Pen and Paper Translations

For the past few days, Hyunseung had been holed up alone in his studio.

“This is not the vibe….”

No, maybe it would be more accurate to say he was fighting himself.

“Again.”

Tap.

“Damn it, again.”

Tap.

Over and over he put himself through “again” hell, deleting entire sections and pasting them back.

Before long he had overturned the whole track for the umpteenth time.

Thwack.

At last Hyunseung slammed the space bar and saved.

In both his previous life and this one, no work had ever felt this grueling.

It was not that time or technical factors made it hard.

Just… psychologically it felt vague and difficult. He had never been a father looking at a child.

Of course, this did not mean the work was over.

If you likened the composition now to building a house, he had only put up the roof and walls according to the plans, let alone any interior work, you could say not a single piece of furniture had been moved in.

Only the song itself existed.

The lyrics and the singer were undecided. Those were things to be filled in one by one from here.

Then, before long he would be able to unveil the finished form to the world.

“Sigh…”

Before writing lyrics, Hyunseung headed home. It really was time to cool his head, but…

“Where is Dad?”

Today was his father’s medical checkup.

“He is in his room getting ready.”

Hyuna, who had been sprawled on the living room sofa, spotted him, scurried over, looked his face over this way and that, and asked again,

“But why does your face look like that?”

“What about my face?”

Rubbing his cheek, Hyunseung started to retort, then let out an “Ah.” The feel on his palm was rough, like touching sandpaper.

“Your cheeks are completely dried out.”

With worried eyes Hyuna scrutinized him from head to toe and added,

“You look like you have lost quite a bit of weight too.”

“It is because I have not slept much lately.”

“Oppa, I know you cannot help it when you are deep in work, but try to come home to sleep if you can. The studio is a workplace, after all. It is not going to be as comfortable as home.”

“Yes, yes, I will do that.”

To head off his sister’s nagging from dragging on, Hyunseung gave a perfunctory answer and quickly took refuge in his room.

Even so. Seeing family notice his changes so well, he felt kind of good.

Just then, as Hyunseung was changing clothes with a faint smile…

Knock, knock.

With a light knock the door opened, and his father’s smiling face appeared.

“Are you all ready?”

–“Yeah. Son, are you not tired? Your face is half its size, just like Hyuna said.”

“I have just lost a little weight lately. I am really fine.”

— “Son, do not overdo it. You could go with Hyuna.”

“I am really fine.”

— “Hyuna just said it might be better to take her car.”

“Dad, if you get in Hyuna’s car, you might not make it back home today.”

At that, his father smiled again and nodded slowly.

— “I will finish getting ready and we will go.”

With that, his father closed the door and left.

Click.

Hyunseung quickly changed clothes to get ready to head out.

In truth, when his father asked about going with Hyuna, his answer had almost been, “Shall you?”

But, he had promised himself he would personally accompany and look after his father for health checkups, so no matter how tired or busy he was, he did not want to put it off.

Dragging his leaden body into the living room, he felt both his father and Hyuna’s eyes land on him at once.

“Dad, look at oppa’s face. Just go with me.”

— “I suppose that would be better.”

It seemed they were still talking about who should accompany him to the hospital.

“Min Hyuna, when I came in I saw a thick layer of dust on your car. And you call that escorting your father.”

“Did you not buy it for times like this?”

“Do not make use of your father for your crash-bang beginner-driving saga. Just stay home quietly.”

“You are the one who should not be stubborn and just rest at home.”

He looked at his sister, who was speaking with her eyes sharply raised, let out a brief snort of a laugh, and then,

“Tsk, if you want to escort him so badly, hand back all the allowance you have received and the car keys, then take him.”

“Ugh, oppa, are you seriously blackmailing me with that?”

“Ugh? Did you just say ‘ugh’? Do you want me to show you what blackmail really is?”

With her lips jutting out, Hyuna said, “So mean,” jumped up, and whisked herself into her room.

Apparently, she was well and truly miffed.

But, what mattered more now was getting his father’s body checked.

“Father.”

