TSS 01

⁜ Chapter 01….

 Secret Garden

It was already unbearable.

“I’m going to stay at Grandma’s house.”

The rain sounded cold and sharp. Mom stood alone under an umbrella, looking at me in the rain.
Shouldn’t she at least hold the umbrella over her daughter if she’s getting soaked?
I instinctively thought that—and almost laughed bitterly at myself. Since when had Mom ever held an umbrella over me?

“Why would you stay alone in a house that looks like it’s full of ghosts?”

Her eyes behind the glasses were cold.

A house that looks like it’s full of ghosts?

At that moment, I was actually glad I had nothing in my hands. If I had my phone, I would’ve thrown it.

“A house that looks like it’s full of ghosts? Do you even know where you’re talking about, Mom?!”

Like a childish kid, I screamed. I could feel passersby staring at us, but neither Mom nor I looked away, both stubbornly holding our ground.
I shouted so that people could hear.

“How can you say that about Grandma’s resting place?! She hasn’t even been laid to rest for an hour, and you’re already calling it a house full of ghosts! And you call yourself her daughter? You call yourself a human being?!”

She was someone who had never once brought me an umbrella on a rainy school day.
But it was fine. She was busy. My mom was the famous top instructor, Oh Su-hee.
From my elementary school entrance ceremony to my college entrance ceremony, she never once attended.
Back then, I thought even for a top instructor, that was too much. But I got used to it, so I endured it.

And more than anything, I had Grandma.
Grandma was the one who hugged and comforted me every time Mom left me alone to sharpen her brilliant career.
Grandma always said:

“Your mother is just too weak-hearted. But she’s a very good child. She loves you very much.”

I believed those words.

Mom loves me. She’s just busy. She doesn’t show guilt because she’s too weak-hearted and would collapse if she showed it in front of me.

That’s what I had always thought.

But after Grandma passed away, and I spent three days at the funeral watching Mom only show up briefly to handle paperwork and money before leaving, I realized something.

Grandma had told a kind lie.
Mom doesn’t love me. She doesn’t love Grandma either. Mom doesn’t understand something like love.
The person who has to hold her own umbrella even when her devastated daughter is crying in the rain—that is my mother.

“Let’s not contact each other for a while.”
“Why? Planning to never talk again because you’re worried about money to live on?”

Mom’s sneer made me speechless.
I looked straight at her. Tears were streaming down my face, but she didn’t seem to see them.
Was it because of the rain? No. Even under bright sunlight, my mother would’ve had the same expression.
A face so cold that not even a needle could draw blood.

“Fine. Then let’s just never see each other again.”

I didn’t even want to call her “Mom” anymore.
I turned around and walked away heavily. There was a bus here that would take me to the funeral home.
Good. Mom would leave separately as she came, so I wouldn’t have to see her again.

The one who had died was Grandma, but it felt like I was saying a permanent goodbye to my mother as well.

Getting to Grandma’s house was difficult.

I was completely soaked from the rain, so I got scolded even on the bus to the funeral and received unpleasant stares on the subway.
Ah, I really know that acting on emotions comes at a price—but I still can’t control myself sometimes.

By the time I cursed myself internally and finally arrived at Grandma’s house, the world had already turned dark.
Walking down a road with no streetlights on a rainy night was terrifying.
I kept imagining serial killers for no reason and kept looking behind me.

Grandma’s house is in the countryside of Gyeonggi Province. It’s quiet, but close to a subway station.
Maybe she chose this place thinking I would visit often.
Even so, it still takes a solid 30 minutes on foot from the station. Still, at least I could use the subway.

As soon as I got home, I opened my backpack and checked the envelopes of money. They were condolence money envelopes.
At the funeral, I was too overwhelmed and alone to check them properly.
Fortunately, my friends took turns sitting there for three days, receiving guests.

But still, I was the only chief mourner, so I couldn’t leave the altar empty.
Still, the funeral expenses were paid by Mom. Before heading to the burial site, I had given her all the condolence money.

