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# Chapter 153: Words That Bleed
Sae-ah couldn’t fully comprehend her mother’s words.
She tried to understand them, but the moment those sentences entered her brain, they seemed to distort as they passed through some invisible filter. Like listening to a foreign language. Even though these were words she knew, they had lost all meaning.
A diver’s daughter.
She repeated the phrase silently, keeping it trapped inside her mouth without speaking it aloud. A diver’s daughter. Her father had been a drunk. A tourist. A seasonal laborer. And then he disappeared. From Jeju. The way her mother disappeared into the water.
“Mom.”
Sae-ah spoke. Her own voice sounded unfamiliar—as if someone else had borrowed her body to speak through it.
“Yes?”
Her mother’s eyes still seemed unfocused. Or perhaps she was deliberately refusing to focus. She stared at the fluorescent light on the ceiling, and its pale glow made her face look even paler.
“Am I… supposed to understand something right now?”
Sae-ah used formal speech without realizing it—as if she and her mother had suddenly become strangers, or as if her mother had become someone she was meeting for the first time.
Do-hyun opened his mouth, then closed it. His fingers trembled again. He already knew. Or suspected it, at least. Her younger brother’s intuition was sharper than hers, because he had been watching her all this time. He knew better than anyone how much she had burned for others.
“You should have been alone from the start. But Mom… Mom made you into a mother. You were only sixteen. When Mom got sick, you brought me my medicine. You cooked my meals. You saw me. And Mom thought that was natural.”
Her mother’s voice began to shake again. The heart monitor lost its rhythm. Beep, beep, beep. Irregular pulses. Pulses of fear.
“Mom, calm down. Really.”
Do-hyun spoke again, and this time there was a small edge of anger in his voice. Not anger at their mother, but anger at the entire situation. Anger that everything had come too late. Anger that their mother had remained silent for so long.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Their mother repeated the words. Were they meant for Sae-ah, or for herself? For her guilt, or for her entire life?
Sae-ah stood up suddenly—as if her body had moved without waiting for her mind’s permission. She pulled her hand away from the bed. Her mother’s eyes changed in that instant, as if she were being abandoned all over again, as if someone else was leaving her.
“Sae-ah. Wait.”
But Sae-ah didn’t wait. She left the hospital room, stepped into the corridor. It was long—a line of fluorescent lights overhead, patients walking beneath them. Some carried IV stands. Some pushed wheelchairs. Some stood with their backs against the walls, too tired to move. Everyone fighting their own bodies, realizing that their bodies no longer belonged to them.
Sae-ah entered the bathroom. She locked the door and stood in front of the mirror. She looked at her reflection. The face was still hers—same eyes, same nose, same mouth. But she no longer knew what lay beneath it. Who she was. A diver’s daughter? Or a drunk’s daughter? Or nobody’s daughter?
She washed her hands. As she lathered the soap and rinsed, she looked at her fingers. She wondered where they had come from. From her mother? From a father she’d never seen? From both of them? Or from no one at all—just a random combination?
The bathroom’s fluorescent light flickered. Like her trembling hands. Like her voice. Like her entire existence.
Sae-ah returned to the hospital room slowly, as if swimming up from underwater. Do-hyun was still sitting beside their mother’s bed. Their mother’s eyes were closed, but she didn’t seem to be sleeping. She was just avoiding—avoiding her daughter’s gaze.
“When was Mom planning to tell me this?”
Sae-ah asked, her voice flat and emotionless. Or rather, so full of emotion that all those feelings canceled each other out.
Her mother’s eyes opened slowly.
“I don’t know. Probably never. Not until I died. And you would have lived with that—never knowing anything.”
Those words hit harder than anything else. Because they were true. If her mother hadn’t collapsed, if this hospital room didn’t exist, Sae-ah would have gone her entire life without knowing who her father was. And would that have been better? Or worse?
“What’s his name?”
Sae-ah asked again in formal speech, unconsciously maintaining that distance.
“I don’t know exactly. On Jeju, tourists are just called ‘that person.’ I didn’t ask for his name. I didn’t want to. I only remember… warm hands. Hands that were warm only when they came out of the water.”
Her mother’s words trembled. The heart monitor accelerated again.
Do-hyun stood up.
“Noona, let’s go outside. Mom needs to rest.”
“No. I want to stay here.”
Sae-ah said, sitting down in a chair—a distance away from her mother’s bed, as if she too were now a patient, as if her own body was sending strange signals.
The three of them fell silent. Only the beeping of the heart monitor and the footsteps in the corridor were audible. Someone pushed a wheelchair past. Someone walked with their child. Someone carried flowers. Someone was crying.
This was a hospital—a place where people confront their past, endure their present, and fear their future. A place where they search for light in darkness. Or where they learn to bear the light that burns them.
