Even a Family Reunion Comes After the Meal
The blood dried stiff into the hospital gown sent a nurse scrambling for a doctor, but exam after exam came back with the same bland verdict: nothing actually wrong.
"If anything starts to feel off, you really must tell us. Your stomach's probably a wreck right now, so if you cough up blood again, say something right away, all right?"
"I'm seriously fine."
"Haa..."
"...Yes."
And once again, the meal was porridge.
"Porridge again?"
"Unnie? The doctor said your stomach's really upset. It's nutritional porridge, so let's just eat it, okay...?"
Eight meals in three days, and every one of them porridge. Not even the common courtesy of a little soy sauce for salt, and not a generous bowl either, just a miserable little tail of a portion, and I was supposed to call that a meal? I had reached the point where preparing to die sounded better than eating another bowl of the stuff. Porridge, or the grave: at this rate they were starting to feel like the same plan.
"I want a proper meal today, no matter what. I don't want porridge. I want galbitang..."
"What? No, Unnie. If you eat something like that, your stomach will get worse."
"I'm really fine... I know my own body better than anyone. Isn't there any way at all?"
If I could get something hot and filling into me, I was ready to pay several times what it was worth. I had gone that long without a real meal.
"I... I really shouldn't. You'll hurt yourself..."
"I won't. Look how healthy I am."
I gave her a bright little smile, and she seemed to come to some grand decision, because she pulled out her phone.
"Then I'll bring it in and tell everyone it's for me. Okay, Unnie?"
"Oh. Thank you."
"But there are conditions."
"...Conditions?"
I braced for something difficult. What she asked for was, surprisingly, not that hard at all.
"First, stop talking so formally. You didn't before you disappeared either, and hearing you be polite with me just makes you feel so far away."
"That much is nothing."
Easy enough. I'd had a little sister in my previous life, too.
"Second, always be careful with your body. Watching you cough up blood earlier felt like my heart was being ripped in half."
"..."
This one wasn't exactly difficult either, was it? All I had to do was not mess up.
"Can you keep them?"
"Yes, of course."
"Casual."
"...Of course I can."
She left the room wearing a satisfied smile, and a little while later she came back with a galbitang still steaming, that deep short-rib soup I had been dreaming of. At last, a real meal. Look at it. That hot, solid, honest bowl. Just the sight of it had my mouth flooding.
If anyone interrupted me this time, I was fully prepared to die right alongside them. I hadn't gotten to eat the rice soup. I hadn't gotten to eat the dumpling soup. The only thing I'd managed was a single piece of sandwich. I had a right to be happy.
I popped the lid and dumped a reckless amount of seasoned chili paste into the broth. It tasted flat, so I scattered in just the right pinch of seasoned salt, then finished the seasoning with a splash of cubed-radish kimchi brine.
"That's plenty of salt."
Scallions next, a grind of pepper, and rice stirred through until the bowl became galbitang in its perfect form.
"Perfect."
I spooned up the rice-laden broth, laid a piece of meat on top, crowned it with one cube of radish kimchi, and took an enormous bite.
Slurp.
Sweet and salty at once, and then a clean spike of heat across my tongue. The meat, simmered down just enough, danced in my mouth and melted, and the crisp crunch of the radish kimchi put the final stroke on the painting.
"It's delicious... I'm so happy."
For the first time since I'd turned into this, I was eating a meal that actually filled me. The moment my stomach went warm and heavy, every bit of stress those other meals had piled on me seemed to blow clean away.
And just as I was finishing, the nurse who came in to take my blood pressure caught me and gave me an earful.
I woke in the same hospital room as Unnie. Sitting up, I could tell there was someone else in the room besides her.
"Who are you?"
"Police. The two of you collapsed together, so I've been waiting until you woke up."
"You've been at it late into the night. Thank you."
"Well, the overtime pay is decent enough. More importantly, there's something you ought to know."
His face went serious as he started in on Unnie's condition.
"It seems the violent criminal who tortured your sister wasn't feeding her properly. According to the medical staff, to end up looking like that, she probably went close to several months without real meals."
"Then what's going to happen to Unnie?"
"If she couldn't eat, of course her body's weak. And the memory loss is most likely something she did to protect herself. On top of that, the fact that she lost her memories of her family—there's a strong chance it's because that criminal was demanding information about all of you."
If even Unnie, who used to be like a machine without a single feeling, had come out of it with emotions, then how much pain had she been through? And how tremendous was her will, to endure it?
"I'll be going, then. I was told I could clock out once a guardian was awake."
"Yes. Thank you for your hard work."
"Don't mention it. And congratulations on finding your sister, Evergreen."
"?"
By the time I could even shape the question, he was already out of the room and gone.
"That guy was a viewer?"
The world was a ridiculously small place.
I set the absurdity aside and went to Unnie, who lay on the bed as if dead. Her face was pale. Her hair was dry and brittle. And when I looked at her wrists, they were far thinner than they used to be.
"What on earth happened to you in those two years..."
Losing every memory meant the pain had to have been enormous. And as she went on living, whether she wanted to or not, she would find those memories one by one. Was it even right to help her get them back? I couldn't say about the rest, but if she recovered the memories of what she'd suffered, those memories would hurt her for the rest of her life.