“Whatever. Keep it or spend it yourself.”

She hadn’t even touched it. Unlike me, who took the funeral bus, she left in her own car.
The driver, Manager Oppa, gave me a sympathetic glance from the driver’s seat.
I barely managed to bow back. I was too angry at Mom for dragging everything to this point to even properly greet her acquaintances.

“Where is your mother?”
“She’s not here.”
“Oh dear… our Oh teacher again… You’re her daughter, right? Buy yourself something nice with this, okay?”

Mom’s acquaintances weren’t surprised she wasn’t there. They just felt sorry for me.
Many of them gave me pocket money. I was more curious about how they even knew my mother.

But Mom, who could’ve explained, wasn’t there at the funeral.

When I started counting the money, I got a little scared and stopped halfway. It had already exceeded 50 million won. Could I really keep all this?
I tried calling Mom again, but turned my phone off instead. I hated contacting her about things like this.
And maybe I hated it even more because the last thing she talked about with me was money.

In the end, I counted everything silently without turning the phone back on. That night, I realized money smells more than I expected.

The total condolence money was 86,750,000 won.
I deposited it all into a bank in the city.
The walk to deposit it was the scariest part. No one knew I was carrying 86.75 million won, but my hands still shook.

After depositing it, I couldn’t leave right away and had to sit inside the bank for a while to calm myself.

But when I stepped outside, an even bigger problem was waiting.

I hadn’t felt it on the way here due to nervousness, but the August sunlight was scorching.
Grandma’s house was about 30 minutes away from the city center.

I’m dead.

I sighed deeply.

I bought an ice cream at a convenience store and walked while eating it, finally reaching Grandma’s house.
My mouth was sweet from the ice cream, but my body was damp with sweat.

After showering and changing into pajamas, I drank water from the fridge—and through the kitchen window, I saw Grandma’s garden.

A garden… or maybe a yard. It wasn’t that big, but it was beautifully and carefully arranged.

Wherever Grandma lived, she always made a garden. And she used to have tea time there with me when I was young.
When the sunlight was good, sitting with Grandma and drinking tea while looking at the garden made the whole world feel as warm as that garden.

And yet the garden was still exactly the same.

Strangely, it didn’t feel real that Grandma was gone.
It felt like if I went outside, she would come out with tea. She would say, “This is cocoa that our puppy likes.”
I can’t believe those days will never come again.

In summer, she used to make lemonade often. And just as expected, there was lemon syrup and sparkling water in her fridge.
I quickly mixed some and headed to the back door. My personal slippers were neatly placed there.

I put them on and sat in a metal chair, waiting for Grandma. It felt like she would come—but she didn’t.

“Grandma.”

I called out, thinking she might answer—but there was no response.
Tears fell. I knew it was pathetic, but I didn’t know what else to do.
This was the first time someone I knew had died. And that someone was the person who loved me the most in the world.
Maybe the only one.

What am I supposed to do in a moment like this?

Feeling restless, I walked through the garden and suddenly laughed a little in front of Grandma’s vegetable patch.

Her vegetable patch had a 15cm wooden fence around it, and the funny thing was—there was a tiny door on one side.
Who would open a 15cm fence door?

I had never opened it even once. Only once—

“Why did you even put this here, Grandma?”

When I tried to open it, Grandma slapped my hand and said:

“I put it there for style. Don’t touch it wrong or you’ll break it!”

She wouldn’t let me open it.

Grandma really cared about aesthetics in her own way.

I squatted there thinking about it, then opened the door.

And at that moment—

Everything flashed white, and suddenly the world changed into an endlessly green land.
A vast meadow where the wind blew strongly and grass bent low.
A sky so high it looked nothing like the one I knew.
And when I turned around, I saw a forest.

A dense forest so dark that even in daylight, you couldn’t see inside.

Grandma’s house was nowhere to be seen.

Where am I?

My mind went completely blank.