Chapter 4: Morning Drama
Translated by Vine | Proofread by Lust
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“Hey, Armin! What are you doing! Come play ball!”
“No thanks. You guys play.”
“Why?”
“Go away, kids. Your uncle is contemplating a serious crossroads in life.” I waved a dismissive hand at the buzzing youngsters.
“He’s doing it again.”
“Leave him. He probably got dumped by a girl.”
“He should’ve gotten a bicycle first before hitting on her.”
“You little…!”
I wasn’t about to get riled up by the ignorant chatter of these chirping chicks. My life experience spanned decades.
I, Jo Beom-seok, who had risen from the eldest son of a dirt-poor family to the pinnacle of the military pyramid, who’d glimpsed the future, wouldn’t be troubled by a trivial matter like a birth secret. What? You say I’m snot-nosed Armin? No way.
I missed Hallasan cigarettes. I even missed the This Plus I’d pilfered from my adjutant. To think I’d miss those little clouds of comfort for stressed-out adults so much…
I stared out the window, lost in thought. Let me be clear, I wasn’t bothered by the possibility that Dad might not be my Dad.
The label of “illegitimate child” made life complicated. Why did I want to build an airplane? Was it because I’d inherited the future knowledge of an aviation otaku? Or because flying was humanity’s ultimate romance?
Of course, it was for fame. Imagine the first powered airplane being named “Kaiser Wilhelm II.” Who knows, I might even get a noble title. But what if the fact that I was illegitimate was a ticking time bomb?
The hero who opened new horizons for humanity could become the product of an illicit affair, a target of moral condemnation. People loved to see a hero fall. It wouldn’t do. Not at all. A traitor in my past life, and a bastard in this one?
My head spun, and my vision blurred. This was… nicotine withdrawal. Yes. A soldier accustomed to coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol, deprived of two of the three, would naturally sweat and feel dizzy. Now that I knew the truth, I could deal with it.
“Hey, are you crying?”
“I’m not crying.”
“Hey!! He’s crying!!”
“Really? Is he really crying?”
“Go away.”
“Armin, not all girls will fall for you just because you’re handsome.”
“That’s life. Here’s some chocolate. Forget about heartbreak.”
“Get lost!!”
Apparently, this pre-pubescent body was sensitive to hormones.
It had started raining. Damn it.
People often pictured Germans as stoic, and Prussians as emotionless war machines with hearts of steel and mercury for blood. But remember, a surprising number of renowned scholars and artists were German.
As one of the few Prussians possessing such sensitivity, I couldn’t just blurt out to my mother, “Mom, is Dad really my Dad?” That would instantly turn our home into a scene of family destruction, and I didn’t want to end up on the streets.
Honestly, it was confusing. If Dad, with his frequent business trips, had swung his German sausage around and brought home a half-sibling, I would’ve calmly accepted it with a nod and an “I knew this would happen. Hmm.”
But if *I* was the illegitimate one… that meant Mom had an affair? My firm belief that Mom was the innocent victim and Dad the asshole would explode.
Hitting women was trashy, and a husband hitting his wife was even worse. But in this damn 19th century, a battered wife was a cliché of clichés. While I didn’t agree, considering the sensibilities of 19th-century Europeans, there would be plenty who thought a wife who bore a cuckoo’s egg “deserved it.”
After much deliberation, I reached a decision. A frontal assault.
I headed to my father’s study after his latest business trip. “What are you doing up so late?” His eyebrows twitched as I entered without knocking.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“…Yes.” He seemed surprised to hear such words from me. We’d never had much of a bond, considering domestic violence was a regular occurrence at home.
But I brazenly continued, revealing the bottle of alcohol I’d hidden behind my back. “What’s with the alcohol?”
“I bought it with my allowance.”
“You? Alcohol?”
“You’ve been working hard on your business trips.”
“Well… thank you.” He glanced at me with an unreadable expression, then focused on the bottle. It felt like he was staring at it to avoid looking at me. I wasn’t sure if giving alcohol to an alcoholic was wise. But I had to get him to talk somehow. Maybe if I got slapped again, I’d gain the future knowledge of a penicillin-producing chemist-
“Thank you, Armin.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll enjoy it. You should go to bed now. You have school tomorrow.”
Instead of leaving, I hopped onto a nearby chair. “Drinking alone is bad for your health.”
“You’ll keep me company? Huh.” I fetched two glasses from the cupboard and quickly poured the alcohol before he could protest.
“You cheeky brat. You wanted a drink yourself, didn’t you?”
“Not really, it’s just-”
“Alright. I appreciate the thought.”
Subtle vigilance. He might be thinking, “What’s this kid up to?” But was that all? Even I would feel a visceral disgust if a cuckoo kept trying to get close to me.
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But I wanted to hear the truth. Or, if not the truth, at least something that would put my mind at ease. Faced with this psychological barrier thicker than the Berlin Wall, I instinctively averted my gaze.
And then I noticed some documents. “The American stock market crash?”
“Do you know what that means?”
“It means American companies are getting really cheap. Investing in America now seems like a safe bet.”
“…You’re smart. I wonder who you take after.”
“Maybe you, Dad?”
Today, he seemed like a malfunctioning doll, creaking and whirring. Lost in thought, he took a swig of alcohol instead of answering. After emptying his glass twice, he pushed it towards me.