"I don't know, Unnie. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Before, she would have told me the solution with that blank face of hers. Now I had to find the way myself.
"Ugh, I'm a little tired. Maybe I'll shut my eyes for a bit too."
I lay down meaning only to rest for a minute, and a familiar hand began to stroke my hair.
Stroke. Stroke.
That feels nice...
Stroke. Stroke.
Wait. Who was petting me? The only person who had ever stroked my head was Unnie. I jolted upright at the thought that she was awake, and only then realized my face was buried in something soft.
"If it's soft, is it a pillow? No. There's no way that's a pillow."
I opened my eyes with care. The soft thing I'd been pressed into was Unnie's stomach.
"HYAAAAAAK?! U-Unnie?!"
I was too flustered to get my head on straight, but she only smiled, warm, and kept stroking my hair.
"Are you awake?"
"S-sorry. How's your body? You okay?"
"I'm a little hungry, but nothing else is wrong."
Unnie, who never used to have feelings, was so beautiful when she smiled like that. But the habit of speaking formally was still right there, and seeing it made me wonder if some fragment of memory might remain after all.
"Unnie? There's something I want to ask..."
"Yes. Ask me anything."
There might be memories. The fact that the habit had stayed gave me hope. Everything tied to what the criminal had done to her might be gone, but surely some fragmentary memories of family were still in there.
"You really don't remember anything? Not even me?"
"I'm sorry. I can't seem to remember a thing."
I looked at her, hoping. What came back was only the same answer: nothing.
"I can't properly remember who you are, or who I am. All I know is the brief information about me on my ID, and the house where I lived. Beyond that, I don't remember anything."
The distant way she said it made something surge up in me before I knew it, and I spoke through the tightness in my throat.
"You really can't remember? What happened? What was so hard that you erased every single memory..."
I'd heard the officer had shot the criminal dead on the spot. Kill three or more people and leave Unnie like this, and dying was exactly what he deserved, but shouldn't he have suffered more? The same things he'd done to Unnie. No. Twice as bad. Three times.
I was sliding into that dark thought when I felt the hand stroke my hair again, and the careful touch began to settle me.
Stroke. Stroke.
"Your habits are still exactly the same."
"I wonder. Isn't petting something cute just everyone's instinct?"
Hearing Unnie call me cute, my face went soft before I could stop it.
"No. You especially loved petting things. Every time I saw you, you were petting something."
The hedgehog had been a bit of a shock. I swallowed that piece of nonsense and asked her again.
"Is there anything you remember, even in bits?"
"No. Nothing."
"I thought if we kept talking, even a little might come back. Guess that's not how it works."
It was fine. There was plenty of time. If we lived slowly, the memories would return. But should I even be hoping she found them? I didn't know.
"Well, it's fine. If we stay together, they'll come back bit by bit. By the way, were you a person who had emotions?"
Until she went missing, Unnie had seemed as feelingless as the machines in movies, as the androids in novels. Had she been acting like she had no emotions, or had she truly had none? I wanted to know so badly it hurt.
She looked at me as if I had said something completely absurd.
"There were people without emotions?"
So she had been pretending to be someone who didn't feel? Why? I was still turning the question over when she suddenly started vomiting blood.
"Hn—kuhk... cough... cough..."
She clutched at her chest and coughed with her face twisted, and the cough came up bloody. Slowly, the blood stained the hospital gown.
"Unnie! Are you okay?!"
"I'm all right. Cough... I'm sorry, but could you bring me some tissues?"
She could not be all right. Coughing up that much blood and being fine would be the strange part, but she was smiling faintly, trying to reassure me.
"Tissues are the problem right now? I'll get the doctor!"
"I'm all right. It isn't anything serious."
"It is not nothing!"
I had to get a doctor. If this kept on, it felt like Unnie was going to die right in front of me, so I started for the door, and then her next words stopped my feet before I knew it.
"This happens sometimes."
"What?"
Her sometimes was not going to be sometimes. She had just lied that she was fine to keep me calm, which meant she was absolutely trying to hide how much she hurt.
The shock of what she'd said locked my head up tight, and the question that followed loosened it again.
"I'm sorry, but may I ask you one thing?"
"What?"
"Could you tell me, briefly, how I lived when I was little?"
If I told her, could she find the memories? Even so, raising the odds by telling her seemed better, so I explained it simply.
"Um... you always went around wearing the same expression, and you lived this incredibly regular life. But why do you ask?"
"I just wanted to know about myself."
Was finding the memories the right thing? Was I only looking for them so I could feel better? What if she found the painful ones first? I worried, and then I decided to think only about right now, and shook the unease off.
"Do you know what time it is?"
"Now? Eleven-forty. Why?"
"Because I'm hungry."
She said it in a drooping, gloomy voice.
...Cute. Unnie, always perfect, always like a machine, looking depressed because she was hungry, was so cute I nearly reached out and petted her without thinking.
"They said lunch is coming soon anyway."
"Oh. What's the lunch menu?"
"No idea. I didn't hear. Sorry, Unnie."
Our conversation ended at the exact moment a nurse arrived at the room, rolling a tray. The instant she saw Unnie, she went straight for the doctor.
"KYAAAAAAK! Doctor!"
Looking again, it really did look serious.
I felt how cute Unnie's sunken face was, and I smiled a bitter smile anyway.