A mix of MTL and Human Translation. Translated and interpreted as best as I can.
Mixed with some Korean terms. Misinterpretation may occur due to limited comprehensive ability.
Awkward English, bad grammar, and typos may often occur as Translator is not fluent in English and not edited by Editor nor proofed by Proofreader.
âA University? Heâs going to A University?â
âHe did study pretty well, didnât he?â
âHey, how well could a disabled do. Iâm sure he was lucky to get accepted through special needs admission.â
âIt must be nice to receive preferential treatment for being disabled and go to a prestigious university. Isnât it?â
âEven his pronunciation is bad. How did he pass the interview?â
Knowing that Seong Min could read lip movements, the students looked directly into his eyes and said.
âDonât put your head down and look straight, Kim Seong Min.â
Isnât that how you can hear our words clearly? The students giggled and mocked Seong Min.
âSeong Min, are you here?â
At the sound of the door opening, Seong Minâs mother rushed to greet him at the front door. Seong Min entered his bedroom without saying a word.
âSeong Min-ah?â
Seong Min lay on the bed and covered himself with the blanket up to his head. Seong Minâs mother gently shook him.
âDid something happen at school? Seong Min, you have to look at mom.â
âMom⊠Can I not go to college?â
Seong Min raised his upper body and looked at his mother. With awkward speech, his voice trembled as if he was about to burst into tears.
âWhatâs wrong suddenly? You tried hard to go there.â
âHoweverâŠâ
âPeople are scary. Will it be different just because itâs a university? I think it will be the same even if I go to university.â
Keeping those words inside, Seong Min lowered his head.
âSince you passed the exam after working hard, letâs go for at least one semester.â
Seong Minâs mother grabbed his cheeks and gently lifted his head.
âLetâs live like everyone else, son. If you go there, something will be different.â
Itâs not what I wanted, itâs what Mom wanted. Resenting and angry at his mother for not understanding his feelings, his eyes turned red and filled with tears in an instant.
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âClass transcriber?â
âHuh. Youâre preparing to become a stenographer, so arenât you fast at typing? Itâs just the perfect jobâŠ.â
âI wanted to try it, though.â
Yu Ra rolled up the pasta and put it in her mouth. Yu Ra carefully bit the fork with her teeth as if in worry.
âYou can fill in a line in your cover letter and also get an hourly wage.â
âOh yeah?â
âItâs hard to find a helper these daysâŠ.â
Yu Raâs friend who works at school sighed. Yu Ra, who finished eating, put down her fork and said.
âShall I try it for the experience then?â
âReally? Then, letâs submit the application form right away!â
Yu Ra put in the application form with a light heart, without complicated thoughts.
âYou should write down everything, not only the contents of the class, but also the class atmosphere and the jokes the professor tells.â
âYes.â
âAnd if you are late or absent, you must call in advance.â
However, after participating in the required orientation, she realized that there were many things to consider, different from her initial thought that she would just have to transfer the contents of the class.
âDid I say I would do it for nothing?â
Yu Ra, who was inwardly annoyed, answered the phone.
(Hey, itâs fate. Such a fate. Thereâs someone with a similar timetable as yours.)
âReally?â
Yeah, since Iâve already decided to do it, I should just do it. Yu Ra stretched herself out.
And the start of school was approaching. Yu Ra, who came out earlier than usual, grabbed her coat tightly.
âUgh, itâs coldâŠâ
It was chilly since it was still early March. On the day of the first class, she had to come out earlier than the lecture time and meet the fellow student to help with the transcribing
âThereâŠâ
Someone tapped Yu Ra on the shoulder.
âHello⊠Woah, daebak.â
Yu Ra exclaimed when she saw Seong Minâs face. She quickly took out her cell phone and tapped it.
(Youâre really handsome.)
Seong Min smiled faintly as he read the text. He tapped a text and showed her the screen.
(You can just say it. I can read lip movements.)
