Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 331

332. You! You’re Kim Sun-min, right?

After the commotion subsided, Seung-woo regained his usual demeanor.

“Seung-woo, what is this place?”

Choi Mona, who had come to work, approached Seung-woo, who was playing with the human anatomy model.

“This is called the pancreas, and in Korean, it’s called ‘췌장’ [chwijang, pronounced ‘chweh-jahng’].”

“Oh my goodness. Seung-woo is really smart.”

“Thank you.”

“He even greets people so energetically.”

Click-

“Hi, Gae-Mona! Hi, Seung-woo!”

With a cheerful voice, Lee Chan-hee entered the medical office and greeted them, showing Seung-woo’s signature V sign, which made Seung-woo smile slightly.

“Hello.”

“Seung-woo is really amazing. If you ask him about the organs here, he even says the English pronunciations perfectly.”

“Wow! Seung-woo is better than me.”

“Seriously. I totally agree.”

“Seung-woo, aren’t you scared of this? The head comes off and everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

Slap-

Lee Chan-hee, who was wearing a gown, teased Seung-woo, and Choi Mona smacked him on the back.

“Ouch! That hurts.”

“Use nice words, Teacher Lee.”

“Seung-woo, do you like him that much?”

“He’s not ‘him’.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not ‘him,’ it’s Kevin.”

“That’s right. Seung-woo named him. Ke~vin. What do you think, Teacher Lee? Isn’t the name global and cool?”

“Kevin for a human anatomy model?”

Choi Mona stared with a scary look, and Lee Chan-hee immediately caught the vibe and changed his tune.

“Oh! Kevin, that’s a really cool name. Our Kevin is a good boy. Seung-woo, should the teacher be friends with Kevin too?”

“No.”

“Seung-woo, then can the teacher be friends with our Kevin?”

Seung-woo, who had been firm with Lee Chan-hee, glanced at Choi Mona and nodded silently.

“What? I can’t, but Gae-Mona can? Seung-woo, I’m disappointed.”

“Even if you’re disappointed, it can’t be helped. Seung-woo, look at this! The teacher brought a gift from home yesterday for Seung-woo. Ta-da!”

Leaving behind the sulking Lee Chan-hee, Choi Mona confidently presented an eyeball-shaped jelly from her gown.

“Hey! Gae-Mona? How can you give a kid a jelly like that? He might get scared…”

“Wow!”

Contrary to Lee Chan-hee’s concern that Seung-woo might be scared, Seung-woo genuinely liked it.

“It’s an eye! An eye! Cool.”

“Oh! He likes it.”

“Of course. Seung-woo is very interested in the human body.”

“That’s amazing. Gae-Mona, do you happen to have one more?”

“Why?”

“I want to give an eyeball jelly too and score points with Seung-woo so I can be friends with Kevin. Give me one more if you have it.”

“I only have one. It’s surprisingly hard to find.”

Lee Chan-hee looked at Seung-woo with a disappointed expression and started searching for the jelly on his phone.

At that moment, Tae-kyung was near the hospital’s main entrance, seeing off Seung-woo’s homeroom teacher and having a conversation.

Having heard the news about Seung-woo from Officer Kim earlier, the homeroom teacher came straight to the hospital after school.

Worried about the child left alone in the hospital, the homeroom teacher told Seung-woo to go home with her.

‘I don’t want to go. I have to stay at the hospital.’

However, Seung-woo adamantly refused, saying he had promised his sister.

‘Seung-woo? Don’t do that, let’s go with the teacher. You can wait for your sister at the teacher’s house.’

‘No. My sister told me to stay here. I can only meet my sister if I’m here. Teacher, Seung-woo wants to stay here.’

The teacher, knowing Seung-woo’s stubbornness once he said no, couldn’t persuade him any further.

“It seems Seung-woo is more comfortable staying at the hospital.”

“More than that, I think he believes he can meet his sister if he stays at the hospital. Before the teacher came, when the friendly neighbors, the grandmother and grandfather from upstairs, tried to take him, he said the same thing.”

As Tae-kyung said, the elderly couple upstairs also rushed over, worried about Seung-woo, but respected the child’s wishes and didn’t take him.

“Director, I know you’re busy, but please take good care of Seung-woo. If anything happens, please contact me at the number I gave you earlier, and I’ll come right away.”

“Yes, I will. Please don’t worry too much.”

“And, if… if, by any chance, his sister doesn’t come to pick up Seung-woo, will he go to a childcare facility then?”

