The Sleepwalker’s Mansion Chapter 3

In the increasingly clear vision, he saw Mister Seonhee cradling his crumpled mother in his arms. The fallen wheelchair was broken, its wheel detached. Doeon couldn’t bring himself to approach, stopping about five steps away.

“Oh, what do I do! She fell from the terrace while I was in the bathroom for a moment!”

Mister Seonhee shouted at Doeon, trembling all over. Doeon slowly approached his mother, who was lying collapsed and bleeding from her head.

“Oh, what should we do?”

“…….”

“Do, Doeon?”

“Please call 119.”

“119?”

“Yes. 119.”

His mother looked as if she were asleep. Just like when she had taken sleeping pills and fallen asleep. Doeon approached slowly, not in a hurry. Thud, he knelt down and pulled his mother into his arms. Her thin body was still warm.

“Hurry! Please call 119.”

“Ah, okay. I, I’ll call 119!”

Mister Seonhee took out his phone and hurriedly pressed the keypad. Despite the commotion beside him, Doeon’s mind was blank.

Mom fell because of me. Because she was scared I would drown and die due to my narcolepsy. Did Mom drag the wheelchair over the terrace, trying to get to me?

“How foolish….”

Doeon bit his lower lip until it bled. Tears welled up in his eyes and then, drip, fell down.

“Mom… Mom, open your eyes….”

Doeon carefully called out to his mother. Then, his mother slowly lifted her eyelids and looked at Doeon.

“Seo, Doeon….”

“Mo, Mom…?”

“Doeon… in my place… you must protect the, the mansion….”

“Mo, Mom, snap out of it… 119 will be here soon…! You’ll be fine if we go to the hospital… Stay with me…!”

“You must protect the, the mansion… alright….”

“Mo, Mom…!”

His mother, who had been muttering about protecting the mansion, soon closed her eyelids again.

Fortunately, his mother, who was taken to the hospital, opened her eyes again, but her health rapidly deteriorated after that accident. With a concussion and multiple fractures, his mother was now completely immobile in bed. The doctor said it was a miracle she was alive.

After the accident, his mother could only swallow thin, watery rice gruel. He would boil the gruel and feed it to his mother. Even that, his mother often refused. He was afraid that the shadow of death had begun to cast itself thickly. That day too, he was arguing with his mother, holding a spoon.

“Mom, just one bite.”

“…Stop, I don’t want to eat anymore….”

“Mom… please… just one bite….”

Her face, with its deeply sunken cheeks, was fully colored by illness. Wearing a knit hat to cover the crown of her head where her hair was falling out in patches, his mother looked cold even in the hat knitted with shaggy yarn. Doeon was pleading, his eyebrows drooping, as he pressed the spoon against her parched lips.

“If you just eat one bite, I won’t bother you anymore.”

“I told you there’s no need to try, cough, cough…!”

At the burst of coughing, Doeon had no choice but to put down the bowl and spoon and brought a glass of water to his mother’s lips. Even then, she only allowed enough to wet her lips slightly before shaking her head.

“I need to lie down….”

“I’ll help you lie down.”

Doeon gently wrapped his arms around his mother’s shoulders and helped her lean against the soft pillow. His mother, lying on her side facing the window, looked at Doeon with a face filled with worry and long-held lament.

“My Doeon… you can live well even without your mom, right?”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“I’m sorry, my son… for making you suffer so much….”

Her gaze, tracing Doeon’s face, was full of affection. Even though his mother had a somewhat obsessive and paranoid side, it was also true that he felt a sense of camaraderie with her. She was his only mother. He couldn’t imagine this vast mansion without her in it.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Just focus on recovering, Mom.”

“Can you promise me one thing?”

“What promise?”

“Even if I’m not here, I want you to protect this mansion with your own hands.”

As she said this, her eyes shone with a clarity as if she were a person who knew no illness. It was what she had desperately muttered even when she fell from the balcony. He had heard it countless times, but only then did it occur to him that to his mother, the mansion might be herself.

“Yes. I’ll be sure to protect it.”

“And….”

“……?”

“If… even if I die….”

“Mom!”

“Even if I die… do not contact your father.”

Father. A father whose face he had never seen anyway. Doeon nodded his head.

“Okay. I won’t contact him.”

“Thank you….”

It seemed as if peace had finally settled upon his mother’s deathly pale face. Doeon held his mother’s hand tightly and rubbed his cheek against it. So that she could not leave her child behind and depart.

The next morning, Doeon went to his mother’s room as usual, holding a dish of rice gruel.

“Mom, it’s time for breakfast.”

“…….”

There was no answer from his mother. She was just sleeping with her eyes tightly closed. His heart plummeted.

