The Textbook of a Lover - Chapter 66

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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66.
“Pardon me. I need to ask you a few questions about the accident.”
A police officer with a notebook said something, but Cha Kyung’s eyes remained unfocused, fixed only on the operating room door.
“The at-fault vehicle was being driven under the influence of alcohol, and entered the crosswalk after running a red light—”
The officer’s questions, the noise of the hallway—everything seemed distant, as if submerged underwater.
“……Are you all right, sir?”
“Please come back later.”
Cha Kyung said only that, then fixed his gaze on the operating room door once more.
The officer seemed about to say more, but after a long moment, his footsteps receded.
Then quick footsteps sounded from the end of the corridor. It was Gyuseon and Hye-jung.
Hye-jung, arriving first, caught sight of Cha Kyung and let out a thin, strangled cry.
A suit with dried blood, torn trousers, skinned knees, eyes devoid of focus.
Hye-jung crouched in front of Cha Kyung and gripped both his shoulders.
“Cha Kyung.”
Cha Kyung’s eyes moved slowly. It took a few seconds for focus to return.
Her eyes too were swollen and red-rimmed.
“Mother.”
He poured all his strength into that single word.
One more word and he would break. He clenched his teeth.
Hye-jung pulled him into an embrace. He remained still, allowing himself to be held.
Hye-jung’s shoulders trembled slightly, but all Cha Kyung could see was still the operating room door.
Gyuseon sat beside him and started to speak, then, seeing his face, fell silent.
A wrinkled hand came to rest on his arm. That was all.
Time passed like this. He had no sense of how much.
His family urged him to eat several times, but he could not leave.
The red light above the operating room door went dark two hours later.
The door opened and a surgeon in surgical attire emerged, lowering his mask.
“You’re the guardian, correct? The surgery was successful.”
Cha Kyung’s fingers clenched against the wall.
“However, the head trauma caused an elevation in intracranial pressure, and the patient has not yet regained consciousness. We’ll need to monitor the situation more closely.”
“……When might she wake?”
“We cannot say with certainty. It could be a day, it could be a week, or it could be longer.”
The question—whether she would wake at all—caught in his throat and died unspoken. The moment he voiced it, it would become real.
“Visiting hours will be available starting tomorrow.”
* * *
Five days had passed. It was Chuseok.
The peculiar hush of a holiday lay over the hospital corridor.
Throughout it all, Cha Kyung had not left the hospital, seeing Do-ah’s face each visiting hour before returning.
Her eyes remained closed, her chest rose and fell with the aid of a machine, her hands were cold.
Her cheeks, which had been warm five days ago, now barely maintained a lukewarm temperature, borrowing heat from the blankets.
In the morning, Seong Taek had called.
— Come home, at least for a little while. If the eldest grandson of the Hyunsin Family doesn’t show up for the Chuseok offering, people will talk.
Cha Kyung reluctantly changed into a suit that Hye-jung had brought.
The man in the mirror had sunken cheeks and a sharpened jawline.
He went home, performed the ritual offering, exchanged greetings with relatives, and immediately came outside to return to the hospital.
That was when he heard voices from the garden.
Under the eaves, Myeong-sik stood beside Yun Jin-chul, a collateral relative, smoking cigarettes.
Jin-chul was every bit as loose-tongued as Myeong-sik.
As the smoke rose into the cold air, Jin-chul’s voice carried clearly across the garden’s silence.
“What’s wrong with the atmosphere around here? It’s like a house in mourning.”
Myeong-sik tapped ash from his cigarette and answered.
“The woman Cha Kyung’s been seeing got hit by a car. She’s not going to make it.”
“Still, they’re not even married yet.”
Myeong-sik let out a scoffing laugh.
“It’s no wonder the house feels like it’s in mourning. His precious eldest grandson’s misfortune bearer is dying.”
Jin-chul flicked ash from his cigarette.
“Misfortune bearer? I heard they called in a shaman, but what do you mean by misfortune bearer?”
