이 포스팅은 쿠팡 파트너스 활동의 일환으로, 이에 따른 일정액의 수수료를 제공받습니다.
# Chapter 232: The Fire Called Kang Min-jun
Se-ah heard her mother’s words, yet simultaneously did not hear them. As if she were submerged beneath fathoms of water, receiving voices filtered through the surface world—distorted, delayed, arriving only in fragments. Kang Min-jun. Twenty-six. Dance. Stage. By the time these words reached Se-ah’s mind, her mother had already moved on to the next sentence.
“He gave me an opportunity. Really, it was nothing at all—but back then, it felt like everything in the world.”
Her mother continued, hands motionless, lying still in the hospital bed. As if her body were pinned beneath the weight of the past itself.
“He took me somewhere beautiful. A penthouse in Gangnam. I never saw its ceiling. I didn’t know how high it went. And he told me something.”
Silence.
Do-hyun gripped their mother’s hand tighter. As though without that grip, she might slip away into that penthouse once more. Kang Ri-woo remained by the window, his back to them all. That back held things unspeakable—fury, sorrow, or something heavier still. The realization of how much his own existence had wounded her.
“He told me I was special. Very special. And I believed him. No one had ever said such a thing to me before. Father never saw me. Mother was always afraid—of my voice, my movements, my very existence. But Min-jun saw me. Really saw me.”
Her mother’s voice grew softer. Se-ah leaned closer, as though proximity could grant understanding. But it was an illusion. Distance was not merely physical. Time was distance. Understanding was distance. And most crucially, truth itself was distance.
“We were together for three years. Three years living in Min-jun’s world. It was beautiful. And terrifying. Because everything I knew was beginning to bend toward what he wanted. How I danced. How I laughed. How I thought. Everything.”
Se-ah’s fingers began to tremble—a tremor so subtle the cardiac monitor could not catch it. Yet she felt it. That minute collapse happening within her own body.
“And then one day, I became pregnant. With Ri-woo.”
Kang Ri-woo’s back grew rigid. As though turning to stone. Se-ah watched that motionless movement, understanding the weight of emotion it carried. Because it mirrored her own. They shared the same father. Their nervous systems likely reacted to the same wounds—rejection, the realization of being something that should never have existed.
“Min-jun didn’t want the child. He was explicit. You cannot have this baby, he said. You are not part of my plans. You are not part of my future.”
Their mother stopped. Se-ah didn’t wait for the silence to break. She already knew what came next. Or rather—she didn’t know, but she didn’t want to know. And that was different. Not knowing and refusing to know were not the same thing. The latter was a deeper lie.
“He gave me money. A great deal of it. And he told me: erase this with it. Remove this child. Come back to me. Then we can continue.”
Do-hyun released their mother’s hand as if contact might contaminate him. Se-ah saw it—the shift in his expression, the things surfacing across his face. Anger. Revulsion. Confusion about where all of it was directed.
“I took that money and ran.”
Her mother’s voice regained some strength, as though this part alone represented the only true choice of her life.
“To Jeju. Somewhere no one would find me. There I gave birth to Ri-woo. Alone. Without a hospital. With only my grandmother’s help. And the night he was born, I understood I had made a terrible mistake.”
Se-ah’s heart stumbled before the sentence even finished.
“Because Min-jun found me. He always found me, no matter where I went. And he told me: this child is mine. Even though you bore him, he is my possession. And I—”
Their mother’s voice fractured. Not the voice itself, but something behind it. Self-worth. Will. Human dignity.
“I listened to him. And I gave Ri-woo away to—”
She could say no more. Tears fell silently, soundlessly, as if she’d already forfeited the right to weep aloud.
Se-ah moved without thinking, bringing her face close to her mother’s, trying to wipe away the tears with her fingers. But they came too fast to catch.
“But… Father actually took Ri-woo away?”
Se-ah’s voice trembled.
Silence.
Kang Ri-woo turned from the window. His face resembled the gray Seoul sky beyond the glass—cloud-filled, with something burning through the spaces between. His eyes met Se-ah’s. In that instant, she understood. Why he’d first looked at her. Why he’d tried to take her hand. All the reasons he’d tried to save her.
