A New Beginning
Her mother’s condition had improved drastically, even though it had only been two days since she started treatment with the new medical device. Even her younger brother, who had come to visit, was stunned.
"...Mom, what is all this?"
"I don't know. It just keeps piling up. Have you been doing well, Sujong?"
"Yeah... Oh, right, Mom. I bought this for you. Drink this."
Min Sujong, Min Suyeon’s younger brother, had arrived for the visit dressed in a neat suit, carrying various teas touted to be good for one's health. Under normal circumstances, he would have been asking, "Are you still working at the construction site...?"
"I'm not doing that anymore... It's strange. Something feels... off."
The previous night, after getting off work, Sujong had been wearing his work boots and uniform when he contacted his site foreman. But the news he received was unexpected.
"Don't bother coming in anymore."
"Foreman, I've been working really hard..."
"No, they told me not to hire you. Don't come."
At the time, he had assumed it was because the job was just a side gig he did after his main shift, and that they simply didn't need him anymore. He had kicked off his shoes, feeling dejected, and reached out to several other places, but the answer was the same everywhere: they had no work for him.
It was around that time that someone knocked on the door of his semi-basement apartment.
"Who is it..."
"Let's go inside. I'll explain once we're in!"
Behind the man was a black sedan, longer than the entire length of Sujong’s semi-basement home, and in front of him, the man was waving and greeting him.
Confused as to what was happening, Sujong asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm a Managing Director at Doowon. Han Suhyun."
"How did you find this place..."
"Right, I shouldn't have just walked in... Wait a second."
The man opened the trunk of his car, lifted an apple box with both hands, and, looking around nervously to see if anyone was watching, hurried into the semi-basement room.
"Take this."
"...Apples..."
It was literally a box of apples. Sujong wondered what he was supposed to do with them.
"Once you finish those apples, something good will happen. ...I only gave you the apples."
"...?"
Sujong stared at the apples, thinking that since his older sister, Min Suyeon, liked apples, she might be happy if he brought some in a plastic bag. Still, why was this box, which only contained a few apples, so heavy...?
"...! T-this is all...?"
"I only gave you the apples."
He had pulled a few out to check their quality, holding them in his hand, and thought that even for a fruit box, the apples were stacked suspiciously high. So, Sujong lifted the cardboard layer underneath slightly.
"Don't do manual labor anymore. I'm the one who made it so you couldn't do it."
"Why on earth..."
"It ruins your body. I went out to do it once to earn drinking money and passed out. Don't do it. It's dangerous."
Usually, if you fill an apple box with 10,000-won bills, it comes out to about 120 million won. That was what Sujong had just received. Why didn't he give him 50,000-won bills? ...He could go to the hospital and argue about that. There were many things that weren't covered by company welfare, like non-insured treatments and high-level hospital fees. And it felt a bit much to give more to someone who wasn't the primary party involved.
"Why are you giving me something like this...? Who are you?"
"I told you, I'm a Managing Director at Doowon. You know, the guy who got that medal."
"Ah."
It was an easy introduction. *The guy who got that medal.* That was enough.
"But why to me..."
"Your sister is Min Suyeon, right?" His tone was slightly like an intelligence agent's, but... "Yes, what about my sister... Ah, my sister works at Doowon..."
But why, why to him?
"I understand that your family was scattered due to financial difficulties. You'll likely be reuniting soon, so please, I ask that you speak to your sister."
"....?"
"I would be grateful if you could urge her to accept the request I, Han Suhyun, have made."
Sujong wore a dazed expression. He didn't even know what the request was, yet he was being asked to encourage her to accept it. The man turned to head back to his car.
Just moments ago, when the door had first opened, Sujong had looked at him as if he were a cult recruiter, but now—
"I-is that really all I have to do...? That money is..."
"Oh, take this too." He had forgotten. He’d packed a Chuseok Hanwoo gift set, too, and almost took it home with him.
"..."
"Share it with your family."
"...Anyway, that's what happened. Mom, it's strange..."
"Son, who did you say that person was? He received a medal?"
His mother didn't watch TV, so she didn't know the situation, but she felt that her daughter was about to get involved in something important.
"I'm worried about what's going on... Suyeon didn't say anything..."
"...But my sister is smart, so..."
And at that moment, Min Suyeon was—
"Why aren't you contacting me..."
At first, she scolded herself for waiting. Why was she waiting for that psychopath? But she couldn't help it. Two conflicting feelings were mixed in her mind: the part that viewed him as a psychopath, and the part that saw him as a good person who had listened to her screams when she was on the verge of death.
