Secret Cohabitation Love (Completed Main Story) - Side Story 11

Tring-a-ling, tring-a-ling.

The grimy, gray telephone, stained with years of use, rang shrilly. Its dull, clattering ring showed no sign of stopping, as if it might leap right off the table.

Just then, Bok Soon, who had been tearing aged kimchi apart with her fingers while mixing cold rice into soup, set the kimchi down with a disgruntled look.

“Who the hell calls right when I’m eating? Don’t they know it’s lunchtime? You should have some manners about when to call. Damn it, calling whenever you feel like it.”

Sucking the kimchi juice off her thumb and index finger into her mouth, Bok Soon pulled herself over to the phone.

“Hello?”

— It’s me.

“Me who? Who the hell are you calling yourself ‘me’? You think everyone knows who ‘me’ is? What kind of crap way is that to make a call?”

— It’s me. Hyun Jung. Though I guess it’s not hard to forget your daughter’s voice after ditching her so easily—only a few months and already gone from memory.

Bok Soon cleared her throat roughly and shoved the last bite of food down her throat, irritated by the gritty residue in her mouth.

“Forget? It’s just been so long, that’s all. After you left your daughter with me, I thought you’d died. Not once did you come check on her. Eun Seo’s grown a lot now. But she doesn’t talk well—whether it’s because she’s slow or because she has no mother, I don’t know.”

— Don’t say that. She’s your daughter, not mine. You picked her up after abandoning her—why call her my daughter? There are plenty of people who gave birth but aren’t real mothers. Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘like mother, like daughter’?

Bok Soon let out a deep, heavy sigh and tightly coiled the twisted telephone cord in her fist.

“Then why call? Clearly it’s not just because you’re curious about Eun Seo. Anyway, I’m running low on money too. It’s not cheap raising a kid—even a tiny one eats sausages like there’s no tomorrow. If you’ve got money, send me 500,000 won.”

— Got it.

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