이 포스팅은 쿠팡 파트너스 활동의 일환으로, 이에 따른 일정액의 수수료를 제공받습니다.
# Chapter 155: Do-hyun’s Anger
Do-hyun couldn’t find the words. He opened his mouth, then closed it. The cycle repeated once, twice, three times. Sea-a watched something shatter across her younger brother’s face. The last remnants of childhood crumbled from his seventeen-year-old features. In this hospital room where the heart monitor’s steady beeping played like background music, his voice emerged in a tone she’d never heard from him before.
“Do you know what you are? Do you even know who you are?”
It wasn’t a question—it was an accusation. Sea-a received it head-on. He was right. She didn’t know. Not until she left that hospital room. Not even now. But she hadn’t realized how impossible it would be to admit that.
Do-hyun stood abruptly, pushing his chair back with a sound that cut through the quiet like a scream.
“What are you doing right now? Seriously. Mom’s like this, and you’re off with some guy. Mom spent the entire night looking for you, collapsed from exhaustion, and now you waltz in saying ‘oh, I didn’t know’? Is that really all you have to say?”
Sea-a couldn’t answer. There were no words. Because everything he said was true. Mom had searched for her all night. Gone to convenience stores. Called Hae-ul. And where had Sea-a been? With Gang Ri-u. Again. With that man.
“Do-hyun. I’m sorry.”
Her voice came out thin as thread—barely recognizable as her own. It felt like someone else’s voice was using her mouth.
“Sorry for what? Mom collapsed. The doctor said stress-induced arrhythmia. Do you know what that is? Mom’s heart is beating irregularly. Because of stress. Because of you.”
Do-hyun’s voice wavered. Despair had overtaken his anger now. Sea-a realized her brother was crying—not with tears, but with his voice breaking as proof.
“What am I supposed to do? What?”
The question escaped her, directed not at Do-hyun but at herself. At her very existence.
Do-hyun looked at the bed. Mom was still sleeping, her breathing shallow, as if she were drowning in water instead of air.
“What are you going to tell Mom when she wakes up? When she tries to say something else?”
Sea-a had no answer.
“I think Mom thought she’d raised you wrong. That’s why she’s telling us everything now. I think she believed she failed. But when I look at what you’re doing… I finally understand what Mom did wrong.”
The words lodged in Sea-a’s chest like a blade. Do-hyun hadn’t meant to wound deliberately, but those words dug deeper into wounds already open.
“Kang Ri-u. Do you not know what that man is? Do you not know what he’s trying to do to you?”
Do-hyun’s voice rose. He was trying to stay quiet, but his emotions overwhelmed him.
“Do you know what Hae-ul told me? She said you need to get away from him. She said he’s poison. And you?”
“Do-hyun.”
Sea-a tried to cut him off. But he wouldn’t stop.
“You keep going back to him. Like a moth to a flame. Do you have any idea how desperate Mom felt watching that? Like her daughter was trying to kill herself?”
Do-hyun’s voice died. That final sentence hung in the hospital air. Trying to kill herself. Sea-a didn’t want to know what that meant. But she already did.
The room went quiet. Only the heart monitor’s steady beep continued—rhythmic, mechanical, proof of life itself.
Sea-a looked at her hands. They were trembling. Just like Ri-u’s hands. Just like Mom’s hands. Every hand in this family was shaking—one from illness, one from rage, one from guilt.
Through the window, Seoul’s night sprawled out. The hospital sat high enough that the city’s lights scattered like stars. Was one of those lights her convenience store? Another Ri-u’s office? Another Hae-ul’s tattoo shop? Seoul was vast, and inside that vastness, she was impossibly small. Only now did she realize how many people she was hurting.
Do-hyun sat back down—not falling to his knees, just collapsing into the chair as though his legs could no longer hold him up.
“You know what I think? I think you love that guy. But is that really love? Or do you just want to destroy yourself?”
Sea-a couldn’t answer. Because she didn’t know. Did she love Ri-u? Then why did she feel herself dying deeper when she was with him? Why did her throat constrict? Why did it feel like her fire was burning out faster?
“I… I think I shouldn’t see Ri-u anymore.”
The words fell into the air—not a promise, just sentences. Whether they meant anything was impossible to know.
Do-hyun heard them but didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up his phone. The screen lit up: 6:47 AM. In the hospital corridors, morning rounds were already beginning. Nurses were carrying medications. A new day was starting.
“What are you going to tell Mom when she wakes up?”
The question came again. This time, without anger. Just deep exhaustion. And within that exhaustion, despair.
