Still Not Used to It: Special Edition | I Don't Know If I Can Love a Child
Chapter 1 | The Child Who Doesn't Speak
Is there something wrong with a person who doesn't want children?
He wondered this enough to realize that
he
never knew what a normal family was like.
Chapter 2 | A Safe Base
He grew up in a strict household.
His father told him,
don't talk about yourself in front of others,
it's embarrassing.
He grew up to be a child who didn't say much.
He lost his mother in middle school.
It was
too young to be cut off from a mother's love.
Even so, he acted brave, but
wanting to leave his father who had remarried,
he started living in a dormitory in high school.
He left the safe base of a family,
which protects you,
of his own volition at an early age,
and walked away on his own.
He had no money at all.
His father didn't help him at all.
He couldn't go to the university he wanted to,
so he had no choice but to
choose one he could afford with a scholarship.
His days were filled with part-time jobs.
He was barely scraping by to pay for living expenses,
and somehow managed to graduate.
Chapter 3 | The Premise of Disappearing
Around this time, he started
living with the "premise that things will disappear."
Food in the fridge.
Bank accounts.
Loyalty cards.
Electricity bills.
The dwindling supply of tissues.
Even if I tell him it's okay,
he is somehow
always looking for the "next shortage."
Even when he's in trouble,
he doesn't rely on people much.
He is too used to
handling things on his own.
He treats happiness
as something that will disappear.
Chapter 4 | Not Being Able to Want Children
"Have you ever wanted children?"
He thought for a moment before saying,
"I don't know if I can love a child."
He said it with a joking smile, but
perhaps
that was his true feeling.
Can a person who isn't used to being loved
love someone else?
Can a person who hasn't been protected
protect someone else?
He surely
isn't afraid of children.
He is just imagining the future where he breaks them
before anything else.
Chapter 5 | His Affection
He doesn't express his affection with words.
He changes the air conditioner temperature
to the exact opposite of eco-friendly.
He still lives with the "premise that things will disappear."
He turns off the lights meticulously.
On discount days, he buys chicken breast in bulk
for chicken ham.
And yet,
even though he denies himself,
he is quite indulgent with me.
Perhaps he
just didn't know how to love.
His vessel of affection
wasn't broken at all.
▶︎ To those who are happy but
somehow feel unsettled.
"I'm still not used to happiness"
▶︎ Thinking I was having a different romance,
I was always
touching the same place.
▶︎ Before I knew it,
I ended up back here again.
▶︎ To those who are
still not used to being loved.
"I am beside your incompleteness."
▶︎ Until I, who was told "You are no good,"
found the common traits of "people who are chosen"