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# Chapter 229: The Nine-Year-Old’s Fingers
Grandmother told Seo-ah to drink water. Her trembling hands passed the glass over, and Seo-ah drank it. The water was cold, tasting of minerals. Later, she would learn it was the taste of Jeju water. But in that moment, for nine-year-old Seo-ah, it was merely liquid drunk at the boundary between life and death.
“Did your mother send you?”
Grandmother asked. There was no hope in the question. She already knew.
“No. No one knows.”
Seo-ah answered, and Grandmother’s face crumpled deeper.
On the hospital bed, Seo-ah’s mother closed her eyes. In that silence, Seo-ah began to understand the essence of the twenty-four years she had lived. It was time spent holding her breath. Time spent submerged in water, enduring without knowing when she might surface.
“You were nine?”
Kang Ri-woo asked. There was no trust in his voice. It was as if he hoped what he’d heard was a lie.
“Yes.”
Seo-ah answered.
“Grandmother called Mother. And she came. The next day.”
Her mother’s eyes opened. They stared at the ceiling. As if reading words written across the sky. But there was nothing there. Only mold stains on the plaster.
“I told you. You couldn’t stay here.”
Her mother spoke. It sounded like she was talking to herself.
“You had to go to Seoul. I said I couldn’t take care of you there. That Kang Min-jun would track me down, and if that man found you, you would no longer be someone’s daughter—you’d become his possession.”
“So you were going to give me back?”
Seo-ah asked quietly, as if afraid that speaking the words aloud would make them real.
“No, I wasn’t. I…”
Her mother swallowed. The action carried pain.
“I wanted to take you with me. Truly. But I saw Grandmother, and you were holding onto her, so I…”
“Gave up.”
Seo-ah finished for her.
“Yes.”
Her mother acknowledged it.
“I gave up on you.”
The silence that followed was different from the ones before. The earlier silences were the silence of held breath. But this silence came after exhaling. Like the silence after someone had finally released twenty-four years of breath all at once.
Seo-ah left the room. She hadn’t decided to. Her body simply moved, as if she were watching herself from outside, keeping her distance.
The corridor outside stretched long. Fluorescent lights lined the ceiling in rows. They felt like her nervous system. Cold, artificial, yet luminous.
Do-hyun sat on a bench in the hallway. He held his phone but wasn’t looking at the screen. He was just holding it. Like it was life support.
“Noona.”
Do-hyun saw her.
“How is Mom?”
Seo-ah didn’t answer. She sat beside him. Their shoulders nearly touched. But there was a deeper distance between them. The distance created by things neither could understand.
“Noona, I…”
Do-hyun started to speak, then stopped.
“What?”
Seo-ah asked.
“I told Mother that you’d met Ri-woo. And I don’t know what he did to you, but it seems like that’s why Mother ended up like this.”
Do-hyun’s voice was trembling. That vibration a seventeen-year-old boy’s voice should carry was there.
“Is it my fault?”
Seo-ah asked.
“No. I…”
Do-hyun swiped his phone screen. An article appeared. The headline read: “JYA Entertainment CEO Kang Min-jun, Deceased.” The date was three years ago.
“Ri-woo is your father.”
Do-hyun said.
“Kang Min-jun’s son. And he’s not the person you were looking for—he’s your older brother.”
Seo-ah didn’t read the article. She only saw the headline. That was enough.
“Did Mother know?”
“Yes. She told me. When Ri-woo came, when Mother woke up. When Ri-woo held Mother’s hand, she knew who he was. And Mother broke. So…”
Do-hyun paused.
“So what?”
“So I called you. And you didn’t answer.”
There was responsibility in Do-hyun’s voice. A heavy responsibility. The kind of weight a seventeen-year-old shouldn’t have to carry.
“I’m sorry.”
Seo-ah said.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I…”
Do-hyun put down his phone.
“I asked Mother why she gave you up. And Mother…”
Do-hyun began to cry. Very slowly. As if it were an action accompanied by physical pain.
“Mother said it was to protect you. She thought if she didn’t give you away, Kang Min-jun wouldn’t look for you. So…”
“She abandoned me.”
Seo-ah completed the sentence.
“Yes.”
Do-hyun acknowledged it.
In the hospital room, Kang Ri-woo was still watching their mother. Seo-ah’s mother lay with her eyes closed. And on that bed, the woman was acknowledging the existence of the daughter she’d abandoned for twenty-four years. But it was too late. Everything was too late.
Seo-ah looked out the window. The Han River was visible. The water flowed on. As it always did. Changing while remaining unchanged, in that paradoxical way. Seo-ah understood it. Her own existence was like that. Flowing without reaching anywhere. Moving while essentially staying in the same place.
“Noona.”
Do-hyun spoke again.
“Where will you go?”
Seo-ah didn’t answer. It was a question she didn’t know the answer to. She didn’t even know if there was anywhere she could go.
“Ri-woo…”
Do-hyun continued.
“Ri-woo asked me to tell you something. Before Mother woke up. He said he’s your older brother. And that he’ll do whatever he can for you.”
“I don’t need a brother.”
Seo-ah said.
“What I need is…”
Seo-ah stopped. She didn’t know what she needed. For twenty-four years, she had suppressed everything she needed. Her own needs had always come after others’. After Mother’s needs, after Do-hyun’s needs, after Kang Min-jun’s rejection and all the needs that stemmed from it. Behind all of that.
“Noona…”
Do-hyun took her hand. It was warm. A human hand, warm even under fluorescent lights. And Seo-ah felt it. The feeling of her nine-year-old fingers holding Grandmother’s hand. The feeling of her young body holding someone’s hand for the first time—not her mother’s.
“I’m here. I’m right here.”
Do-hyun said.
Seo-ah looked at Do-hyun’s hand. Those fingers. Seventeen-year-old fingers. Still young fingers. But already carrying so much.
“Thank you.”
Seo-ah said.
“But…”
Seo-ah looked at Do-hyun.
“I can’t stay here.”
Do-hyun’s hand stiffened.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just… I can’t breathe here.”
Seo-ah stood. Do-hyun’s hand fell away from hers. And in that moment, she knew she was abandoning someone again. Do-hyun. Her mother. Kang Ri-woo. And herself, most of all.
When she returned to the room, Kang Ri-woo had his hand on their mother’s forehead. His fingers were trembling. Like hands that had started to press a piano key, then stopped. Kang Ri-woo saw her. The expression of someone trying to say something.
“Noona.”
Kang Ri-woo called her. It was the first time. That word from his lips. Noona. The weight that word carried. The weight of blood.
“I have to go.”
Seo-ah said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But not here.”
Seo-ah left the room. This time slowly. Do-hyun didn’t call after her. Kang Ri-woo didn’t follow. Her mother lay on the bed with her eyes closed.
The hospital lobby at 10 p.m. was a lobby of the night. There were people. But Seo-ah saw no one. She only watched her feet. Only watched where they were taking her.
Outside, the wind from the Han River blew. Cold and smelling of salt. The smell of Jeju’s sea. The smell of Grandmother’s hands. The smell that nine-year-old Seo-ah had known.
And Seo-ah walked. Not knowing where she was going. Only to stop existing as someone’s daughter. To stop existing as someone’s younger sister. To stop existing as someone’s victim.
The night streets along the Han River were quiet. And in that quietness, Seo-ah heard her own breathing.
Proof of life. Proof that she was still burning.
But what was the fire burning for?
That was the only question Seo-ah had to ask.
End of Chapter