SSL 16

His father spoke as if making a proclamation. As if he were clinging to the one and only chance to reclaim what he had lost, even if it was in the distant future.

“This is when your future is most important. So, you will live here for exactly three months.”

Originally, he had tried to change only their resident registration address to this place, but he said it had not worked out well. So, for a few months, they had no choice but to actually live here. After that, they would move to a rental apartment in another neighborhood. Still, thanks to the connections he had left, he would probably be able to secure the move-in rights without a problem, his father finished, his tone somehow apologetic.

“Uh, Dad went and saw it, and it’s not too, too old……. It also has one more bedroom than here. It should be fine for you boys to live in.”

The new house felt drastically smaller than their previous home. Even though they had less furniture and even one less family member. When moving about the living room and kitchen, the four of them somehow found themselves being careful not to bump into each other. There were only two bedrooms, so his hyung and Doyoon used one room, while his dad and Eunsun used the other, dividing it with a screen.

Still, Doyoon adapted quickly. He did miss the piano a little, though. When a melody swirled in his head, Doyoon would grab the keyboard. His dad had at least left the keyboard that the kids used to play on when they were young. It was missing quite a few octaves compared to a piano, and he had to play with the sound turned all the way down, but it was still better than nothing.

One night, Doyoon was tired and had fallen asleep a little early, but he woke up around eleven and went to the bathroom. Then, he saw the light seeping out from his father’s room and stopped in his tracks.

Normally, he would not have cared whether the light was on or not. His father often stayed up late by himself doing something. But the voices of Eunwoo and Eunsun were mixed in, and it sounded like they were talking about his mother, which piqued his interest. He ended up tiptoeing over and pressing his ear tightly against the door.

“I don’t want to go around with Doyoon oppa.”

Eunsun was whimpering.

“All the kids at our school know. They all know that oppa is weird. They ask, ‘Is that oppa picking you up again today? That must be so hard for you,’ and laugh, and whenever they do, I really, I feel sick. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Dad, it’s hard for me too.”

His hyung chimed in.

“Sharing a room with him is driving me crazy. Right now, we’re all, we’re all just struggling……. Do we have to cater to his every whim too? Do I have to smile and be nice to him all the time? Whose fault is it that Mom left home?”

“That, Eunwoo. Of course, that’s Dad’s fault.”

“No, it’s not. At first, I was angriest at you, Dad……. But the more I think about it……. Mom never liked Doyoon to begin with. She was disgusted by him. She didn’t want to buy him clothes and intentionally didn’t send him to any after-school academies. Because it was an unnecessary expense.”

Eunwoo paused to catch his breath before speaking again.

“I remember everything. Dad, you said we should get him checked out at a hospital like his school teacher said, but Mom cut you off, saying it costs money and would be a hassle. She said we should just let a kid born an idiot live like an idiot.”

“You, Eunwoo……. You heard that? Were you eavesdropping?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure you didn’t mean for me to hear. Since you two were talking in the master bedroom. But anyway, that was the first time I ever heard Mom talk about someone like that. Mom really, really hated him. But she held it all in and acted like a mother. She did it perfectly. Imagine how frustrated she must have been.”

“If it weren’t for oppa, Mom wouldn’t have left home.”

The sound of crying. Eunsun burst into sobs, as if letting out everything she had been suppressing.

“If oppa were normal, Mom wouldn’t have abandoned us too.”

“They say he gets bullied at school, but isn’t that to be expected? He couldn’t even sense a thing when the whole family atmosphere was completely ruined, could he? I saw him playing the piano where all the red seizure stickers were plastered. He just opened the lid with the sticker on it, humming his favorite tune……. Fucking psycho.”

Eunwoo began to pant with anger.

“It gave me the creeps. I thought I was going to die from disgust. I almost threw a punch right then.”

“Eunwoo.”

His dad cut in.

“What’s with that language in front of your dad. Cursing at your younger brother.”

“He’s not even my real younger brother.”

“That’s my point. Eunwoo, if he were real blood, it would be fine. We’re connected by blood anyway, so even if you curse at him and bully him a little, you’re still family. But he’s a fake. A kid we picked up. So, our only connection is that we treat him well, that we love him like our own real child.”