“Yes. After a certain period, I heard he will be placed in a childcare facility.”

Tae-kyung had asked Officer Kim about this beforehand, as he was concerned about this aspect, so he knew.

“…I see.”

“Teacher, such a thing won’t happen to Seung-woo, so please don’t worry in advance.”

“That’s right. Seung-woo’s sister is definitely not that kind of person. I don’t know what happened, but she will definitely come to pick up Seung-woo.”

“I think so too.”

“I’ll be going now.”

“Take care.”

Tae-kyung, after saying goodbye to the homeroom teacher, went into the hospital, constantly thinking about whether there was a way to help Seung-woo.

* * *

Somewhere in the countryside – a park.

“It’s blocked again. It’s blocked again.”

The cleaner, cleaning the park’s restroom, grumbled while unclogging the blocked toilet.

“Seriously, it’s written in front of the toilet, ‘Please do not throw feminine hygiene products.’ Why do they keep throwing them in the toilet? Ugh… It’s finally unclogged.”

The cleaner, having successfully unclogged the toilet, moved to the next stall and tried to open the door, but it was locked.

Knock- Knock-

Clang-

To check if someone was inside, he knocked a few times, and someone came out.

“Oh, there was someone inside. Sorry. I thought there was no one…”

“No. It’s okay.”

“Excuse me? Excuse me!”

The cleaner, who had entered the restroom after the woman left, came out again and urgently called out to the woman who had just come out.

“Miss?”

“Yes?”

Kim Sun-min, who was about to leave, wiping the water from her hands, turned around at the cleaner’s call.

“Here, isn’t this hat yours, miss?”

The cleaner took out a black baseball cap hanging on the hook above the toilet and shook it.

“Ah!”

Only then did Kim Sun-min realize that she didn’t have a hat on her head, looking at her face reflected in the restroom mirror.

“Yes. That’s mine. Thank you.”

“Right? Here you go!”

The cleaner, handing the hat to Kim Sun-min, stared at her face for a moment before continuing.

“Excuse me, miss, did you perhaps sleep here?”

“Pardon!? No. No, I didn’t. Thank you for the hat.”

“That’s strange. I’m sure I saw you yesterday too…”

Kim Sun-min, quickly taking the hat, quickly left the restroom, leaving behind the cleaner’s mutterings.

As the cleaner had said, she had actually slept in the park’s restroom because she didn’t have money for accommodation.

She had been fired for causing losses to the company, so she couldn’t even receive severance pay.

The only money she had was the fare to go back to Seoul.

This was money she had urgently raised a few days ago by selling used items from her house.

Grumble-

As she was about to leave the park, her stomach made a sound without any consideration.

When she was in Seoul, she didn’t have an appetite, and she wasn’t hungry even when food was in front of her, but now that she couldn’t eat because she didn’t have money, she was strangely hungry.

‘Let’s at least drink water.’

Kim Sun-min, looking at the convenience store, took out the fare from her wallet and eventually filled her stomach with water from the drinking fountain in the park. Then, she entered the apartment complex next to the park.

The reason she was living as a homeless person in a neighborhood she had never seen before was to meet someone.

After much difficulty, she had managed to find out the house where the person she needed to meet lived.

However, she only knew that he lived in this apartment complex and didn’t know the exact unit number.

So, she kept circling the apartment complex, frequently going back and forth between the front and back gates, checking if that person was passing by.

She hadn’t seen that person yesterday, so she was even more anxious today.

Kim Sun-min, who was at the front gate, started circling the complex again, walking towards the back gate. Then, when children around Seung-woo’s age passed by, she stopped walking without realizing it.

“Hey! Do you want to come to my house and play games?”

“What kind of games?”

“Soccer game.”

Listening to the children’s conversation, Kim Sun-min felt like she was going crazy because she missed Seung-woo even more.

“I miss him. Our Seung-woo. Seung-woo, I’m sorry…”

“Excuse me.”

As she was thinking about Seung-woo and about to move again, she heard someone calling Kim Sun-min from behind.

“I’m the security guard here.”

Even without an explanation, his security guard uniform made it clear that he was an apartment security guard.

“Ah, yes…”

“I’ve seen you patrolling yesterday and today, so I was wondering if you live here?”

“No, I don’t live here.”

“Then, would you mind telling me why you’re wandering around the apartment complex? I received a call to the security office earlier.”
A resident of the complex had filed a complaint with the security office after seeing Kim Sun-min, wearing the same clothes and wandering around the apartment complex for two days.

