Chapter 2 – Sounds of the World – Part 2

Chapter 2 – Sounds of the World – Part 2

His mother hugged Shin Woojin tightly.

“Woojin… Mom was wrong. Mom was wrong. Sob!”

She hadn’t done anything wrong.

She had forgotten her wallet while out and had come back, only to find Woojin gone.

Right in front of their house.

Woojin’s hands, which had been covering his ears, slowly lowered.

Loud noises came in a chaotic rush, but his mother’s heartbeat seemed to sound even louder.

Shin Woojin muttered to himself quietly.

‘Is this a dream…?’

Mom and Dad are in front of him, and he can hear sounds.

Or is it an illusion I created?

***

Woojin was hospitalized for a week.

Woojin’s parents insisted that he was their son, but the police still needed certainty, so they even completed a paternity test.

And Doctor Lee Hyeyeon could only explain it by saying it seemed a miracle had occurred.

It was because Woojin, who clearly had a hearing impairment, had started to hear sounds.

As soon as he met his parents, he could hear.

She had experienced several miraculous things while working at the hospital, but there had been no miracle as dramatic as this.

And then, the day of discharge arrived.

Lee Hyeyeon smiled gently at Shin Woojin, who was wearing earplugs.

This was to gradually help him adapt to the sudden sounds he was hearing.

“Goodbye, Woojin.”

Woojin bowed his head with an expressionless face.

She had seen forced smiles a few times, but there was generally no change in his expression.

“Goodbye.”

Since he had been unable to hear, his pronunciation was also inaccurate. Now, as he adapted to his family, he would slowly begin correction.

Lee Hyeyeon once again genuinely smiled, wishing Woojin happiness.

“Woojin is so handsome, he’s going to be very popular. You must be happy, okay?”

“Yes…”

And so, Woojin left the hospital with his Mom and Dad.

As Dad drove, Mom, sitting in the back seat with Woojin, couldn’t take her eyes off her son, who was quietly gazing out the window.

The detective’s words came to mind.

I think I spent all my time in the warehouse when I wasn’t working. There were tens of thousands of books piled up in the warehouse. I think I read them all to relieve my loneliness.

The criminal said he pathologically collected books. Strangely, he said he never read them.

He also told us the outcome of the kidnapping.

He said he impulsively put me in his car and kidnapped me because I looked like a girl, but after realizing I was a boy, he imprisoned me.

As those words came to mind, my eyes welled up again.

Mom quickly wiped away her tears.

It was because she had been told that her anxious demeanor might have a negative impact on Woojin.

“Woojin. My handsome son, shall we go eat something delicious later? You used to love pork ribs so much…”

Just then, Dad chimed in, looking at the private room mirror.

“Pork? No way! We should eat beef, beef!”

“Woojin, shall we go eat beef? Is there anything else you want to eat?”

“Yes…”

At Woojin’s dry answer, Mom smiled even more brightly.

Things would gradually get better. She was just grateful he had returned.

* * *

Woojin was climbing the stairs of the villa made of red bricks.

A very faint memory of his legs going up and down the stairs came to mind.

And soon he reached the third floor.

“Let’s go in.”

As he entered the front door, he saw a middle school girl standing there.

It was Woojin’s younger sister, Shin Bomi.

He had seen her a few times at the hospital, but she was still a 14-year-old adolescent girl who found her older brother unfamiliar.

“Brother, you’re here…?”

Woojin looked at his sister and thought.

My younger sibling, a younger sister.

Mom led Woojin to his room.

The wallpaper had been redone, and all the furniture was new.

“Woojin, this is your room. Do you like it?”

“Yes…”

Bomi secretly glanced at Woojin as he looked around his room.

Just then, Mom called out.

“Bomi, could you teach your brother how to use a cellphone? Mom and Dad aren’t very good with all its functions.”

“Oh? Uh-huh…”

Woojin sat next to Bomi on the sofa.

“It’s off right now, but if you press and hold it like this, it turns on…”

Bomi carefully continued her explanation.

Woojin had been kidnapped when Bomi was one year old. She couldn’t help but be cautious about how to treat a brother she didn’t remember.

After showing him how to turn on the cellphone and save a phone number, Bomi pressed the power button again.

“Want to try it?”

Woojin took the cellphone and naturally turned it on, then went into his contacts.

“Yes, that’s right. And when you want to use the internet… you know, when you want to know something? When there’s something you want to look up, you touch this…”

For a moment, Woojin’s dark eyes seemed to gleam slightly.

He had only ever seen what the book taught him in a one-sided manner; being able to look up what he was curious about was intriguing.

“Is there anything you’re curious about right now? Want to try searching for it?”

Woojin took the cellphone and typed a short word into the search bar.

[Family]

-Primarily a kinship relationship centered around a couple…

Woojin also looked at image photos.

Pictures of families taken together were lined up, and he scrolled through each one.

At that sight, Bomi unconsciously covered her mouth with her hand.

His emotions were overflowing.

Woojin, who had been looking at his cellphone, turned his head and looked at Bomi.

“Bomi, my younger sister. Family.”

Bomi quickly covered her face with both hands, as if to hide the tears that were falling.

Then, she nodded her head repeatedly and cleared her throat.

“Mmm! Mmm! That’s right. We’re family.”

“Bomi, don’t be sad.”

Woojin’s pupils focused on his sister’s face, visible through the gaps in her hands, in 0.2 seconds.

-The corrugator supercilii (muscle of the inner eyebrow between the eyebrows), which doesn’t move well voluntarily, rises.

-The eyelids relax.

-The gaze is directed downwards.

-The corners of the mouth droop.

-The head also drops downwards.

‘Proof that she is feeling 100% sadness.’

Woojin started writing something on his cellphone. After a while, he handed the cellphone to his sister.

“Bomi, is it you?”

Bomi, who received the cellphone, felt as if the world had stopped, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

[Don’t be sad. Your body temperature can drop, weakening your immune system. The emotion of sadness can also affect your tongue, potentially causing weight gain and cardiovascular disease, and it can act on the cortisol hormone, increasing stress levels and harming sleep quality. Sadness activates the hippocampus, so your brain needs more energy, which can make you feel tired. The emotion of sadness reduces serotonin levels, leading to depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder…]

Bomi, who had been covering her mouth, burst into tears.

“Sobs! Sobs! Waaaaah! Mom! Sobs! Mom! Brother is strange. Waaahah!”

It was the sound of regret and various mixed emotions.

“What’s wrong?”

Mom and Dad quickly rushed over.

“Sobs! B-brother wrote this. Sobs! Sobs!”

Bomi, with a crying face, handed the cellphone to Dad, and Dad’s eyes widened intensely as he looked at the cellphone.