#29 Sunflower and Milestone (5)
“Patient Seohae, number 26.”
A clear but somewhat businesslike, dry woman's voice echoed through the waiting room over the speaker. This was a fairly large university hospital, so the crowd of waiting patients thinned out in an instant. Since Yuchan had stepped up as Seohae's guardian for the time being, he rose and headed to the examination room with her. Seohae had been flashing him meaningful smiles from earlier, but he had no idea why until they actually stepped inside.
Once in the room, the female doctor wearing rimless glasses and a white coat spun her chair around toward the door where Seohae and Yuchan had entered. She seemed not to have noticed Yuchan yet, greeting Seohae alone with a delighted expression.
“Aigoo, my little one’s here? What’s up with you—no call for a whole month.”
Seohae trotted toward the doctor like a puppy, putting on the same cutesy act she sometimes pulled with Yuchan—usually only when throwing an absurd tantrum. They must be pretty close.
“Auntie, I brought a husband candidate.”
He knew he was the ridiculous subject of that label, but the situation was too ambiguous to object, so he gave a light bow in greeting. The doctor, noticing Yuchan belatedly, stared at him with a blank face for a moment before it twisted into suppressed anger a few seconds later. That blazing glare, like flames shooting up from hell, came after Seohae, flustered by the unexpectedly intense reaction, explained the whole story.
2.
“...That’s why the heart can’t function properly, it can’t maintain blood pressure, and the patient dies. Right now, there’s no alternative treatment besides a transplant. There is an artificial heart option, but Seohae absolutely refuses it...”
Taking advantage of the gap during Seohae’s detailed examination, Yuchan went up to the rooftop with her aunt, who was also her attending physician. The summer rooftop was sweltering as always, with white sheets drying in the sun fluttering in the breeze. Yuchan stood in one shady corner untouched by the sunlight. She held a coffee; he had a cigarette in his mouth.
Over about two minutes, he heard an explanation of Seohae’s illness filled with more than half words he couldn’t comprehend. The doctor explained without any filtering, throwing around medical terms, leaving him no choice but to nod along despite not understanding most of it. But one thing he did grasp: Seohae was going to die.
It was always like this. Everything he wanted always slipped from his grasp and broke on its own.
“I see.”
He exhaled the dry response along with cigarette smoke.
“Yes. By the way, I was surprised. Seohae’s pretty shy despite how she seems. I never imagined she’d bring a guy to an exam.”
Even talking to someone other than Seohae, she spoke in her usual expression and tone. For that brief habit he’d observed to break like that—it was Seohae’s influence in its own way, intriguing.
“She didn’t seem like that at all.”
“Seohae never wants to show anyone her sick side.”
She trailed off, then added with profound pity.
“Even if they stick a huge needle in her, she bites her lip and endures. She used to cry over every little fall when she was little. And yet here she is, still a kid, worrying about adults.”
“So, how much time does she have left?”
It was a vague question, but she understood immediately. She must hear that kind from guardians all the time.
“Impossible to say. It’s an unpredictable disease where she could die any day depending on her condition. The hospital can’t do much more, so at her request, we sent her to that island for rest...”
She crushed the empty paper coffee cup with a helpless expression, on the verge of tears.
“Even if she stays at the hospital, there’s no cure?”
“At best, painkillers. Pain isn’t common, but many patients want them because of the numbness in their limbs. And painkillers can just be prescribed for home use.”
“When was the illness discovered?”
Yuchan asked her the facts he couldn’t from Seohae directly.
“At 15. It’s a congenital heart defect that manifests with growth, and cases are so rare domestically that early detection was tough.”
So she’d been suffering on the border between life and death for years now. Yuchan asked,
“Doesn’t it make you sad?”
It might have been a question for himself.
“Of course it does. She’s my sister’s daughter, the one I loved. But there’s nothing to be done. I just want her to enjoy whatever time she has left...”
Tears welled up in the eyes of the doctor who’d seemed so cold. She removed her glasses, wiped them away with a handkerchief, and looked at Yuchan.
“Still, thank you. It’s been ages since I’ve seen her smile so brightly. I was really shocked by how she was today. But aren’t you sad, Yuchan?”
His own question echoed back at him.
“I don’t know.”
If it were everyday Yuchan, he’d have given a clearer, more human answer. Her surprise at his unfeigned response made her look flustered. He stubbed out his cigarette on the railing and turned away.
“I won’t know until that time comes.”
3.
After descending from the rooftop and parting with her, he met Seohae, who’d finished her simple tests, and they left the hospital. As the brightly smiling girl spoke, an image flashed in his mind of the building itself trying to crush her, filling him with disgust. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her out.
