❦ 𝐛𝐢𝐝𝐨 ❦
The ocean looked peaceful only from far away.
Up close, it was nothing but a cold, heaving wound—its gray surface split again and again by restless waves that slammed into the dying shoreline of Sohanpo. I watched the water breathe in and out, as if the sea itself was exhausted. Maybe it was. Maybe we all were.
The sand under me was coarse, damp, and clingy, working its way into the seams of my jeans. My palms stung slightly where they rested on the gritty surface, but I didn't move. The discomfort somehow made everything feel more real… or less terrifying.
I tightened my hold on my phone, the pink case overly bright in a world drained of color. On the screen, the glowing letters mocked me:
#SEOJULEMOTIONCAFE, a hashtag filled with pretty pictures, pretty lattes, pretty lives.
"To Seoul," I murmured silently, "a paradise full of everything."
It had been my dream since childhood—simple, childish, and bright as the pastel notebook I once scribbled it in:
When I grow up, I want to go to Seoul.
Well, I had grown up. At least physically.
But I was still here.
Still in Sohanpo.
Still in a place that was… disappearing.
Not suddenly, not dramatically—no storms tearing buildings apart, no monstrous tidal waves swallowing homes.
Just… fading.
Like a dying breath stretched over years.
Like a city slowly exhaling its last into the ever-hungry ocean.
People left.
Houses emptied.
Shops boarded up with weather-worn planks.
The wind carried a silence that felt too heavy for such a small town.
A familiar tremor crawled through my chest—not a shiver, but a tightening, like invisible hands squeezing around my ribs. Panic.
Again.
I wrapped my arms around myself, pulling my pink-and-white plaid shirt closer as if its thin fabric could shield me from everything I didn't want to feel. My knees curled up automatically, like muscle memory.
I didn't want to think about the end.
Anything but that.
Then a tiny, stupid thought surfaced—so mundane, it almost felt absurd.
Right… the beer.
My hand fumbled for the cold green can sitting beside me. The condensation made my skin prickle. I cracked it open; the sharp pssst cut through the quiet scene like a knife. The smell—bitter, metallic—rose immediately.
I took a long gulp.
And immediately regretted it.
"Ugh—!" I grimaced, squeezing one eye shut as the aftertaste hit the back of my throat like stale metal. "What is this… taste…?"
Still, the burn grounded me more than the ocean did.
So I took another sip.
I had once believed adulthood would mean escape—that someday, I'd stand on a train to Seoul with a ticket in my hand and freedom in my lungs.
I looked out at the endlessly shifting sea.
Now the waves looked more like teeth than promise.
I once believed I could leave this place.
Now I wasn't even sure I'd survive it.
My lips trembled. I felt the familiar pressure rising again, swelling in my chest until my breath came shallow and uneven. The ocean's roar became too loud. The sand felt too cold. My own heartbeat thudded like a warning.
And suddenly, the words burst out, cracked and pathetic:
"BUT I DON'T WANT TO DIE HERE."
My voice vanished instantly, swallowed whole by the wind and the crash of the waves. No one heard me. No one ever did.
I clutched the can harder, my knuckles whitening. The metal dented under my grip with a tiny ppul sound. The trembling wouldn't stop—my breath, my fingers, even my jaw quivered like I was freezing.
I didn't have a plan.
I didn't have savings.
I didn't have good exam scores or connections or luck.
All I had was a fading dream of Seoul…
A half-empty can of cheap beer…
And a city sinking under my feet.
For a moment, all I could do was breathe through the panic, listening to the small, shaky noises escaping my throat—
kka-a-ak,
almost like the world was squeezing the sound out of me.
Just survive today, I told myself.
Just today.
Find a way out later.
But even that felt impossibly heavy.
"Okay, this time I'll definitely get into college!"
I said it with all the confidence I could gather, puffing my chest out a little as if that alone would make the words real. I looked straight at my sister, searching her expression for reassurance. "And when we meet again, will you come pick me up from Sohanpo?"
Her smile appeared immediately—soft, warm, and infuriatingly gentle. The kind of smile that made you want to believe everything would work out just because she said so. Her glasses caught the sunlight for a brief moment, turning her eyes into glimmering crescents.
"Of course," she said, nodding with natural certainty. "I'm cheering for you too, so let's definitely meet again in Sohanpo."
Her confidence wrapped around me like a blanket, but underneath that warmth… something stung. A small, bitter pinch.
"My sister was the one who went to Seoul first… even though I was the one who always wanted to go."
It wasn't jealousy—not exactly. More like a quiet, wounded surprise. Life had rearranged itself in a way I didn't expect, and for a moment, I felt like a child watching someone else claim my dream.
