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# Chapter 230: A Distance Where We Can Breathe
Dohyun’s finger lifted from the smartphone screen. Seah still hadn’t read the article. She didn’t need to. The headline said everything. Kang Minjun. Deceased. Three years ago.
A father who had died before she was even born. Or that’s what she had to believe. Because that man—who could never be a father—was someone who had wanted her not to exist.
“When did Mom wake up?”
Seah asked. Her voice was flat, as if her vocal cords had decided to refuse emotion.
“Last night. Around 2 a.m.”
Dohyun answered.
“I called you. You didn’t pick up.”
Seah thought of her phone. Left outside the hospital room. The battery must have died. Or it was on silent. She couldn’t remember exactly. The past few days felt like memories from deep underwater—blurry, distorted.
“And then?”
Seah continued.
“Then Kang Riou came. Like she knew where you were going. And when she saw your face, she reacted in a way I’ve never seen before. Like she was finding someone. Someone she’d been looking for a long time.”
Seah looked at Dohyun. His face looked older than his seventeen years. It lacked the softness that should belong to a boy his age. Instead, there was an early maturity. It wasn’t beautiful. It had been born from necessity.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Seah asked.
“Do? What are you talking about? What does Noona say right now?”
Dohyun reacted. Surprise mixed with a small anger.
“You just found out. Who your father was. Who your brother is. Why you were abandoned.”
“I wasn’t abandoned.”
Seah said. The words were for herself and for Dohyun both.
“Mom…”
“Mom what? Because Mom loved you? Because Mom was suffering? Because Mom was protecting herself?”
Dohyun’s voice rose. Other patients in the hallway turned their heads. Seah tried to grab his arm, to pull him down.
“Lower your voice.”
“Why should I? Are you worried about Mom right now? After she abandoned you like that?”
Seah’s fingers fell from Dohyun’s arm. What he said was right. She knew it. And yet she still wanted to go back to the hospital room. Back to her mother’s bedside. To hold her mother’s hand again.
It was Seah’s deepest contradiction. Loving someone who abandoned you. Or maybe it wasn’t love at all, but something with a different name. Habit. Or gravity. Or something no physical force could refuse.
“I…”
Seah opened her mouth. But she couldn’t find the words that came after.
Dohyun stood up. From the bench. He put his smartphone in his pocket.
“Kang Riou is in Mom’s room. You didn’t know? Right now.”
Seah didn’t know. For the past few hours, she couldn’t remember exactly where she had been or what she had done. She’d left the hospital room. Sat in the hallway. The time in between was blank. Or scattered.
“Go.”
Dohyun said.
“Kang Riou looks like she has something to say.”
Seah stood up. Before Dohyun. But Dohyun walked first. Toward the hospital room. Seah followed. Watching her own legs move.
Dohyun stopped in front of the hospital room door. His hand went to the handle, but he didn’t open it.
“Noona…”
Dohyun said.
“What else did Mom say?”
Seah didn’t answer. She thought about her mother’s last words. It had been an admission. A surrender. But what came after? Another explanation? An excuse? Or silence?
Silence. Deep silence. And in that silence, Seah had run away. From the room. To the hallway. To her brother’s side.
“Ask Mom what she was trying to say.”
Dohyun continued.
“After you left, Mom took my hand and tried to say something. Kang Riou was standing there too, waiting. But Mom couldn’t speak. She just… cried.”
Seah opened the door.
The hospital room hadn’t changed. The fluorescent lights still cast their cold glow, and her mother still lay in the bed. But something was different. Her mother’s eyes were open. And they weren’t looking at the ceiling. They were looking at Seah.
Kang Riou stood by the window. Her back turned. As if she were looking out at Seoul. But her face reflected in the glass was thinking about something. Something deep.
“Seah.”
Her mother spoke. Her voice was weaker. As if in the past few minutes, or hours, she had spent more of her voice.
“Come.”
Seah sat back down beside the bed. In the same chair as before. But this time, her mother didn’t reach out first. Instead, her mother’s eyes searched for Seah’s hand. As if she knew she didn’t deserve it, but still wanted it.
