The two red lines drawn on the pregnancy test kit clearly entered my eyes.

The voice of reason shouted to acknowledge the pregnancy, but my emotions desperately waved their hands in refusal, and the clear red lines of the pregnancy test kit bound my foolish hands with red ropes.

Pregnancy!

Pregnancy without any mental preparation!

My tear glands were as dry as a reservoir in a cracked drought, but as if squeezing out the last few drops, a few drops of tears trickled down.

I sat alone in the darkness without even turning on the lights for a long time.

My brain, which had fallen into extreme confusion, let go of my hands, and the circuits began to twist, as if giving up on working, and soon stopped functioning.

An hour or two passed without any thoughts…… The sky outside the window had turned dark like pitch black.

I gathered my courage and called him.

After a long signal, an English announcement flowed out as if it was going to an automatic response system.

I hung up the phone.

Has his heart grown distant as much as the distance has grown?

Or was his heart already distant before he left for the United States?

If his heart had grown distant before going to the United States, what did the two times of love on Baengnyeong Island before he left mean?

After he left for the United States, I took out the thoughts that had been tormenting me one by one in the darkness.

It was a far cry from the way I had known him for the past 5 years, and they were depressing first experiences.

It didn’t seem like his heart had grown distant because of the distance.

Then why did he go on a 1 night 2 days trip to Baengnyeong Island with me and make love twice?

If his heart had grown distant, his body should have also grown distant. What was the reason for breaking the chastity he had kept for 5 years just 2 weeks before leaving for the United States?

He left, but I stayed.

His place was left empty and hollow, but he left his traces in my body.

I called again, but he still didn’t answer.

I was about to leave a text message, but thinking it would be meaningless, I withdrew my hesitating fingers and turned off my cell phone.

How much time had passed……

The sound of opening the small studio was heard, and my mother, who had returned from work, came in and was startled to see me sitting in the bathroom in the dark.

“……So Hee, why are you sitting in the bathroom without turning on the lights? You scared me so much.”

“……Mom……”

“……Did something happen to you?”

“……”

My mother, who turned on the lights, was very surprised to see me. And she was flustered to see the pregnancy test kit held in my hand.

“Did you take a COVID test with that?”

“……”

“Then what is it? ……Don’t tell me, you…… Pregnant?”

“……”

As if the dried tear glands were filled again in the darkness, tears flowed down again when I saw my mother.

“……Mom, what should I do?”

“……”

My mother didn’t say anything, took me out of the bathroom and brought me to the bed. And she sat next to the bed and cried with me.

Sometimes, a sympathetic expression or action can be better than words.

After crying while holding my hand for a long time, my mother opened her mouth and spoke.

“Is it Hyun Woo’s child?”

“……Yes, Mom.”

“That time when you went on a 1 night 2 days trip to Baengnyeong Island with Hyun Woo?”

“……Yes.”

My mother and I had no secrets. There were only two of us in the family, but we thought more of each other after my father passed away.

I didn’t confess what happened on Baengnyeong Island, but I honestly told her before going on the 1 night 2 days trip, and I also told her that he had grown distant after leaving for the United States.

As much as I was upset, my mother was also heartbroken, and she comforted me saying that he must have his own circumstances.

She always told me that worries abandon people, and to always think positively.

“Did you contact Hyun Woo?”

“……I did, but he’s not answering.”

“At least leave a text message!”

“……I guess Hyun Woo isn’t the person I loved anymore. He’s changed. I don’t want to hold on to his pants and cry that I’m pregnant.”

“But we don’t know what’s going on with him.”

“Mom…… There’s something called human intuition.”

The sudden change in her twenty-five-year-old daughter was a very confusing situation for her mother as well.

Her boyfriend who had a change of heart was in the United States, and her daughter who had just started working as a nurse at the hospital was pregnant. Her mother also didn’t have a solution on how to wisely accept the reality.

“So Hee…… What are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“Are you going to have the baby?”

“……Oh my god, Mom. What are you saying right now?”

“You said you can’t reach Hyun Woo? You said he’s changed? Are you still going to have the baby?”

“Mom…… I can’t erase the child.”

I told my mother with a firm look that I would never have an abortion.

Although I could see the end of my love with him, I didn’t want to erase his traces as well.

He was my first love, my first man, and the person who gave me my first child.

I know how difficult it will be to have a baby and raise a child while working as a nurse, but I couldn’t imagine erasing the traces he left me with.

My mother told me to contact him somehow or visit his mother’s house, but his mother, whom I had visited a month ago, had already moved and I couldn’t find her contact information.

My mother cried endlessly again while holding my hand.

It seemed she was shedding tears of regret as if her daughter’s fate resembled her own ill-fated life.

I felt my mother’s heart and spent the long night with an empty heart, holding her hand without saying a word.

*****

It had already been over two months since Hyun Woo spent the last night with So Hee on Baengnyeong Island and came to the United States.