As we prepared to part ways, she held out her hand. I grabbed it tighter than I intended. Our fingers intertwined, palm to palm, a wordless promise. The air between us felt still, heavy with everything we wanted for the future.
"Take care," she said softly, brushing her thumb over the back of my hand. "Eat properly even when you're alone."
"You too, Sis." I forced a brave smile. "I'll call you when I arrive."
She nodded, her smile sharpening with purpose. "Remember—once you get into college, we'll live together in Seoul. So don't give up."
That vision—us living together in a small but pretty apartment—was the only thing shining through the fog of my worries.
Eventually, her figure began to fade into the distance, dissolving into the crowd and city noise. Each step she took felt like a page turning.
A chapter closing.
And when she disappeared entirely from sight, something inside me quietly reset.
My daily life in Sohanpo without my sister began again.
The fluorescent lights of the convenience store hummed above me, their harsh glow bleaching everything into shades of dull white. I stood behind the counter, hands stiff, mask scratching against my cheeks.
DING-
The automated chime sounded as another customer stepped in.
"Welcome…" I recited, my voice carrying the hollow ring of practiced politeness. My words felt like they were moving on a conveyor belt—smooth, mechanical, detached.
This was my routine now.
Earning money, studying.
Studying, earning money.
A loop that came with no pause button.
"4500 won," I muttered, handing the customer their change. They took it without meeting my eyes, which, honestly, made things easier.
I reminded myself again:
I'm an adult now.
The calendar said so, even if my trembling confidence didn't.
"Since I'm an adult now, I should be helpful to my sister."
The thought formed a tight knot of responsibility inside my chest. It was my reason, my discipline, the force that kept me upright during long nights and early shifts.
When I returned home, textbooks were waiting. A stack of resilience. CSAT Math sat open on my desk, accusing me with its printed equations, daring me to fail again.
But I refused.
I couldn't afford to.
"Thank you~" I repeated with a small bow as another customer left. The words came out habitually—it was hard to tell if I was thanking them or rehearsing gratitude for my sister.
Inside, one sentence kept echoing:
"And this time I'll definitely get into college and leave for Seoul."
I peeled my mask down, letting the cold store air hit my face. My skin felt clammy; my eyes were hot and tired. Still, determination simmered beneath the fatigue.
"If I go to Seoul… if I only make it to Seoul," I whispered, clutching the edge of the counter, "everything will be different. Everything will be better."
In my mind, Seoul wasn't just a city.
It was freedom.
It was escape.
It was heaven.
DING—!
A sudden, sharp notification cut straight through my daydream. I flinched, startled. My phone lit up, the screen glowing with a message box.
(TODAY) 3:42 PM
THIS IS DETECTIVE OOO FROM SEOUL XX POLICE STATION, CALLING REGARDING LEE BIDAN. ARE YOU AVAILABLE TO TALK?
My fingers froze.
My breath hitched.
The letters on the screen blurred for a moment as confusion and dread twisted together.
"...?"
And then—almost immediately—
RING RING RING—
An incoming call.
The green icon pulsed like a heartbeat.
I lifted the phone with shaky fingers. My voice came out barely audible.
"...Hello…?"
The man's voice on the other end was heavy, clipped, professional.
Brutally direct.
"SHE DIED."
The world didn't break slowly.
It shattered instantly.
My phone slipped from my numb hand, hitting the cold sand with a dull thud—
just as the ocean's waves crawled hungrily closer.
Everything—my dream, my purpose, my direction—collapsed in a single breath.
My sister was gone.
The sister who promised to pick me up from Sohanpo.
The sister who waited for me in Seoul.
The sister who made every hardship feel survivable.
Gone.
I sat frozen, the vast ocean roaring in front of me, completely unaware that something far more devastating had just swallowed me whole.
"Okay, this time I'll definitely get into college!"
The words burst out of me—half a vow, half a lifeline I was desperately clinging to. My voice wavered between hope and fear, but I forced myself to smile anyway, hoping she wouldn't hear the tremor underneath.
"And when we meet again," I added, trying to sound light, casual, unbothered, "will you come pick me up from Sohanpo?"
My sister looked at me the way she always did—calm, reliable, warm in a way that somehow made my chest ache. Her glasses softened her expression, giving her a gentle wisdom she probably didn't even know she possessed.
"Of course," she said, her answer immediate, firm, a quiet promise. "I'm cheering for you too, so let's definitely meet again in Sohanpo."
Her encouragement should have lifted me. Instead, a faint bitterness slid under my ribs.