“Mom…?”

Doeon carefully brought his trembling fingertips under his mother’s nose. He felt no breath at all on the tip of his finger. It was the first time her peacefully sleeping face seemed cruel. He bit the inside of his mouth to hold back the ceaselessly flowing tears.

“Mom….”

That day, Doeon’s one and only guardian and warden, his mother, passed away.

The memorial altar was humble. The funeral proceedings were carried out simply, according to Doeon’s wishes. The funeral service company that Mister Seonhee had introduced sent a funeral director he was acquainted with. He found it strange that Doeon wanted a modest funeral with no relatives. Doeon explained dryly.

“My maternal grandfather and grandmother have all passed away anyway, and my mother was an only child, so there are no other relatives to come.”

“Still, shouldn’t you at least contact your paternal side? Your mother passed away.”

“He’s a father who hasn’t even contacted us all this time. I don’t want to contact him.”

“Even so. It’s not a celebration, you should at least inform them of a death, shouldn’t you? Shouldn’t you send your mother off on her final journey without her being lonely?”

“I am all my mother needs.”

Doeon answered firmly. The funeral director was at a loss for words for a moment and looked at Doeon. Doeon, wearing black mourning clothes as if he were alone and separate from the world, was staring blankly at his mother’s portrait. His mother wouldn’t want people from his paternal family, who were so heartless they were as good as disowned, to come to her memorial altar. Didn’t his mother tell him before she died? Not to inform his father of her death.

“…….”

Perhaps feeling sorry for Doeon sitting alone wearing the chief mourner’s armband inside the funeral hall, the funeral director persuaded Doeon after a brief silence.

“I heard from sister Seonhee that you have a younger brother. Should your brother not even know that his mother passed away? Let’s think about it again, Doeon.”

“My younger brother…?”

“Yes, your younger brother. Your younger brother should know, shouldn’t he?”

At the word ‘younger brother’, Doeon’s pupils wavered slightly. Although she was quite obsessive, his mother had definitely loved him. The same would be true for his distant younger brother. The affection of having given birth would exist, even if she didn’t raise him. His mother even knew the fact that his younger brother had presented as a Dominant Alpha. That was proof that she had not withdrawn her interest in his younger brother.

She told me not to contact our father, but….

For his younger brother not to even know whether his mother was alive or dead was certainly something he couldn’t do as a brother.

“Doeon, think about it again. He’s not a complete stranger, you can’t let him live without even knowing that his mother has passed away, can you?”

At the repeated persuasion, Doeon turned his pale face and slowly nodded his head.

“Alright. I’ll try to contact him.”

“Good thinking. The family should all be together for your mother’s final journey. Your mother would want to see that too.”

Really… is that what Mom would want? She told me not to contact them…. His conflicted heart was about to crumble before the promise he made to his mother.

*

theogra & co.

CEO Seo Taeoh

010 – XXXX – XXXX

Doeon fiddled with the corner of the old business card he had found in his mother’s drawer. The business card, worn down by time, was faded, but the elegantly embossed numbers were still clear.

Theogra.

He seemed to recall hearing from his mother that his father ran a company.

Is this really his father’s number? Could the number have changed in the meantime?

Various complicated thoughts made him hesitate to press the numbers. He was reluctant to let his father know, but he had to at least deliver the news of his mother’s passing to his younger brother. Taking a deep breath, Doeon carefully began to press the keypad on his phone. Soon, he heard a dialing tone, and then click, the connection sound indicating he had been connected to the other party. His heart pounded, thump, thump.

“He…llo?”

Doeon first produced a cautious voice. Soon, a clear voice came through.

—Hello.

“Uh….”

Doeon’s flustered eyes darted about in confusion. Lest he drop the phone he was holding, Doeon gripped the bottom of the phone tightly with his left hand. The voice was different from what he had expected. It was the voice of a woman, not a man. His flustered voice trembled nonstop.

“Um, excuse me, isn’t this CEO Seo Taeoh’s phone?”

—Ah, you’ve been connected to Theogra’s main number.

“Ah….”

The main number. So was he connected to the company? He hadn’t expected a company’s main number to be listed on a business card instead of a personal number. Doeon wiped his forehead, which was beading with sweat, with the back of his hand.

“Tha, that is….”

—Yes. Please go ahead.

It had been a long time since he had talked to a stranger, so it wasn’t easy to form sentences. He painstakingly spat out the words that came out in fits and starts.

“Is, is there a way I can speak with CEO Seo Taeoh?”

—What shall I say it is regarding?

“Please tell him it’s about the passing of Ms. Park Heemin….”

—Yes, I understand.