The Voice on the Phone
Seo Hayan had lost her parents.
The Gate that had torn open right above their heads was the reason.
Surviving had been pure luck—yet barely clinging to life after losing everything, including her parents, had been pure misfortune.
In a life that had already been desperately poor, losing everything snuffed out her will to live as well. Seo Hayan simply stared blankly at her own dying embers.
But her older brother was different.
Even in the same circumstances, Seo Harang stubbornly kept doing what needed to be done. Disaster compensation from the Gate, support centers for children who had lost their parents—everything. With a child’s head that barely understood how the world worked, he somehow, desperately, tried to weather the storm that kept crashing down on them.
He doesn’t have to go that far.
That was all young Seo Hayan could think back then. She watched, emotionless and empty, as Seo Harang burned his own body just to scrape through each day. In truth, the entire world had turned monochrome. There was no meaning, no purpose left.
Ironically, the support center did them no good. The place had long been taken over by the worst sort of people who pocketed the support money for themselves. It had already transformed into a den of young vipers who survived on connections alone.
They escaped that place. And with that, Seo Harang’s burden only grew heavier. Seo Hayan simply could not understand her brother.
Why is he doing all that? Seriously.
Leaving early in the morning and coming back late at night. Sometimes not coming back at all, sleeping right there and diving straight into work the next day. Watching him live like that, those thoughts would surface. It looked like he was desperately trying to rekindle a completely dead flame.
The cushionless linoleum floor. The moldy smell from the walls. The lights that flickered now and then. Looking at all of it, was there really a reason to keep living?
I don’t know.
There wasn’t even a reason to think about it. Seo Harang was away from home more often than not. Which meant Seo Hayan spent a lot of time alone in the house.
Soon it would go out. Soon she would die. Soon she would be happy. But dying while clutching the ashes was impossible—because her brother’s heart had finally stirred her own will.
Sacrifice and family love. Seo Harang kept pouring the love and effort he had received from their mother and father into his little sister, and at last Seo Hayan received it. And that boundless affection and love changed more than just her will to live. Once her heart moved, her romantic feelings moved right along with it.
Anyway, Seo Hayan had believed that happy life would last forever.
“Oppa?”
She had believed that if the two of them worked together, they could overcome any hardship.
“Where did you go without eating? I even left you a text…”
The springs were gone, but compared to the linoleum the mattress was still soft—and yet no warmth remained on it.
Did he just step out for a bit? He’s not picking up the phone…
She thought it was just a temporary break. Or maybe he was working a job that included lodging. The former she could understand, but the latter happened often enough. And when it did, he rarely answered texts or calls.
Even if he is taking a break… our Oppa has worked so hard until now. He deserves a day off. I’ll just work harder myself.
But he never came back. No matter how long she waited, he never came back.
To keep living, to show she was different from who she used to be, to welcome Seo Harang back after his break, and so that even if he had completely gone off the rails she could support him—she worked hard and came home, yet there was still no warmth.
What came back instead was—
—Bzzzt…
“Ugh!”
Nothing but baffling texts that looked exactly like his usual self. She replied, but all that came back was the “lol” that defied any precise guess.
In truth, the proportion of short, clipped replies in the texts from Seo Harang had been increasing lately. What was wrong with sending over three hundred messages a day? He was just making good use of the Wi-Fi they had installed. Still, she could endure it for now. He rarely answered the phone, claiming he was busy, but she could still endure it. Because at least he was alive.
No—being alive wasn’t the end of the problem. The balance in the family account she managed under their names had skyrocketed.
He said he awakened…
Was he out there grinding his body to earn money? Her worries only grew for no good reason. Seo Hayan couldn’t even touch the swelling assets, while her feelings for Seo Harang piled up thick and sticky.
And then she heard that name. From none other than her own friend. It was the same name, but a different gender. Yet for her right now, handing that name over wasn’t even an option.
The Awakener Unit. A place with only women.
So what? Whatever it is, I have to see for myself. And if someone else is impersonating that name… I’ll make them change it.
Even if it was someone else’s name, it belonged to that person. Impersonation was nonsense, and there was no way an Awakener would listen to threats from a non-Awakened like Seo Hayan. In other words, she was that desperate.
Using the unit information she got from her friend, she submitted a visitation request. No reply had come yet. Skipping all the other stories, Seo Hayan was going through her own daily routine again today. Finishing her part-time job, then calling her Oppa who never picked up. He roughly answered texts, but never the phone. Because he had noticed the way her heart was bending in a direction it shouldn’t. Though he himself didn’t realize it.
Is he really that busy after all?
Even as she slumped dejectedly, she couldn’t put down the receiver. Even while thinking “what if” and “as expected,” she couldn’t let go of the thread of hope—
“Hello?”
Ah. It connected. But the voice was different.
Who are you? You? Why is a woman answering when I called that number? It’s not a girlfriend or anything, right? If it is, I might really, truly fall apart.
“Who is this?”
This wasn’t the voice of the little sister I knew. The chill coming through the receiver made goosebumps prickle up my skin without me realizing it. We usually bantered back and forth. In other words, we were close enough to tease each other without holding back.
“Uh…”
“Who are you. Speak up already.”
Even so, an Awakener getting intimidated by her little sister made no sense. I had to show some composure.
