Knowing Brother-Chapter 31
I took medicine and played alone all evening. I couldn’t sleep even at midnight.
When Mrs. Choi hadn’t come yet, a drizzle fell. The night, soaked in powdery rain, was much quieter than usual. Still, I couldn’t sleep.
Seol-woo looked at the window curtains and the fluorescent light with a handful of bug corpses. The ticking of the clock was clear. It was past 1 a.m.
Seol-woo Choi walked down the narrow porch and got down in front of the front door. When he opened the door, raindrops like pollen covered the entire sky. He slowly turned his head and closed his eyes. The raindrops falling on his face felt like they were soaking his heart.
When he opened his eyes, it was like another world. The faint light from the distant streetlight spread through the two-story house, riding the rain.
“Go to the friends who tried to climb over the fence before?”
Seol-woo’s voice, which had entered puberty, had sunk like a cloudy night. His young voice was no longer there.
And he had a habit of swallowing his affirmative answers.
“Choi Seol-woo.”
His heart sank at the faint curse.
“Don’t be so cocky.”
His cold attitude vaguely made me feel that it was because it was the last moment. The dark alley of the multi-family housing complex where Won Dae-young disappeared, the runaway teenagers gathered in a house there, and Won Dae-young who was protecting them. That was a line that Choi Seol-woo could never cross. He nailed it down like this.
“Know your place. And.”
Choi Seol-woo knew why there was darkness in Won Dae-young’s smile.
“Keep your mouth shut. Got it?”
And he would do whatever it took to not let anyone know about the monster in the two-story house. If Choi Seol-woo were to talk about the true nature of the man in the two-story house somewhere, Seol-woo and Mrs. Choi could drink poison or be humiliated like Won Dae-hyun.
Seol-woo will now enter middle school in March next year. I could understand that level of threat. But Choi Seol-woo found it very strange. Even though he was watching him throw words that pierced his heart, he didn’t get angry. Although he was sad, he wasn’t angry.
The side door closed quietly. Choi Seol-woo grabbed the door and said.
“Wait a minute. I’ll write you a last letter.”
Choi Seol-woo was trapped inside the door, but Won Dae-young seemed to be in prison outside the door. Choi Seol-woo quickly ran inside the house, worried that Won Dae-young would say something bad again. fгeewebnovёl.com
It was only then that he realized that he was barefoot. With trembling hands, he searched through the drawer and took out a piece of colored paper.
A tear or two fell on the paper. Seol-woo quickly wiped the spot with his hand and wiped his cheek. He was anxious because he thought Won Dae-young might just leave. He opened the marker pen cover with shaking hands. He chose the brown color that was closest to Won Dae-young’s skin tone.
I had to be a trembling, and if I didn't want to be broken, I didn't want to. The fact that it was a dullness that did not apply the truth of the life of life was completely thought of. Even if you didn't have a yellow eye to break the pots, furniture and people, you could not do the most important parts of life. Anyway, there was something to prioritize right now.
It was obvious that it would be over if it took too long, so he wrote only a few words. He folded the colored paper into a note shape and took it out. Won Dae-young, standing in the prison outside the iron gate, turned around and looked into the distance.
Choi Seol-woo stuck the note out through the closed door. He didn’t say anything because he felt like something would burst out of his throat if he opened his mouth and made a sound. Won Dae-young unfolded the note without hiding his annoyed expression.
If he didn’t ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) like it, would he throw it away? Would he thank him for something useless? Seol-woo was scared, but at the same time, he wanted to see him a little more. If this was the last time, he should have looked at his face more.
Won Dae-young, contrary to expectations, did not give in. His furrowed eyebrows were unreadable. Seol-woo thought that he really looked like an adult when he saw the black coat and dark blue baseball cap he was wearing. Until the end, Won Dae-young was the most special adult to Choi Seol-woo.
Looking at him like that was Choi Seol-woo’s own final ritual. After taking a last look, Choi Seol-woo turned around. He entered the house without saying a word. The house, where Mrs. Choi had not yet returned from work, was covered in dirt and old things.
