The Girl Breadwinner Han Seyeon
Han Seyeon bowed her head deeply to the foreman.
"Good work today."
"Yeah! Get going!"
A middle-aged woman full of wrinkles and kindness—that was the typical foreman on a construction site. Her rough speech and booming voice were easy to misread, but Seyeon knew they were simply the marks of years lived hard. When an adult saw a young person, the urge to help rose unbidden. It wasn't the scolding heart of some old fogey looking for yellow sprouts to criticize. It was the duty of someone who knew the family's circumstances and the life being lived.
"Take some extra coffee mix and bread with you!"
"Thank you, Foreman."
Han Seyeon bowed once more. Both hands full of leftover bread and drinks from the mid-morning break, she was still grateful. This wasn't mere leftover disposal. It was an adult's quiet wish to give her something—anything. So she offered her thanks with her whole heart.
Meal money saved. The faint lift at the corners of her mouth was a small happiness carved out of a worn-down life.
Clock in at five-thirty in the morning. Clock out at four-thirty in the afternoon. That was a day of hard labor. Yet Han Seyeon never left the site until five. She stayed to use the rundown shower facilities.
Construction sites were thick with dust; filth could splash anywhere. Dust mixed with sweat hardened on the skin and left a foul smell. The shower room labeled "welfare" was a space no one else used. Hot water never came, and a fishy stench filled the air, so only Seyeon ever stepped inside. Still, she dried her hair completely before she began preparing to leave.
Some might wonder why she didn't just wash at home.
"Haa..."
Han Seyeon thought of one particular man. Lucky enough to have snagged a subway seat, she pictured the family she was responsible for—her blood, her younger brother, Han Sein.
Three years between them. In an ordinary family they might have bickered until they became enemies. But the delicate balance of student and guardian, plus their wretched home life, had forced her to become an adult. At the same time, something twisted had been born inside her.
Even she did not know the reason. She turned it over and over, yet it always came back to one thing: she never wanted her younger brother to see her looking bad. It was deeply contradictory, yet she kept doing things she herself did not understand, telling herself it was simple human courtesy.
She showered uncomfortably at the site. The house was rundown too, of course. Anyone forced to choose between the two would pick home without hesitation.
It had been a happy day. At the same time, it had been a sad one.
A soft ding chimed from her smartphone. The reason for Han Seyeon's deep sigh lay right there in her hand.
She turned the screen off without expression and quietly closed her eyes. Physical and mental exhaustion had finally caught up with her. There were still forty minutes left on the ride. Closing her eyes for a little while would be fine.
"Mm, just right."
Han Sein nodded in satisfaction. Five years of living alone, twisting his body every which way for girlfriends—those experiences had left him with real cooking skill. The clock was already pushing toward six. As if by appointment, the sound of the door-lock keypad being pressed reached his ears. He had expected it, yet he still watched the front door with a tense expression. He had the memories, and he had a purpose.
Waking up in this new world still felt awkward to Han Sein. Past-life and present-life memories tangled together until he hardly knew what to do with himself. If he hadn't run the simulation in his head beforehand, he would certainly have been flustered.
Click.
"...You're home?"
"Uh, yeah…"
He had sworn to himself more than ten times not to panic. Yet Han Sein could not hide his shock. More accurately, he had simply gone blank. And for good reason: his older sister, Han Seyeon, was far more beautiful than any photograph or memory had prepared him for.
A photo could never capture a whole person. Was it because she had been a boxing prospect? There was an atmosphere about her. Sharp, wolf-like eyes. A firm gaze. Even while doing rough work, her skin remained taut and luminous like a celebrity's. Winter had not yet fully left, yet her hair—glossy, without a single dry strand—fell long into a ponytail.
A brief silence. The air grew a little strange. Han Seyeon's gaze took him in: apron tied around his waist, ladle in hand. The odd part was that she could not quite meet his eyes. In the glance that brushed past him, guilt flickered.
Seyeon felt uncomfortable; Sein felt it keenly. Back then, Sein had been a first-year middle-schooler and Seyeon a first-year high-schooler. Puberty made a child sensitive. Boy or girl, that was the age when adults were supposed to look after them and show consideration. But Han Seyeon had received none. Instead she had watched others' faces and been driven closer and closer to the edge of a cliff.
