What Was I Doing at Six?
What did I even do when I was six?
“……Right, exactly?”
Mom said it over the phone.
I had nothing to say either.
Ten years old.
Four years of living alone.
No matter how I ran the numbers, I'd been six.
Think about it however you liked—a six-year-old renting her own studio apartment and striking out on her own was absurd.
“Mom.”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you let me move out back then?”
“Why? Because you said you wanted to.”
“I did?”
“Yep.”
“I was six.”
Mom went quiet.
This time it lasted quite a while.
“Huh. So you were.”
“See?”
“That is strange.”
Finally, we were speaking the same language.
I took a sip of banana milk.
“Right?”
“Yeah. It is weird.”
But her next words were a little different.
“Still, you were always so good at taking care of yourself.”
“At six?”
“You were!”
“At what?”
“Everything.”
It made no sense.
And yet Mom genuinely seemed to remember it that way.
So I'd fed myself, bathed myself, put myself to bed, paid rent on time, and lived perfectly fine at six years old?
Is that what dreams are usually like?
Even when you spot something off, a plausible explanation shows up later to paper over it.
The problem was that the explanations weren't all that plausible.
“What are you doing today?”
“Nothing.”
“Want to come home, then?”
“Home?”
“Mom's house.”
Ah.
Right—the place I lived was home, and the place my parents lived was also home.
I used to just call it the family house.
“Should I come?”
“Yes! It's been forever since I've seen your face.”
“How long has it been?”
“A month?”
“……Really?”
That wasn't in my memory.
Well.
At this point, fussing over every little discrepancy was just exhausting.
“I'll come.”
“What about dinner?”
“Eating a hamburger.”
“Filling up on that again?”
“It's good, though.”
“Just get here. I'll make you something.”
“Okay.”
I hung up.
I scarfed down the rest of my hamburger, stood up, and tossed the wrapper and the empty banana milk into the trash.
I still remembered my parents' address.
Worried it might have changed too, I punched it into a map app, but thankfully it was exactly the same.
I was about to take public transit when I remembered the cash in my pocket.
Three hundred thousand won.
I called a taxi instead.
No reason to suffer through a commute when I had money.
It was comfortable.
Sitting in the back seat, watching the city slide past the window, I felt strangely off balance.
As far as I remembered, it had been a long time since I'd seen my parents.
But for Mom, apparently, it had only been a month.
I briefly wondered which version was real.
I gave up quickly enough.
Whatever I remembered was real, from my perspective.
The taxi stopped in front of the familiar apartment complex.
“Thank you.”
I got out.
Looking up, I found the building unchanged.
Same building number, same floor.
I rode the elevator up and stopped in front of the front door.
I pressed the doorbell.
Ding-dong.
A moment later, footsteps sounded from inside.
The door opened.
“You're here?”
A familiar face.
I stared up at it, dumbfounded.
My little sister.
Four years younger than me.
Well—she had been.
Twenty-two.
Now she was twelve years older than me.
“…….”
My sister frowned.
“What? Why are you staring at me like that?”
I thought for a moment.
“You've grown so much.”
“What are you talking about?”
No—had I shrunk?
These days I had to crane my neck just to see her face.
I asked as I took off my shoes.
“So, um.”
“Yeah?”
“What am I supposed to call you now?”
“What?”
My sister looked at me like I'd said something deranged.
“Unnie, obviously.”
Yeah, that was… a bit much.
Asking me to suddenly call a kid who'd been my little sister until I was twenty-six my unnie.
Wasn't the difficulty level a little too high here, in more ways than one?
“I'd rather not.”
“What's that supposed to mean.”
“You're my little sister.”
“Tsk. Have you lost your mind all of a sudden?”
My sister flicked my forehead with a finger.
“That's no way to talk to your unnie.”
“No, you're four years younger than me.”
“I'm twelve years older than you.”
We were getting nowhere.
“That's how it used to be. Used to be.”
“Used to be what? You're being extra weird today, you know that?”
Ugh, so frustrating.
Having my age stolen was bad enough, and now my little sister had become my unnie.
How was any of this fair?
“Anyway, I'm not calling you that.”
“Sure. Do whatever.”
Apparently she didn't care much either way.
Just then, Mom's voice drifted out from deeper in the apartment.
“You made it!”
I headed into the living room, and Mom came out of the kitchen.
The moment she saw me, her face scrunched up.
“What on earth happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at your hair.”
Mom picked at my tangled strands with her fingers a few times.
“Do you even brush this thing?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you mean, sometimes?”
“When it's necessary?”
“Aigoo.”
Mom nudged me toward the couch.
“Sit down first.”
“Aw, why.”
“Hold still.”
Once I was seated, Mom came back with a brush.
“I can do it myself.”
“Then why does it look like this?”
“…….”
I don't know, Mom.
Your son has been a girl for less than a single day, you know.
