Hello there!
My name is Seo Yu-na.
My parents named me with the characters for “beautiful” (瑜) and “to hold” (拿), wishing that I would never miss all the beautiful things in the world.
Isn’t it lovely?
Just as beautiful as my name, I’ve grown up receiving a lot of love at home.
My mom loves me more than anything in the world, and both my older and younger brothers think I’m super cute.
Although I couldn’t meet my dad because he passed away when I was really young, my mom says he was a truly beautiful person.
It’s a bit strange to describe a man as beautiful… but somehow it suits him.
While my mom and brothers were all beautiful people, our home was not beautiful at all.
It was way too cramped for our family of four.
During the rainy season, the roof leaked, and in winter, the cold wind would sneak in through the windows.
My brothers always lay on the floor doing their school homework, and my mom would push the blanket aside to make room for the dining table.
Sometimes, when we got lucky and were able to grill some meat, the smoky smell would fill our tiny home.
That’s why, when I was three, my dream was to be a princess.
I wanted to live happily ever after with my loved ones in a beautiful, spacious castle.
Mom was really happy to hear that.
So then my brothers each shared their dreams too.
My older brother said he wanted to be a painter. Whenever he got bored with his homework, he would draw me with a multi-colored pen, and it looked just like me.
My younger brother dreamed of being a basketball player. He’s tall and good at sports, so he’s bound to be an amazing player in the future, right?
While eating lunch, my curiosity got the best of me, and I asked,
“Mom, what’s your dream?”
But mom, saying she had to get ready for work again, didn’t answer my question.
Her back looked somehow pitiful.
*
“&%&@ %&$$&@@!”
A loud noise jolted me awake in the early dawn.
Looking around, I noticed mom and my brothers were nowhere to be found.
Where could they have gone?
I felt scared.
But then I heard familiar voices outside the door. It was mom and my brothers.
I couldn’t tell what time it was since I didn’t know how to read the clock, but why was everyone out so early in this cold winter?
“The doctor said it’s serious! You should quickly schedule the next treatment! Why are you going to work again today?”
“We don’t have any money! We need to earn as much as we can while we’re healthy!”
“That’s exactly why I said mom isn’t well!”
My brothers were extremely angry at mom.
Seeing my brothers like that for the first time made me tremble, and I couldn’t open the door.
“The doctor said the disease can’t be cured in Korea. You should only be hospitalized when it’s really bad to save even a penny.”
“Mom’s life is on the line, and you’re worried about money?”
“…”
From that day on, our beauty slowly started to fade away.
Maybe it had been crumbling a lot longer than that.
Mom worked from morning until late at night to support us all by herself.
She worked cleaning various buildings all day and went out to work at restaurants even late on weekends, so there were many times I couldn’t see her.
I missed mom. I wanted to see her every day.
But I never wished for that wish to come true in this way.
“Mom…”
“What is it, my beautiful daughter?”
“I can’t see you…”
“Huh?”
“I can’t see in that direction… I can’t see at all, mom… Waaaaah!”
Multiple Sclerosis
It’s said to be a scary disease where the policemen in mom’s body attack her.
Mom’s eyes gradually lost their sparkle, and before a year passed, she reached the point where she couldn’t even tell where I was.
Mom’s body turned as stiff as a stone, as if I had stared into Medusa’s eyes.
From below her neck, her entire body became paralyzed, and she could hardly move her index finger.
Seeing mom desperately trying to wiggle her finger to comfort me as I cried, I had no choice but to hold her finger.
It was the only way I could let her know I was here since she couldn’t feel anything else.
To our family, happiness was a fragment, but unhappiness was an endless epic novel.
I can hardly remember when the happy moments were anymore.
“I dropped out of school.”
My older brother spoke the words first as if he had given up.
If it were the usual mom, she would have scolded him, asking what he meant and telling him to study, but today she said nothing.
Now my older brother wakes up at 4 a.m. every day, hastily puts on his clothes, and leaves the house.
And by 7 p.m., he drags his exhausted body back home and collapses right there.
Despite working at the construction site for 8 hours a day, he also took a part-time job at a convenience store in the afternoon.
