Chapter 25 \n<h1>I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (25)</h1>\n“Karim.”
When I hurriedly called for Karim, I could hear someone running right before the door burst open.
“Nuna!”
Karim smiled and greeted me. He looked excited.
“Are you here to tell me a fun story before I go to sleep?”
I couldn’t demand answers at such an excited Karim. I wordlessly stroked his sky blue hair. Karim smiled brightly, as if he liked it.
“Of course, I’m here to do that too.”“Waaah! I’m so excited!”“Moreover Karim, this is about what I asked of you before I went to school…..”
At my fumbling words, Karim turned around from where he was getting his fairy tale book and tilted his head.
“Um, what nuna asked? Are you talking about replacing dad’s shirt that Leda burned that you asked me to swap with what you bought?”“Ah, that was one, but the other one…..”“…..mother’s purchases?”
Karim’s expression went dark. He quietly placed the book back onto the bookshelf.
“Honestly, I was going to tell you about mother’s expenditures soon.”“Is it bad?”“A little?”“Be honest.”“A lot……”
Karim started getting teary-eyed when he saw that I was slightly angry. His scarlet eyes began gathering tears and they slowly started going down his cheeks. Surprised, I hurriedly hugged him.\n“I’m sorry. I couldn’t control my emotions because I’m tired. I’m not angry at you, Karim.”
“I know that Shu nuna isn’t angry at me. But, just…. You were trying to prevent these expenditures but when you were gone I couldn’t stop her…..”
Karim sniffed in my arms. Then, he reached out with his small hand and checked the bottom of his bed, then took out a small box. In the box was bundles of paper. Karim organized the bundles of paper and showed them to me.
“These are the receipts that mother purchased with our household money. I collected everything she threw away.”
I was proud of Karim for what he did and wanted to shower him with compliments, but there was a considerable amount of paper in front of me so I was in shock. The receipts, organized by date, made my eyes shake.
“….most of it was for dressing up. If I remembered correctly, we didn’t have that much cash.”“After nuna headed to the academy, mother said that it was an opportunity and spent a lot…..”“But even using up our emergency funds….”
I should’ve used magic to hide the emergency funds. I regretted trusting our mother and gripped the receipt in my hand until it crinkled.
“Father didn’t say anything? I asked him before I left.”“Father is always lenient with mother’s expenditures.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes off of the receipts. From jewelry, to beauty salons, to dresses…..the receipts were full of ‘0’s. My heart felt like it was going to burst. No wonder she was excessively nice….. It was like she was watching for my reactions, too.
Worried that Karim might be scared, I smiled as much as I could as I responded.
“There’s nothing else, right?”
At this point, it was becoming necessary to check father’s income once again. I wanted to believe that his income had risen sharply recently. It had to be so.
When I asked, Karim put his hand back under the bed and took something out. It was more paper documents.
“This, it was what you were checking all the time. I thought you were going to look for it so I asked father’s secretary to give me the most recent one.”
What Karim had handed me was a document that explained the West family’s current financial state. With our family’s balance sheet, income statement, income, spending, debt, interest, etc., everything that I wanted to see was written on this sheet. In my last life, I needed to record each and every one myself, but it was really nice to have someone do that for me instead.\nI wanted to compliment Karim for getting these prepared even without my asking, but my heart was pounding too hard for me to compliment anyone. I couldn’t seem to grasp my senses from my anxiety. I pushed Karim’s compliments aside for now, and received the documents from him with shaking hands.
“The debt………increased. No change in income.”
Karim hugged me. Nuna! Your eyes are scary! Karim yelled at me with a shaky voice.
“………there’s more expenditures than income. It’s a total mess. Nobody’s even thinking of savings.”
I took out the notebook I always carried around from my pocket. In the book was all of my income and spending information. I compared my life savings to our family’s debt.
“Haha, I’m so excited!”“Nuna! Wake up!”
It looked like I could cover our family’s debt with the money that I had slowly saved over time. Our mother, what a person. So incredible. So admirable. I smiled and applauded her. I felt like half of my mind had gone mad.
Karim started to cry saying that he shouldn’t have showed me the documents. I came back to my senses. I repeated my thanks and apologies to Karim as I carried and laid him down on his bed.
“Sorry. Because of me, you’re experiencing the harsh realities of the world so young.”
Karim continued looking at me as he quietly wiped the tears off his face.
“But you’re young too, nuna.”
Not really……… To be accurate, with my previous life and current life combined, I was around thirty years old. Thinkin about my age, I suddenly remembered something from my past.
With debt upon debt thrust upon me, it kind of felt like I was reliving that in my current life. I might have to take on that burden in this life too. As long as my father was alive, he would take care of it………but I didn’t trust his financial capabilities. Sorry, father.
Anyway, any more expenditures would be dangerous. If this continued, we would be fumbling to pay off even the interest. It was so scary to imagine that I could feel the sweat coming from my pores.
I pushed aside my fear and took out a fairy tale about a unicorn prince for Karim’s childlike senses.
But Karim said that the story was too fanciful and unrealistic and asked me to tell him a more realistic story. So I smiled and told him an original story. It was titled “The Months of Unpaid Rent and the Door-Pounding Owner.”\n“Shushu, that’s!”
Mother tried to refute with something, then paused and opened her mouth again with a shaky voice.
“……your mother’s sorry, Shushu. I think I used shopping to take care of my lonely heart after you and Harun went to school. I thought that my spending habits had gotten better, but when I got relaxed I just kept on buying.”
Mother really had tried her best before I left for the academy. That was why I couldn’t say anything. For mother, shopping was like overeating during a diet.