mutation
Kim Young-hoon _Seol
W. Theory
▪︎A little salty and incestuous material ▪︎
"Seol-ah. I have a genetic mutation?"
"Huh? What kind of crazy talk is this, oppa? How can human genes be mutated? No, even if they are, do you know you're still perfectly normal? The world is crazy, so we're going crazy together."
"Seol-ah, do you want to be a rapper? Your diction is good."
"What good is rapping in this situation? The world is going to hell, what good is rapping?"
The man remained unmoved, no matter how much Seol raged beside him. The woman, called "Seol," spoke with a high and low pitch, almost like a human being. But the man's voice was steady, almost mechanical. It was a voice devoid of emotion, like a calm sea, unwavering. Seol looked at the unmoving man with a strange look, but when he didn't respond, she simply looked away.
In fact, this situation was familiar to Seol. She was used to the man who would suddenly throw out strange words—that was Kim Young-hoon. And even though those words were repeated every day, she couldn't calmly respond, and instead, when she got excited, she'd blurt out words, which was a routine.
Kim Young-hoon said these strange words about fifteen times a day. This was after this situation continued. One day, he kept spewing out unlucky words to Seol, such as, “Seol-ah, I’m a mutant plant. I’m a mutated potato. I’m a sweet potato. I’m going to die.”
Every time that happened, Seol's reaction was to blurt out, "Are you crazy like today?" In fact, Seol was a little scared when Kim Young-hoon said something like that. She was afraid of how he would speak calmly and matter-of-factly, not with a smile as if it were a joke, so she overreacted. Whenever she reacted like that, Kim Young-hoon would laugh again and say something that sounded like a joke.
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Seol was three and Gam Young-hoon was seven. It had been over two years since Seol had been abandoned by her parents and placed in an orphanage. Kim Young-hoon's parents, needing a daughter, took her in and raised her, and that was how Seol and Kim Young-hoon first met. Seol didn't actually know her surname. But that was only natural. She had been abandoned when she was barely a year old. So she used Kim Young-hoon's father's surname, "Kim." Kim Seol. That was her name, neither real nor fake.
Kim Young-hoon knew this and never called Seol by her last name. He always called her Seol. Seol-ah. He always called her that way, with such affectionate voice. And Seol loved that voice. Seol was happy. That was until she was 17, in her first year of high school.
Seol was doing well in both elementary and middle school, making decent friends and getting decent grades.
Then one day. It was a spring day, when Seol had just entered high school, and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Seol woke up not to her alarm, but to a third, loud noise. She immediately turned to the window. The view outside was so hazy. Seol concluded that spring was bringing with it a heavy yellow dust and fine dust. However, when she stepped into the living room, what she saw was even more bizarre.
The house was a mess. Some furniture and objects were missing. The sofa had vanished, and instead, Younghoon was sitting on the living room floor, staring blankly at the TV. He was watching the news. But as he watched, his eyes were blank. Seol, perplexed, asked Younghoon what was happening.
"Brother, what's all this? What's going on? Where did all the furniture go? Where's Mom? Where's Dad?"
"Seol-ah. I... we... are all mutants, you know?"
It was from then on that Younghoon started saying strange things.