Swish.
The brush glided slowly down through the long hair.
Where it caught on tangles, she held the section steady with one hand and worked it loose, gentle and careful.
“Tell me if it hurts.”
“It doesn't.”
Ding.
You have acquired heartfelt affection.
Jeong-gi +1
I stayed perfectly still.
It felt nicer than I expected.
Between strokes, her palm would sweep softly over the top of my head.
[Jeong-gi +1]
“And why on earth did you let your hair grow this long?”
“Dunno. Just did.”
“It's pretty, but it must be a hassle to take care of.”
“Pretty, you say?”
“Mm. Our daughter is so pretty, isn't she.”
Ding.
You have acquired heartfelt affection.
Jeong-gi +2
Being called pretty left me with slightly complicated feelings, but the corners of my mouth refused to stop curling upward.
“Say it one more time.”
“Say what?”
“Just now.”
“That your hair is a hassle to manage?”
“Not that.”
“That you're pretty?”
“Yes.”
“Our daughter is pretty.”
Ding.
Jeong-gi +1
She meant it.
It felt good.
I didn't say another word and quietly surrendered my head to her care.
Come to think of it, I had no memory of Mom ever brushing my hair like this.
Naturally.
When would a mom have reason to brush the hair of her twenty-six-year-old son?
It wasn't that she'd disliked me back then, either.
There just hadn't been occasions like this.
……Maybe I should have gotten younger ages ago.
It felt like a strange conclusion, but for now, I liked it.
When my hair was done, Mom grabbed the sleeve of my hoodie.
“And what is this, then?”
“A hoodie.”
“I know that much. Don't tell me you go around wearing nothing but this every single day?”
“It's comfy.”
“I bought you clothes, remember?”
“Where?”
“Your room.”
My room.
Hearing that, I got curious all of a sudden.
“I still have a room?”
“Of course you do.”
“Can I go look?”
“It's your room—why are you asking permission?”
I got up from my seat.
The layout of the apartment was exactly as I remembered.
Living room and kitchen, the master bedroom, two small rooms, a bathroom.
There was a balcony and a utility room too.
I opened the door to one of the small rooms out of habit.
And stopped.
“……What is this.”
The room was the same size.
It just wasn't the room I remembered.
For starters, the bed was tiny.
The walls were plastered with glow-in-the-dark stickers shaped like stars and moons.
There were dinosaurs too.
The most eye-catching thing was the enormous green Tyrannosaurus claiming one entire wall, its mouth stretched open toward the ceiling in a silent ROOOAR.
In the corner sat a few stuffed animals, and a low bookshelf held children's picture books.
A rainbow-colored dresser.
A kid-sized desk.
No matter how I looked at it, it was a six-year-old girl's room.
“Was my room always like this?”
Mom, who had followed me in, answered like it was obvious.
“Of course.”
“Really?”
“You decorated it yourself.”
“The dinosaurs too?”
“You loved dinosaurs, remember?”
“……Did I.”
Whose taste is this, exactly? The status window's?
Grievance detected.
Would you like to make corrections?
“No, it's fine….”
I gazed blankly at the Tyrannosaurus on the wall.
Looking at it like this, it actually seemed kind of nice.
“And why do you have so many stuffed animals?”
“Plenty? This is after a big cleanup.”
“There were more than this?”
“From the time you were four, you threw a fit about collecting every last Banjjaping, and do you know how much grief that gave me?”
Banjjaping.
I'd never heard the name, but I knew instantly what kind of thing it was.
Those tiny, rainbow-colored characters that came out endlessly, one new variety after another.
The exact kind of toy famous for making parents think they'd finally collected them all—only for a whole new wave to pop up and pick their wallets clean.
……And I was trying to collect all of them?
“Where did they all go?”
Before Mom could answer, my sister, still leaning against the doorframe, spoke up.
“I sold them.”
“What?”
“You left everything here when you moved out, so I figured you didn't need them anymore.”
“So you sold all my stuff?”
“Not all of it.”
I know, obviously. There's some left right there.
“Where did you sell them?”
“Carrot Market.”
Things that had never existed, conjured up as the world patched together a childhood I had no memory of.
But the moment I was told they were mine, I suddenly felt protective of them.
I turned to my sister.
“How much did you make?”
“Why?”
“Give it back.”
“…….”
“You sold my stuff.”
“Hey, that was years ago.”
“It was still mine.”
“It's gone.”
“Why is it gone?”
“I already spent it.”
“On what?”
“A bag.”
Hold on a second.
“You sold my Banjjapings and bought yourself a bag?”
“Mom told me to throw them out.”
“I never said to throw them out.”
My sister looked at Mom.
Mom averted her eyes.
Accomplices, both of them.
I tugged on my sister's arm.
“Come on, pay me baaack.”
“Later.”
“When?”
“When I get my first paycheck.”
