Mother Tape Chapter 11.1 - Epilogue

Room 301. Patient’s Name: Im Yonghee.

After several fake names, Jeong Taegyu, who had reclaimed his own name that had died long ago, was sentenced to three years and was released after serving his full term. By the time he got out, all of his assets had vanished into thin air, having been used up for seizure and parole.

Even after shaving his beard before his release, his haggardness did not completely disappear. Jeong Taegyu, who had become noticeably gaunt in the past few years, had aged dramatically, as if he had aged not three years, but thirty.

There were others being released today besides him. They each had people to greet them, but it was impossible that such a person would exist for Jeong Taegyu.

“The ungrateful son of a bitch.”

Jeong Taegyu trembled with rage, wondering how Wisoo, whom he had raised like his own son, could betray him like that, thinking he did not even know what gratitude was. He had never once understood even an iota of the fear Wisoo must have felt for several years while seeing things that were dead. On the contrary, Jeong Taegyu thought, this is great, let me use this to forge a path for myself, and he desperately held on. For this very day. The day he would become a free man.

“What? I should watch my back when I get out, too?”

Jeong Taegyu had now become a master of talking to himself. He had no idea that people were avoiding him as he muttered.

“Look at this. There is no one here. It is clear that young master couldn’t handle Seon Wisoo in the meantime. Does he even have the guts for it? Having been raised so delicately?”

Like a man possessed by a ghost, he staggered toward the bus stop. From there, he planned to go to the general terminal and then return to Seoul. He still had people who were unusually weak-minded and desperate, and who had a lot of money. It was fine even if they did not have money. All he needed was for anyone to follow his words.

“So it is all just a bluff, a bluff. Wisoo has probably been abandoned too and is regretting it now. Thinking, I should have listened to my teacher.”

Jeong Taegyu chuckled and laughed.

And he did not even notice the presence of the car that was following him.

Just as he was about to reach the bus stop, he was dragged into the car that had approached him, matching his slow steps, as if sucked in, and was reborn as Im Yonghee of Room 301.

“Let me out! You have the wrong person! I am not Im Yonghee! I am not Im Yonghee…!”

“Your name is Im Yonghee, patient. Here, it is even in the records. Your fingerprints match, too.”

“That is, I, that is…!”

The large man, shaking his head, stood up from his seat.

“He is not able to recognize himself.”

At the muttered words, Jeong Taegyu felt his heart sink.

“Ah, no. Wait a minute. I remember now. I remember! I… I…!”

I, am Im Yonghee…! Nineteen sixty…!

His mouth, which was about to state his name, date of birth, and even his place of birth, was suddenly blocked as if by a large hand.

As the door closed, a muttering sound came from between the gap. Because he had been in this room as soon as he woke up, he had no idea where he had been brought.

“Mph, mph…! Ughh…!”

Even when his mouth opened, no sound came out as he crawled on the floor, desperately trying to see through the crack in the door. And when he finally saw beyond it, Jeong Taegyu’s eyes widened in horror.

It was a place he knew. It was the place he had sent Wisoo to for a bit, intending to give him a little scare. Jeong Taegyu was about to put his hand through the gap of the heavy door that was closing very slowly, but he froze at the sight of the figure visible through it.

“Uuughh…!”

Jaekwon was there. The sight of him, looking at him coldly before slowly turning away, was like that of a grim reaper. He belatedly managed to reach out his hand, but the door closed completely, only painfully lifting his barely touching fingernails.

However, under the closed door, through the tiny gap, black fingernails broken in half began to crawl in. Like a madman, Jeong Taegyu scooted backward, dragging his bottom on the floor, but hair, water, fingernails and blood, and filth endlessly slithered in from under the crack in the door.

When a puddle filled about half the floor where Jeong Taegyu was, a popping sound of bubbles bursting arose from within it, and then that space was filled with eyeballs, teeth, and tongues.

They all began to cackle and laugh in unison. Bloodshot eyes, forked tongues, and broken teeth are looking at Jeong Taegyu.

“Aaaaaaaah…!”

In that darkness, Jeong Taegyu could no longer be sure whether the Kwak Jaekwon he had seen was an illusion or a real entity.

❖ ❖ ❖

Room V101 Patient Name: Kwak Jaekyeong.

Jaekyeong was a long-term patient. It was said that he would soon be moved from the VIP floor to his home. The reason given was to care for him more comfortably. However, the gossips who were well-informed about the VIP floor rumors already knew. The news that Kwak Jaekyeong’s father had squandered all his assets and even gotten a divorce, so he could no longer afford the hospital fees.

“Come on. Still, his nephew is well-off. You think he would just leave him be?”

“That must be why they are taking him home. Taking care of someone at home also costs more than a penny or two and takes more than a hand or two.”