But the latter feeling was slowly consuming her mind.
Monday—right, he was busy, so it couldn't be helped. He had apologized, and he was busy in the morning. Then, he probably went into the office in the afternoon, but he must have been swamped with work. Tuesday, too... And Wednesday, today.
No matter how busy he was... still, it was strange that there had been no contact even by Wednesday evening.
"I'm taking the medicine... so fucking well..."
For the first time in her 28 years of life, Min Suyeon was taking the medication prescribed by her doctor religiously. She felt resentful. She had intended to live a slightly better life before dying, which was why she was taking her medicine so well.
"Good, keep doing that."
"Is having a mental illness a problem? You just need to get treated properly."
It felt like she was hearing auditory hallucinations. ...Very occasionally, she heard them. When her stress reached its peak, Min Suyeon often felt auditory hallucinations. And visual ones, too. Although she had gotten much better since taking the medicine, in the past, she would see the employees of the BP that fired her, the employees of Total, the interviewers looking at her with pity, and the contemptuous expressions of the DW Chemical staff. Those things used to appear in her semi-basement room.
And now—
"Did you take your medicine?"
"...You asshole..."
"You have to take your medicine well. This is a very expensive medicine."
Both the visual and auditory hallucinations were making her think of Han Suhyun.
"If you were going to be like this, you shouldn't have come at all..."
Anxiety disorder, impulsive behavior, affection deficiency, antisocial personality disorder. It wasn't a long-standing illness, but because it had worsened in an instant, the speed at which she was recovering was just as rapid once a person named Han Suhyun appeared in her life.
And, around the time she realized she was recovering so quickly that she could recognize she had been ill—that is, from before she went to sleep yesterday until now—she had been thinking about him constantly.
"Should I just go find him again?"
"Find me? What are you talking about? I'm a very busy person."
She heard the hallucination again. But how would she find him? She needed an excuse. She had already apologized. ...Should she go to extort money? Maybe about 10 trillion won, an amount he could never pay... Yes, in a world where it's hard to even possess 1 trillion won, how could he have 10 trillion?
"10 trillion... or maybe just..."
Misinterpreting the "honesty" the doctor spoke of, Min Suyeon thought about just telling him to have sex. *Isn't it convenient?* she thought to herself. If she were a man, wouldn't it be really convenient if a woman like herself offered her body? Sex solely for the purpose of satisfying desires, without any strings attached. Since she had never done it before, Min Suyeon simply concluded that the feeling she got when thinking of him—the suppression of sexual impulses—was what "satisfaction" meant.
"It's not like I'm having an affair..."
What should she do? What excuse could she use to go see him and stall for time? What could she do to see the person named Han Suhyun again?
"You didn't even contact me..."
"Ah, were you waiting for me to contact you?"
Min Suyeon thought it would be more comfortable to just answer the hallucination. Wouldn't it feel like she was having a conversation with him if she did that? In truth, she liked the conversation itself. The way he made eye contact when he listened to her stories, the way he didn't interrupt her, and the way he would murmur his own thoughts only after catching that she had finished speaking. Under normal circumstances, she would have dismissed it as the hypocritical behavior of the *chaebol* class, but—
"I was waiting..."
"Why were you waiting?"
"...Because I want to talk to you..."
"You were always cursing so much."
Yes, that was true. She had cursed a lot. "I'm... feeling a little sorry."
"Are you saying you're sorry to me?"
"Yes..."
Well, even saying this, she was aware that she was alone in the house. She had that much cognitive ability. She wasn't a lunatic. So, Min Suyeon spoke honestly, just as the doctor had advised.
"Why are you sorry?"
"You treat me well, but that's the only thing I know how to say..."
"Why is that the only thing you know how to say?"
"Words... they don't come out nicely."
Whenever she saw a man—no, if it got any worse, she felt like she would curse even at animals or plants just because they were in her sight. Her body was enduring that much overload. Working every day, money that never accumulated. Did he know the feeling of pouring water into a cracked jar for 28 years? If you live a life like that, you end up like this. "What do I have to do to make them come out nicely?"
It was strange. ...Was it because she was too immersed in the hallucination? She had lived ignoring it until now. Why did it sound so vivid? But she trusted herself too much. She trusted her own thought that she knew all of this was a hallucination, so—
"Conversation, money, and... sex."
"...?"
She was not alone.