An Ordinary Person's Kindness
At the dull thud of something hitting the floor, Mun Doyun frowned and looked up at the ceiling.
"Haa, here we go again. They ought to know better by now. Why do they keep doing this?"
"Tell me about it. Their kid should be all grown up by now. Why on earth is it still this loud? You think they're doing home workouts up there or something?"
"Right? If you're going to work out at home, at least put down a mat."
"Was that supposed to be a joke?"
"Yeah. Wasn't it funny?"
"Honey. I'm confiscating your mouse and keyboard today."
"Nooo!"
Mun Doyun and Choi Sumin were a couple who got along remarkably well. They bantered without a second thought, and when a joke fell flat, they said so to each other's faces without hesitation. Some might argue that laughing at unfunny jokes was the real mark of a strong marriage — but there was no malice in any of it. If things between them had been strained, they wouldn't have been wrestling over a computer in the first place.
Still, when Doyun protested that confiscating both keyboard and mouse over one failed joke was a little harsh, Sumin frowned slightly and said,
"Honey. That sound just now — didn't it come from the bathroom?"
"It did. You don't get a thud like that from stomping around a bedroom or living room. Heh. The analytical power of this body of mine…"
"Then isn't that dangerous? I've heard you can break bones if you fall wrong in a bathroom. Didn't you say your classmate's father died that way?"
"Mmm… But there are three of them living up there. If someone really got hurt, wouldn't they take care of it and get them to a hospital?"
The noise from upstairs had gotten worse lately. Their child should have been grown and off at university by now, and the couple had always seemed cultured enough that Doyun had assumed they kept a quiet household. Until last month, though, there had been shouting, and the occasional heavy bang. The yelling had died down somewhat after that — or so he'd thought. Lately, day and night made no difference: every so often there would be a restless thumping, and then, every once in a while, a hard thud like something being set down with force.
Doyun had figured it was the husband upstairs taking up fitness in his later years. But after hearing his wife's words, a thread of worry began to work its way through him. What if, as Sumin said, that man — supposedly a university professor — had missed a step and fallen? Or what if the husband hadn't come home from work yet, and the son or daughter was off enjoying campus life and nowhere near the apartment, and it was the wife alone who had gone down?
The small ball Sumin had tossed into the air rolled around inside Doyun's mind, gathering snow until it became a full-blown snowball of dread.
"Quiet for a second. Do you hear anything from up there?"
"Nothing at all. And that just makes me more worried. Shouldn't we at least go up and check…?"
"Stay here, honey. I'll go."
In the end, Doyun couldn't sit with the unease. He stood. Sumin threw on a cardigan and followed him straight out the door.
Over the past few months, the upstairs neighbors had started to grate on them because of the noise. Even so, they had been living in the same apartment building for nearly twenty years — neighbors in the truest sense. And it wasn't entirely for the neighbors' sake that they went. If someone upstairs were badly hurt, or worse, dead, neither of them would sleep easy that night.
So the couple, who never once thought of themselves as particularly good people, climbed the stairs to the floor above under the simple pretense of clearing a bad feeling. It wasn't all that late, so Doyun pressed the doorbell without hesitation.
"Is anyone home? We're from downstairs. There was a really loud thud, so we came up. Are you all right?"
Doyun and Sumin expected an answer — We're fine, or Mind your own business. If the people upstairs had any shame at all, they might even say thank you for worrying, and sorry for the noise.
But from the other side of the door in front of them, not a single sound came back.
"…What? Is something actually wrong? Hello? Is everything okay in there?"
"Something really did happen, didn't it?"
The doorbell chimed loud enough to carry into the hallway, yet there was no sign of life from inside. When Doyun and Sumin started knocking and making a fuss, a neighbor from next door eventually slipped out and joined in.
"What's going on?"
"Ah — we're from downstairs. There was a bang from the bathroom side. We figured someone just dropped something, but then it went completely quiet, so we came up worried, and…"
"Oh my god, then something serious might have happened. You can die from a fall in the bathroom. Sink, toilet — hit the wrong thing and you're done for."
"Exactly. Especially older people. Their bones get so fragile…"
"What do we do, honey? I think we might actually need to call 119."