âIs it so?â
Yu Ra stretched her face by opening and closing her mouth widely without caring that her face became ugly.
âI look forward to working with you.â
As she spoke clearly with her mouth wide open, Seong Min laughed. Yu Ra looked at that appearance as if mesmerized.
After sitting at the front of the classroom, they discussed how to transcribe and how much time to allocate for organizing after class.
âWhat? Why staring at us?â
Yu Ra frowned at the people entering the classroom, who were looking at them curiously.
âWhat? Is he disabled?â
âHeâs handsome. What a waste.â
Yu Ra sighed and said.
âExcuse me, but your language is a bit harsh.â
The people flinched when she protested openly. However, that was only for a moment. They responded with a brazen look on their faces.
âWhy? He canât hear us anyway.â
No matter if he can hear or not, thatâs not something a person should say. Yu Ra was infuriated, but the professor entered the class and they had to quickly take their seats.
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âOkay, I think thatâs enough for the review. Do you want to grab a meal together?â
Seong Min touched his fingertips as if in deep thought. He looks handsome even when heâs thinking. I recall thereâs a mention that he is more attentive in conversations than others. Yu Ra blushed at Seong Minâs stare for no reason.
âIf youâre still a freshman, itâs understandable you donât know any good eating places around here. Iâll tell you everything.â
Seong Min nodded after much thought. Yu Ra exclaimed âoh yay!â and led him.
âBut didnât you call me earlier? There, like this. Why donât you speak now?â
I heard from the orientation that some communicate in oral language. When Yu Ra turned her head and spoke while showing her lips, Seong Min flinched in surprise. Suddenly, he remembered being an outcast in high school.
âSomething happened, huh?â
Yu Ra quick-wittedly observed his reaction.
âItâs a waste. You tried hard to learn it. Your voice was nice too.â
ââŠâŠ.â
âWhen you feel better, please speak directly later, not through the phone screen. With that sound.â
As there were many cars passing by in the alleyway to the restaurant, Yu Ra pushed Seong Min towards the inner side of the alley and stood by the roadside. Seong Min made a puzzled expression at her consideration.
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âYu Ra, itâs been a while. Did you come back to school?â
âOh, yesâŠâ
Yu Ra hardened her expression. The man, who was senior to Yu Ra, looked at Seong Min sitting next to her and snorted.
âI heard you volunteered for the disabled. Is this kid the one?â
âSunbae nim, weâre in the middle of a class reviewâŠâ
âHey, Iâll buy you coffee.â
The man sat across from her tactlessly. Yu Ra breathed a sigh of resignation and compared the transcript with the recorded version to fill in the parts she hadnât been able to write. The man spoke to her out of baseless jealousy for their peculiar atmosphere.
âIsnât My Yu Ra so kind?â
âMyâ Yu Ra? Who gave you permission to call me âmyâ? Yu Ra retorted to the senior who had just returned to school.
âAm I kind? I just did it for the volunteer credit, you know?â
âOh⊠Oh yeah?â
âBecause Iâm helping a pitiful disabled, I must look kind, right?â
Yu Ra exhaled in disbelief. It was volunteer work that started with a light heart. However, she became more immersed in the attention Seong Min was receiving and was angry for him instead.
âHeâs not pitiful, he just needs a little consideration.â
âUhâŠâ
âAnd it seems like Sunbae lacks that consideration entirely.â
Would you leave now? Yu Ra issued an order to leave.
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âHow was school today?â
Seong Min nodded silently. His expression, which had been gloomy when leaving the house on the first day of school, gradually brightened over time. Seong Minâs mother laughed.
âThe helper seems to be a nice person, huh? Itâs okay after going there, right?â
Seong Min nodded.
Still donât feel like talking, huh? Seong Minâs mother tried to brighten her expression, which was about to harden with worry.
