My parents are a little unusual.
If you stopped random people on the street and asked, “Do you think your parents are unusual?” about seven out of ten would probably say yes. It is hard for parents and children to fully understand each other.
But my parents are unusual even by objective standards. They are overprotective about their child, yet the moment something actually happens, they become strangely detached, which makes them hard to define. They fuss and worry dramatically, then at some point act as if nothing happened, so even I, their own child, could never tell whether they were excessively meddlesome or simply indifferent.
The reason I grew up this unruly is because my parents were never consistent. If parenting advice programs had been popular earlier, my childhood probably would have been immortalized on video.
Maybe because my face is too handsome, all kinds of weird people have been drawn to me since I was little. It started when a kid from the Moon Class in kindergarten bit me because he said he was hungry, and from there, kidnappings and abductions without any financial demands never stopped.
At first, of course, I was startled, but I got used to it soon enough. It is only surprising the first one or two times. By the time I was in high school, there were too many people trying to get attention by crawling around on all fours from exam stress, so I could let everything pass without even looking twice.
Given that kind of situation, I can understand why my parents forbade all sorts of things. Be careful which friends you make, be careful what you eat, ignore strangers if they talk to you, do not casually accept things from other people…. Those are the kinds of things other parents say to their children too.
But my father would ban the strangest things at random. Don’t look in the mirror at midnight, don’t buy dolls modeled after the human form, stay as far away from animals as possible…. Since he would suddenly forbid things that did not even seem especially related to safety, my childish sense of rebellion only grew stronger.
And when I eventually did the things I was told not to do, my parents did not scold me in a panic and demand to know why. Instead, they accepted it humbly with expressions that said they had known it would happen. Thanks to my mother and father, I learned that overprotection and indifference can coexist.
It is not that I have a bad relationship with my parents—though things did become a little awkward after I threw myself on the floor over not going to church anymore. The reason I got my own place the moment I became an adult was because I wanted freedom from those ridiculous restrictions.
When I said I was going to live on my own, they opposed it fiercely. I had only just barely gotten into Hankook University, and I ended up staging a full protest by throwing myself down and saying that if this was how it would be, then I just would not go to college at all. I have no idea how anxious I was, waiting to see if my mother would really tell me not to go to university, then.
Even their reasons for opposing it were absurd. It was not that living alone was too expensive or dangerous. Instead, there was a whole list of incomprehensible conditions: the building could not be on the fourth floor, the windows could not be an odd number, there could not be graffiti below the doorbell, and so on.
If I tried to explain how many real estate agents my parents tormented in order to find a place that fit their exact tastes, it would take three nights and four days. The fact that the apartment I live in now happened to satisfy all of their impossible conditions was practically a miracle. If this place had not existed, I never would have been able to dream of independence.
Even after I moved out, my mother still visited my apartment regularly and did irrational things like hanging crosses outside the door or checking the number of shoes. I wanted to change the door code so my parents could not come whenever they pleased, but I held back because it felt like that would make me a truly unfilial child.
If I had known my mother would show up on the very day I brought Cheolsu home, I would have chosen to become the most unfilial child in the world much sooner.
My mother did not scream when she saw Cheolsu, but it was obvious she was deeply shocked. Without Minsu inside him, Cheolsu was just a soft, warm black dog, but in my mother’s eyes he seemed to look like a demon that had just crawled up from hell.
“How is there a dog in this house? They definitely do not allow animals here.”
“I got permission from the landlord. He said he would make an exception this one time because the dog looks well-mannered.”
“……”
“I’m serious. I’m not keeping him secretly. And I only brought him today.”
Cheolsu, who had been curled up on the bed, climbed down and hid behind me. He was so large that hiding did not actually conceal him at all, but it did seem as if Cheolsu was watching my mother carefully too.
“You do not just raise an animal carelessly. Bringing home a life you cannot even take responsibility for—”
“I brought him because I am going to take responsibility for him. I absolutely have to look after him.”
“Why?”
“Uh… well, he is a dog I have a connection with.”
“…A connection?”