Ri-woo was her brother. And like her, he had been abandoned—only in a different way.
“He took me.”
Kang Ri-woo spoke for the first time in that room, his voice frozen as though freshly released from ice after a long entrapment.
“I was his possession. His toy. Or something even less. I was something that could become anything he wanted. My name, my face, my voice—everything could change according to his will.”
Se-ah looked at her brother differently now. That trembling in his eyes. That rigidity in his jaw. All the things between his words told a single story: survival, and its price.
“After he died, I thought I had to find you. I learned that Mother had given birth to you—from Min-jun’s records. And I wanted to…”
Ri-woo stepped closer.
“I wanted to apologize. And at the same time, save you. So you wouldn’t become like me. So you wouldn’t become his. That’s why I reached out. But you—”
He stopped.
“You looked at me the way you looked at Min-jun. And that was… correct. Because I’m Min-jun’s son. Inside me, there’s that too. His blood. His desires. His need for control.”
Se-ah said nothing. She couldn’t determine if what he said was true, false, or partly true. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was how she heard it. And she heard it—his grief beneath the words. It was the same as her own. The cry of someone burned by the same fire.
“So what are you saying?”
Se-ah’s voice was very small.
“What are you trying to tell me, hyung?”
Ri-woo’s mouth moved, but no words came. Instead, his fingers began to tremble again—more forcefully this time. Se-ah looked at that hand and placed hers upon it.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, as though trying to join this family. Do-hyun sat at the foot of the bed, his young face hardened by things a seventeen-year-old boy shouldn’t have learned so quickly. Their mother continued to cry—but differently now. Not tears of warning, but tears of release. Or something between the two.
“Do you want to know why I wanted to protect you?”
Kang Ri-woo spoke.
“Tell me,” Se-ah asked.
“Because you were still burning. And I had already burned out. So I thought—if I extinguish your fire, maybe I can live. If I save you, maybe I can be saved too.”
His voice deepened.
“But that was a lie. You can’t put out your own fire by extinguishing someone else’s. It’s just two fires burning together. And that’s not beautiful. That’s just destruction.”
Se-ah squeezed his hand harder.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Ri-woo answered.
“I don’t know what I want right now. I don’t want to save you, and I don’t want to hurt you. I just…”
He took a deep breath, as though surfacing from underwater.
“I just want to start over. As someone other than Min-jun. As someone who isn’t Min-jun’s son. And you and Mother too. Together.”
When their mother heard this, her eyes opened again. And something happened in them—something that had been closed for a long time. Not something pure, but something desperate and hopeful simultaneously.
“Ri-woo…”
She called her son’s name. For the first time. And when that name left her lips, it was no longer the name of guilt. It was the name of recognition. Recognition of him as her son. That recognition had taken time to arrive—twenty-four years—but it had come.
Se-ah released her brother’s hand and took her mother’s again. Then she placed Ri-woo’s hand over theirs. Now all their hands overlapped. Their mother’s hand, Se-ah’s hand, Ri-woo’s hand. Do-hyun rose and added his hand to the stack.
The silence returned to the hospital room. But this was an entirely different silence. The previous silences had been filled with unspeakable things. This one held things that had finally been spoken—things that could now be said.
“What do we do?”
Do-hyun asked. His voice was that of a seventeen-year-old boy. But it contained so much more. The question of a survivor. The question of someone who must move forward.
“I don’t know,” their mother replied.
“But now we have to find that answer together. Not alone.”
Se-ah heard these words. She couldn’t determine if they were truth or lie, hope or despair. But what mattered was that they had been said. And they had all heard them. At the same moment. In the same room. With their hands overlapped.
The fluorescent light continued its buzz. From far away came the sounds of Seoul—car horns, distant shouts. The world kept turning, indifferent to Min-jun’s death, to Ri-woo’s confession.
The cardiac monitor continued its steady beep. Proof that a heart still beat in this room. Not Min-jun’s. Someone else’s.
“Hyung,” Se-ah asked, “what will you do now?”