Unaware of their whispering, Kwak Jaekyeong was simply sleeping peacefully.

No, he appeared to be sleeping peacefully.

‘Gasp, gasp, gasp.’

Jaekyeong ran down a long hallway. This time, he was running down from the second floor. He had been through this place so many times that he was used to it, yet the path changed every time; there were only familiar props and materials, but he got lost every single time.

‘Why, why, why!’

Jaekyeong was wearing a school uniform. His bangs were also cut in a straight line, according to the style popular at the time. That was why Jaekyeong could not forget what time this was.

‘Why, why! Stop! Stop!’

Jaekyeong ran, chasing the faintly audible, shrill voice of Kwak Bonyoung. He knew that if he went there, the scene from which he had cowardly fled would unfold, and if he faced it, soon after, the grandfather clock and the stairs would all try to swallow him as if they were alive, but he could not help it. Still, at least his uncle and aunt were there. At least he was not alone.

‘Uncle!’

He ran until his face was soaked with tears and flung the door open.

Then, the two of them looked at him at the same time. In an instant, Kwak Bonyoung’s face also changed to that of his aunt, Sooyeon.

‘Aaaargh!’

Jaekyeong, who had fallen backward, frantically scrambled away, pushing off the floor with his hands and feet.

Again. It repeats again. The floor he was pressing on with his hands swayed mushily. It became snake scales and cut his palms, the room became the giant maw of a snake, and those two people became venomous fangs, approaching him.

‘Ha, haha. Ha….’

Jaekyeong laughed weakly and cried.

‘Please… please let it end this time….’

Unable to even scream from the pain of the venomous fangs piercing him from head to toe in one go, Kwak Jaekyeong wakes up again. In that house. In the scene from which he fled. So that he can never escape again.

❖ ❖ ❖

‘Please…!’

‘Wisoo!’

“What is it?”

Jaekwon’s steps also stopped because of Wisoo, who had halted and turned around. They were on their way to the lounge. Jaekwon approached Wisoo, who was tilting his head, and asked cautiously.

“Why. Are you seeing something strange?”

“No….”

It felt like I heard something…. It sounded like my name, and also like a scream. But no matter how much he focused with all his nerves on edge, he heard nothing more and saw nothing either. Wisoo shook his head, thinking he must have misheard. Since there were so many people of all nationalities, the probability of having misheard a foreign language was also high.

“I think I just misheard.”

If there had been any sign of hiding something, he would have turned back or interrogated him immediately, but Wisoo’s expression was clear, without a single shadow. It seemed he was quite excited as this was his first trip abroad. Inside the transparent passport case he was holding tightly in his hand like a treasure was a photo taken on the side while getting Wisoo’s passport picture taken. It was a photo of the three of them together, Saha, Jaekwon, and Wisoo.

To Jaekwon, a family photo was nothing more than something stiff that only induced a certain creepiness. To Wisoo, a family photo was something he did not even have in his memory. However, their family photo was a very ordinary… scene of an ordinary family, with them pressing their cheeks against both of Saha’s and smiling brightly.

“I think I really did mishear. But what if I get airsick on the plane?”

“You did not get seasick when we were on the yacht for a bit before, so you will be fine. Just in case, let’s buy some motion sickness medicine.”

Jaekwon whispered, holding Wisoo’s hand firmly.

To him, the airport was a place he had to leave, as if being chased out of the things called father and hometown, and a place he had to pass through for work, nothing more and nothing less. But today, he too was excited as if he had come for the first time in his life. Just because Seon Wisoo was with him.

“Let’s go to the lounge and make a video call before we go. Hwang Gujo apparently scraped together every last bit of his time off to take a vacation just to see Saha.”

“I think he will like uncle more than us.”

Wisoo muttered a little gloomily, as if it was still weighing on his mind. Jaekwon was less worried about that part, as he felt Saha seemed to resemble him more in terms of personality as he grew up. In that sense, he reassured Wisoo.

“Just wait until he grows a little more. He will cry just from looking at him. Hwang Gujo looks a bit scary, you know. Saha takes after me and likes pretty things. That is why he likes his Wisoo appa.”

It felt like tiny flowers were blooming one by one amidst the everyday conversation. The sight of them holding hands tightly and leaning toward each other to whisper, for fear of growing distant or not being heard, was like a picture.

‘Wisoo, please save your teacher!’

‘I was wrong, I was wrong! I was wro—, aaargh! Please… please just let it end now…!’

And behind the two of them, voices that would now never reach or be accidentally heard scattered away in vain. A favorable wind blows. This will gently push them far, far away, and high up. Far away, freely, to a place where even the basement Wisoo escaped from and the gloomy mansion Jaekwon finally destroyed cannot be seen.