He entered the graduate school of neurophysiology at Harxard Medical School located on Longwood Avenue in Boston, and the life of experimenting every day was not easy.

He entered the integrated master’s and doctoral program, and even though he was credited with 21 credits from S University’s graduate school, he had to be prepared for 4 years to obtain a doctorate.

He was sorry to So Hee, but he began to slowly let her go from his heart a year before leaving Korea.

After accidentally reuniting with So Hee at the S University medical school library, he felt like they were on the same boat in life, understanding and comforting each other’s situations.

Love began, and he sincerely loved her.

He loved her lily-white skin and her clean yet dignified soul.

When he kissed her and kissed her lips, he wanted to have her, but Hyun Woo wanted a life of restraint different from his father’s.

So he wanted to protect her until marriage.

So Hee trusted and relied on Hyun Woo even more.

Ironically, the trigger that made Hyun Woo slowly let her go from his heart was the limit of the common denominator of difficult family circumstances that first tied So Hee and Hyun Woo together.

*****

Without imagining that the saying “comparison is the seed of unhappiness” would overwhelm him, he eagerly accepted his friend’s proposal two years ago.

Hyun Woo was recommended as a tutor for the son of the chairman of S Group, one of the leading conglomerates in Korea.

At that time, with the temptation of a high-paying part-time job that was incomparable to the usual part-time hourly wage, he started tutoring even in the busy life of his fourth year in medical school.

Hyun Woo still vividly remembers the moment he crossed the gate of the large house in Pyeongchang-dong, where only the richest people in Seoul lived, and entered the garden of that house.

The garden had a pond along with tall trees, and a red pine tree that looked to be over 100 years old stood with a strangely shaped rock in one corner.

The lawn was lush green in March, embroidering the soft green garden, and the colorful carp in the pond seemed to enjoy the abundance as they leisurely swam around.

As he crossed the garden and reached the front of the house, a man who seemed to be the butler of the house led Hyun Woo to the lady of the house.

“Hello. I’m Park Hyun Woo.”

“Come on in. The previous tutor said he couldn’t do it anymore because he was in his fourth year of medical school, so when I asked for a recommendation, he strongly recommended you.”

“I’ll do my best to teach him.”

“As you’ll find out when you go in, our son is in his third year of high school now. Since his goal is to enter the business administration department at S University, please just focus on math. I’ll pay you generously for the tutoring fees.”

“Yes, I understand.”

The lady had dignity befitting the wife of the chairman of S Group.

In addition to the tutoring fees, the lady also promised a success bonus if her son was admitted to the business administration department at S University.

As it was a high-paying tutoring job with incentives, more than any other part-time job he had ever done, Hyun Woo taught with all his heart and soul, and the son of that house was also good at studying, so the results showed as taught.

The results quickly turned into trust, and as the grades went up, Hyun Woo’s tutoring fees were immediately raised.

Hyun Woo could have gone through the national exam, internship, residency, and specialist process after becoming a doctor, but he had a desire to study more.

Money was important, but he wanted to study alcohol addiction, which had made him, his father, and his mother suffer all their lives.

He could go abroad immediately after passing the national medical exam, but he wanted to prepare more for studying abroad after entering graduate school at S University.

Since the son’s college entrance exam was in November and Hyun Woo’s medical practical exam was in October and the written exam was in January, it wasn’t a big problem.

When the tutoring that started in March showed noticeable results, the lady’s trust grew, and on special days like Hyun Woo’s birthday or Parents’ Day, he received gifts he had never received before in his life.

It seemed that this was the time when Hyun Woo, who had lived without tasting money all his life, began to feel the power of money.

Of course, most of his college classmates were children of wealthy families in Gangnam or local magnates, but he had no chance to clash with them because he was busy with part-time jobs, and Hyun Woo also endured with his pride that he could make money in the future.

However, the house of the chairman of S Group exuded a different level of dignity everywhere in the house, which was different from those who suddenly became rich, and it also exuded from the people.

During his tutoring, Hyun Woo observed where dignity came from.

Wearing luxury goods does not create dignity.

Even with plastic surgery, the dignity that emanates from the face is not created.

The moment he saw the dignity flowing from them, which he could never find in his own appearance or So Hee’s, Hyun Woo felt both self-loathing and inferiority.

Comparison was the seed of unhappiness and the beginning of change.

Naturally, the time to meet So Hee was reduced due to his life as a fourth-year medical student and tutoring.

No matter how busy, the trajectory of life is determined by one’s own thoughts on life’s priorities.

Even if he was busy, if his love for So Hee had not changed, he would have visited So Hee, who was preparing for the national exam at the medical school library, even late at night or early in the morning.

Maybe not every day, but a few days a week……

But Hyun Woo used tutoring as an excuse to meet once a week, and as time passed, they met about once a month.

.

.

.

In addition to the power of money, there was one person who threw a stone of change into Hyun Woo’s heart.