Too Late, Far Too Late
The man they called aebi was steeped in alcohol and gambling, and he beat his family with the same casual cruelty he brought to everything else.
There was a rumor from the neighbor lady — that he'd deliberately caused an accident to collect the life insurance on his first wife.
The woman they called aemi, meanwhile, had caught the eye of another man during their destitute years and walked out the door without looking back.
What could you expect from someone whose nature was that of a prostitute?
The two siblings these irresponsible parents had carelessly discarded clung to each other and dragged themselves through each day.
Clutching the dream that tomorrow might be better.
Holding onto the hope that tomorrow would be different.
And yet, paradoxically, they also harbored the wish that tomorrow never come at all.
Foolish hope, they say, erodes a person's spirit. By the time you realize it was never going to be real, you're already broken.
That's what I feared as a child.
I was too terrified to open my eyes and face a reality that would never change.
I lay awake every night, dreading the pain that tomorrow would inevitably bring.
And that fear wasn't something only I felt.
To put it bluntly — the only person who had been holding me up, my older sister, broke before I did.
Day by day, our conversations grew shorter. The time we spent looking at each other shrank. I couldn't even remember the last time she'd laughed.
Se-ah spent more and more time staring into empty air.
There was nothing there, of course.
All that existed before her was a cruel, unyielding reality.
Yet she gazed at it as if trying to catch a phantom in her eyes — as if desperately longing for something invisible.
That was the day I came home after my high school graduation ceremony.
The day everyone around me was laughing and celebrating.
Graduation — the end of one chapter, the beginning of another.
But I walked home with heavy steps, unlike everyone else.
And then, from inside Se-ah's room where she was alone, I heard laughter.
Not a chuckle. Something closer to a hollow, broken laugh.
I opened the door carefully and stepped inside — and all the grief I'd been pushing down for so long finally burst out of me.
That was the last time I'd ever hear her laugh, I thought.
And that it sounded like that.
It was agony beyond reason.
I wanted it to not be real.
That day, for the first time, Se-ah didn't hold me.
No — it was more accurate to say she couldn't.
She just kept spitting out empty, broken laughter.
My sister, who had always held me tight without needing to say a word, had finally reached her limit. She let herself fall apart.
More precisely — she let go of the fantasy.
The fantasy of happiness.
And for the first time that day, it was me who wrapped my arms around her, not the other way around. I wanted to be even a small comfort to her, the way she'd always been for me.
But cruelly, even that moment was stolen from me.
The door lock clicked.
Aebi came home roughly once a week.
If there was anything to be grateful for, it was that he never touched Se-ah. I could handle that much.
Whenever the door lock sounded, I would silently push Se-ah away from my embrace.
And this time, it was the reverse — I slowly let go of the sister who was clinging to me.
I pressed the lock button on the doorknob in advance, closed the door, and stepped out of the room.
Click. The door locked.
And soon after, fists came flying.
My body flew through the air along with the pain.
Filthy curses screamed loud enough to tear my eardrums.
The kicks kept coming. I clenched my teeth so hard that sometimes, when my jaw gave out, I'd bite through my own tongue.
Through all those repetitions of the past, I'd come to one realization:
Fighting back changes nothing.
Time isn't a medicine. If anything, it's poison.
We just endured it — dragging ourselves forward, day after day, ready to seize any thread of hope that might appear.
But Se-ah closed the door on hope before I did.
As if she'd simply grown tired.
A little further back.
Se-ah, three years my senior, finished her compulsory middle school education and then dropped out of high school.
She'd come home late at night and hand me convenience store food.
And every morning, she'd press a crumpled ten-thousand-won bill into my hand.
Always with the same words:
At first, I'd say yes and go out to eat dinner on my own. Back then, the only proper meal I'd ever had was school lunch.
But that only lasted about a week.
I started saving the money Se-ah gave me, stacking it away carefully.
I kept it a secret from her. Because in the end, this was my happiness, not hers.
Se-ah always came home at eleven. She'd go straight to sleep.
I never bothered to talk to her then.
Was it because I didn't want to disturb her rest — she always looked so exhausted?
Or was it because I was afraid to meet the eyes of my sister, who was slowly losing her spark?
Even so, every morning she'd press ten thousand won into my hand.
Eventually, I stopped even asking why.
I was going to pay it all back, after all.
And so I graduated high school and received my active-duty draft notice. Ironically, my health was perfectly fine, and I had no grounds for exemption.
Aebi didn't even come home anymore.
All he'd ever done for his own son was violence and neglect.
And in those days, Se-ah's lifeless voice would speak to me exactly once per day.
I always answered her with a "no."
Her face remained dark and hollow.
That was the entirety of our daily conversation.
After that, she'd leave the house for work, and I'd head to the labor agency.
Still, I thought things would get better someday.
I was saving money on my end.
And I still had all the money Se-ah had given me.
Maybe that was the problem.
For some reason, the distance between us kept growing.
We'd come home exhausted and collapse immediately.
Whenever money ran short, aebi would burst in and steal whatever we'd managed to save.
At first, I'd hidden the money, of course.
And then one day, Se-ah cried in front of me.