“Your first drink should be with an adult.”
“Huh?”
“Here. Have a drink.”
I quickly downed the entire glass before he could change his mind. Ugh, the burning sensation in my throat and stomach. Yes, this was alcohol. And German-made! Ughh, no wonder Germans were all alcoholics, drinking this stuff. It’s your fault!
“Drink slowly. You little brat, you know good alcohol when you taste it.”
“Ugh! Is that why you always hit Mom? Because you like it?”
“Are you already drunk?”
“Am I illegitimate?”
No holding back. Fueled by alcohol, I charged head-on. And the man in front of me… grabbed the bottle and chugged it down. Then, he stroked the bottle as if it were a puppy and leaned back in his chair.
“You’ve always resembled your mother. You’ve changed lately, so different from me, that I doubted you were my son.”
“…”
“But, yes. You’re my son. How else would you know the scent of money so well? That’s right. So don’t worry and just study hard. I’m a money-making machine, aren’t I? A head of the family should bring home the bacon. Yes, indeed.”
He awkwardly patted my head a few times, as if handling a fragile porcelain doll. After a moment, I realized he was trying to be affectionate.
But was that important now? Armin Rosenbaum, the sole heir of the Rosenbaum family, had overcome all accusations and been officially recognized as a legitimate son! Unlike loser Jo Whatever, my future was bright…
But my joy was short-lived. A strange feeling washed over me. If I wasn’t illegitimate, then my family was just an ordinary dysfunctional family with an abusive head.
“Then why do you hit Mom?”
“There are reasons.”
“Just tell me. I’m grown up now. I’m going to Gymnasium in a few months.”
I brought another bottle from the cupboard, and he once again chugged it down before slowly starting his story.
“Your mother, Amalia, is beautiful. She is now, and even more so before we married.”
“Yes.”
“Our families have been acquainted for a long time, and I’ve known her since we were young. You might not understand this yet, but I’ve loved her for a very long time.”
I sipped my drink, listening. It was a cliché opening, but a story about people I knew had a different flavor.
My father went on about how much he loved my mother, about their history, and as time passed, his words became increasingly slurred. “-I excelled in my studies, skipped grades, got a job at Deutsche Bank, and gained fame as a young elite, traveling the world. But I was physically unimpressive and not handsome. I confessed my love to Amalia countless times, but she had her heart set on a good-for-nothing, pretty-faced Jewish dandy! That damn guy!”
“…But you two got married in the end.”
“Yes. Because Amalia‘s family went bankrupt during the recession. She chose me on the condition that I take care of her family and their debts. That dandy left. I was happy at first, but I never saw her as vibrant as she was when she was with him. I could buy her body with money, but never her heart…”
What was this? It was dizzying.
“So you hit her because of that?”
“What does a brat like you know! Do you understand this miserable feeling?! If only! If only she had cursed at me! Spat at me! Why does she just stay silent after being slapped! If only she’d shown something other than that doll-like expression-”
“This is insane.” I stopped thinking, overwhelmed by his patheticness, and just kept drinking. Was this normal for this era? Was my father still in the safe zone because he hadn’t kicked or hit us with bottles? Well, even in South Korea a hundred years later, the courts were marrying rape victims to their rapists, so perhaps this was okay in the animal kingdom of 19th-century Prussia…
Drunk out of his mind, he clung to me, rambling incoherently. I held him back, wondering what to do with this drunkard. Why? Because patriarchal authority was immense, and he controlled the purse strings.
“Anyway, don’t hit Mom anymore.”
“I don’t want to. But you saw it too, didn’t you? That cold expression. She looks at me like I’m vermin-”
“She doesn’t! That’s your delusion! Please don’t make me the bastard son who beats his father.”
“Huh, feels good to overpower me now, doesn’t it?”
“I’m doing this for the peace of our family.”
It wasn’t me who needed a mental hospital, but Dad. Damn it.
I was regularly visiting the hospital. After my possession by the future ghost, Dad had pulled every string to find the best doctor he could.
One might think that once I recovered and was discharged, it would be over… but the doctor who treated me had taken a keen interest in my case.
‘Recovered from seizures of unknown cause, personality change, sudden increase in intelligence.’ He wanted to study this and asked for my cooperation. We received free treatment, and Mom, constantly worried about my health, was especially grateful for the offer.
“There’s nothing particularly wrong this time either. Hmm. Rapid growth. Could this be related-?”
“Maybe it’s just because I eat well, run around, and grow well?”
“But neither your father nor your grandfather was particularly robust. Nor your maternal side.”
“He keeps asking for chicken breast. Could that be it? It’s a relief he’s healthy.”
The doctor, Hermann Epenstein, nodded thoughtfully at Mom’s words and scribbled something in his notebook.
“Go out and play for a while. I need to talk to your mother.”
“Okay.”
Instead of going to the garden, I quietly pressed my ear against the door after closing it.
– You are becoming more beautiful every day.
– I’m embarrassed…
– I will deal with that evil man who beats women in an instant.
– Please. Don’t be so harsh on him-
“Fuck.”
I’d just settled things at home, and now Mom was doing this? I quickly slipped away before a nurse appeared and lit a cigarette I’d pilfered from Dad’s pocket.
Nine years old. Alcohol and cigarettes before coffee.
Was this real life?
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