MDF 109

〈Is that you, Si-woon?〉

〈…….〉

〈Why have you aged so much?〉

The younger brother, who in his memory had been a very small child, had become a middle-aged man, having leaped across decades of time. Though the brother was extremely unresponsive to his surroundings, he replied immediately, seemingly displeased by the remark.

〈You’ve aged too, Hyung.〉

With that, he abruptly left the room. Kim Si-baek stared blankly at the unfamiliar back of the man before pushing himself up. He didn’t know why he had thought it was absurd to see his brother aged.

His face was reflected in the mirror hanging beside the bed.

〈……I’ve aged.〉

The man in the mirror appeared to be in his mid-to-late forties. Even though it was his own face, it felt very strange. At the same time, a bizarre sense of incongruity lingered.

Were my features always shaped like this? Kim Si-baek hesitantly touched his face. This appearance—resembling his father, his mother, and his brother—was certainly his.

And yet, he felt a creaking sensation, as if things didn’t quite fit. Was I the kind of person who could age so normally? Above all, how could Si-woon… how could Si-woon age at the same pace as I did…

Kim Si-baek sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Something was strange this morning. Perhaps it was because he was tired.

From the kitchen, he could hear Kim Si-woon preparing breakfast.

Kim Si-woon.

His younger brother.

Stepping out of the room, Kim Si-baek looked around the unfamiliar living room. The display case held trophies, including four Olympic gold medals in individual sabre and a bronze medal in the Olympic sabre team event. There were records from various other competitions, not just the Olympics. It was a life achieved entirely by Kim Si-baek.

The room was also filled with framed photos. Most were pictures taken with his brother. He was smiling brightly beside his expressionless brother. Since they were brothers and not sisters, some might have teased them for being overly affectionate, but because their story was widely known, he had never heard such comments.

The news of the genius fencer who won Korea’s first Olympic gold medal in fencing had thrilled the Korean community in the US, and the story of him shedding tears during an interview while searching for his brother had spread quickly. It didn’t take long to make contact with the adopted brother.

Though he had nearly died after being sold to an organ trafficking ring, the brother’s second adoptive parents—whom he had eventually reconnected with through various twists and turns—were kind people. They treated Kim Si-baek almost like a son, and he had visited Korea with Kim Si-woon and invited him to the US.

Nearly thirty years had passed since then. Kim Si-baek had become a fencing instructor, and his brother had majored in biology and become a researcher. While they didn’t have an extraordinary, clingy bond, they were good brothers who relied on each other, occasionally fighting but quickly reconciling.

〈Looks delicious. I’ll enjoy it.〉

The fellow, who even had a plausible American name, was quite good at Korean cooking. The soybean paste stew and pork cutlet for breakfast were delicious.

〈You’re heading back to the US next week, right?〉

〈…….〉

〈Is the lab still busy these days?〉

〈Not busy.〉

Whether he didn’t answer or gave a short response, Kim Si-baek knew that his unresponsive brother was listening intently.

〈And you, Hyung?〉

Whenever he asked back like this, a laugh escaped Kim Si-baek naturally. As if smiling on behalf of his brother, Kim Si-baek beamed.

〈Me? Well, teaching kids fencing is the same 365 days a year.〉

Fencing, which had started as a means to find his brother, had since become his life. He had served as the national team coach, but he enjoyed teaching children more.

His work was interesting, and although the physical distance was great, he could meet his brother whenever he set his mind to it. Truly, they were full and happy days.

〈The day after tomorrow is a holiday, but I keep getting blind date offers; politely declining them is a chore in itself.〉

〈…….〉

〈Still, these days, “non-marriage”? That’s the term, right? Anyway, since the concept of staying single has become a thing.〉

〈…….〉

〈How about you?〉

〈Work.〉

He was a fellow who spoke of being married to his work in a very blunt manner. Kim Si-baek laughed airily and picked up a piece of pork cutlet with his chopsticks. The TV, left on meaninglessly during the meal, had finished its commercials and was broadcasting a new program. It was an educational program examining violent crimes in Korea.

Among the words, certain syllables caught his ear.

The case we are introducing today occurred 30 years ago. Ah, I see some of you have already noticed? That’s right. The culprit who sparked great public outrage. It is Tae Cheol-hun.

It was a case Kim Si-baek remembered clearly. The final victim, a child, was even younger than his brother had been when he was sold.

Tae Cheol-hun, who murdered his cousin’s spouse and neighbors, fled from Gyeongsan and hid in Seoul. All while carrying a bag in one hand, inside which he had kidnapped and hidden young Tae, the child of his cousin. Had the discovery of the mutilated and abandoned body of the final victim, young Tae, not been made, this case might have remained buried in the darkness forever.