Ri-woo considered. He thought about what came next. Ceasing to live as Min-jun’s son. Beginning to live as Ri-woo. Was such a thing possible?
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But at least for now… I want to be here. With you. With all of you.”
As he spoke, Ri-woo understood how alone he had been. For twenty-four years. Alone as Min-jun’s son. Alone in that guilt. Alone in Mother’s silence. But now, in this moment, he was not alone.
Do-hyun squeezed his hand harder. That young hand’s strength transmitted itself. This child had been alone too—fatherless, brotherless, stripped of everything.
“If we’re together, that’s enough,” their mother said again, her voice stronger. “If we’re together, we can endure.”
Ri-woo looked at her. He felt as though he were truly seeing her face for the first time in ages. The lines etched there. The wrinkles at her eyes. The marks time had left. But there was something new there too. Resolve. Acceptance. And… love.
“Mother,” Ri-woo said. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head.
“No. I’m sorry. To you. To Se-ah. To Do-hyun. I… I held onto the wrong things for too long. Dead things. Things I couldn’t save. But I didn’t see what was here. I didn’t see that you were here.”
Se-ah gripped her mother’s hand tighter, feeling it tremble. Her mother was crying. But she kept her eyes open—deliberately, as though she’d made a choice not to close them.
“What do we do?” Do-hyun asked again. This time his voice was different. The fear had receded. “After this moment?”
Kang Ri-woo thought, then slowly spoke.
“We live. Together. Without Min-jun’s shadow. Without his sins. As only ourselves.”
“Will that be possible?” Se-ah asked.
“I don’t know. But shouldn’t we try? Starting now? From this moment? With our hands like this?”
Silence returned to the room. But not the silence of before. This was the silence of beginning, not ending. There would be much pain ahead. Many questions. Many doubts. But none of that mattered now.
What mattered was this: four hands overlapped. Four hearts beating in the same room at the same moment. The fire called Kang Min-jun had not consumed them entirely. They were still here.
The fluorescent light continued its buzz. Now it sounded like music. Or a rhythm. Proof that they lived together. A promise that they would continue to live.
“Can we do this? Really?”
Do-hyun asked.
“Yes. We can. Because we’re already together,” Ri-woo answered.
And so, something very small began. Too small to call hope. Too present to call despair. Just continuing to live. Living together. What that meant would be revealed in the days to come.
# A New Beginning
The fluorescent light’s buzz burrowed into Kang Ri-woo’s ears. He heard it while simultaneously feeling submerged—struggling upward through water, only to have the surface press down again. That sensation. Wanting to breathe but unable to. Wanting to speak but having no voice.
Yet Ri-woo finally opened his mouth.
“I just… want to start over.”
When the words came, they didn’t sound like his own voice. A stranger’s voice. As if someone else were speaking. Ri-woo let them flow, because stopping would mean never speaking again.
“As someone other than Min-jun. As someone who isn’t his son.”
Saying it aloud felt like blasphemy. Like denying his father. Like trampling his name. Ri-woo’s hands trembled, his fingers gripping the hospital sheets until they turned white.
“And you too. And Mother. Together.”
When the final words left him, Ri-woo looked up at his mother. Her face changed. Her eyes opened. Eyes closed for twenty-four years finally opening. And within them, something wavered. Complex emotions. Despair and hope intertwined.
His mother’s lips trembled. Ri-woo waited for what she might say—whether rejection or acceptance.
“Ri-woo…”
She called her son’s name. For the first time. Truly for the first time. All the previous times had been weighted with other things. Guilt. Apology. Self-blame. But now, as that name left her lips, it was pure. The name of recognition. Recognition of him as her son. Not as Min-jun’s son, but as Ri-woo.
Se-ah released her brother’s hand and took her mother’s again. Warm. Still trembling. Se-ah placed her brother’s hand atop their mother’s.
“Hyung.”
Se-ah’s voice was small but clear. “I’m glad we can be together like this. Really.”
Do-hyun approached the bed. Seventeen years old. The youngest in this room. But also the one who had endured the most. His hand too was placed upon theirs.
Four hands now overlapped. Their mother’s. Se-ah’s. Ri-woo’s. Do-hyun’s. Each carrying different warmth. Each having lived different lives. But in this moment, connected as one.