“I know it might sound strange, okay? But sending this dog off just anywhere would be even more dangerous.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed flat. If a son suddenly brought home a large black dog and started calling it a dog he had a connection with, most mothers would not be able to accept that.
But I could not just abandon Cheolsu. First of all, he was a dog that had followed me out of an Anomaly. Throwing him away just because Minsu had come out of him would not be something a human being should do. And if I handed a dog from an Anomaly over to someone else for adoption, who knew what kind of disaster that might cause?
Still, it was hard to explain Anomalies or Minsu to my mother in detail. Setting aside the fact that it would sound like nonsense rather than something believable, even if she did believe me, there was a strong chance she would drag me straight to church. It was not as though that had only happened once or twice before.
I picked Cheolsu up in my arms. I only lifted him to show my mother that he was as dignified and gentle as a Jindo dog, but he was much lighter than when I had held him inside the Anomaly, which startled me. The reason he had felt as heavy as a boulder before must really have been Minsu’s influence.
“I know what Mom is worried about, but Cheolsu is really a gentle dog. Look. I’m holding him like this and he is not even barking. See how good he is?”
“You already gave him a name?”
“Of course I did. What, was I supposed to just keep calling him dog?”
“You should not hand out names carelessly. You do remember your father told you to stay away from animals, right?”
“I was trying to stay away from them. But meeting a pet is supposed to be a matter of destiny. If I have been chosen, how am I supposed to refuse?”
My mother squeezed her eyes shut. She normally had low blood pressure, but the moment she started talking to me, it shot past normal and into high blood pressure. I hurried over to her, trying to emphasize that Cheolsu was a good dog with absolutely no problems.
“Put that down.”
Naturally, none of that made any impression on my mother.
When I awkwardly set Cheolsu back on the floor, he read the room and hid behind me again.
“You said you were fine, so I thought this time it had ended without anything happening. But now it has come.”
“Huh? What has come?”
“Iru, you must not go around doing dangerous things.”
“I did not do anything dangerous.”
“It is a blessing I came to your place after getting that emergency alert today and feeling uneasy. Iru, before your father finds out, get rid of the dog quickly. And come back home.”
My mother grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
“It cannot be any later than this. Return to the Lord’s embrace.”
How many children would hear that and answer okay?
“Whenever you act like this, you really seem like part of some cult.”
“Your mother is doing all this for your sake.”
“I am absolutely not going back, so go ahead and tell Dad if you want.”
“Ha… what am I supposed to do with you, really.”
My mother let out a deep sigh when she saw Cheolsu had already climbed back onto my bed and settled there. Then she pulled all kinds of crosses out of the bag she had brought and started hanging them on every door.
“I cannot dare stop you, but you always have to be careful.”
“What do you mean you cannot stop me when you are hanging crosses up like this?”
“Do not take these down carelessly. Remember this. You are a child who receives too much love, so no matter where you are, you may come face to face with dangerous things.”
At the word “dangerous things” that left my mother’s mouth, the faces of countless beings flashed through my mind. Starting with the entities I had met at Dowon High School and Baekju Apartment, all the way to Jeon Jiho and Director Park, who had foamed at the mouth trying to recruit me.
I could not exactly tell her that even in college I was still getting kidnapped the way I had in elementary school, so I just kept my mouth shut. It was not easy to explain what had happened to me today. It had been difficult even when I was a child, but now it was harder.
When I stayed silent, my mother did not ask anything more. It felt as if she had many things she wanted to ask, but could not bring herself to. It was the same with Cheolsu. She did not follow up by forcing me to throw the dog out. Like the saying that no parent can truly win against their child, my parents would disapprove when I insisted on something, but they would not block me.
“…Do not get too attached to that dog either.”
It was strange how they could be this overprotective and yet, once I actually did something, accept it so calmly. In a way, it almost felt like resignation. Like a prophet confirming that what was bound to happen had finally happened.
“You need to know how to look away too, if it seems like something cannot be saved.”
Suddenly, I found myself wondering what it was that my mother had once “looked away from because it could not be saved.”