deeper than sorrow, tearing through her heart.

My daughter.

That’s not it. Please, just listen to me once. I’m a first-time mom too. I’m sorry, I really am.

Unable to convey these feelings or these words, Jo Kyungmi had to step onto the stage again and perform.

And thus, time just kept passing. Now, too late to even try to play mother, all she could do was watch her daughter from afar.

Still… It was okay. Her daughter, who inherited her singing ability, debuted as an entertainer at eighteen.

If she wanted to see her, she could just turn on the TV anytime.

But just because she wanted to meet her didn’t mean she could.

Then LS Entertainment reached out. They proposed she sing a children’s song. Of course, she refused.

She was circling the globe performing without sleep; it was impossible schedule-wise.

But then another call came. They said Korea’s top voice actor and the famous girl-group member Jo Yeri would also be working on it. Was it really impossible?

To her ears, it sounded like they were saying she could meet her daughter.

What’s more, in a children’s song called “Peekaboo Family,” she would sing the mommy part, and her daughter Yeri would sing the daughter part.

Right.

It was the last chance heaven, God, had given her.

Explaining briefly, she said she’d accept if she could record on the same day as her daughter.

She even canceled an already scheduled performance, set foot in Korea once more.

Soon she saw her daughter’s face for the first time in years. She tried to act composed, as though she was fine, but her eyes kept returning to her daughter’s face.

True to the name “Yeri” (“to bloom beautifully”), she had grown into a very lovely young lady.

Despite growing up without a mother or father, her face was full of signs she’d been loved.

Yes.

She’d grown up well. That was enough.

– Mommy bear loves baby bear.

Borrowing the lyrics, she tried telling her daughter she loved her. That was enough.

– Mommy bear loves baby bear.

Even if they repeated the recording over and over, it was fine. It meant she could watch her longer and say “I love you” to her more times.

“So, having seen your daughter’s face for the first time in a while, and having told her you love her, even if only through the lyrics, are you satisfied?”

But, was that really enough?

– We’re happy, our family!

Could their family be happy now? No, did she even deserve to be happy?

“Composer.”

She spoke in a stifled voice.

“Yes, please go ahead.”

“Have you ever heard of pregnancy denial?”

“No, I know about phantom pregnancy…”

“It’s a condition where the mother subconsciously rejects her pregnancy, so the usual pregnancy symptoms don’t show up. In Europe, quite a lot of mothers experience it.”

Then, in a fairly even tone, she continued.

“But do you know what’s really scary? The fetus feels that heart. So the fetus tiptoes around and nestles deeper inside. Then, unlike typical pregnant women, the belly doesn’t show much.”

For a moment, she rubbed her stomach.

“I know because I went through it. I was a mother who rejected my daughter. Afterwards, I turned away. Does someone like me deserve to be happy?”

She clenched the skin of her belly tightly. To Hyunseung’s eyes, it looked like a kind of self-punishment.

“I just want my daughter to be happy. But I don’t think she’ll be happier with me by her side.”

Silently listening, Hyunseung spoke.

“You asked if the love you feel for your daughter was conveyed.”

“Yes.”

“If it wasn’t conveyed this time, then you can just convey it again.”

He recalled the mother and daughter through the booth glass during recording.

The mother looking at her daughter with an aching gaze, the daughter throwing sidelong looks at her mother with something between hatred and resentment.

Their eyes crossing.

They, too, were probably like him and Hyuna in his previous life, too festering a relationship to be lumped together with the word “family.”

But Yeri had kept sneaking peeks at her mother as she sang, adjusting her own posture to match. It reminded him of a little child secretly trying on her mother’s makeup.

Maybe.

She wanted to be like her.

“It’s time for you two to be happy now.”

Even if not right away.

“Will you come visit Korea again someday?”

Even very slowly.

“I’ll make a song for your daughter and wait.”

So that the two of them could be happy, together.

Then.

Biting down on lips where sobs threatened to leak out, Jo Kyungmi replied.

“Yes. Then I’ll definitely come back.”

Pledging that she would live the rest of her life as a mother…

“I’ll sing a song for my daughter, I—I absolutely will.”

And with that, from between her twisted lips burst a cry, neither clearly joy nor sorrow, but something in between.

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