The sound of a sigh, then silence. The voice continued in a measured tone.

“Your mother did a good job of keeping up that pretense until the end. You two have done well until now, too. I’ve told you many times. That I’m so proud of you both. But, were you doing it because I praised you? No, right? It’s because it’s the right thing for a person to do.”

“……”

“Let’s not stop here. Let’s do it well until the end. Eunwoo, Eunsun. In the end, he is……. a stranger. But we have a responsibility now that we’ve taken him in. A child must be cared for. That’s how it is until they become an adult.”

“……I know. Until he graduates high school.”

“Right. When he becomes an adult, I will have a talk with him. I’ll talk to him and kick him out of the house. I’ll tell him, ‘You are not our child, so from now on, you have to live on your own.’”

His father continued, as if pressing down on each and every letter.

“Eunwoo, Eunsun. Until then, we must all fulfill our responsibility. Let’s not become bad people. We have to do our duty completely now so that we can send him away cleanly later. Without any regrets or guilt. Don’t you think? Do you want to act nasty now and feel uneasy for the rest of your life?”

“……No.”

“Still, Dad, I don’t want to go to school with him. And acknowledging him outside……”

“I understand, Eunsun. I’ll talk to your oppa about that. I’ll just say something like, Eunsun is old enough to go to school by herself now. Since she’s a girl, it seems she gets shy when her oppa acknowledges her outside, it will be fine if I explain it nicely like that.”

“Okay.”

Eunsun made a nasal sound, the traces of her crying not yet gone.

The conversation continued in a low murmur for a little longer. At some point, his father made a sound like heave as if he were getting up, and Doyoon hurried back to his room. He lay down on the mattress pad he had spread out, curled up on his side, and pulled the covers over himself.

He heard footsteps in the living room. Soon, the door hinge creaked, followed by the sound of something moving and the rustle of a blanket. It seemed his hyung had come back and was lying down. A few sigh-like sounds were heard, and then it became quiet.

With his sleeping hyung at his back, Doy-oon slowly repeated the act of exhaling and inhaling. He felt dizzy. His whole body trembled so much that his teeth chattered. He was definitely covered well by the blanket, yet he was so cold he could not bear it. It was only when he saw the gray wall in front of him blur into a round orb and then melt away that Doyoon realized tears were flowing from his eyes. They repeatedly welled up and trickled down the bridge of his nose.

But he could not understand. He could not understand the reason why his body was trembling and cold, how he should deal with it, or even if he should deal with it in the first place. The sensations were vivid, but their interpretation was another matter. A very difficult matter. The more he tried to think about it, the more severe the chills and dizziness became. So, he had no choice but to leave it to his body itself. Hoping that it would calm down on its own as time passed.

Doyoon let the tears flow like a kind of excretion. Then, as his eyeballs grew strangely stiff and red and black dots began to blotch his vision, he drifted off into a light sleep and had a dream.

In the dream, a Korean language worksheet appeared. A first-grade elementary school textbook problem. Connect the words in the following examples to the correct pictures with a straight line.

On the left side of the page, words were listed vertically. ‘Mom’, ‘Dad’, ‘Family’, ‘Love’, and so on. But as he held the pen and tried to draw a line, Doyoon was startled. There was nothing on the right side of the page. The spot where the picture examples should have been was just a swamp-like, pitch-black darkness. Doyoon felt his heartbeat rise all the way to his head. I cannot solve this.

The words cannot be connected to any real object. They are just flimsy shells printed in ink, holding no value of meaning whatsoever. The word ‘Mom’ does not point to a real mom. Not now, not ever, not even in the past, it will never be able to point to anything.

Ah. Doyoon belatedly realized.

It was wrong. Everything was wrong from the very foundation. A score of zero. Doyoon woke up, for some reason, gasping for breath.

“Noona has five friends over.”

After arriving at the studio apartment, Jaehyun said before pressing the passcode for the lock.

“It’s going to be a bit crowded. I’ll probably have to chat for a bit, so you just say hello and go into the room first.”

“……Okay.”

Doyoon nodded. When Jaehyun pressed the code and opened the door, his eyes reflexively scrunched up. It was bright.