Seah placed her hand on her mother’s. Not interlaced. Just resting. Like placing a bird’s wing.
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
Her mother said.
“About Kang Minjun. About Kang Riou. And… about you. About why I left you.”
“It’s okay.”
Seah said. It was a lie. But a necessary one.
“No. You need to know.”
Her mother closed her eyes. Then opened them again. As if doing so would help her speak better.
“When Kang Minjun died, at first I felt relief. I was glad that man couldn’t find me anymore. Couldn’t find you. But that relief didn’t last long. Because Kang Riou was still here.”
Kang Riou turned from the window. Listening to her own story.
“As Kang Riou grew, I saw him becoming like his father. That fear. That desire to control. So I thought I had to keep Kang Riou away from you. To protect you. To protect him too. But…”
“But?”
Seah asked.
“But Kang Riou found you. Without my knowing. And he tried to protect you. Even while rejecting his own father. When I saw that, I…”
Her mother’s voice broke. From tears. This time, tears she didn’t refuse.
“I understood what I had done. Not just abandoned you, but made Kang Riou a fugitive. And that child was enduring it. To protect you.”
Kang Riou came to the bedside. She took her mother’s other hand. Like Seah. But her hand was shaking. Violently.
“Mom.”
Kang Riou said. It wasn’t a call. It was acknowledgment. Or surrender.
“I was wrong.”
Her mother continued. To Seah. To Kang Riou. Or to herself.
“I did all of this wrong. And I can’t change it now. But what I can do…”
Her mother looked at Seah and Kang Riou’s hands on either side of her. As if they were extensions of her own body.
“What I can do is tell you the truth now. All of it.”
Seah would remember this moment. Later. The fluorescent lights. Her mother’s tears. Kang Riou’s trembling hand. And the weight of her own hand on her mother.
She couldn’t name exactly what it was. It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t reconciliation. Just… breathing again. Together. At the same pace. In the same air.
Seah pressed her hand deeper into her mother’s. This time, interlacing her fingers. Tangled. Inseparable.
Dohyun quietly closed the door. Leaving the three of them. So they could tell their story.
In the hallway, Dohyun sat in the chair. The one where Seah had sat before. He picked up his smartphone, then put it down. Picked it up again, put it down. As if it were a life support machine.
The voices inside the hospital room weren’t audible. The door was too thick. But Dohyun could sense what was happening. Through the weight of the silence. And the way that silence was different now. Not a suffocating silence, but a healing one.
Dohyun’s fingers began to shake. A seventeen-year-old boy’s fingers. Not from cold. The hospital room was warm. It was a tremor from within. Waiting for his turn. Knowing he had things to say too. But not yet.
Not yet. This time belonged to Seah and her mother and Kang Riou. This time belonged to learning how to breathe. Together.
Dohyun sank deeper into the bench. As if he could stay there longer.
Inside the hospital room, Seah felt the weight of her mother’s hand. It was light. But that lightness held twenty-four years. Twenty-four years of guilt. Twenty-four years of fear. Twenty-four years of love. All of it.
Kang Riou was still trembling. But differently now. As if her piano hands were finally preparing to play something.
“From now on…”
Her mother began to speak.
“We’ll be together. I don’t know how long. But we’ll be together.”
Seah didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Her hand was already saying everything. That she wouldn’t let go of her mother. Not anymore.
The fluorescent lights continued to shine. Coldly. But the light was no longer exposing. It was preserving. Preserving this moment.
It was the moment Seah had waited for twenty-four years. The moment her abandoner became her acceptance. And even if it wasn’t forgiveness, it was a beginning. The beginning of breathing.
Dohyun’s phone buzzed. In the hallway. A small notification. The academy time had long passed. Dohyun should be there. But he was here. Here. Beside his sister and his mother and his brother.
Dohyun turned off the phone. Silenced the alarm.
And he thought only of this: that he was here.
[END OF CHAPTER 230]