“Harang’s girlfriend, Seo Harang—”
“Lie.”
Scary. My instincts screamed that going any further would be dangerous. Better to back off before I made a complete fool of myself.
“Seo Harang.”
“I know that. So what’s your relationship with my Oppa?”
“It’s me.”
Silence.
“What are you talking about.”
“It’s me. I told you I awakened, right? It happened against my will… Wait, didn’t I tell you? About me?”
Fuzzy. I scrolled up through the chat room looking for the message I had left my sister before leaving.
Is this a pervert? Looking at it with the context cut off, it was nothing but a pervert who mentioned and took his little sister’s underwear. Still, I probably explained the situation…
I didn’t?
I just said I awakened and immediately asked to borrow underwear. At this rate, she would think I had awakened some special sexual fetish rather than becoming an Awakener. Even if I was in a rush, this was a bit… Well, I could just explain it now.
“Back then I said I was borrowing your underwear, right?”
“You did…?”
“I turned into a woman and had nothing to wear.”
“Ah…”
She still seemed to be wavering over whether she could believe it. Of course she would be confused. The gender of the blood relative she had lived with suddenly changed. I still hadn’t adapted myself. Every morning when I looked in the mirror I jumped in surprise.
I listed off my resident registration number, our parents’ names, and the place we lived before I came to the unit one after another, but the other end of the line stayed silent. I had heard there were precedents, but it was clearly not something that happened easily. She would need time to prepare her heart.
“I get that you’re confused right now. So take your time thinking it over…”
“It’s possible.”
“Huh?”
“It’s possible. Now I just have to call you Unnie instead of Oppa, right?”
The acceptance was way too fast. I still couldn’t believe it myself, yet my blood relative believed me first. You could call it family love that trusted me more than I trusted myself. No, in this case it was probably something pointing in a different direction than family love.
It’s fine! We’re the same gender now! Even if she holds those feelings, there’s nowhere for them to go, right? Hayan will be able to set them aside without much trouble. Once I caught my breath and felt relieved, a little warmth welled up belatedly. Yeah, I really raised my little sister well.
“What you call me is… up to you. For now.”
“Then I’ll call you Unnie.”
Hearing it like that, it somehow didn’t feel like it was referring to me. Like a round, soft word that didn’t match my beastly heart.
“Unnie, you’re taking care of your body properly, right?”
“Well… since I picked up the phone like this, I must be doing fine, right? How have you been?”
“Hell.”
“Huh?”
“It’s hell. This place without Unnie.”
“Ah… yeah, it is pretty run-down. But didn’t you get some money? You should have moved to a nicer place. I had them put money into that account for you to use.”
“How could I. That’s money Unnie earned through hardship. Oh right. I’m going to visit Unnie’s unit soon.”
“Eungh?”
“It’s a relief. That Unnie really was our Oppa. Huh? The words feel a little weird?”
I felt like I was being pushed along. Under the barrage of words pouring through the receiver like a dam bursting, I could only keep repeating things like “Uh,” “Yeah.”
“Just thinking about seeing you after so long makes my heart race again… Ah! Should I buy something to eat when I come? How about it?”
“Uh… I don’t know? More importantly, is there a set date for when you’re coming?”
“Nope. They said they’ll contact me separately if they approve it over there? More importantly, are you using my underwear well? I really misunderstood, you know? I thought our Oppa had finally gone completely off the deep end—”
“That was fair. I didn’t explain the situation properly. I was really out of it.”
I had kept a little distance lately.
“Harang!”
While we were catching up on the conversations we had put off, Jeong Seung-a’s voice called from a distance.
“Superhuman Seo Harang.”
“Who is that?”
“A senior from the same living quarters.”
“Is it a woman?”
“Huh? This is a women’s unit.”
“Ah, then… hmm…”
“My unit senior is calling me so I think I have to hang up for now. Send me a text later.”
“Ah, okay. Ah! From now on don’t ignore my calls! For real!”
“Got it.”
I hung up with a soft laugh.
“Who was that?”
This time Jeong Seung-a asked who it was.
“My little sister.”
“You mentioned having a little sister, right? You two seem close.”
“Well, closer than with other people, I suppose. We lived just the two of us from the start.”
“That’s amazing. If it were me, I wouldn’t have been able to take care of a little sister in that situation.”
“Nah, Superhuman Jeong Seung-a would have done better than me. So what brings you here?”
“Hmm? Just. I went out with Superhuman Kim Heejin but you didn’t come in separately. I was looking around to see if something happened. Wondered if maybe you got scolded or something.”
Because I got chewed out so much on a regular basis, that impression had stuck. I felt a little sorry for making her come look for me.
“I made a promise with Superhuman Kim Heejin.”
“A promise?”
“Since we got selected for the rest living quarters anyway, we decided to train together and pump each other up. Still, Superhuman Kim Heejin doesn’t think badly of me or anyth—”
“…You made a promise with me too, right?”
“Huh?”
My body flinched at the slightly lowered atmosphere around Jeong Seung-a. What promise? It wasn’t hard to recall.
“The meditation promise, you mean?”
“Yeah. The meditation promise.”
That smiling eyes of hers seemed to block any refusal. Not that a junior could refuse in the first place.