Sea-a didn’t know. She had no idea what she’d say when Mom opened her eyes. Whether there were even words she should say. Whether this situation left room for words at all.
The fluorescent light flickered. Like her hands. Like her entire existence.
Morning sunlight began filtering through the window. It was cold light, unambiguous. No shadows to blur the edges. Everything was starkly visible—Mom’s pallid face, Do-hyun’s exhausted eyes, and guilt etched deep into her own palms.
Sea-a decided to leave the room. Not leave—escape. Do-hyun probably knew. But he didn’t stop her. Maybe he understood that he couldn’t hold her back anymore.
The corridor was long. At its end, stairs. She chose the staircase over the elevator, wanting to feel the weight of everything with each step down. One foot after another, feeling the burden she carried.
When she reached the lobby, sunlight assaulted her eyes. Morning. A new day. But Sea-a couldn’t understand what it meant. Her life was still trapped in night while the world kept getting brighter.
Her phone rang. Ri-u.
She didn’t answer. She set it down instead, as if dropping something hot.
The next call was Hae-ul.
“Sea-a. Where are you? Your mom was hospitalized? Really?”
Urgency flooded Hae-ul’s voice, and beneath it, genuine worry. Sea-a felt it and realized again how much she’d hurt this friend.
“Yeah. It’s true.”
Sea-a’s short answer said everything.
“What are you doing right now?”
“I don’t know. I just… want to leave here.”
She left the hospital. Crossed the intersection in front of it. Morning commuters flowed around her, everyone moving toward their destinations. But Sea-a didn’t know where to go.
Ri-u called again. This time, it felt like she had to answer. Like she already owed him a debt.
“Hello?”
His breathing came through the phone, labored.
“Sea-a. Where are you? I need to see you. Now.”
“I can’t. Do-hyun said… Mom…”
She trailed off, unsure what she was even trying to say.
“What happened? Tell me. What is it?”
His voice grew more urgent. But it wasn’t concern for her—it was need for himself. Not that she needed him, but that he needed her to need him.
She hung up. Slowly. Like she was ending something.
Then she called Hae-ul.
“Hae-ul. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Where are you? Should I come get you?”
“Your tattoo shop. Can I go there?”
“Of course. Come now. Have you eaten?”
Sea-a hadn’t eaten. Not for two days. Maybe longer. She couldn’t remember when her body started rejecting food.
“No.”
“Stop at a convenience store on the way. Get some kimbap. And a hand warmer. Your hands are probably cold again, right?”
There was intimacy in Hae-ul’s voice—the kind only someone who truly knew her could have. Do-hyun was her brother, but Hae-ul was her mirror. The person who knew Sea-a best. Sometimes better than Sea-a knew herself.
She headed to the convenience store. GS25—not the one where she worked, but the one across the street. Familiar yet strange. She bought kimbap and a hand warmer.
Then toward Hongdae. Through winding alleys, deeper into the narrow streets. Toward Hae-ul’s tattoo shop underground. As she descended those dark stairs, Sea-a felt how far down she was going. From bright world to darkness. From sunlit places to artificial light. Matching the suffocation in her chest.
When she opened the shop door, Hae-ul was already waiting. A warm drink in her hands.
“Wow. Look at you.”
Hae-ul examined Sea-a’s face. Her eyes were filled with serious concern.
“Mom collapsed. From stress. And… Dad wasn’t there.”
Sea-a compressed everything into one sentence. As if that could make it lighter.
Hae-ul wrapped her arms around Sea-a. Without words. Just held her. In that warmth, Sea-a realized how cold she’d become.
“I think… I shouldn’t see Ri-u anymore.”
Sea-a spoke.
“Yeah. That’s right. That’s the answer.”
Hae-ul’s response was simple. Not persuasion. Not comfort. Just acknowledgment of Sea-a’s decision. And that acknowledgment was exactly what she needed.
The road back to the hospital. Sea-a didn’t know what to do. But she knew she had to go back. She knew nothing ended until Mom woke. She knew Do-hyun’s anger was justified. And most importantly, she knew that what she thought was love might actually be self-destruction.
When she opened the door to the room, Mom was still sleeping. Do-hyun stared out the window. Sea-a took her seat. And silence filled the room again.
But this silence was different. Not the silence of running, but of enduring. And in that endurance, Sea-a felt something new—for the first time, she was staying. Not fleeing. Not hiding. Just being there beside someone.
The night deepened. Sea-a remained in that chair, holding Mom’s hand. It was warm. As if still waiting for her.
And finally, Sea-a understood. What she needed to love. What she needed to protect. And how to love herself.