My older brother, who used to boast a fair complexion, started to tan over time, and his once delicate hands, which held colored pencils, were now covered with blisters.
My older brother became the true head and pillar of our household.
Maybe that’s why the scoldings mom used to give are now passed on to him.
“Seo No-eul, your homeroom teacher called.”
“So?”
“Why did you fight with your friends at school?”
“… Why do you care?”
“You better say something if you don’t want to get beat up.”
“Ugh, seriously. They were making some dumb comments about Yuna’s hair color, so I hit one of them. Is that enough?”
“…”
“And I’m quitting school. It’s too hard to balance with work.”
“What?”
“Next year Yuna’s entering the academy. I won’t make much money if I keep delivering.”
It all started when I went to school to deliver homework I accidentally left with my younger brother.
It seemed my brother’s friends teased me about my unusual red hair.
Maru Oppa didn’t blame my younger brother, and in the end, everything just passed without a resolution.
Since then, I became conscious of my hair color.
Now that I think about it, there were a lot of kids at the playground who made fun of me for my hair, too.
I thought they were just jealous…
So I honestly asked my mom.
“Mom, is there something weird about my hair color?”
“Who said that? It’s the prettiest hair in the world!”
“But why is my hair only red? You and dad both have black hair, and all my brothers have black hair too.”
“That’s…”
My mom always avoided this question.
But this time, I was stubborn and had no intention of backing down.
“Am I really not your daughter…?”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Then what am I! Why won’t you tell me?”
Does she dislike me?
Our family has been hiding a lot from me.
The pain mom had, my older brother working at the construction site, I always find out too late about these things.
“Yuna, do you want to come here?”
I didn’t want to listen to mom.
But I still hugged her tightly as she couldn’t move.
“When you were little, there was a big fire in our apartment.”
“A fire?”
I had never heard of that before.
Besides, an apartment.
You mean we lived where it had dozens of floors and not in this semi-basement single room?
“It was when dad and Yuna were home alone. In a flash, the whole apartment caught fire, and we couldn’t escape. But your dad did his best to save you.”
Why are you telling me this now?
And why did I survive…?
*
Having portable oxygen tanks for each family member is common now, but back then, we only had one.
I guess dad used it on me. And as he waited for someone to come and rescue us…
He kept
kept
kept
watching over me.
But smoke kept pouring in, and eventually, he couldn’t withstand it.
When mom went to the hospital, dad had already passed away.
But I guess I was in critical condition from inhaling too much smoke.
In the end, mom didn’t even have time to say goodbye to dad and made a decision.
To transplant dad’s Aura Heart to me.
So 60% of my Mana Circuit is from dad.
That’s why I ended up with this beautiful red hair like a princess from a storybook; it’s because of dad’s Aura Heart.
I tried hard not to cry while mom was telling me this.
If I cried in our small apartment, mom would hear me and feel sad.
No, do I even have the right to feel sad?
Without thinking, I ran out of the house.
The sky was clear without a cloud in sight, and the weather was so nice.
In the park, I saw a kid my age holding onto their parents’ hands.
They must be out for a trip.
My heart ached so much.
If I hadn’t been born,
dad, who was just an ordinary office worker, wouldn’t have been home at that time.
He probably would have spent the compensation money on moving to a better home instead of for my surgery.
Then mom wouldn’t have worked herself to the bone for us night and day and wouldn’t have gotten sick.
My older brother would have gone to art school, drawing portraits of his friends while realizing his dream,
and No-eul would have confidently become a popular professional basketball player, right?
If I hadn’t been born,
like the families I just saw,
my family also deserved to live a life like a fairy tale.
We could have all gone out to the park together and enjoyed meat dishes every day in a warm apartment.
I wasn’t a princess at all.
Rather, I was the evil witch who hands out poisoned apples, takes away voices, and puts people into eternal slumber with a spindle.
My brothers, still oblivious of this, work day and night for me.
To the point of giving up dreams they’ve held onto for so long, mom and my brothers all look only at me.
They are hoping I can be the last hope of this family.
The burden was suffocating me.
What if I hadn’t passed the academy…? I repeat that thought again and again.
I regret it deeply, but now it’s too late.
Now my life isn’t just about me anymore.