There was no reason. It was just that the place where Seohae stood had shifted from the lighthouse to the hospital lobby, and she looked out of place, like a fairy-tale character yanked into reality. The building felt like a monster with malice. For some reason, anger surged.
4.
Return trip to the island. The sunset-lit train rumbled toward the island, still sparsely populated.
“Of course it’s tough!”
When he asked if the detailed exam had been hard, she snapped back indignantly. His usual flat tone must have come off as that’s all it took? He’d been awfully indifferent until now, he realized. Not a lie. Even knowing she suffered from illness, he hadn’t noticed her strain.
No helping it. At the center of her Black Box bloomed a sunflower forever facing the sky, fully open. A wide-open flower symbolized prime mental health. Yuchan, limited in reading human reactions, had to rely on the Black Box—and this time, its diagnosis had been off.
“Needles hurt that much.”
Seohae spread her index finger and thumb to show the needle’s length. A bloodstained gauze patch clung to her slender white forearm.
“Why do people have to hurt so much?”
“It’s uncomfortable, sure. But without pain, humans couldn’t survive. It’s the body’s first signal to the brain that something’s wrong.”
They’d grown close enough for him to use his natural speech like this. Seohae never forced empathy on him.
“I know, but... if it’s a disease you can’t survive anyway, wouldn’t it be better if it didn’t hurt, so you could enjoy your remaining time?”
It was the kind of remark that would make an observer wince. Seohae casually voiced the topic Yuchan had unconsciously avoided, then yawned nonchalantly. Another wave of displeasure. An indescribable, smoldering emotion flared and faded.
He masked the unease with a teasing tone.
“What happened to the one who said pain proves you’re alive?”
“That’s just resolve to accept reality. You know I’m a masochist, right? Bet you know what that means, mister.”
“I’ve got some insight.”
“I can drop sex jokes too. I’m not just some kid.”
Seohae stretched her arms forward like a cat. Her body had barely any curves—an utter child’s frame. No conviction in those words. Catching his gaze, she flushed crimson and huddled, clutching her chest.
“Where you looking! Pervert.”
“Nothing to look at anyway.”
“Wow~ Big chest, tall girls only? Mr. Hotshot.”
Her serious face made the obvious sound profound, leaving him no room to argue. A brief silence. After wriggling on the train seat like she’d collapse there, she asked,
“So why do you think the heart hurts? It doesn’t kill you, but it clearly exists.”
“It doesn’t really exist.”
He’d never felt heartache. His heart only hurt during hardcore workouts. Declaring what he couldn’t know as truth felt ridiculous. Or maybe, as usual, he hoped she’d teach him this inner contradiction. Even if he couldn’t grasp it, Seohae always explained emotions in ways he could understand.
“Like, when you’re sad, your heart really hurts, right?”
“That’s why it’s meaningless. Just poison you make inside yourself eating you up? Inefficient.”
“There you go again. No wonder girls dump you.”
“Still the truth.”
“I think pain has meaning, just like heartache has a reason. You feel most alive when your heart stings like this.”
“No. There’s no reason.”
“That sounds like your story, mister.”
Sensing defiance, Seohae retorted in a higher pitch than usual. If heartache were essential to life, Yuchan would be robbed of any reason to live. For the first time since meeting her, he stared straight into her eyes. Absurdly swollen hatred and rage writhed in his chest.
“Then my life has no meaning either?”
Seohae, about to argue back as usual, lost her words at his bloodshot eyes.
“I hate those emotions you take for granted. All deficient and irrational, yet you flaunt them without effort like it’s fun? Proud?”
It was an outburst unimaginable from the cynical Yuchan, always one step removed from emotion. Like a wolf shedding sheepskin.
“Feeling awe at stars, moved by books, naturally saddened by others’ pain—is that what makes you human, what makes life? Then...”
To Seohae, it looked like a scream.
“What am I...?”
The murderous aura pouring from Yuchan was intimidating even for an adult man. Yet the much smaller girl reached toward the bared fangs of the beast.
“Don’t do that.”
This girl. Unable to hate others, always fretting and hurting herself instead. Her cheek, paler than when they’d met, was streaked with tears.
“Stop trying to hurt yourself, mister...”
“...”
That sight filled Yuchan’s chest with raw, violent impulse. Would she stay the same peering under this mask? He wanted to see this blunt girl’s face drown in despair and terror.
“I’ve killed people.”
Seohae’s response shattered his expectations to the end.
“Then kill me too.”
She smiled brightly, refusing to bend to his will no matter what.