Brother, Am I Cute? [EN]: Chapter 421

“Hyung, aren’t I cute?” 421

It was certainly suspicious enough for Uncle to doubt.

Maybe it was a coincidence when I first saw him in France, but to run into an American here?

Unless it’s a planned approach.

No matter how small the world is, this isn’t a small country like Korea, but such a vast America?

Should I see this as a simple coincidence?

But why is he trying to meet us?

That was the strange part. There was no reason for him to approach us. At best, Siha has a good eye.

He hasn’t even seen a single brushstroke, so there’s no reason to follow based solely on that talent.

“Um. Where did you see him? Around here, near the accommodation?”

I glanced out the window.

The man wasn’t visible.

Just people walking and moving around.

Uncle said.

“No. There’s a playground near here. A place for kids to play. I see him there often. When I go with Siha.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s not like he’s in a place that’s too noticeable either. If he was going to kidnap kids, he would have done it already. Even when I didn’t take Siha, he stayed there for a long time before leaving.”

“Ah. Was that what you meant by running errands yesterday?”

“Yeah. It’s ambiguous. I can’t just drag him over and ask.”

“Ahem.”

I stroked my chin.

He suspiciously lingers in a place where Siha won’t notice him.

It’s inevitable that Uncle would catch on.

If I’m quick-witted, Uncle has good senses. It’s his job, after all.

“Maybe he’s not waiting for Siha.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe he’s waiting for me?”

“…That’s possible.”

“Of course, this is assuming he came to find us.”

“It’s obvious. I made eye contact with him quite a few times.”

“Isn’t that because Uncle kept staring at him?”

“No!”

“Anyway, should we meet him?”

“No way. What if it’s dangerous?”

“If it were dangerous, it would have been already. Ah!”

“Why?”

“I haven’t been checking my DMs [direct messages] and emails lately.”

“Huh?”

“You never know.”

I’ve become famous lately, so I’m flooded with messages and emails.

I haven’t bothered to look at them or reply.

I’m already working as a translator, and my freelance schedule is full, so I’ve announced that I’m not taking on other projects.

But if they’re still sending emails or DMs, it means they’re not calling me for that kind of work.

That makes sense.

I think I’ll be working with the director for at least half a year, so I should feel something is off when these emails keep coming.

“If I look, it’ll show that I’ve seen them. I hope there’s nothing weird.”

“Do you really think that person left an email or DM?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think a normal person would have.”

“He’s already tracked us down here, so he’s not normal. How did he find out about this accommodation?”

“That’s what we need to find out now.”

“Hmm. It would be faster to just grab him and grill him.”

“Don’t do that.”

“I don’t want to either. I was going to request information, but I didn’t. There are a few things that are bothering me too.”

“Let’s check the emails first.”

There were a lot of work-related inquiries piled up.

Normally, I would organize them, but since becoming famous, I’ve been getting a lot of strange emails, so I’ve just been ignoring them.

“Ah. This is annoying.”

Still, I checked them one by one.

As expected, there were a lot of spam emails and people sending strange photos.

I’m a guy, why are they sending me these photos?

I ignored Uncle next to me asking if he should track their location and looked through the emails.

There were still a lot of normal people.

Saying I was amazing or that it was nice to see me.

There were also people asking for advice on how to become a translator like me.

Of course, there were also people asking how to become a translator.

They’re students working hard.

What should I answer? I’m suddenly flustered by these advice emails.

Well, it’s not like there’s a lot of information widely available.

For translators, it’s best to go to a graduate school for interpretation and translation, and for translation work, it’s best to get introductions from acquaintances because there are publishers you should avoid.

Sorting out those thoughts, I checked and saved the advice emails separately.

If they’re asking me, it means they don’t have anyone else to ask and they’re desperate.

Sending an email might seem like nothing, but writing it itself takes courage.

Knowing that feeling, I couldn’t just ignore them.

“There is one.”

“Where?”

I looked through the emails and found what I was looking for.

Just by the title, I knew it was this person.

[Subject: The person who talked to you at the Musée d’Orsay]

[Content: At the time, I didn’t know who you and the child were. I just thought that was the end of that connection. I’m not very interested in the world. But the movie ‘Worker Ant’ became famous, and I thought it was time for me to take a look.

I happened to see the movie while I was in the United States for work.

And I saw you on the Today Show.

There were a lot of videos about you on YouTube, and who your son was.

There was a flood of information.

Knowing that, I hesitated. Is it right for me to contact you like this? I felt like I was going crazy.

Hearing you say in your interview that you didn’t have a father or mother, I felt like I was back in hell.

Why did it have to be like that? Why? Why…….

I was consumed by that thought and couldn’t do anything.

So I want to talk to you.

I really… really… earnestly ask you…

Please meet me…

As for who I am, let me just say that I’m an acquaintance of your stepmother.

I can’t write the details here, I think I need to tell you in person. Please.]

After reading the content, I felt like I had been hit in the back of the head.

So that person was an acquaintance of my stepmother?

What kind of relationship did they have to be so shocked?

“Hmm.”

Uncle stroked his chin.

Does he know something?

“Uncle. Do you know something?”

“No. But hmm. I think I can connect the dots roughly. Are you going to meet him?”

“No.”

“If it’s who I think it is, I can see why. I don’t know the details because I haven’t looked into it.”

“You have an idea who it is? You’ve never even seen him? Who is it?”

Uncle hesitated before speaking.

