Chapter 1: It’s obvious at a glance

Is there any sound as unfamiliar as one’s own voice?

And that, perhaps, is not limited to just the voice.

“I am truly sorry to have to tell you this, Guardian…”

“D-Doctor…!? Why are you being so scary, what’s with the sudden tone? My Cheong, what’s wrong with her…!!”

Like a name, which is one’s own, but is inevitably used more by others than by the owner themself.

Or like the eyes, which can see everything in the world laid out before them, yet cannot capture their own full appearance.

The world is full of people who cannot enjoy what is theirs, even though it belongs to them, and who deny the fact that it is theirs, claiming it is not.

To live within that sticky contradiction, perhaps that is what it means to live a true life.

─Swoosh.

“…Hahh.”

Listening to the deep voice of someone, probably the doctor, chattering beside me and the voice of a woman filled with somewhat tearful emotion, I barely managed to hold back a sigh that kept trying to escape.

It might break the mood, but if I just keep lying here like this, I’m bound to get sleepy.

I think it’s already been over an hour.

To wake myself up, I stretched one arm straight out towards where I thought the ceiling would be, while still lying in bed.

My arm naturally went up towards the sky against gravity, but the scenery reflected in my eyes did not contain my arm, which should have been extending from my body and pointing upwards.

“……….”

Instead, all I could see was a view that seemed to be looking down on the world from a high place, a bird’s-eye view.

There, an abnormality existed, different from the usual, of looking down despite clearly looking up at the sky.

And that strangeness was brief; at the center of my gaze, there was a child, entirely white from head to toe as if made from melted clouds of the sky, lying soundly on a less-white bed, stretching one arm towards where I was looking.

Although I was looking straight down from above, so I could only see the tops of the heads of the doctor, nurses, and the woman in black surrounding the child, fortunately, the child was lying down, so I could see her entire form.

Is the child perhaps suffering from albinism?

But to say that, her pupils were not blood-red; the child, with her lips firmly shut, was just directing her cloudy, opaque eyes, reminiscent of pearls, towards where I was.

However, that was all I could see.

“….”

Nowhere in my field of vision was my own arm, which should have been extending from the periphery, reflected anywhere.

Even though I was still holding my arm up high.

And even though I had never put it down.

Ah, something between a sigh and a lament escaped my lips.

Then, as if imitating me, the child reflected in my eyes also began to do the same thing at the same time.

The child with small, reddish lips slightly open, still looking towards me with misty eyes whose contents I could not know.

What is reflected in those eyes?

What is that child seeing?

…No.

──What on earth am I seeing?

“I am truly sorry to say this, but your daughter───”

In fact, the answer to everything had already been given.

Like how people who visit counseling offices already know all their problems and solutions, but want to gain confidence in their own methods through someone else’s assessment.

Or like how people who know full well there is only one way to solve a problem run away from it, claiming a better way must exist.

Because I, I understood completely what this scenery before my eyes was.

And what situation had befallen me.

But, my foolish head just could not accept this phenomenon, which was like a mystery.

But, with the knowledge I had built up over the twenty-four years that existed in my head, I just could not readily affirm the phenomenon before my eyes.

Perhaps, I was trying not to accept the reality that had befallen me.

It was nothing more than an ugly struggle, not much different from denying that a recording of my own voice, played back by a friend, was mine.

Yes.

It was all a futile escape, after all.

“──cannot see.”

“Ah… Aah….”

Drip. It felt as if a drop of lava had fallen onto my hand.

That droplet, holding such intense heat, soon became a pouring rain, endlessly soaking my hand.

In the space that felt as if silence had descended, all that could be heard was someone’s weeping and the sound of the fierce rain.

I slowly raised my hand, a hand so much smaller than my old one, wanting to caress the cheek of the woman from which those raindrops were falling.

Because for her, a very sad thing had just happened.

When one’s own child cannot see the world ahead, any parent would be bound to be sad.

Bound to, cry.

─Squeeze.

“Cheong-ah…! This mommy is, so sorry…!”

