JKA 15

“Just… so I c-can’t think at all. I want to pass out.”

“…As you wish.”

1129 gave a small nod and, pressing his lips close to Jiwoon’s flushed ear, said.

“Lift your hips and put it in yourself. Then move as much as you want.”

‘Hey, this is a secret from Mom.’

Watching him take an ice cream from the convenience store freezer as if they were plotting something grand, Jiwoon smiled brightly. With what he wanted in hand, Jiwoon walked excitedly, the ice cream he was given in his mouth. In his other hand was his.

He, who had returned home for vacation from his boarding high school, was a genius among geniuses who never lost the top spot in his entire school, even at the most prestigious high school in Korea. Aiming for an overseas university rather than a domestic one, he was a full ten years older than me.

Unlike me, an eight-year-old who couldn’t even get dictation right, he was an amazing person with study notes written in neat handwriting that were as tall as I was. On top of that, on the few days a year he came home like this, he would secretly buy me ice cream and correct the misspelled words in my dictation.

They said he never made a single mistake in dictation when he was young. Even though they never taught him properly, he learned Hangul on his own and was said to be especially good at math. He was always his parents’ pride and joy. The son who did everything well on his own, so there was nothing to worry about. That was his descriptor.

The only rebellious act he committed was secretly buying ice cream for Jiwoon, who liked ice cream more than meals. Jiwoon liked him too. Always kind to me, he was a presence more adult-like than adults.

Come to think of it, it was a strange thing. A son drawn like a picture. A child who took such good care of his younger brother. How could a perfect person with nothing lacking exist? It was something that made no sense. Was that why? He disappeared far away, as if this was not his place to be.

It was all my fault. That day, because of that ice cream, our peaceful daily life crumbled. Everything he had achieved until then also vanished in an instant. When the person designated by the awards that filled one wall of the room disappeared, my parents were furious.

It was funny, but it all happened because of a single mistake. A truck with malfunctioning brakes ran over the sidewalk, and all the tragedy began. Jiwoon was stupidly looking only at the ice cream, and it was him who first spotted the oncoming truck. After that, it was an obvious story.

He died. Very easily, and quickly. People passing by screamed, and Jiwoon, pushed aside by him and fallen to the ground, saw the ice cream that had dropped from his hand. The ice cream that fell on the hot summer asphalt melted in an instant, and ants gathered along its path.

Dozens of ants surrounded the secret that he and I shared. The disappearance of everything happened that quickly and easily. My ears were deafened by the sound of sirens and people’s screams. Jiwoon didn’t know what was happening, what had happened to me. Here, a person… a person was hit. I think they’re dead. Please come quickly. He heard such things.

Mom cried for a very long time. A cry like the desperate sound of an animal would burst out, then stop, over and over. It was because she had fainted countless times. Jiwoon stood next to his father, who was standing with a sorrowful expression, and watched his friends in school uniforms come in in a crowd. All of them were crying.

The perfect him had many good friends. Otherwise, there was no way so many people would have come all the way from that far place to Busan. Mom fainted again upon seeing them. Even my father, who had looked at each and every one of those youthful faces, couldn’t say a single word of thanks and collapsed.

It was only much later that I learned it was because he had seen his face in theirs. Jiwoun felt like he vaguely understood everything, yet at the same time, he realized nothing. It was only then that he properly learned that a person could leave for somewhere and never return. But knowing was not the same as understanding.

He would only return home around the time of the intense heat or cold. He thought it would be similar this time too. Mom would always swallow her tears alone whenever she sent him off to school, so he thought it might be similar this time. But no matter what heat or cold came, he never returned.

The daily life that had disappeared like that did not come back. The person who corrected his wrong dictation and secretly bought him ice cream was gone. The house was as quiet as ever, but that quiet was different from before. Even the young Jiwoon knew that much. However, that room, full of awards, always remained the same.

And one day, after finishing dinner, when he opened the refrigerator and there was no ice cream, the cogs of their daily life, which had not been turning, began to turn, misaligned. The beginning was a single phrase that Jiwoon uttered.

‘There’s no ice cream. Mom, I want to eat ice cream.’

Mom, who was quietly washing the dishes, turned around roughly at those words from Jiwoon. The rubber gloves were full of suds, but with those hands, she grabbed Jiwoon’s shoulders and knelt down in front of him. The face she met was completely different from the stern expression she used to make when she said he shouldn’t eat too much ice cream.

It was a kind of despair. Mom gripped Jiwoon’s arms so hard it hurt and shook him wildly, screaming. She screamed like a mad person, asking what was so important about that damn ice cream, what on earth was so important about it that he had dragged his brother out and caused such a disaster.

Only then did his father, who was in the bathroom, rush out and stop Mom. Pushed by Mom’s force, Jiwoon, who had fallen to the floor just like that time, blinked his eyes. Dad forcibly took Mom, who was screaming her head off, to the bedroom. The door slammed shut with a bang, and a war of words erupted inside.

Jiwoon slowly got up and closed the door of the open refrigerator. Then he turned his head and saw something overflowing in the trash can. When he went closer to look, it was ice cream. The first thing Mom did, after returning home and not coming out of her room for a long time as if dead, was to throw away the ice cream piled up in the freezer.

‘It’s because of you!’

At that time, someone shouted at me. No, in fact, no one said such a thing to Jiwoon. But when he met the eyes of his distorted mother, Jiwoon, though still young, could read the implication in her gaze. It’s because of you, my son died because of you. She was saying that at that moment.

Nothing changed after that day. As if nothing had happened, Dad bought a whole armful of ice cream and filled the refrigerator with it. But that was all. Jiwoon never once took out and ate that ice cream with his own hands, but Dad never asked him why.