“I don’t know much about your stepmother either. There’s no need to investigate since it’s not a mission. In the first place, we met through work and were like siblings, Janghyuk and Hyeryun.”

“So?”

“You said you ran into her by chance in Korea after not being in contact for a while. Hyeryun was overseas.”

“I heard that too.”

“Maybe that person… is Siha’s biological father?”

“!!!”

I couldn’t help but widen my eyes.

It was the appearance of someone I had never expected.

***

I replied to the man’s email.

He contacted me right away as if he had been waiting, and we ended up agreeing to meet.

If he really is Siha’s biological father, I thought I should meet him at least once.

If he spouts any nonsense, I might punch him.

With that resolve, I met him.

Holding coffee, we sat side by side on a bench, not looking at each other but looking ahead.

It was as if it represented our current state.

Maybe we didn’t want to face each other.

“Are you Siha’s biological father?”

I glanced to the side.

He still had shaggy hair and gloomy eyes.

He looked like he was carrying all the sadness in the world.

His eyes twitched for a moment, confirming my words.

“Yes, I am. I only recently learned that his name was Siha.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know. I thought I shouldn’t know.”

“Is that so?”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I want to know why you didn’t know.”

There was a moment of silence.

He twitched his mouth as if he was about to say something. He hesitated and showed a sad expression.

“It’s all my fault. All of it.”

“What did you do wrong?”

“I wanted to become a famous painter. It was very difficult to become one, but I had a dream. I thought anything was okay for that dream. If I achieve this, we’ll be happy. We will.”

He looked down.

His shoes were stained black with tar.

“It costs a lot of money to do art. From canvases to pigments. If you fail, you have to pay for the canvas again. We weren’t rich, so we came to France with that dream and worked while painting.”

It was a story I was hearing for the first time.

A story that should have been heard from my stepmother, or a story that my father should have told me.

A story that I couldn’t hear anymore.

“Then, she suddenly got pregnant. When she told me she was pregnant, I couldn’t be happy. Our situation wasn’t suitable for raising a child. That showed on my face. And I said something I shouldn’t have said.”

“Don’t tell me?”

“Yes. I told her to get rid of it.”

I was instantly angry and looked at him, but seeing his pained expression, I lost my strength.

“Hyeryun was shocked and fought with me, saying how could I do that. But at that time, only success blinded me. If I succeed, everything will be fine. It will. We can’t afford it now. That’s how I thought. In the end, Hyeryun decided to get rid of it. But she also said she wanted to break up with me.”

“I begged her, but she left the house crying. I couldn’t catch her as she left. No matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t think I deserved to catch her.”

“After she left, I lived with alcohol. Growing a dirty beard like now. It was so hard that I sometimes picked up a brush.”

He raised his head and looked at the sky.

He remembered that time and said in a hollow voice.

“All I had left was success. Realizing that, I painted. But ironically, a wealthy man took notice of my painting. A recently painted picture.”

“He bought the painting for a large sum. Of course, that’s not the problem, but I gained connections. Connections that would spread rumors. After that, I painted and gained wealth. I finally became famous.”

“In less than a year. I became financially better off and became a successful painter.”

“But you know what? But. I wasn’t happy at all. Rather, the more I earned and the more famous I became, the more terribly lonely I was.”

He buried his face in his hands.

“The guilt of telling her to get rid of the child was too great. I said too many bad things to Hyeryun. I wasn’t in my right mind because I was having a hard time back then. It was hard. It shouldn’t have been like that.”

He must have gone to a world with bright success. The money must have grown. But the shadows must have deepened.

I listened to the story without saying anything.

I could tell just by his appearance that he had lived a life of regret.

“So, because I missed her so much, I searched for Hyeryun through connections. And I saw it.”

“What?”

“I saw your father, Lee Janghyuk, and Hyeryun holding a child.”

“Ah…….”

“Of course, you weren’t there, but I turned away seeing their happy 모습 [mosup – appearance/image in Korean]. But you know what? I kept seeing the child. That child. Yes. I knew at a glance that it was my child. I told her to get rid of it, but she didn’t.”

What must she have been feeling?

When she saw that the child she was told to get rid of was actually alive.

When she found out that she didn’t give up and gave birth to the child in Korea.

What must he have been feeling?

“Haa. I didn’t deserve to stand in front of the child and Hyeryun. We were in the same situation, but she chose to give birth to the child, and I didn’t. I’m trash. Real trash. But it’s a relief. It’s a relief that the child is alive.”

He was now crying as he spoke.

His pronunciation was slurred, and he was wiping away tears with his hands.

Maybe his heart wouldn’t have collapsed if he hadn’t seen Siha alive.

“I really wanted to say thank you to Hyeryun, but I couldn’t bring myself to see her face. I just hoped they would live happily like this. I thought it was the best choice for Hyeryun if I didn’t appear in front of her.”

But those two were now gone from this world.

“But why are they not in this world now. Sob. Why. Hyeryun should have been happy. Why. Why are they gone. Sob. How did that happen.”

He brought up the reason he wanted to meet me.

Why did my stepmother die? Why?

I was the only person he could ask.

That’s why he came to find me.

But he couldn’t show his face to Siha.

Because he was a sinner.

How many years has this person lived as a sinner?

He must have been a sinner for as long as Siha’s age.

He continued to suffer until Siha grew up, sentencing himself to life imprisonment.

“My mother and father died in a car accident.”

It was a terribly unlucky accident that could only be described as a car accident.

I opened my mouth with difficulty and told him.

About the stepmother I knew.