Since she didn’t live here and a complaint had been filed, the security guard had no choice but to check.

“Well… I’m not a strange person, sir.”

“I didn’t ask with that intention. As you can see, this apartment complex hasn’t been built for very long, and many families with children live here. So, parents are very concerned about security. And in this day and age, you can’t tell what kind of person someone is just by looking at their appearance.”

What he said wasn’t wrong.

Having worn the same clothes and wandered around the complex for two days with her face covered by a hat, it was understandable that the residents would find her strange.

“Actually, I’m looking for someone.”

“Someone?”

“Yes, I heard they live in this apartment complex, so I came to meet them. Excuse me, perhaps…”

Kim Sun-min hesitated for a moment, then showed the security guard a photo of a man with a detailed face from her phone.

“It’s someone who looks like this.”

Feeling desperate, she asked the security guard, grasping at straws.

“Have you ever seen this person?”

“Let’s see.”

The security guard put on the magnifying glasses hanging around his neck and looked closely at the photo.

“Ha! It looks like I’ve seen him… but it also looks like I haven’t. There are so many people living here.”

His expression and tone didn’t seem like he was lying.

Kim Sun-min, who had been watching the security guard looking at the photo, took out an envelope from her bag as if she had made up her mind and handed it to him.

While doing so, she explained something for a long time, and the security guard, hearing those words, was startled and stepped back, waving his hands and looking troubled.

“Sir, I’m really sorry, but please help me, thinking you’re saving someone’s life.”

Kim Sun-min bowed her head as if her head would touch the ground towards the security guard who was refusing, pleading desperately and earnestly.

“Ha! This is really…”

Then, the security guard, who had a troubled expression, reluctantly accepted her request.

“Alright.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“By the way, it’s not like anything will be solved by asking me. And what made you trust me enough to ask me for this favor?”

“I thought you would see a lot of people since you work here, and I’m just that desperate. I’m really sorry.”

“Aish, geez. Why do you keep saying sorry? I’ll grant you that favor, so stay here for a moment without moving.”

“…?”

“It’s nothing strange. 5 minutes? It’ll only take 5 minutes, so don’t go anywhere.”

The security guard, who had urged her to stay there, quickly ran off and returned in just 5 minutes.

“Hoo! Getting old makes running hard. Here you go!”

He handed Kim Sun-min a small black bag, panting.

“What is this?”

Kim Sun-min, asking the question and opening the bag, paused for a moment, and her fingertips trembled.

“…!”

“I heard your stomach clock ringing earlier when you were talking, so I knew you were hungry. My wife packs this for me every morning, but it’s too much for me to eat.”

Inside the bag that the security guard gave her were two rice balls wrapped in clear plastic wrap.

Grumble-

Feeling embarrassed and sorry, she tried to refuse the security guard’s kindness, but she couldn’t refuse because her stomach clock kept ringing.

“Looking at you, you seem to be about the same age as my eldest child, so I couldn’t just pass by.”

“…”

“I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“No, no. I’m so grateful, so grateful that I don’t know what to say.”

Kim Sun-min, whose heart welled up as soon as she saw the rice balls, barely held back her tears and expressed her gratitude.

“Thank you so much.”

“Gratitude for what. It’s not like sharing rice balls is something to be so grateful for. The world may be tough now, but when I was young, it was natural to help each other when there were difficulties. If you go to the left, there’s a big tree with good shade. Eat comfortably on the bench under it. It’s a path that people don’t usually take, so there won’t be any complaints.”

“I’ll enjoy it. Thank you so much, sir.”

Kim Sun-min bowed again and went to the place the security guard had told her to go and sat on the bench.

As soon as she saw the rice balls, she swallowed hard without realizing it.

‘Looks delicious.’

Taking off her stuffy hat and grabbing one of the rice balls, she took a big bite of the rice ball.

The rice ball, which simply contained stir-fried anchovies and a few nuts, was more delicious than any expensive food.

‘Delicious.’

After swallowing everything in her mouth, she was about to swallow the rice ball again when it happened.

“Excuse me? Excuse me…”

Just then, a girl and a middle-aged woman who were passing by Kim Sun-min near the bench approached and spoke to her.

“Oh my! It’s her! It’s her.”

The woman, who had been staring at Kim Sun-min’s face as she approached, narrowed the distance and added in a voice full of conviction.

“You! You’re Kim Sun-min, right?”