Not only had the body of a five-year-old child been dismembered and abandoned, but the corpse also bore traces of horrific abuse. The child’s decisive cause of death had been burns.

A photo of the final victim’s life appeared on the TV screen. It looked as if the father had taken it; it was a photo of the child playing with his mother in the front yard of a beautiful hanok.

Tae Cheol-hun kept the kidnapped young Tae for a considerable amount of time. In the semi-basement room where he was arrested. While “what ifs” in the past are futile, I sometimes wonder. If just one person had shown interest in young Tae, if they had heard the screams, if they had recognized the signs of abuse, wouldn’t this small child have survived?

The child, who would have been 35 if he had survived, was frozen as an eternal five-year-old, smiling brightly, completely unaware of the future that awaited him.

Suddenly, the child’s innocent smile caused a pain like his heart was being ripped out, and Kim Si-baek painfully rubbed his solar plexus.

〈……That semi-basement room where the child died, it was in a neighborhood near the orphanage where I used to stay. Since I briefly left the dormitory in the summer to commute from the orphanage to school, I might have passed by it.〉

〈…….〉

〈There must have been many people in the neighborhood who passed by without a thought, just like I did, right?〉

That was why Kim Si-baek remembered the incident from 30 years ago. He had witnessed the neighborhood people buzzing and the police surrounding the area to block traffic. A murderer. A young child. Dismemberment. Sinister whispers swirled among the people. The child mannequin a policeman carried in for the crime reenactment had been truly small.

As the host said, if just one person had recognized the child’s pain, would something have changed?

〈If you had known, you might have been caught up in a scandal.〉

Kim Si-baek instinctively looked toward his brother at the unusually long sentence.

〈If you were unlucky, you would have been stripped of your national team status and wouldn’t have been able to continue as a fencer.〉

〈Aren’t you exaggerating too much?〉

〈Then you would never have found me. You couldn’t even imagine that I had been adopted into the US. It was an illegal route that left no records, so there was no way to find me.〉

He tried to brush it off as a joke, but his brother did not stop talking. No, was the person continuing to speak really his brother? Was the person in front of him truly his brother, Kim Si-woon?

The figure, who had seemed to be Kim Si-woon, grew younger at a rapid pace. In the blink of an eye, the figure became a small child sitting alone in the middle of the room, waiting for him.

〈Who would you choose, Hyung? Me, or that child?〉

Kim Si-baek gasped and opened his eyes. Faint rays of light leaking through the blinds drew thin shadows of light on the ceiling. It was morning.

‘…A dream, was it a dream?’

His palms were drenched in cold sweat. It had been so vivid; was it really a dream?

Just in case, he looked beside him, and the person sleeping against him was not his middle-aged brother, but Tae-un. Tae-un. The child he had found in that semi-basement room. A wave of relief washed over him.

‘What kind of dream was that…’

Had he really dreamed such a strange thing—that Tae-un had been killed by Tae Cheol-hun 30 years ago? It must have been a nonsense dream. A nonsense dream accompanied by a detailed delusion about his dead brother.

Not only winning an Olympic gold medal, but his brother ultimately being adopted into a good American family, receiving systematic education and treatment, and becoming a distinguished scholar—wasn’t that an overly sweet delusion?

It was such a childishly blatant delusion that Kim Si-baek felt embarrassed, even though no one else could possibly know the contents of the dream.

And yet, the reason he couldn’t completely shake off the lingering feeling of the dream was…

〈Who would you choose, Hyung? Me, or that child?〉

It was because of that question echoing in his ears. A choice… As Kim Si-baek unconsciously traced the echo, he soon shook it from his mind. What meaning did his choice have? His brother had died a long time ago.

As the host said, even if it was just one person, someone in the neighborhood—himself—had found Tae-un. Tae-un survived. That was enough.

Having fully awakened from the dream and sleep, Kim Si-baek looked at Tae-un again. Over the face deep in sleep, breathing softly and evenly, the image of the child from the old photo overlapped. The child in the photo had grown up safely and become a wonderful adult.

For that alone, Kim Si-baek did not regret his choice.

“Un-ah.”

“Mmm.”

He thought about waking him since it was morning, but Tae-un instead let out a low groan and burrowed deeper. The arm that had been weighing down his torso tightened, hugging him close.

‘I can’t breathe…’

The weight of the arm, with muscles more toned and stubborn than his own well-trained body, was overwhelming, and Kim Si-baek paused to catch his breath.

……No. It wasn’t just the weight. Whenever he felt the body heat trying to embrace him in close contact, a hot longing that overflowed from a deeper place seeped into him.

Rubbing his face, Kim Si-baek hurriedly pushed himself up. As he moved, Tae-un frowned in his sleep and tried to pull him back in, causing their legs to tangle.

“……?!”

And Kim Si-baek was horrified by the sensation of something pressing against his thigh.