“………”

However, although I could tell that she was right beside me with my ears and these incomprehensible, unknown eyes, I could not get used to the sense of distance from the dissociated vision, and only after flailing in the empty space once or twice could I barely reach out my hand to her face.

The face of the woman next to the child, that is, the face of the woman who could now be called my mother, I could only feel it with my hand, but it was drenched.

Because I could only ever see the top of her head unless she was lying down to sleep, I could not know what kind of face my mother was looking at me with right now.

But.

“I’m so, so sorry…!!”

“……….”

And yet, the tears that stained my hand held a heat I had never felt before.

A strange situation where, despite having both eyes wide open, only a scene as if looking down from above is reflected, as if my eyes were attached to the ceiling.

A bizarre phenomenon that I cannot express in words with the common sense I possess.

Faced with such an unknown experience, a rather serious concern had entered my mind.

“…Ah.”

I mean, I can see.

I can’t see what’s in front, but anyway, I can see.

But to say that my eyes can see, now that the doctor’s test results are out, if I push forward these lifeless, empty eyes and say I can see, wouldn’t it be judged as a child’s lie to not worry her parents?

In reality, if they hold up a book or a picture and ask what’s drawn on it, I can’t answer.

Of course, since it’s possible to see straight down from above, if they put the book on the floor, I could somehow see or read it, but that in itself would surely look strange.

But to confess the abnormality of these eyes, I couldn’t completely erase the thought that the person who heard this absurd story would send me not to an ophthalmologist, but to a psychotherapy facility.

Well…

‘Your eyes, can’t see?’ / ‘Uh… well, actually, I can see.’

‘…You said you can’t see what’s in front.’ / ‘Yes. I can’t see what’s in front. But I can see below.’

‘???’ / ‘???’

….

No.

In the first place, even I, the person concerned, cannot fully accept what has happened to me, so how much more so for others who hear my story indirectly.

Even if they were to believe it, I don’t think I would be able to live a normal life of attending school and academies.

Perhaps, I would be captured by some such places, like research labs, and end up preserved in formalin.

There’s no need to even imagine the situation by creating a hypothetical.

Yup, let’s just not say anything.

The conclusion was easily reached.

Honestly, to confess now with a ‘Ta-da, surprise! I can actually see!’, it was obvious the mood would turn sour.

On top of that, if the other secret I have were to be known, wouldn’t my devout Christian mother wash my body in holy water she procured from somewhere?

While shouting, ‘Begone, demon!’.

A secret to be kept until the grave.

If I just watch my mouth, it should be possible enough.

“…………”

Lying down with a vacant gaze towards the ceiling, I did things no one else could, like observing myself with my own eyes, and thought deeply about the future.

But if the conclusion were so easily reached, it would have been reached long ago, so with no solution in sight, I just gave up on everything and closed my eyes.

Well, with the sounds of the nurses’ sighs and suppressed sobs coming from all around, it wasn’t an environment where I could think anyway.

Ah, whatever.

I should just go home quickly, turn on Pororo, and lie down to sleep.

Playing is the best.

“…Haam.”

Wah, I’m a baby.

Babies don’t know anything.

I suppressed another yawn and wished for anything, just to get home quickly.

It sounds irresponsible, but it was a fact because I was actually being irresponsible.

An ordinary, rather commonplace day.

It was such a day.

*

■ Shim Cheong.

The protagonist of this work.

Because the world looks strange, as if she’s looking at a game screen, her sense of reality is diminished.

She didn’t know when to bring up the fact that she couldn’t see, so she kept putting it off and got caught.

Her daily routine is contemplating whether she can get a free ride in life.

She lives life really carelessly. A kid who lives because she was born.

“If I were reborn, I wanted to be a mushroom.”

So they say.

■ Mother (Name undecided).

The biggest victim of this work.

Currently shedding tears out of guilt for not noticing her child’s discomfort sooner.

In fact, the protagonist, who lived without saying anything because daily life was surprisingly manageable, was the problem.