Younger Sister (3): Reunited Siblings
I had expected it.
I had.
I had even seen it with my own eyes.
"Waaaaaaah!! Waaaaah! Big brother! Big brother!!"
"Aaaah!! Sukyeong! I’m sorry!! I’m sorry!!"
The two old siblings cried.
They clung to each other and wept until the sorrow, the regret, the pain, and the despair of all those lost years were washed away.
"Grandmaaa!!"
Maybe it was because his grandmother was crying too?
The blond boy was crying as well, hugging the old woman tightly.
I watched the three of them bawling their hearts out, then opened the bag I’d brought with me.
"Please stop crying and have this first."
"Sniffle... what is it?"
"A calming pill."
"......"
Kim Seokchun stared at me as if I were some outrageous little punk.
Tears and snot were running down his face, and his eyes were bloodshot, but it didn’t exactly intimidate me.
"Are you an T?"
"How do you even know that, sir?"
"My granddaughter... sniffle, she teases me with that sometimes... I never expected you’d pull out a calming pill here..."
"If you overdo it with the crying, isn’t that more of a problem?"
What was so strange about that?
In any case, the two elders accepted the calming pills I offered and took them. Only then did they seem to settle down a little, smiling through their wrecked faces.
"My, my. Brother, you’ve gotten downright old!"
"And you. There are more wrinkles on your face than on Grandma Chunhui’s ever had."
"What?! You’re the one with more!"
They scolded each other, but beneath the bickering was the affection of siblings who had never been able to properly share their lives.
"But, but how did you survive...?"
"Well..."
The grandmother told us about the years she had lived through.
After she’d been separated from her older brother, she’d been rescued by American soldiers.
Then she’d been adopted by an American family and grown up in the United States.
"I did my own investigation too, you know... I never imagined you’d gone all the way to America..."
"I ended up in some tiny, godforsaken village out there."
She had lived diligently there.
Gotten married. Had children.
And then she had come back to Korea.
"My daughter-in-law is Korean."
"Is that so... Well, that’s good. That’s truly good..."
With their hands tightly clasped, the two of them began talking about the years that had passed.
I didn’t feel any need to listen in, so I nudged Han Yu-na.
"What is it?"
"Let’s go outside. They’re enjoying themselves, so there’s no need for us to stay."
"Very well."
I went out with her.
By the time we had breathed in and out the quiet country air for a while, Han Yu-na was looking around with open curiosity.
"Is it fascinating?"
"I’ve never been to a place like this before."
She had always been in the city.
How could a rural village like this not seem strange and wonderful to her?
"It’s just a countryside village. It’s not like there’s anything all that special about it, right?"
This wasn’t even a truly backwoods house.
It had a Western-style build, and the yard was covered in a broad spread of grass, almost like something you’d see in America.
"Still."
Just looking beyond the fence, where rice fields and farmland stretched out in every direction, seemed to fill her with wonder.
"I saw a valley nearby on the way here. Want to go take a look?"
"Is that allowed?"
"Why wouldn’t it be?"
Kim Seokchun would be right there, after all.
And...
"Mr. Cheolhon."
"Yes."
"Would you mind staying here for a bit?"
"I am a bodyguard, you know..."
Cheolhon, who had followed us in his own car when we drove over, answered flatly.
"I don’t know what danger could be around. Especially since this is the countryside."
At his point—that there was no CCTV here, so how could it be safe?—Han Yu-na stepped forward.
"Would this be enough?"
What emerged from her bosom was...
A gun?!
No, wait, why the hell does she have a gun in Korea?
"It’s a gas gun."
"Ah."
"I’ve also learned some self-defense, and how to prepare for emergencies."
"Hmm. Well, in that case."
He studied Han Yu-na for a moment, then nodded.
Of course, he first went through the whole speech about how this wasn’t allowed, and if anything happened we were to hit the emergency bell and run straight here no matter what.
"Hey now. I’m not some five-year-old you leave sitting by the roadside. Do you really think anything will happen?"
"That attitude is how accidents happen."
"Fine, fine. We’ll be back soon, so don’t worry too much."
After patting his shoulder, I left with Han Yu-na.
Even from the car ride, the country road had seemed pleasantly quiet.
"Yu-na, look at this."
"Yes?"
"It’s a frog."
"......"
I hadn’t expected a scream or a grossed-out yelp, but still...
She simply looked at the frog in my hand with complete indifference.
"This frog has a rather unusual shape. I’ve seen similar ones during dissection experiments."
"You did experiments like that?"
"In high school."
"What kind of high school did you go to that they were dissecting frogs..."
Anyway, after chatting about the frog for a while, we came upon a little stream nearby.
"Have you ever played in a place like this?"
"No."
"Want to try?"
"...Pardon? Here?"
"It’s hot, isn’t it? And we don’t even know whether the water is clean..."
"Hey."
I splashed water at her.
She looked at me calmly, then moved her hand.
Splash!
"Gah!"
No, I only splashed her with my hand—why did that feel like getting slapped with a sheet of water...?!
Fine. I couldn’t lose.
