The Cost of Waiting: A Son Cannot Let Go of His Mother’s Casket, and Mr. Sixty-Two Chooses to Wait | NOV-HUM Ep. 8 Part 1

NOV-HUM · EPISODE 8 OF 25 · PART 1 OF 2

Advanced Empathy Module — Part I: The Cost of Waiting

The casket had begun to move, but Sangho Moon’s hand had not.

At first, Jaeho Yoon thought he must have missed something. The casket cart was slowly pulling away from the designated line outside the memorial room. Moru held the front handle, while Jaeho stood at the handle on the opposite side.

Because of yesterday’s incident, the collaborative work supervision indicator was still visible in one corner of the terminal.

SUPERVISED TASK: 2 OF 3

Haewon Jeong stood two steps away from the cart. Today, her instructions were anything but brief.

“We’re going as far as the handoff line in front of the elevator. Use this corridor, and stop if any family members or another casket transfer enter your path.”

“Destination confirmed,” Moru replied.

“Understood,” Jaeho said.

It was considerably longer than yesterday’s Use your judgment. Make it quick. Jaeho thought, Do we really have to spell out every little thing? But today, he kept the thought to himself.

The cart began to move.

Sangho Moon was walking along the right side of the casket. He looked about fifty. A little of his shirt showed beneath the sleeve of his black suit jacket. His eyes were red and swollen, as though he had spent the night rubbing his face over and over.

At first, Jaeho thought the man was simply walking with one hand resting against the casket. Then he noticed something strange.

Sangho’s right hand was gripping the casket handle tightly. The cart was moving, but he would not let go. His feet followed as though the cart were pulling him along.

“External contact continuing on right side,” Moru reported.

Haewon looked at Sangho. “Sir.”

Sangho did not answer.

“We can take it from here.”

His grip tightened. The veins stood out on the back of his hand.

“Yes.”

He said the word, but his hand remained where it was.

Haewon tried again. “We need to get to the elevator.”

“Yes.”

He answered again.

Jaeho stopped pushing. Moru stopped too. Haewon looked toward Jaeho. He stood with his hands on the cart, watching Sangho.

“Just a moment,” Sangho said. His voice was barely audible.

“Please. Just a moment.”

Haewon checked the time. There was not much room in the schedule before the next casket transfer. Staff were already beginning to emerge from the memorial room behind them.

Still, Haewon did not hurry him. “All right,” she said. “Take a moment.”

Jaeho heard her and took his hands off the cart.

Sangho stood with his head lowered, holding the handle of his mother’s casket.

He did nothing.

He did not cry. He did not call her name. He simply held on.

After a long while, he spoke.

“My mother was in a nursing home for six years.”

No one had asked. He kept looking at the handle.

“Every time I visited, she asked me to take her home.”

Jaeho’s gaze dropped for a moment.

“Even last month.”

Sangho’s expression was somewhere between a smile and tears. “I was actually going to bring her home this weekend.”

A staff member behind them gestured to Haewon. She raised one hand, signaling him to wait. Sangho did not notice.

“It was always next week,” he said.

“Next week.”

One finger loosened from the handle. The others remained.

Jaeho said nothing. He remembered counting the days until his wife could leave the hospital.

Once we get through this test.

Once this treatment is finished.

Once she gets a little better.

When people believe they have plenty of time, it is easy to say next time.

Only when there is no time left do they learn how costly those words can be.

Jaeho kept that thought to himself. It did not seem like something Sangho needed to hear.

Moru spoke. “Please specify the end condition for waiting.”

Haewon looked at Moru. So did Jaeho. There had been a time when Jaeho would have considered that question completely insensitive.

He answered quietly. “When he lets go.”

“Should movement resume when external contact ends?”

Jaeho looked at Sangho once more. “Yes.”

“Confirmed.”

Moru asked nothing further. Sangho was still holding the handle.

After three minutes, the first alert appeared on Haewon’s terminal.

SCHEDULED TRANSFER TIME EXCEEDED

At five minutes, a second alert followed.

SUBSEQUENT ROUTE ADJUSTMENT REQUIRED

By the seventh minute, the casket-transfer team behind them had been instructed to use another corridor. Jaeho watched the notifications appear one after another.

Waiting was not free.

The people behind them had to take another route. Someone would have to walk farther. The vehicle schedule would have to be rearranged.

People often spoke of waiting for someone as though it meant doing nothing. But in a funeral hall, even doing nothing came at a cost.

“Mr. Sixty-Two,” Haewon said.

Jaeho turned.

“Yes?”

“The next vehicle may run a little late.”

She spoke quietly enough that Sangho would not hear. Jaeho checked the time.

“How late?”

“If we finish now, we’ll be all right. Once we go past ten minutes, we’ll need to reschedule the next vehicle.”

Jaeho looked at Sangho. His hand had not moved.

Haewon asked, “What do you think we should do?” Jaeho was a little startled. He had not expected her to ask him.

“You’re the one standing closest to him right now,” Haewon added.

Jaeho closed his mouth. Under normal circumstances, the task was straightforward. Keep to the casket-transfer schedule. Move the casket. Prepare for the next memorial room. Explain the procedure to the family.