He called to his father, who stood at a loss staring at the closed door his sulking daughter had disappeared behind,

“Shall we go together?”

Then, with the smile of a victor, Hyunseung put an arm around his father’s shoulders.

---

Father and son at the hospital looked quite awkward, but they were able to finish the tests quickly without much waiting.

“Dad, you must be hungry. Please have at least this for now.”

They said they could give some simple results the same day, so after finding seats, he bought a sweet yokan and a juice for his father, who had fasted all day.

“Looks good. Thank you.”

His father met his eyes with the same gentle look and smiled. Even for doing something obvious as a son, he thanked him.

It is not such a big deal…

If it were him, he would be busy shoving the yokan into his mouth to stave off hunger, much less saying thank you.

It is not because he did not love or did not feel grateful. It is because without realizing it he took it for granted.

His own stinginess and clumsiness in expressing things would also play a part.

While Hyunseung was lost in thought,

“No, I said I am fine!”

A sudden loud voice made him turn his head, and he saw an old man.

The deep furrow between his brows, Hyunseung could not tell whether it was from his current anger or the result of a life lived with too much anger.

“You think I will be tricked by the words you spout to line the hospital’s pockets and lie down on an operating table!”

Beside the old man, who was roaring, stood a man who looked to be in his early thirties, with an embarrassed face.

“Father, you really have to have the surgery now. If you put it off any longer, they will not even be able to operate!”

He was probably the son of the old man causing a scene.

“Even if I do, the odds are small. What for!”

“You still have to. You have to hang on to even the smallest hope!”

“Forget it. That will only make me die harder.”

“This is not something you can fix by being stubborn.”

The son ruffled his hair in frustration, loosened his tie, and went on,

“How is it you never change no matter how old you get? Please stop stubbornly holding out and for once lose to your child as if you cannot help it. How do you manage to scrape at your child’s heart like this every single time!”

“What, punk? I do not even want to talk to you anymore, so just go. Get back to your company.”

“Ha, seriously… do as you please!”

With that, the son let out a long, angry sigh and left.

Soon, the old man, left alone, collapsed into a seat as if his soul had flown out.

“Uh, uh… are you all right?”

A passing nurse hurried over to help him up.

“Leave me. You bastards, me, pancreatic cancer! Spouting nonsense like that! I will never let my son give you money, so if you mention surgery one more time, just you try!”

The man shook her off roughly, sprang up, and stormed away.

“Hmm.”

Watching, Hyunseung raised his eyebrows.

Soon after, he asked his father, who was carefully breaking the yokan in half to share with him, for a moment.

“Dad, could you wait just a moment?”

Simply, he could not just pretend not to hear the word pancreatic cancer.

---

Hyunseung carefully followed the old man.

Before long, the man sat on a bench on the first floor of the hospital and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.

“Sir.”

Hyunseung called out to him at once.

“Pancreatic cancer and you are smoking.”

“Who are you?”

The man shot back sharply and, undeterred, lit the cigarette.

Ha….

Up close, the man’s face told of a life lived by sheer stubbornness, with sunken, parched cheeks lined with fine wrinkles and deep nasolabial grooves.

On top of that a jaundiced tint floated over his face, making him look less like a person than like a mummy.

And still he would not have the surgery.

Being operable at all was a heaven-sent fortune.

“Why will you not have the surgery?”

Looking down at him, Hyunseung asked in a cold tone.

“What? You work at the hospital, do you not?”

“No. I just happened to overhear you talking with your son. Why are you refusing the operation?”

“You little pipsqueak, who are you to butt into someone else’s business? Mind your own and be on your way.”

“I would like to, but…”

Then he snatched the cigarette from the man’s lips and tossed it into the ashtray, adding,

“…what can I do when I cannot help but care.”

“I have seen everything now, what a clown.”

“Does it make you feel at ease to drive a stake into your child’s chest like that?”

“What is this brat saying?”

“Can you really sleep easy trampling the heart of a child who wants his parent to live even one more day?”

“You, you little…!”