She'd stumbled over to my side — where I lay beaten and battered — and handed the crumpled stack of bills and the bank passbook to aebi.
Only then did that bastard smile faintly and leave the house again.
I asked her why she'd done it.
Her answer was simple.
After that day, I handed over the money without hesitation.
When it ran out, he'd come back. And again. And again.
Of course, I still hid some away in secret.
The money that was mine — owed to Se-ah — I'd pass on to her.
And the money Se-ah had saved, I just hoped she'd use it for herself.
And so time passed.
By the time I had almost no hours left in the house outside of sleep, I chose to enlist.
I couldn't even get leave.
A contagious disease outbreak forced an early discharge instead.
Even after enlisting, I kept in touch with Se-ah.
At first, I told her I was attending a university in a nearby city and living in a dormitory.
Of course, the lie didn't last long. She noticed that I couldn't be reached during personal maintenance hours.
But Se-ah never said anything about it.
She always said the same things.
Is it okay over there? When you come back, let's eat something nice. I'm sorry I can't visit.
Every time, I just wished she'd hold on a little longer.
I quit smoking. I didn't buy anything from the PX except essentials.
I pooled my savings with my military pay and invested in stocks.
Was it the first time I'd seen real light in this world?
Was it telling me that I, too, still had a future?
At the very least, by the time I was discharged, I'd have enough money to move somewhere quiet with Se-ah and start over.
But that hope didn't last.
One day, the messages from Se-ah began to slow down.
The evening check-ins that should have arrived every night stopped coming.
My messages went unanswered.
One day became two. A week. Then a month.
Three months before my discharge, I heard nothing from Se-ah at all.
When I called, a cold, mechanical voice answered:
"The number you have reached is not in service."
What if something had happened to her? The anxiety grew worse with each passing day.
I requested emergency leave, but all I got was a flat refusal.
Swallowing the pain, I dialed the number I dreaded most.
His first words were:
Not "who's calling?" — just "who is this?"
That was aebi, speaking to a stranger's number.
Barely holding back my anger, I asked if something had happened to Se-ah.
I was clearly asking about her condition — but the answer I got back wasn't an answer at all.
I hung up without a word.
Then I borrowed a cigarette from a junior soldier in the smoking area.
Nicotine wrapped around my lungs, and for some reason, my mind began to blur.
When I came to, blood was dripping from my knuckles.
I hadn't hit the junior.
I'd been beating the pillar in the smoking area like a madman.
Several officers ran out to pull me off, and only then did the brutal reality sink in.
Oh.
Se-ah's faintly remaining future had been extinguished.
Why hadn't I thought of this?
Why had I overlooked the simple fact that that bastard would come to our house and demand money?
Why hadn't I left the money at home?
Why hadn't I given the savings to Se-ah?
Why, why —
Why had I dumped all of that onto her and run away like a coward?
Irresponsibly. Like an idiot.
I don't remember much of the rest of my military service.
If you asked me whether it mattered — I'd say no, with absolute certainty.
I was discharged.
I declined the farewell meals from my fellow veterans.
I took the train.
I walked for a long time.
And then I set foot once more in the place that had been our hell.
I thought quietly.
And I prayed.
Please, please.
When I open this door, I hope she'll greet me.
As if nothing happened, smiling, welcoming me back.
……No.
It's fine if she doesn't smile.
It's fine if she's not happy to see me.
I just need her to be alive.
I opened the door slowly. The thick, stagnant air pressed against my lungs.
Dust motes drifted in the faint sunlight, exposing the neglected interior.
Trash scattered everywhere.
A sour, rotting stench that made my nose sting.
I walked quietly through the empty house.
The living room. The kitchen. The bathroom. My old room. And the large room I'd never once entered.
Slowly.
My steps, which had kept moving without stopping, finally halted.
One room I'd pushed to the very last.
Se-ah's room.
I placed my hand on the doorknob.
I exhaled briefly and let my voice slip out, barely a whisper.
"……Se-ah."
No answer.
"…Se-ah."
Again.
"Se-ah—!"
Once more.
"……."
Click.
The last time, my voice wouldn't come out at all.
I just gripped the doorknob tightly and turned it.
The door wasn't locked.
Inside the windowless room, the darkness was suffocating.
I pushed the slightly open door and let my eyes adjust, then pushed it further.
How many times did I repeat that — pushing the door, letting my eyes adjust, pushing again?
Only then did a human shape come into view.
Without a single spark of life remaining.
Se-ah.
"Ah……."
A hollow breath escaped me on its own.
Se-ah said nothing.
She made no expression at all.
Her deeply shadowed eyes simply gazed at me, still and quiet.
I had so many things prepared in my head.
So many things I wanted to say.
I needed to say I was sorry.
I needed to say thank you.
But seeing her condition with my own eyes, my lips refused to move.
I'd thought her eyes were already dead back then.
That was my delusion.
Compared to now, those eyes had still had life in them.
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, as if trying to shake off the memories of the past.
Nothing had changed.
……I slowly pulled my hesitant steps forward.
One step.
The past was already gone.
Another step.
So at the very least —
I had to protect this.
Far, far too late.
I spoke the first word I'd ever truly said to her.
