Han Saebyeok (2)
The air was heavy.
"......."
"......."
The silence itself couldn't have lasted long. Yet it felt agonizingly drawn out, as if the gravity in this room alone had multiplied several times over.
'This is unbearable! I want to run away!'
But my conscience wouldn't let me run. There was still plenty of food and drink left, and I couldn't just leave an unstable Saebyeok Nuna all alone.
Saebyeok Nuna was just sipping her whiskey, her face flushed. She seemed embarrassed by her string of slips of the tongue.
Hmm, should I tease her a little? Lighten the mood with some playful banter?
'As if I even have a sense of humor...'
Fuck, if I knew how to do shit like that I would've become a social butterfly ages ago. Sure, I might be doing a little better than before, but at my core I'm a socially deficient guy. Don't expect much from someone with five goddamn years of that bleak thing called hikikomori on his resume. I've already put in more than enough effort.
But letting this seemingly eternal silence drag on was even more unbearable, so I forced my mouth open.
"Um, have some food while you're drinking. It's bad for your body."
"Ah, yeah. This is good."
Saebyeok Nuna picked at the food with clumsy, fumbling gestures.
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye and replayed what I'd heard moments ago. I was fairly certain I'd caught something even more serious than her mother running away.
'Her biological father went to prison...?'
What in the world had happened for him to end up in prison? Could he have been falsely accused? Even knowing I should mind my own business, it was a topic that inevitably piqued human curiosity.
At the same time, I felt a pang of sympathy. Mother ran away, father went to prison. Just what kind of life had this nuna been living all this time? A feeling of pity welled up on its own.
But cheap sympathy can feel like an insult to the person on the receiving end. Knowing that all too well from my own experience, I kept my wandering eyes to myself.
And so, in the silence that settled once more, only the muted sounds of drinking and eating remained.
Me, already on my third can of zero cola, keeping my eyes to myself.
Saebyeok Nuna, sipping whiskey and reading my expression.
Amidst this dissonant silence, Saebyeok Nuna suddenly opened her mouth.
"...Oppa."
"Huh?"
"Hup!? Ah, n-no!"
Saebyeok Nuna's face went bright red. Looking utterly flustered, she covered her mouth with her hand and shook it vigorously.
"I, I had an oppa. He, he wasn't my parent, but I got along really well with my oppa. I was lucky when it came to an older brother."
"Ah, ahh. You had an oppa. Still, it's a relief that you got along well with your brother."
"Yeah. There was a bit of an age gap. He was my oppa and my friend, and kind of like a parent."
A faint smile had surfaced on Saebyeok Nuna's face as she said that. Her complexion was markedly calmer than before.
I saw an opening!
'Alright, let's keep the conversation going with her oppa as the topic.'
That seemed like it would ease the awkward atmosphere a bit. Nuna's state would probably improve too. Killing two birds with one stone.
I carefully broached the subject.
"I don't think I've ever seen you smile like that before, nuna."
"...You think?"
"Yeah. You must really like your oppa. What's his name?"
"Han No-eul."
"Ahh, Noeul and Saebyeok. Those are lovely names, you know? Just hearing them together, you can instantly tell you're siblings."
"Hehe. Right? Our faces weren't all that similar... but when people heard our names, everyone knew we were brother and sister."
"......."
I looked at Saebyeok Nuna with a slightly surprised expression.
'So she could smile this brightly.'
Well, maybe it was obvious, but I was pretty surprised since it was my first time seeing that expression. Her usual cold, frigid aura had vanished in an instant.
At any rate, continuing to talk about her oppa was definitely the right call. Just talking about him made nuna's state visibly stabilize.
I kept trying to move the conversation forward.
"You said there was a bit of an age gap, right? How far apart are you?"
"Four years."
"Four years apart, so your oppa would be... twenty-six now? Heh, I would've loved to have a hyung right around that age myself. I'm an only child, so I've always been jealous of people with siblings."
The words flowed smoothly. Having a clear topic really did make things easier. But man, having a sibling really was enviable. If I'd had an older brother, maybe I wouldn't have gone through all that stuff.
But as always, nothing in this world goes the way you want it to.
Sip.
After taking a sip, nuna's expression turned somber in an instant as she murmured.
"Yeah, he would have been twenty-six. If he were still alive."
"...Nnueh?"
"He died. Seven years ago. In a fire."
"......."
My breath caught in my throat and I just gaped. Why, why did it keep going like this?!
'Take the hint when someone uses the past tense!'
The problem was that I'd just kept talking thoughtlessly, trying to break the awkward atmosphere. I'd never resented my own lack of social awareness this much before.