If it had just been the two of them, they might have hesitated forever in the face of that silence beyond the door. But with other people egging them on, Doyun stopped holding back. He had always been an ordinary man who preferred to go along with the crowd. If this many people were worried, calling an ambulance wouldn't look like an overreaction. Filing a report alone and finding out nothing was wrong would have been mortifying — but if they'd all been worried together, he wouldn't feel quite so bad about the rescue team showing up on his say-so.
So Doyun picked up his phone.
"Yes — we heard a sudden thud from the floor above us, so we're calling. After that there was no sound for a while, so we went upstairs, but there's no response even when we ring the doorbell and knock…"
When you sleep, you're supposed to sleep in the dark. Sleep in a bright place, and your eyes ache terribly the moment you open them. It wasn't only my good eye, either — even the ruined one felt just as dry and strained. If it couldn't do its job, it could at least have the decency to go numb.
I went to rub at those stinging, throbbing eyes — and then the unfamiliar texture of the blanket and a faintly unpleasant smell made my face twist on its own. At the same time, a delayed wave of searing pain crashed through the back of my head, my shoulders, my elbows, my hips, and I groaned.
"Augh…!"
Only then did I remember what had happened. I had slipped in the bathroom, lost my balance completely, and gone down hard on the floor. Missing one foot, I hadn't even been able to catch myself properly — I'd fallen and passed out cold. I should have accepted the fall and thrown my hands out to the floor. Instead I'd flailed my arms through empty air, trying not to go down at all, and the memory of it was embarrassing. Having only one eye meant no depth perception, which made keeping my balance hard enough as it was. Still, at least no one had been there to watch me wipe out. Small mercies.
Anyway — this space reeking of disinfectant was definitely not my apartment. The first things that met my eyes were the stark white walls on every side, the bedding, all of it. Hospital, obviously. I'd been admitted once before, after my body changed overnight when I became a woman, so the scenery wasn't entirely unfamiliar.
There'd been a crash from the bathroom, and I wouldn't have answered no matter how many times someone called. So that woman must have brought me to the hospital. She'd done it out of concern for me, so I was grateful — but even though everything from my head to my knees was throbbing, nothing seemed broken or seriously damaged. I couldn't help thinking she could have just laid me down somewhere instead of dragging me all the way to a hospital.
No matter how good Korea's health insurance was supposed to be, once you'd taken up a hospital bed, there was going to be a bill. That money could have bought days — weeks — of instant noodles.
…And then there was the fact that she must have seen me naked, which I found more than a little uncomfortable. We were both women, so she wouldn't have done anything improper. And it wasn't as if she wanted anything in return — she stopped by now and then with warm words, didn't she? She never cleaned for me or fed me herself. From her voice, she sounded like a young working adult not much older than me. Did someone like that even have money to spare?
Besides, there's that saying about teaching a person to fish instead of giving them one. She'd deliberately left me to clean, do laundry, even shower on my own. I was grateful for all of that. But the thought of someone else seeing me naked was still almost more shame than I could bear, and alone in this empty hospital room I felt my face go r—
"Oh, you're awake? How are you feeling?"
"Eh."
I'd been sure I was alone, but a sleep-roughened voice came from right beside me. When I'd looked around earlier there had been no one, but apparently she'd been lying on the caregiver's cot attached to the bed. I'd come this close to muttering to myself and making a complete fool of myself.
That aside — I had no idea why a complete stranger was sleeping next to me. In my confusion, I took a quick look at the woman's face. From her voice alone, and the faint lines around her eyes, she looked middle-aged — older than my mother. She definitely wasn't the woman who'd been visiting my apartment. Had the hospital assigned me a caregiver?
"M-my body aches a little, but other than that I'm fine… I don't have any money. I can't afford to stay in a place like this…"
I said it worriedly, fretting over the cost, and the ajumma gave me a warm, easy smile.
"Oh, don't you worry about money. Luckily nothing was broken, so it was just the exam fee. My husband already took care of that much, so please don't feel burdened."
I stared blankly at that kind smile, half-dazed — then hurriedly dropped my gaze. Even a look full of goodwill felt frightening and heavy to me.
However she took that, the woman clicked her tongue once, came closer with something like pity in her eyes, and patted my back.
"I don't know what you've been through. But it must have been hard, right? It's all right. Everything's going to be okay, so don't shrink into yourself like that."
It was surely nothing more than a kind gesture. But even after more than a month, the touch of another person's hand on my body still made my skin crawl. I couldn't even answer her. Without meaning to, I started to tremble.