“Can Mom tell me anything about my father? A photo? A name? Anything?”
Sae-ah asked, her voice growing louder, or perhaps her ears were making it seem louder.
“No. Really. I wanted to erase that time. So I erased the memory too. When I gave birth to you, I forgot him. You were just… you from the water. Not his daughter. Just you from the water.”
Her mother’s words ended like water draining. Like something disappearing. Like a light being extinguished.
Sae-ah stood again, slowly this time. The chair scraped against the floor, and the small hospital room amplified the sound. As if the room itself were an acoustic instrument, as if this space existed only to magnify their emotions.
“I’m going out for a bit.”
“Sae-ah.”
Her mother reached out, but Sae-ah was already at the door.
The hospital corridor was still long. Still bright. The fluorescent lights never turned off, as if this hospital existed outside time, a place for those balanced between life and death.
Sae-ah found the stairs instead of the elevator. She wanted to hear her footsteps. She wanted to confirm that her body had weight, that she still existed.
She descended—one floor, two floors, three floors—until she reached the lobby. People sat waiting. Some twisted their fingers. Some stared at the ceiling. Some picked up their phones, then put them down, over and over. Everyone waiting. For test results. For surgical outcomes. For someone’s recovery.
Sae-ah walked out of the hospital entrance. The November Seoul air hit her face—cold, dry, and carrying a hint of pollution. This was Seoul’s air. Completely different from Jeju’s salt-tinged breeze. This was city air. The air of burning, building, and discarding.
She sat on a bench in front of the hospital. People passed by. Some walked quickly. Some shuffled slowly. Some were alone. Some were with someone.
Was she alone now? Had she always been alone? Without a father, without a mother who truly saw her?
But Do-hyun was there. He had seen her. Seen his sister. And there was Haneul. She had seen her—seen that she was burning, burning for someone.
And Kang Ri-woo.
Sae-ah thought of that name without meaning to. Kang Ri-woo. That man. The man who tried to save her. The man who tried to own her. The man who tried to hold her hand.
Had he seen her?
Or had he also failed to see?
Sae-ah lifted her hands under the hospital’s bright lights. She looked at her fingers—fingers she didn’t know the origin of. A diver’s daughter and a drunk’s daughter. Or nobody’s daughter. Just a daughter from the water.
Those fingers trembled. Like her voice. Like her heartbeat. Like her entire existence.
And within that trembling, Sae-ah felt something small. As small as a match’s flame. But still fire. Still light. Still warmth.
Was that her? Or was it not?
It didn’t matter. She was already burning. Already surrounded by fire. Now the task wasn’t to prevent the fire from consuming her, or to use it to warm someone else, but to use it to illuminate herself.
So Sae-ah stood. She walked back into the hospital. She climbed the stairs—one floor, two floors, three floors—until she reached the room. Do-hyun was still sitting beside their mother’s bed. Their mother’s eyes were closed, but this time she really seemed to be sleeping. The sedative’s effect. The kindness of medical care.
Do-hyun looked up.
“Where did you go, Noona?”
“Just outside for a bit.”
Sae-ah said, and her voice sounded more certain now. More like it belonged to her.
“What did Mom say?”
“A lot. More than I can understand right now.”
Sae-ah sat in the chair, this time closer to her mother’s bed. Close enough to touch.
“I don’t want to know a lot of things either.”
Do-hyun said, his fingers moving again, as if sending his emotions somewhere else.
“Like what?”
“Like why Mom raised us the way she did. Why she left everything to you. Why she didn’t take care of herself.”
Do-hyun’s voice was quiet but clear. Not the voice of a seventeen-year-old boy, but the voice of someone who had cared for others.
“Maybe Mom doesn’t know either.”
Sae-ah said, and she realized that might be true. Her mother might not have chosen her own life. She might have struggled between her body and her emotions. She might have burned for something too.
“But still… what are you going to do now, Noona?”
Do-hyun asked.
Sae-ah didn’t answer. Instead, she took her mother’s hand. It was still warm, still trembling—rhythmically, like the heart monitor’s beep. A sign of life.
“First… I need to see Mom.”
Sae-ah said.
“That’s nothing new. You’ve always seen Mom.”
Do-hyun said, and it wasn’t a rebuke. Just a statement of fact.
“No. This time will be different. Mom will see me. And I will see Mom. Both of us. At the same time.”
Sae-ah spoke, and in that moment she realized her voice no longer trembled. Well, it did. But the trembling wasn’t from fear—it was something else. The trembling of decision. The trembling of fire.
The hospital room’s fluorescent light flickered, as if acknowledging her words, as if welcoming her existence.
And Sae-ah held her mother’s hand more tightly.
[End of Chapter]