The outside, where the rain was falling, was quiet. He walked to the desk where markers were strewn about. Choi Seol-woo stood still and looked around the room.
The first thing he grabbed was the one he threw against the wall. The 12-color markers hit the wall and slid down. They only tilted inside their rubber covers and did not break. Choi Seol-woo picked up the markers again. He pulled out the caps and slammed them down on the desk.
The lead was crushed beyond recognition. The ink splattered and stained the pen holder in an ugly way. Even after the lead was crushed, he slammed the pen holder down until it broke. He broke it until it couldn’t be broken anymore. Sometimes, his fist holding the marker would hit the desk because of the force. When that happened, he moved his hand over the pen holder and swung it violently again. After hitting the desk with twelve colored inks and scratch marks, there was no more marker pen to break.
With his multicolored stained hands, he picked up the trashcan and threw it against the wall. Trash poured out of the trashcan and fell to the floor. Choi Seol-woo picked up the empty trashcan again and swung it with both arms toward the floor. He threw it with all his might, intending to break it. The plastic trashcan bounced up slightly and rolled toward the dresser.
This time, he stomped on the trashcan lying on the floor. He stomped hard enough to knock out his breath. At first, his leg bounced off, but by the sixth time he stomped, the plastic broke. He kicked the crushed pieces of plastic. He kicked them all away, leaving them unsightly under the desk, in the corner of the TV shelf, and under the hanger.
The string that had connected them was now broken. It wasn’t just a string that had been tied together, but a string that had been attached to him like blood vessels, giving him life. The uncut string first fell from Won Dae-young, and now it fell from Seol-woo. It fell away like a man-eating flower that sucked up the flesh, blood vessels, and even the cell network.
It was the most horrible pain I had ever experienced in my life. It hurt worse than the headache I had felt when the anesthesia wore off before. It was worse than the pain when my head shrank and felt like it was going to burst. Choi Seol-woo was now having the hottest part of his body completely eaten away, and blood gushed endlessly from the incinerated network.
He felt feverish like someone suffering from a cold. He threw the desk clock and pen holder against the kitchen wall. The clock parts broke and flew out, and even the batteries flew out, hitting Seol-woo in the chest. The glass fell onto the gas stove and made a loud cracking sound. Seol-woo hit the desk with the broken desk clock, even the springs popping out, and threw all the used books on the bookshelf.
He took out the folding table that was stuck next to the refrigerator. I lifted my arms high and hit the floor first. The floorboards were dented. I made a few more scratches and threw them at the dresser. With a loud crash, the folding table collapsed against the dresser.
Brother, go and be happy
That was what I wrote on the note.
The moonlight didn’t shine through the window in the hazy rain. There was no tomorrow in this room. It would have been okay if the floor had collapsed and I had sunk into it.
It seemed like there would be no tomorrow. That thought had never been more clear to me than now.
My head was spinning because I had poured out more strength than I had. I sat down with my head on the desk leg. My elbows and wrists were bruised as if they were bruised. My arms and legs, which had drawn out their latent strength, trembled.
A black figure loomed in the dark room because the lights were off. A black sock came over the door.
It wouldn’t have been strange if it had been the grim reaper. There was no doubt that Choi Seol-woo had crossed over to the world of death because he had not been careful about the sudden rise in blood pressure and his brain system had malfunctioned. That was why he had crossed over to the world of death. There was no tomorrow in the room he had just seen.
Choi Seol-woo raised his head. Won Dae-young was standing blankly in the dark room. Choi Seol-woo believed that he was the grim reaper. That was why he did not speak to him.
Choi Seol-woo breathed thinly without saying a word. The silence that followed was so deep that it was impossible to measure the time. Won Dae-young bowed at the end. The grim reaper knelt on the floor and cleaned up the broken things. Without saying a word, he cleaned up the broken table clock and the folding table with its misaligned legs. He picked up the broken marker pen and swept the broken plastic pieces and glass shards into a newspaper.
He heard the sound of a broom sweeping the kitchen floor. He could also hear the sound of someone wiping the gas range, which was covered in the remains of the table clock. Squeak. A dry rag wiped the stainless steel.