“You promise?”
“I said I'll really pay you.”
I considered for a moment.
“But how much were they worth, that you could buy a bag?”
“No idea. I don't remember. It was a long time ago.”
“Then remember faster.”
“You are so money-obsessed.”
My sister laughed in disbelief.
I didn't laugh.
This was a serious matter.
Looking around the room some more, I spotted a picture frame on the desk.
A photograph.
The familiar apartment complex.
A moving-company truck parked in the background.
In front of it stood Mom, Dad, and my sister—and dead center, a little girl flashing double V-signs with both hands.
It was me.
“…….”
The me in the photo was even smaller than I was now.
Round, chubby cheeks, a yellow hat perched on her head.
One of the moving boxes even had writing on it in marker.
My stuff.
“What's this?”
Mom looked at the photo and smiled.
“The day you moved out.”
“Seriously?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You hired an actual moving truck?”
“You had a lot of stuff.”
A moving truck. For a six-year-old's belongings.
I looked at the photo again.
I looked thrilled.
Why is this kid so happy? Doesn't she know how hard it is living on your own?
“Was I that excited about it?”
“Beyond excited.”
“Why?”
“You were going to live by yourself.”
“Why did I want to live alone so badly?”
“Hmm.”
Mom thought about it for a moment.
“You always were fiercely independent.”
Independent.
A nice word.
Just not one that suited a six-year-old.
“Did Dad approve of this too?”
“Of course.”
I fell silent.
For an excuse the world invented, it was surprisingly full of holes….
And yet the photo was real.
A six-year-old me, whom I had no memory of being, grinned and flashed V-signs in front of a moving truck.
I was about to put the frame down when I glanced at the one beside it.
This time, a studio apartment.
The place I was living now.
Moving boxes were stacked on the floor, and in the middle sat a small table laid out.
There was cake, too.
Paper letters cut from colored origami paper decorated the wall.
Congrats on moving out!
“So I even had a housewarming party.”
“You asked for one, remember?”
“I did?”
“Yep.”
“A six-year-old threw a housewarming party?”
Mom laughed.
“You were so cute back then.”
I stared at the face in the photo for a long while.
She's plenty cute even now, if you ask me.
I didn't bother saying it out loud.
Mom opened the closet.
“Here, try this on.”
“Why?”
“I bought it for you last time and you never took it with you.”
Out came clothes I'd never seen before.
A white sweatshirt and a short black skirt.
“A skirt?”
“What about it?”
“You want me to wear this?”
“They're your clothes—so you wear them, obviously.”
I took the skirt.
“…….”
This was going to take some getting used to.
“Are there no pants?”
“There are. But this is cuter.”
“This isn't just you wanting to dress me up, is it?”
“Hurry up.”
I changed in the end.
When I came out of the room, Mom nodded with satisfaction.
“See? Pretty.”
“I guess.”
My sister looked me over and added her two cents.
“Suits you. Way better than that hoodie from earlier.”
“……Really?”
“Yeah. You look pretty.”
Ding.
You have acquired mild praise.
Jeong-gi +1
I turned to my sister.
“Say it again.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That came out of nowhere and now it's weird.”
What a shame.
Back in the living room, Dad had come home too.
“Oh, you're here.”
“Yep.”
“Been doing okay?”
“Yep.”
Dad smiled and gave my back a couple of light pats.
The exact same ordinary greeting as when I'd been a man.
I didn't mind this either.
A little later, we gathered around the dining table.
Mom, apparently refusing to believe a word about the hamburger, kept bringing out food.
Braised quail eggs, rolled egg omelets, even grilled beef patties.
She scooped rice into my bowl as well.
“Mom, I'm full.”
“Just a little more.”
“You've been saying 'just a little more' this whole time.”
“Then just this one last thing.”
Home cooking really was delicious, no question.
Nom nom nom.
Mom wiped something off the corner of my mouth.
“Take your time, sweetie.”
Ding.
You have acquired heartfelt affection.
Jeong-gi +1
For a while, I just kept eating whatever Mom put in front of me.
At some point, the hollow emptiness inside me had vanished completely.
Jeong-gi: 20 / 20
Even my little belly had filled up round and tight.
“Uuuugh….”
I sank deep into the couch.
Mom was watching TV beside me, my sister was on her phone, and Dad clicked through channels with the remote.
An ordinary, peaceful stretch of time where nothing was happening.
Honestly, it was so comfortable.
……Maybe I could stay a little longer like this.
I picked up a slice of apple.
Munch munch.
Mom asked.
“Want more?”
“Mm.”
Another slice of apple arrived.
I ate it without a second thought.
And then Mom asked, perfectly casual.
“School's going well, right?”
“Yep.”
Munch munch.
“…….”
Huh?
School?
I stopped chewing.
Wait a second.
I'm ten years old right now.
“……Wait.”