Sangho had already said yes twice. They could proceed. There was no need to force his hand away. One sentence would be enough.

We need to go now.

Jaeho had said things like that many times before. In logistics work, the phrases had been much the same.

“This is as far as we can go.”

“Time’s up.”

“The next vehicle is coming in.”

The workplace rarely waited for someone’s personal circumstances to come to an end.

“Let’s give him a little more time,” Jaeho said.

Haewon checked the time. “All right.”

Moru asked, “Continue waiting?”

“Yes.”

“Current task completion is being delayed.”

“I know.”

“The delay is also affecting subsequent routes.”

“I know that too.”

Moru stopped asking. Jaeho moved a little closer to Sangho.

“Sir?”

Sangho raised his head.

“Could I get you some water?”

For a moment, Sangho looked at him. It was as though he were properly seeing Mr. Sixty-Two’s face for the first time.

“No, thank you.”

“Your mouth must be dry.”

“I’m fine.”

Jaeho nodded. He took two steps, then stopped at the water dispenser. He filled a paper cup halfway.

A cup filled to the brim was difficult to drink from when someone’s hands were shaking. He had learned that through years of experience. He placed the cup on a small shelf beside Sangho.

“I’ll leave it here.”

He did not urge the man to drink. Sangho’s eyes followed the paper cup, then returned to the casket.

Moru had been watching. “What?” Jaeho asked.

“The offer of water was declined.”

“That’s right.”

“Yet you provided water.”

“I didn’t force him to drink it.”

Moru paused. “Is declining an offer different from keeping the offered item available?”

Jaeho looked at Moru. This time, he smiled a little. “You make it sound terribly complicated.”

Moru waited.

“A person might not want something now, but need it five minutes later.”

“Did you place the water within reach in anticipation of a possible change in need?”

“I just left him a cup of water.”

“I will observe the outcome.”

“You always have to turn a cup of water into a research paper.”

Moru did not reply. Jaeho’s smile did not last long either.

Sangho lifted the paper cup with his left hand.

His right hand was still on the casket handle.

He took a sip of water, then set the cup back on the shelf. Jaeho pretended not to notice.

The wait passed ten minutes. Haewon’s terminal sounded again. This time, the alert lasted a little longer.

SUBSEQUENT VEHICLE DISPATCH RESCHEDULED

Haewon dismissed the notification. “I’ll record the additional waiting time.”

Jaeho turned toward her. “Will there be an extra charge?”

“A little,” Haewon said. “The next vehicle has to wait.”

Jaeho looked at Sangho. He did not appear to have heard.

“So the delay will be recorded against my task.”

“I’ll enter it as an on-site circumstance,” Haewon said. “You weren’t the only one who made the decision.”

Jaeho did not answer. Something about those words struck him as strange.

A few days earlier, he had been rejected for a job because employing him as a person would cost too much. Now he was waiting under a machine’s name, and the waiting was costing money too.

The difference was that this time, someone had chosen to wait despite knowing the cost.

Jaeho kept that thought to himself as well.

Another of Sangho’s fingers loosened from the handle. A moment later, another. Only two fingers remained hooked around it.

“Mom,” Sangho whispered.

Nothing followed. Jaeho lowered his gaze slightly. Moru stood motionless.

“Mom.”

Sangho called her again. This time, his voice was a little louder.

Then his hand came free.

Completely.

His right hand hung in the air for a while after leaving the handle, as though it no longer knew where to rest.

Jaeho did not move the cart immediately. Sangho took one step back.

Then another.

Only then did Jaeho ask, “May we go now?” Sangho closed his eyes, opened them, and nodded.

“Yes.”

Jaeho looked at Moru. “Resume.”

“External contact confirmed ended,” Moru said.

A brief pause. “Resuming movement.”

The cart began to move. This time, Sangho did not follow close beside it. He walked two steps behind.

Even at the corner of the corridor, he did not move close to the cart again.

When they reached the elevator, no warnings appeared on Moru’s display. Haewon completed the handoff procedure.

Sangho touched the casket one last time. But this time, he did not grasp the handle.

He simply passed his palm once along the side of the casket, then lowered his hand.

The elevator doors closed.

Moru spoke to Jaeho. “Revising observation results.”

“What?”

“External contact interference ended following the waiting period.”

“Right.”

“Walking interference also decreased when movement resumed.”

Jaeho was still looking at the elevator doors. “So?”

“Delayed task completion does not always result in increased movement risk.”

Jaeho turned toward Moru.

Moru continued in his usual voice. “When a specific end condition for waiting is established, the risk during subsequent movement may decrease.”

Jaeho looked at Moru for a moment. Then he gave a small laugh.

“Took you this long to figure that out?”

“This was observed in the current case.”

“A lot of things in life work that way,” Jaeho said.

Then he stopped. He had almost started speaking as though he were the one who knew the answer before anyone else.

He remembered the gap between the wall and the cart yesterday.

One finger joint.

He had said there had been no collision. Moru had said there had been no collision because the cart had stopped.

Today, the situation was reversed.

Moru had watched the time.

Jaeho had watched the hand.

And after waiting, they had both observed the same result. Sangho had stepped away from the cart on his own.

No one had needed to pry his hand loose.

Jaeho said nothing more.

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