My Sister Was Ruined - 2
What was I supposed to say?
How was I supposed to say it?
Before I could settle on anything, Nabi spoke first.
“K-Kangto.”
“Yeah.”
“L-look, people are here. Let’s talk somewhere else.”
“Ah, okay.”
So I hurriedly cleared away the fallen convenience-store chairs and table with Nabi, then went inside.
After apologizing to the clerk first, I started buying things.
The thing Nabi chose was triangle kimbap.
There was water too, but all of it was triangle kimbap.
“What are you gonna do with that many?”
“Dinner.”
“You’re not seriously eating nothing but triangle kimbap for dinner, are you?”
“Yeah, just triangle kimbap for dinner. It’s weirdly good as a snack too, you know?”
If you keep eating nothing but triangle kimbap, you’ll end up gaining a ton of weight later, you know? And no, I’m not telling you to eat ramen instead! If you want a snack, eat chips. Chips!
I couldn’t believe Nabi, who had always hated triangle kimbap, was saying something like that.
Looking at her now, I could see her hands trembling badly as she picked things out.
Her mouth was speaking as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but her hands weren’t.
“Nabi, I’ll buy you a sandwich.”
“A sandwich? No, those are gross.”
“They’re more nutritious.”
“What’s the point of nutrition if I’m already ruined?”
Ruined?
What was ruined?
I couldn’t even ask that, so I picked out a few sandwiches.
Then I dumped every last one of them into the basket and headed straight to the register before Nabi could stop me, paying for them all in one shot.
“That’ll be 47,000 won.”
Honestly, I knew this was crazy.
I knew perfectly well how stupid it was to buy 40,000 won worth of sandwiches at a convenience store, but I couldn’t just stand there and watch Nabi live on triangle kimbap alone.
So—
“L-Lee Kangto.”
Before Nabi could say something loudly, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the convenience store.
...What had she been about to say?
I knew what Nabi was going to say, but I had no idea what I was supposed to say in return.
No, even if I did say something, what meaning would it have?
Before long, those thoughts vanished from my head.
I was just dragging Nabi along.
“L-Lee, Lee Kangto!”
“I know. I know what you’re gonna say, Nabi. But—”
But, so...
“Don’t. Just don’t. Don’t say anything and just eat.”
I felt like if I kept going, I’d end up saying even more: don’t do it, just don’t, no matter what happens, don’t.
I covered her mouth and stopped her from saying another word.
Because I didn’t know what else might come out if I let her keep talking.
“Look, I don’t want to talk to you. It’s not because I hate you—look at me!”
“What about me?”
“What kind of crazy woman has hair like this?!”
“Hair like that can happen.”
“I-if I tell you what happened to me... I... I, I, I... I...”
“Then let’s not say anything today.”
“Huh...”
“Let’s not say anything and just eat together. That’s what’s right, isn’t it? We haven’t seen each other in forever, and if we can’t even eat together and are just going to fight like this, then let’s just have a meal together instead—somewhere, anywhere, whatever.”
I knew how absurd I sounded.
I couldn’t even guess how absurd it would sound to Nabi if she heard it.
Still, the reason I said let’s eat first was because she looked that thin.
I had no idea whether she’d been living on triangle kimbap all this time or eating something else too.
But Nabi now had so little flesh on her body compared to before.
Even if she was only 140 centimeters tall, she had never been this thin.
Now I could feel bone through the arm I was holding.
More than anything, I just wanted to sit down and eat with her.
Whether the food was triangle kimbap or not.
“...Okay.”
By the time we got to the club room at school, no one was waiting for us.
Of course not.
It was nine in the morning; it would’ve been strange if anyone were there.
“What do you like?”
“Whatever isn’t spicy.”
“You really haven’t changed.”
“You still like greasy stuff too.”
“This isn’t that greasy.”
The triangle kimbap Nabi opened first was tuna mayonnaise.
The one I opened first was sausage and stir-fried vegetables.
There was one more tuna mayonnaise, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.
If I ate that one, I felt like I’d never be able to talk to Nabi again.
And yet even while we ate, not a single word came out.
There was so much I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t.
What had happened to her all that time?
How had she ended up dyeing her hair?
Had she really done it because something happened?
I couldn’t ask.
If I did, I felt like everything would end right there.
In the end, all I could say was this:
“Is it good?”
“It tastes the same. That’s why it’s easy to eat.”
“I see...”
After hearing that it tasted the same, I had nothing else to say.
Maybe I should have asked a different question.
No, even if I had, the answer would have probably been the same.
So in the end, we sat there for ten minutes without saying a word.
While I was eating my second triangle kimbap,
I thought of the photo.
I wondered if I should try opening the conversation with that.
But what if she got angry about it?
What if she hated it—what was I supposed to do then?
Even so, I had no choice but to bring it up.