The hospital room’s silence returned. But it was entirely different from before. The previous silences had been filled with the unspeakable—anger, shame, despair. Silences where everyone’s lips were sealed. But this silence was different. This was a silence where things that could finally be said were slowly accumulating. Things not yet fully spoken, yet filled with the possibility of being spoken.
“What do we do?”
Do-hyun asked. His voice carried much more than a seventeen-year-old’s words should. The question of a survivor. Of someone who must move forward. Of someone who knows there is no staying in the past.
Ri-woo looked at this child—a child from Min-jun’s other family, carrying his sins without having caused them. Yet now, in this moment, the child said “we.” A “we” to share the burden together.
“I don’t know,” their mother answered. Her voice was quiet, but something new lived within it. Determination. She admitted her ignorance. And it was the first time. For twenty-four years, she had assumed knowledge. Of Min-jun’s sins. Of her own role. Of her own guilt. But now, she spoke of not knowing.
“But now we have to find that answer together. Not alone.”
When she spoke, Ri-woo felt his eyes grow warm. Not with tears. Just warmth. As though someone had placed a hand upon his chest.
Se-ah heard those words. She tried to judge whether they were truth or lie, hope or despair. But she couldn’t. Se-ah realized she was too tired. Judgment required energy, and she had spent everything. But what mattered was that the words had been spoken. And they had all heard them. At the same moment. In the same room. With their hands like this.
The fluorescent light continued buzzing. From far away came Seoul’s sounds—car horns, someone’s brief cry. The city kept moving. Indifferent to Min-jun’s death. Indifferent to Ri-woo’s confession. The world turned on.
The cardiac monitor continued its steady beep. That sound meant a heart still beat. Not Min-jun’s. Someone else’s heart in this room.
“Hyung,” Se-ah asked him. “What will you do now?”
Ri-woo thought. About what came next. About ceasing to be Min-jun’s son and beginning to be Ri-woo. If such a thing was possible.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But at least… for now, I want to be here. With you. All of you.”
Speaking those words, Ri-woo understood his loneliness. Twenty-four years of it. Alone as Min-jun’s son. Alone in that guilt. Alone in Mother’s silence. But not now. Not in this moment.
Do-hyun squeezed his hand harder. The strength of that young hand transmitted itself. This boy too had been alone. Fatherless. Brotherless. Stripped of everything.
“If we’re together, that’s all we need,” their mother said again, her voice stronger. “If we’re together, we can endure.”
Ri-woo looked at her. He felt truly seeing her face for the first time in ages. The lines carved there. The wrinkles at her eyes. The marks time had made. But something new lived there too. Resolve. Acceptance. And… love.
“Mother,” Ri-woo said. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head.
“No. I’m sorry. To you. To Se-ah. To Do-hyun. I held onto the wrong things too long. Dead things. Things I couldn’t save. But I didn’t see what was here. I didn’t see you were here.”
Se-ah squeezed her mother’s hand harder, feeling it shake. Her mother wept. But her eyes stayed open. She had chosen not to close them.
“What do we do?”
Do-hyun asked again. His voice was different now. Less afraid. “After now?”
Ri-woo thought. Then slowly opened his mouth.
“We live. Together. Without Min-jun’s shadow. Without his sins. As only ourselves.”
“Is that possible?” Se-ah asked.
“I don’t know. But shouldn’t we start? Now? From this moment? With our hands like this?”
Silence came again to the room. But this was not the silence before. This was the silence of beginning. There would be much pain ahead. Many questions. Many doubts. But none of it mattered now.
What mattered was this: four hands overlapped. Four hearts beating in one room at one moment. The fire called Kang Min-jun had not entirely consumed them. They were still here.
The fluorescent light buzzed on. That sound now seemed like music. Or rhythm. Proof they lived together. A promise they would continue living.
“Can we really do this?”
Do-hyun asked.
“Yes. We can. Because we’re already together,” Ri-woo answered.
And so something very small began. Too small to name hope. Too real to name despair. Just continuing. Living together. What that would mean, the days ahead would tell.
The End