“You didn’t know? Cha Kyung talked some woman into coming along so he could use her as a misfortune bearer. The guy who used to have accidents all the time—ever since he met this woman, not a scratch.”
Jin-chul’s eyes narrowed.
“Huh. I wondered why the stories about him died down recently.”
“This accident too. The woman got hit because she was trying to save Cha Kyung.”
Myeong-sik took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled slowly.
“If this woman dies, will they bring in a new one? It’s like human sacrifice.”
Myeong-sik laughed softly—a laugh that chewed over another person’s life and death as casual gossip.
Cha Kyung froze behind the eaves pillar.
Misfortune bearer.
The moment the word lodged itself in his mind, all the events of the past days rushed back in no particular order.
At the Ikseon-dong Cafe, Do-ah had sat in Cha Kyung’s seat and was struck by a flowerpot.
In the Hospital Cafeteria, a tray flying toward Cha Kyung’s back was blocked by Do-ah’s bare hands.
And at the crosswalk, when a car bore down on Cha Kyung, Do-ah pushed it away and was hit instead.
All of it—every accident that should have been his—Do-ah had received in his place.
He had never believed in superstition.
When his grandmother brought in a shaman, when his mother hung talismans, when they placed Do-ah at his side—he had scorned it all.
Whether superstition actually worked or whether it was mere coincidence mattered little.
There was only one thing he could not bear.
That Do-ah had been used as a tool to extend his lifespan.
He knew his grandmother and mother had genuinely cared for Do-ah.
But if that care had begun as a means of deflecting his own misfortune, then every action they had taken was nothing but pretense.
Cha Kyung’s hands began to tremble. He clenched his fists, but the trembling would not stop.
He crossed the garden and entered the main hall.
Passing through the corridor, he opened the door to the inner chamber and found Gyuseon and Hye-jung having tea.
“Oh, Cha Kyung. Aren’t you leaving yet?”
Hye-jung looked up with a smile. Gyuseon set down her teacup and looked up at her grandson.
The weight of the past five days clung to both their faces.
These two had not missed a single day of visiting her in the hospital.
Cha Kyung asked them, turning away from all of that.
“Is Do-ah my misfortune bearer?”
The hand holding Hye-jung’s teacup trembled faintly. The cup clinked softly against its saucer.
Gyuseon’s eyes widened momentarily. She had not anticipated the word “misfortune bearer” coming from Cha Kyung’s mouth.
But Gyuseon soon stilled her agitation and looked at him.
The eyes of the woman who had kept the Hyunsin Family for so many years swallowed their tremor and settled, hard and unyielding.
“Cha Kyung, sit down.”
“Please answer me.”
“I said sit down.”
Cha Kyung did not sit. He had not come here to have an easy conversation.
He stood over them like a nail driven into the floor, the hem of his suit jacket trembling faintly.
Gyuseon let out a low sigh and opened her mouth.
“I don’t know where you heard this, but it’s not true. The shaman said that if you and Do-ah are together, you’ll be safe and you’ll both live happily. It’s not about sacrificing one person.”
“That’s not what you said at first.”
Cha Kyung’s voice was low and cutting. A chill swept across the living room floor.
“At first, you only said I needed to be involved with the woman who caused a commotion in the lobby. That she needed to be beside me for me to survive—and you even held my grandmother’s surgery as collateral to pressure me.”
Gyuseon’s lips pressed together tightly. The silence etched into her wrinkled mouth felt heavier than any admission.
“If that’s not being a misfortune bearer, what would you call it?”
“Compatibility. A complementary relationship where you give each other fortune and avoid misfortune,” Hye-jung said.
“Then why is only Do-ah bleeding?”
The air in the living room froze at Cha Kyung’s question.
“All the accidents Do-ah has experienced—every single one was something you should have suffered.”
“It’s true that Do-ah got hit by a car this time trying to save you, but how can you be certain that was standing in for your misfortune?”
“That doesn’t sound like the grandmother who has believed in superstition all her life.”
Gyuseon’s eyes trembled faintly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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