If you were to ask where it went wrong, that point was clear. But since you can’t bring a dead person back to life, it was clear they didn’t know how to unbutton the wrongly fastened button. It was the same for Jiwoon. Mom became much kinder than before he died. It was to the point of feeling strange.

She checked his dictation more often and became obsessed with the workbooks Jiwoon was solving. She would also wander around the academy district all day with Jiwoon. Jiwoon solved problem after problem that he couldn’t understand at all. But there was no way he could produce the correct answers. It was because he could not become him.

His room was still the same, but the door was firmly locked, and his parents acted as if he had never existed. And they poured all their expectations for him onto Jiwoon. They were overwhelmingly burdensome things that he couldn’t possibly endure. Beyond their gazes, it was always him, not me.

They acted as if Jiwoon had to fill his place. Mom became obsessed with me. She meddled in every single little action and got angry. And then she acted as if nothing had happened again. Dad, who didn’t say a single word at home, would show a brief smile when Jiwoon returned with pretty good grades. He couldn’t tell who that smile was directed at.

What he ate, what he wore, and of course, the people he met were all in the palm of his parents’ hands. They wanted to cram Jiwoon into his place. They struggled to get him into the same elementary school, the same middle school, and the same high school. But just before the high school application submission, the two of them somehow changed their minds.

He couldn’t tell if it was because they were worried that Jiwoon would suffer the same fate as him, or if it was some other reason. Instead of sending Jiwoon far away, they contented themselves with sending him to a school called a prestigious school within the region. In the meantime, Jiwoon’s heart gradually became empty. He became afraid to make eye contact. He became more and more afraid to say no, to say that this was not what he wanted.

At first, he could. But as time went on, he couldn’t. That day kept coming to mind. His mother’s eyes as she looked at him, screaming, “What’s so important about that damn ice cream,” kept holding him back. The way her eyes clouded over just like that time, the moment he said no, gave him the chills.

It was the same when he locked his door and holed up in his room. He doubted whether there was even a little bit of concern for him in his parents’ voices as they cried and begged for him to just come out. The person they wanted to open the door and come out was him, not me.

The one who was gone, the one who was no longer in this world. It was clear that they had hoped that he, who was so perfect that he was impossible to catch up to, would open the locked door and say, ‘Ta-da, Mom, Dad, I’m back.’ But how could he dare to say such a thing?

Mom, Dad. Hyung is dead. I can’t become hyung. Please stop seeing hyung through me. I’m different from hyung. No matter how hard I try and strive, I can’t replace hyung. So can’t you just see me as I am…

Unable to bring himself to say such words because he felt sorry for them, Jiwoon, who had barely managed to open the door and come out, said haltingly. To leave him alone, please, just do that. He had thought about wanting to die more than tens of thousands of times. He thought about it like breathing. But he couldn’t bring himself to the point of resolving to kill himself. It was because he felt sorry for them. Because he felt sorry and pitiful, Jiwoon couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Then, suddenly, something cold touched his forehead. At this, Jiwoon was startled, his eyes snapped open, and he sat up. At that, the wet towel that had been placed on his head rolled off.

“Ah, fuck! You scared me.”

He turned his head at the familiar voice, and there was 1129. He frowned upon seeing Jiwoon, who was panting as if he had been running. Jiwoon, not yet fully escaped from the nightmare that had his whole body trembling, stared blankly at 1129’s face.

He couldn’t tell what was a dream and what was reality. At that moment, 1129 abruptly pushed the thermometer he was holding in his hand into Jiwoon’s ear. Soon after, with a beep, the thermometer was thrust in front of Jiwoon’s eyes.

“You have a fever.”

“…”

“I told you, you’d get sick from overexertion.”

1129 clicked his tongue, tsk, pushed Jiwoon’s head back down on the bed, and picked up the fallen cold wet towel, placing it on his head. Only then did Jiwoon come to his senses and narrow his brow at the throbbing pain he felt in his lower back and lower body.

“I submitted a sick leave for you on your laptop. Go to the hospital later.”

“…”

“I don’t get tired, but you do. Keep that in mind.”

The problem was that he had accepted all of Jiwoon’s frantic advances. Normally, he would have pushed him away well, but yesterday, the atmosphere seemed a little different, so he played along, and this is what happened.

“A kid who’s never once exercised properly goes for a run, and then pounds his own ass all night long, of course his body wouldn’t hold up.”

At 1129’s words, Jiwoon vaguely recalled the lovemaking that had continued until dawn. As soon as he remembered himself on top of him, excitedly shaking his hips just as 1129 had said, Jiwoon squeezed his eyes shut. Then, without realizing it, he muttered.

“…I thought it was ice cream.”

“What?”

“I thought you put ice cream on my head…”

It was because the sensation of the towel on his head was similar to the feeling of the ice cream he had playfully brought to his cheek. He knew it was ridiculous, but that was why he had been so startled and opened his eyes. It was a reaction created by the hope that everything that had happened to him was just a nightmare he had while his eyes were closed for a moment.

“Ice cream my ass. You want to eat that in the middle of all this?”

“…”

“I bought medicine from the pharmacy, so eat some porridge and take some medicine. And I’ll wake you up around 3, so you can go to the hospital then.”

Instead of answering 1129’s words, Jiwoon looked at him. 1129, seeing him, who usually didn’t try to make eye contact, staring at him blankly, opened his mouth with a slight frown.

“What, why. Why are you suddenly looking at me like that?”

“…Ah, do you know?”

“Know what.”

1129 just wore an expression that said, “What are you talking about?” The thought that even an angel couldn’t know everything occurred to him. Well, that could be. It wasn’t because of his hyung that he had wanted to die. It was just that he was this way, and he was just resentful that he couldn’t catch up to him no matter how hard he tried.