Their mother beat her children. She only hit them when she drank, so it wasn't every single day—yet she drank every day, so in practice it was every day. Han Seyeon was human too. A cruel twist of fate had struck the girl who had been rising through boxing. A major incident occurred, and she put down her gloves. Cornered and raw, she faced a little brother who was pure sunlight.
It must have been inevitable. The only person she could entrust her heart and her back to was her sibling. The still-immature girl briefly became like their mother. Blood connected them; resemblance was unavoidable.
A darkened room. The shadow cast by moonlight took the shape of a monster. A hand rose beside the head and came down like lightning. The great thunderclap startled both child and girl. Cheeks burned as if on fire. The girl fled the spot in panic—no apology, no explanation, nothing. Time simply kept flowing. After that day, Han Seyeon never struck Han Sein again.
"Have you eaten?"
"Not yet…"
"Let's eat together."
"Okay…"
An awkward, ambiguous relationship. Complex duties and feelings tangled together. Under the name of siblings, Han Sein and Han Seyeon were knotted like a ball of thread. Neither of them had any idea how to untangle it. Yet reality forced them to face each other. The knotted emotions and relationship were a ball of yarn, it said—tangled every which way, but it still rolled forward. Cold reality spoke that way.
"You'll wash after you eat, right?"
"Yeah."
Separately from all that, today was a good day. Han Seyeon was in a slightly lifted mood. Perhaps that was why she noticed nothing unusual about the slightly different Sein standing before her. Well—she did feel a faint strangeness in the air. There was a heated gaze too, but it was one she could not meet.
Han Sein believed she worked cleanly. Construction labor, yes, but she never actually rolled around on site. That was a white lie born of not wanting to worry him.
In any case, the meal began. Soybean-paste stew and side dishes. No meat, yet the spread was far from tasteless. Good enough that both of them emptied two bowls. Not a single word passed between them while they ate.
After the only guardian—their mother—vanished, inside the frame called family, Han Seyeon lived under the responsibility of protecting Sein, while Sein lived under the hope of escaping their circumstances. In those crossed feelings, what looked like discord was actually both of them dreaming of a future.
"Is it uncomfortable changing clothes?"
"...No."
Han Seyeon's expression darkened. If there was one thing she never got used to, it was the silence. She forced the rice down. She wanted to say something—anything—but as both the one who had once hurt him and the one who now protected him, she found it hard to step forward. She had voiced the old discomfort she remembered, yet the result was poor.
Man and woman. Soon they would be academy students and adults. They lived inside the frame of family, yet that fact did not change. And she had made another mistake. Words she had offered as consideration only made the air colder and more awkward. In truth Sein thought nothing of it, but Seyeon felt the discomfort. She reproached herself inwardly. She should never have brought it up. The food suddenly tasted strange.
Then the unexpected arrived all at once.
"Pfft…"
"…?"
Han Seyeon froze. There were many words that could define their relationship, but looking at the atmosphere right now, it could be summed up in one: awkward and difficult. And yet Han Sein had let out a laugh. From her perspective it was something she could never have imagined, so she ended up facing him fully.
How long had it been? Not the sleeping face of Han Sein, not the face of Han Sein watched from afar, but the face of Han Sein sitting across the table—person to person. Seeing that was something fresh and full of hope.
"Ah..."
Han Seyeon let out a soft sound of wonder. A warm breeze seemed to blow. Spring wind. In weather that was the end of February and the brink of March, at a semi-basement dining table, she felt spring. It was not a bright smile. Just the slightest lift of the corners of his mouth. Close to expressionless, yet more vivid than any face she had ever seen.
Han Seyeon faced Han Sein for the first time in years. Something ticklish stirred inside her chest. In a busy, worn-down life, in an environment that exhausted people, it was the tiniest ripple she had ever felt as Han Seyeon. So small and insignificant she could not even name it yet—yet the word that made her heart tremble was unmistakably flutter.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Thanks for the meal."
"B-bathroom…"
Han Seyeon spoke the word like a prisoner asking a warden for permission. The shape of it was awkward and odd, yet Han Sein only nodded. Family bound by blood. The word flutter was far too heavy a shackle to use for them.
Han Sein headed for the bathroom. And—
"Euk…"
The moment the door closed, a scent that made his face flush hot on its own stabbed at the tip of his nose. They said there was no paradise in the place you fled to. That saying did not always hold true.