âLetâs eat.â
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âHe just canât hear, but heâs still the same person!â
âWhy does she get angry?â
For him, it was given for people to discriminate against him, ignore him, or sympathize with him, saying he was pitiful. Seong Minâs feeling was getting weird to see Yu Ra getting angry on his behalf.
âI like your face. And I also like you as a person too. What about you?â
Seong Min couldnât bring himself to say that he also liked her when she confidently confessed. He looked too shabby compared to her confident self.
âTa-da, Iâve put all the subtitles.â
Even in ambiguous situations where he neither refused nor agreed, she kept looking for him. Seong Min liked her bright and confident energy.
âDonât mind other peopleâs eyes. What do you want to do?â
(I donât know.)
Seong Min felt guilty seeing his parents who had given up parts of their lives because of him. There were times when he thought if just thereâs no him and that he shouldnât have been born when seeing the worsening living conditions and the reduced size of the house.
Children who opposed when the teacher said âOur friends have to help!â for granted, and the bullying that started because of it. Seong Min thought that all of it stemmed from himself who couldnât hear.
âThis is not given. That person was rude.â
However, there was someone who spoke up for his hidden feelings, which he hadnât even realized, and Seong Min gradually began to open up his heart.
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âDo you regret giving birth to me, Mom?â
Seong Min, who opened his mouth again, asked after much thought. However his mother showed no signs of regret or resignation. She said with a natural expression as if just looking at a passing speck of dust.
âNot at all.â
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âAre you not going to speak now? Your voice is good to hear.â
âI like you, too.â1
Yu Ra turned around with a surprised expression at Seong Minâs words and stared at him. Yu Ra couldnât find anything to say to his sudden confession and just opened her mouth.
âI feel better now.â
Thanks to you.
He took steps closer to her.
âBecause Iâm not wrong.â
Iâm just a little different.
Standing right in front of Yu Ra, Seong Min smiled as if he had let everything go. He looked at Yu Raâs face and rolled his eyes towards the camera.
The directorâs cut sign rang in the ears of Ian, who had maintained eye contact with the camera for a long time.
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âThank you for your hard work!â
After finishing filming, Ian approached writer Park Joo Yeon. Ian said to the writer with a complex expression.
âSo, Yu Ra is Writer Parkâs loudspeaker, right?â
âYou caught me.â
Writer Park smiled faintly. IWHYS was mainly a repetition of the structure in which Yu Ra scolds people when they say something.
âI wanted to say it through Yu Ra. Itâs just that theyâre all the same people, not only my Unnie but also other people. No one is born wrong.â
âThat familyâs daughter was wrongly born.â
âCanât you hear everything if you wear a hearing aid?â
âWhy is her pronunciation like that?â
The prejudiced words that the family received, the dagger-like words wrapped in the cloak of concern. Even if they canât hear, they can fully understand it through the atmosphere and facial expressions.
It was a scenario that she wrote while looking at her older sister, who was gradually losing self-esteem among people who take discrimination for granted.
She wanted people to see this and change their perception even a little bit.
âIt may seem like a typical shoujo comic, but I felt this was necessary. As you know, dramas related to sexual minorities are slowly emerging, but there are not many dramas related to disabled yet.â
Writer Park smiled brightly as if she had finally finished what she had to say.
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After the broadcast, âIWHYSâ went up on the real-time search keywords. Along with the outstanding editing of the directorâs delicate and calm directing, peopleâs interest exploded in the story of a minority that had not been well portrayed in the media.
-Todayâs one-act drama was dope too
-Ending face is crazy, frazy reallyă ă ă ă
-I thought it was just the typical K-melodrama, then I cried for no reasonă ă ă
âIWHYSâ Effect, K Universityâs Disabled Student Support Center âHelper Volunteer Increased Five Times From Last Year.â
âIWHYSâ Seems Like A Typical Love Story and Why Itâs Not.
âIWHYSâ Choi Ianâs Fans Donate 10 Million Won to Disabled Welfare Organizations⊠âPositive Influenceâ