If I didn’t, I felt like we’d end up parting ways in silence again.
“Nabi.”
“Yeah.”
“About that photo I took this morning.”
“Delete it.”
I knew she’d say that.
It would’ve been stranger if she hadn’t told me to delete it.
If someone took a picture of her without permission, of course she’d tell me to delete it.
Only then did I really remember.
Still, I showed Nabi the printed photo.
“Why are you showing me that...”
“Because it came out pretty.”
Honestly, it really had come out beautifully.
That was why I wanted her to look at it.
Even if she told me to delete it, I could do that later.
So when I asked her to just look at the picture, her answer was completely different from anything I’d expected.
“Please get rid of that.”
“But Nabi, you look really pretty in it...”
“J-just get it away, please get it away. Please get it away... I don’t want to look at myself...”
What?
Why?
“I-I’m the worst, because my face was filthy, I don’t want to see it, I don’t, so please get it away! That, that thing—please, just get rid of it!”
“What are you talking about? Why are you saying your face is filthy? Nabi, you’re not dirty.”
“I feel dirty.”
Nabi shoved aside the triangle kimbap she’d been eating and tried to snatch the photo from me.
I didn’t care if she took it.
I didn’t care if she tore it up or deleted it.
But I couldn’t understand why she was pushing herself this far.
Why was she going so far?
“Please just get it away—I d-don’t want to see that, don’t make me look at it... Please. Please...”
In the end, Nabi sat down right there and started crying.
“Please, I’m begging you, delete the photo. I don’t want to see myself. I hate that picture. I hate me. Because I hate me.”
When I finally understood what she meant by I hate me, I realized it at last.
Nabi didn’t hate the photo I had taken.
She hated the way she looked in it.
“Please, don’t take pictures of me. There isn’t another filthy bitch like me, so please don’t take pictures of me... Please, I’ll do anything, just don’t do that. I really am a dirty bitch, so please don’t.”
Nabi was on her knees on the floor, apologizing to me.
It should have been me apologizing, and yet she was the one saying those things.
“Nabi, you’re not a dirty bitch.”
“Why wouldn’t I be dirty? I’m filthy... I’m filthy! Didn’t you see my hair?! Didn’t you see my body?! Look at me!”
Look at my red hair. Do you think this is dye?
No—this won’t wash out. My hair changed color because of the drugs, and it won’t wash out.
No matter what I do, it won’t come out. White hair has started growing too. It was black before, but white hairs have started coming in.
And even then, you say I’m not dirty?
A woman who’s taken drugs is filthy, so how can I not be dirty?
Nabi was shouting all this in the club room.
...Just as Nayeon had said, Nabi really had taken drugs, and that was why her hair had turned red.
And—
“Every day, every day I bleed, every day blood comes out even when I don’t want it to, and I hate seeing myself scratch at my skin... I’m trying so hard to endure it, I’m taking medicine, but I still itch, even though I didn’t choose this! I itch, and I’m suffering, and my body... ended up like this!”
“Nabi, what are you doing?!”
When I shouted that, Nabi yanked off her clothes and showed me.
Her body was covered in marks.
Scars from all the scratching she’d done until now, wounds hidden under bandages, cuts made with a blade—everything.
There was no way to know which wounds she’d given herself and which ones someone else had given her.
Every single one of them was ugly.
They looked like wounds that would never heal again, wounds with no answer left in them anymore.
And even so, I still had something I needed to say.
Even if it hurt her, I had to say it.
“Nabi, you’re not dirty.”
“Why the hell am I not dirty?! Everyone says I am, so why are you saying I’m not...?!”
“Because you’re not dirty. Even when I took that picture, you were... really pretty.”
That was all I could say.
The scene in my viewfinder and Nabi’s figure were so beautiful that I wanted to tell her I was grateful she’d let me take such a photo.
But to Nabi, that picture seemed like something completely worthless.
Even so, I had to say what I wanted to say.
“You’re not dirty. Even if someone calls you dirty, you’re absolutely not dirty.”
Because she wasn’t dirty.
The Nabi in my photo had changed so much from the Nabi of that day, and yet...
“You’re still Nabi to me, and that hasn’t changed. So don’t say things like you’re dirty, or that you look weird. To me, you’ve never been dirty. You’ve never looked weird either.”
I kept saying it so she wouldn’t keep blaming herself.
As I said those things over and over, Nabi took the hand away from her face and looked at me.
Her eyes were emptier than any eyes I had ever seen.
“Nabi?”
“You say I’m not dirty? How are you gonna prove that? How are you gonna prove that with a woman who’s disqualified as a woman and disqualified as a human being? What are you gonna use to prove it?”
Then she climbed over the desk, came toward me, and shoved me down.
“Tell me how I’m not dirty. I don’t know, because I am dirty. I can see flies in front of my eyes!”
And then, just like that, she came over me.