At 2 PM, the midday summer light poured in through the large balcony window, making the living room air swell roundly, and the reflected light danced off the display cabinet and the keyboard keys, dazzling his vision. There were many people, so the atmosphere was also brightly bustling. Six adults were gathered around the dining table and kitchen, chattering away.

“Oh shoot, I stirred it too much.”

“Ha, that’s funny……. Did we just make homemade butter? By stirring it by hand? Oh, Juhee, someone’s here.”

A brief silence.

The front door closed, and as the two of them entered the shoe area, the living room fell silent in an instant. While all six of them stared this way, Jaehyun quickly bowed his head in greeting.

“Hello. I’m Juhee noona’s younger brother, Jaehyun.”

“Hi!”

“So you’re Jaehyun? Nice to meet you.”

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

The people responded all at once, as if a balloon had popped. Except for the two who were kneading something that looked like flour dough, they even waved their hands. Then, a couple of them eventually came over to the front of the shoe area.

“Wow, you’re really tall.”

“He’s handsome. Juhee, you two look alike. Your eyes are the same.”

“Are you really a first-year in high school? How are boys so tall these days? Your noona must be feeding you well.”

“No, he’s usually the one who cooks.”

“What the heck. Sell me your brother. Let’s trade for mine.”

“Is the kid standing behind you a friend?”

“……Hello.”

“Oh my, how cute.”

Standing in the shoe area, Doyoon barely managed to bow and raise his head, but another wave of layered laughter washed over him, causing him to stiffen up.

“He’s the complete opposite, isn’t he? He looks just like a baby.”

“Oh dear, his face is turning red. What do we do.”

“……”

“Go on into my room first.”

Jaehyun said with a laugh, giving Doyoon’s shoulder a light punch with his fist.

“I’ll be there soon too.”

“……Okay.”

Doyoon stiffly turned his body, went into Jaehyun’s room, and quickly closed the door behind him. Still, the pile of ceaselessly chattering voices seeped through the cracks. Jaehyun’s voice was mixed in here and there as well.

Standing awkwardly with his back almost touching one wall, Doyoon let his eyes rest on the desk. A spacious desk. The top was covered with glass, and glossy objects were placed on it. Headphones, a CD player, a few books and writing utensils. A pure white desk lamp.

Next to the desk was a six-shelf bookcase. One shelf was so full of books that they were double-stacked, and next to it stood two tall storage units exclusively for DVDs and CDs. Among the CDs slotted in were a few albums of the Goldberg Variations. He remembered Jaehyun forcibly bringing him into the room to show him last time.

No……. No. Doyoon shook his head inwardly. He had not been forcibly dragged into this room by Jaehyun back then. Doyoon himself had been intrigued.

<Do you know how to play the piano? You kept staring at it.>

Two weeks ago, on the Saturday of their first study session, Jaehyun had asked, pointing at the keyboard.

Doyoon had been a little surprised. He had not even realized he had been looking at it until Jaehyun asked. He worried that Jaehyun might be angry that he was glaring at someone else’s instrument, but Jaehyun did not particularly reprimand Doyoon. He had only continued to ask questions about the piano.

In the middle of that, one sentence Jaehyun uttered had particularly caught his ear, and Doyoon had tilted his head. What did he mean by ‘he had several albums’?

Jaehyun said he liked the Goldberg Variations so much that he had collected and owned several albums of it. But Doyoon could not understand. How could there be multiple albums of the exact same piece, and what did it mean to ‘collect’ them?

At Doyoon’s house, even when they were well off, there were hardly any books or music albums. On the side table next to the living room TV, there were only two sets, ‘100 Masterpiece Pop Songs’ and ‘150 Masterpiece Classical Songs,’ and the piano pieces were just included among them. Doyoon had mostly grown up listening to his hyung and his hyung’s private tutor play the piano, and when he played himself, he only looked at the sheet music.

Perhaps because of that, it was difficult to grasp the meaning of Jaehyun’s words. Isn’t a piece of music just the same piece? What could be the meaning of having several albums? As he was frowning in contemplation, Jaehyun got up from the dining table and gestured for Doyoon to follow him as he went to his room. For him to follow.