"I-I'm sorry..."
"No. I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry."
"......."
"Hoo. I'm sorry for just dumping uncomfortable stuff like this on you. But for some reason, today, looking at you just made me think of my oppa more."
"...Do I look like him?"
"Yeah. Want to see a picture?"
Saebyeok Nuna fetched her wallet and took out a photo. She seemed to carry it with her everywhere.
A four-cut photo that looked fairly old.
I could see a brother and sister smiling, arms linked affectionately.
Naturally, the first person my eyes landed on was Saebyeok Nuna. Middle school? Or maybe even elementary school. Unlike now, the Saebyeok Nuna in the photo had no tattoos and no cold expression. Her youthful face was quite cute.
Meanwhile, the oppa she said I resembled looked about high school age.
'Do I look like him? He's good-looking.'
Even with a short sports cut, you could tell he was handsome. With his deep-set eyes and sharp features, you could tell at a glance he must have been pretty popular with girls. Being told I looked like someone like him was almost an honor.
Though, aside from his good looks, he was so thin it was pitiful. He was tall and had a decent frame, but he had no flesh on him, so his cheeks were hollowed out. To use a weeb analogy, he kind of looked like Eva Unit 01 from Evangelion.
As I tilted my head in puzzlement, Saebyeok Nuna spoke.
"At first I didn't think you looked like him, but the more weight you lost, the more I started seeing my oppa's face in yours."
"Really? As for me, being told I look like someone like him makes me feel pretty good."
"Pfft. Our oppa was kind of good-looking, right? He was insanely popular with girls."
"Exactly."
For some reason I felt sheepish and ended up scratching the corner of my eye.
But this nuna must have been pretty drunk. Out of nowhere, she said this with a smile.
"You're good-looking too."
"Uh, what? Um, thank you?"
"Now that I think about it, the reason I asked you to stay with me... I think it's because you look like my oppa. Having you by my side just made me feel at ease for some reason."
"......."
"The way you nag me is exactly like my oppa, too. And the way you make sure I eat."
I quietly listened to her story.
Saebyeok Nuna swirled the glass of whiskey in her hand as she continued.
"Our oppa was a good cook. Even if he went hungry, he always made sure I ate. So I don't think I ever saw him with any meat on his bones."
Hm. The reason I'd only been drinking zero cola was because of my diet. Maybe that image had overlapped with him in her mind, too.
"Hey, Cheol-jin."
"Go ahead."
"I'm sorry for just talking about uncomfortable things."
"...It's okay."
"Since we're already talking about it... can I say a little more?"
"Of course."
I nodded calmly. Saying I wasn't uncomfortable at all would be a lie, but Saebyeok Nuna's face looked incredibly happy when she talked about her oppa. It was nice to see that faint smile surface on her face.
"Oppa No-eul was......"
*
Han Saebyeok's story inevitably had to touch on the past.
Her father, Han Jeongseok, had been an incredible pretty boy in his youth. Thanks to that, women never stopped chasing him, and her mother, Song Suhee, was one of the women who'd fallen for his decent looks.
Then Song Suhee suddenly got pregnant.
Given Han Jeongseok's true nature, he would have told her to get rid of it. But Song Suhee's family was well-off enough to be called rich, and Han Jeongseok—who had nothing special going for him besides his handsome face—married Song Suhee purely for the money. He was approaching his late thirties by then, so he figured the timing was right.
However, their married life didn't even last five years before it fell apart. The business run by Song Suhee's father had gone bankrupt.
Song Suhee's father, unable to withstand the mountain of debt and the relentless harassment from loan sharks, committed suicide. Since Song Suhee had never had a mother to begin with, all that was left to her was Han Jeongseok and their two children.
There was no way a loveless marriage stripped of money could produce a harmonious household. Han Jeongseok blamed Song Suhee, saying she had ruined his life, and he got drunk and violent more and more often.
Han Saebyeok's memories began here.
By the time she was a newborn, the household was already in shambles, and her mother was suffering from domestic violence. Her father drifted from one day-labor construction site to another, perpetually steeped in booze.
A cramped single room.
The headache-inducing reek of alcohol and the stale stench of cigarettes.
Shouting and screaming that grew louder by the day.
Those were Han Saebyeok's childhood memories.
She always curled herself up in a corner of that single room and wished for morning to come. The only moment of happiness was walking to school holding her oppa's hand.
Then one day, her mother ran away.
It was during the hours when her father was out at the temp labor office, and the siblings Han No-eul and Han Saebyeok were at school.
From that day on, the smell of alcohol and cigarettes soaked into the house grew even worse. But ironically, without her mother, the shouting and screaming decreased.