And so, we played hard in the stream near the house.
.
.
.
"What on earth have you two been doing?"
Kim Seokchun looked utterly flabbergasted at the sight of us returning like drowned rats.
But we’d had fun, so what did it matter?
"Goodness gracious. Young lady, you’ll catch a cold like that. Hurry up and wash off, and I’ll give you some clothes to wear."
"I think Noah should wash first."
"There are two bathrooms."
One in the master bedroom, and one in the living room.
She spoke with complete composure, then told me to go wash immediately too.
After I washed in the bathroom by the living room and came back out, there was a set of training clothes waiting for me.
"My son wears them whenever he comes by, so just wear them comfortably."
"Yes. Thank you, Grandma."
"And also..."
The old woman’s hand wrapped around mine.
They were rough hands, like an old tree trunk, but I could feel gratitude and kindness filling them to the brim.
"Thank you... thank you so much..."
Her small shoulders.
Her bent back.
Her white hair, as if dusted over with frost.
Her little body trembled all over.
"If it hadn’t been for you... sob... if it hadn’t been for you..."
"Please, stop crying. I don’t like seeing old folks cry."
"Kheum! Right. How unbecoming. How embarrassing. Why am I crying like this on such a happy day?"
Sniffling over and over, she wiped her face and then broke into a broad grin.
"We’ve got honored guests, so how could I just stand here? At least stay for a meal."
"We’d be honored. Oh, and there’s one more person outside—may we bring him in too?"
"Of course!"
I called for Cheolhon as well.
He kept refusing, saying it didn’t feel right to eat while on security duty, but still—if we were going to be here a while longer, he couldn’t exactly go without eating anything.
By the time we’d brought him in too, Han Yu-na came out.
"Wow. Those floral work pants suit you really well."
"This is the first time I’ve ever worn something like this. But it’s remarkably comfortable."
"I thought the daughter-in-law’s pants were too big to hand over, so I gave you mine."
The grandmother spoke with easy warmth, saying that upper wear was simple enough, but bottoms had been another matter entirely.
"Still, you look so lovely, young lady. Like a model, really."
"T-thank you."
She seemed embarrassed.
The way she brushed her hair behind her ear and answered awkwardly made me smile.
"You all like braised chicken, right?"
"Oh, absolutely. We’d eat it if we could get it."
"Then just wait a little."
The braised chicken she prepared was delicious.
"Don’t be like this—come live with me. Hmm?"
"Hey now. My granddaughter is here—where do you think you’re going? Get home this instant!"
Kim Seokchun, who had tried all the way into the night to keep holding his sister’s hand and never let go, was promptly smacked on the back and driven off by Kim Sukyeong, who had reunited with her older brother after decades.
Then she said to us,
"Young man, young lady. You’re welcome to come visit anytime. You seemed to like playing by the valley earlier, and summer will be even more fun. I’ll cut watermelon then, and give you peaches too..."
"Will you make braised chicken too?"
"Of course I will!"
"I’m looking forward to it."
"Good, good. Come anytime."
"Please go inside."
"We’ll leave only after I see you off."
She watched us until we were in the car.
She watched us until the car disappeared from sight.
And when I glanced at her in the rearview mirror, I heard a sob from behind me.
"H-h-huh... h-huhuhu... sob... sniff..."
"Please stop crying already."
"A-as if you wouldn’t cry in my place?"
"I’m an orphan, so I wouldn’t really know."
"And you wouldn’t be like this even if you saw your parents?"
"I was born without a father or mother, after all. A true-blue orphan, through and through. You could call me elite-grade orphan stock."
And besides, weren’t those people the very parents who’d abandoned me?
I didn’t think seeing them would exactly stir up any sudden change in my heart.
"....."
Kim Seokchun fell silent.
Then he placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Say, would you happen to be interested in adoption?"
What the hell is he talking about now?
"Adopting a child in Korea isn’t exactly easy, you know."
It was even harder for an unmarried man.
And on top of that, I was only just out of the orphanage—a complete greenhorn of society.
No matter how much money I had, adopting a child was practically impossible.
"You. Become my son."
"...Pardon?"
What the hell?
Kim Seokchun, who seemed to have overflowed past the limit of his gratitude toward me, went on speaking with deadly seriousness.
"That wouldn’t be a bad thing for you either."
I knew that.
Kim Seokchun might be retired, but he was a wealthy man of some renown in Japan.
If I became his adopted son, I’d probably inherit part of his fortune within a few years.
"Uh... I’d rather not."
But I didn’t want that.
It felt unnecessary.
"I don’t mind if you’re grateful to me, but as for adoption..."
Getting older brothers and sisters who were more than twenty years older than me now would be a little much.
"How about some other kind of relationship?"
"Some other kind?"
"Let’s be friends."
"You and me? How big is the age gap, and you want to be friends..."
"Han Yu-na here is my friend too. What does age matter between friends?"
"That’s the kind of thing only an older person says..."
"If you don’t like it, forget it."
"Hmm... Fine. Let’s be friends."
I had gained a new, very wealthy friend.