“Why are you trying to saddle your child with guilt he will never forget, just over money?”

His face, flushed red with anger, gradually shifted to bewilderment.

“What…? You, you….”

“You are refusing the surgery on purpose because you do not want to burden your son.”

The old man, feeling stripped bare, lashed out spitefully.

“Who are you to butt into another family’s business and shoot your mouth off! So, the boy has just gotten settled and there is a woman he wants to marry, but if every penny he earns leaks out to hospital bills, what woman would marry him! Should I tell him to spend his life nursing me instead?”

And he shoved another cigarette into his mouth with grim determination and lit it.

“Better he just pretend an old man like me who is no help at all does not exist and, with some grit, find his own path. Take a decent wife he loves, have rabbit-like children, and be happy…”

Smoke billowed out between shallow sighs, and Hyunseung did not bother to stop him. The lips holding the cigarette were quivering.

After a while, the old man continued.

“My boy, my son, my poor son who grew up alone with no mother, with a worthless father, a stubborn father, a foolish father, I have not done a single thing right for him his whole life, how do I have the face, how do I have the face to…”

He burst into tears.

“Better he just ignore a father like me who is no help at all and find his own way. Take a decent wife he loves, have rabbit-like children, and be happy….”

Sorrowful tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks, but the man did not bother to wipe them.

Perhaps, he barely even realized he was crying. He was not used to crying.

“Hmm….”

Watching silently, Hyunseung began to speak quietly.

“My father also had pancreatic cancer, you know. I even had money to spare, and yet I let him go without giving him a single proper operation.”

“What?”

“My father was the kind of person who felt sorry just to live leaning on his children’s hands, so even though he was sick he never said a word and held it in, and we only discovered it when there was nothing to be done. All we could do was take chemotherapy and wait for a window when he could be operated on.”

The old man pretended otherwise as he listened to the matter-of-fact words, but his eyes trembled in clear surprise.

“But, it all just felt like my fault. I should have looked more closely, watched better.”

As he groped through the memories of his previous life, Hyunseung felt his nose sting.

Right. Even today his father first worried about his bad complexion, so why had he not done the same in his past life.

Thinking money solved everything, he dumped everything on the hospital, the caregivers, his younger sister, and stood by.

“My father could tell if I lost even a little weight and he worried about me. I should have done the same.”

Then Hyunseung bent and met the old man’s eyes and added,

“Your son will probably carry guilt for a lifetime over shouting, ‘Do as you please,’ today. If you die, he will blame himself for everything.”

Yes, probably like me.

“My poor boy grew up struggling all this time, and I am making him suffer again. I am a real bastard. There will be no father like me….”

Only then did the man scrub his eyes with his dark, deeply wrinkled hands and mutter to himself as he wiped away the tears.

“I should have lived kindly. I must have lived too meanly just trying to feed my son. It is all my fault, I should be the one to pay it back….”

It was just the lament of a life.

“I will be going now.”

Hyunseung moved aside at once. In truth, watching that old man had tangled up too many thoughts inside him.

A bad father….

Was he really that kind of father? A man who worried more about his son’s future than his dying body, who had labored his whole life to raise him, who now wished to be cast off by that son, was he really a worthless father?

Was Executive Director Park truly a bad person? No, at least to his children he was a good man.

As far as he, who knew his inner circumstances, could see.

“Sigh….”

Truly, what sort of beings are fathers.

Could he become such a being and think such thoughts for a being called a child?

He could not answer for sure.

Maybe writing five songs a day until he died would be easier than living as someone’s father.

“Sigh….”

Truly, what sort of beings are fathers.

Calming his now more complicated heart, Hyunseung headed back to the waiting area where his father would be.

Ah.

On the way, as if something had suddenly struck him, he took out his phone and changed the name of an audio file saved as “Untitled.”

[ Villain daddy ]

Beyond the screen where the new file name popped up, he saw his father’s face, bright with a smile, looking at him.

“Son, try the yokan.”

It was a warm smile like a wildflower in May and June.

---

T/N: HS and his dad are using sign language.