"My sister was the one who went to Seoul first, even though I was the one who always wanted to go."
The thought was small but sharp, like a splinter. I never voiced it. Some truths lived better in silence.
We stood facing each other, knowing our time was running short. When we reached for each other's hands, the gesture felt instinctive—our fingers weaving together, holding on like the moment itself might tear if we loosened our grip too soon.
"Take care," she murmured, her voice laced with that familiar note of sisterly scolding. "Eat properly even when you're alone."
"You too, Sis."
I tried to answer with a smile big enough for both of us. "I'll call you when I arrive."
In that moment, the future didn't feel open or uncertain—it felt decided, already charted for us like a train schedule.
"She told me that once I got into college, we'd live together there."
That promise was a small, glowing lantern inside me.
But when she finally released my hand and turned away, her figure slowly shrinking with every step, the lantern flickered. I watched until she disappeared into the waves of people, swallowed by Seoul-bound hopes I hadn't earned yet.
And then the ache of reality settled back in.
My daily life in Sohanpo without my sister began again.
Sohanpo felt smaller without her—narrower, greyer, quieter. Days stretched long, blending together like identical pages in a book I didn't enjoy reading.
"Earning money, studying."
That was my cycle. The whole of my existence.
The convenience store became my world: the hum of refrigerators, the sharp smell of instant ramen, the buzzing fluorescent lights that bleached everything into monotony.
DING—
Another customer walked in.
"Welcome…"
The greeting left my lips on autopilot, worn thin by repetition. My mask hid most of my face, but my eyes carried the exhaustion of a hundred days exactly like this one.
I handed a man his change.
"4500 won," I mumbled, feeling the words scrape out of me like sand.
Sometimes I wondered if this was what adulthood really was—doing what needed to be done even when you didn't want to, even when your heart lagged behind.
"Since I'm an adult now, I should be helpful to my sister."
That thought became the rope I used to pull myself forward.
At night, the pages of my CSAT Math textbook glowed under the harsh desk lamp. The corners were softening, stained faintly where my fingers had sweated from stress. Every problem solved felt like one tiny step toward Seoul. Every mistake felt like a landslide.
"And this time I'll definitely get into college and leave for Seoul."
I repeated it so often it began to sound like a prayer.
"If I go to Seoul, if I only make it to Seoul," I whispered to myself during slow store shifts, "I'll be able to forget everything here."
Seoul, in my mind, wasn't a city.
It was an escape.
A cure.
A heaven.
"Seoul is… heaven."
I clung to the belief like a child clutching a blanket.
And then—
DING!
The sound of a notification cracked through the stillness like lightning. My phone screen lit up with a glow far too bright for what followed.
(TODAY) 3:42 PM
THIS IS DETECTIVE OOO FROM SEOUL XX POLICE STATION, CALLING REGARDING LEE BIDAN.
ARE YOU AVAILABLE TO TALK?
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The world seemed to tilt.
"...?"
It was the only sound I could breathe out. A small, strangled noise of confusion, of dread, of knowing something terrible had arrived.
Before I could think, the phone began to ring—
RIIIIING—
The green call icon flashing like an alarm.
I walked without direction, feet carrying me instinctively toward the shore. The ocean felt appropriate—wide, empty, unknowable.
I sank into the cold sand, my hands trembling as I lifted the phone.
"...Hello…?"
My voice barely qualified as sound.
A man spoke. His tone was flat, professional, mercilessly economical.
He wasted no time.
He offered no cushion.
"SHE DIED."
The words were a hammer.
My fingers went slack.
The phone slipped from my hand and plunged into the sand, half-buried as the incoming tide reached for it.
I stared straight ahead at the sea—the white glare of sun on waves, sharp and mocking—while inside me, everything collapsed silently.
"And in that place, my sister…"
The sentence never reached its end. It didn't need to.
My sister, Bidan—
my future roommate,
my anchor,
my hope—
was gone.
A memory flickered, uninvited and unbearably vivid.
"The first time I rode a train was when I'd just entered elementary school."
Our family had ridden together, squeezed into one seat row, laughing as we passed around the snacks Mom had packed. I remembered the sweet potato in my hands, warm and fragrant.
My face dirty from play, my smile too big to contain.
"I don't remember where we were going," I whispered into the wind,
"but I really loved the times when all of us rode the train together."
Back then, everything felt whole.
Before the fracture.
Before the fall.
THEN OUR FAMILY FELL APART IN AN INSTANT.
I remembered Mom's voice soothing me in the dark tunnel.
"Our Bido, are you scared because it's dark…? It's okay. It'll pass soon."
But the darkness didn't pass.
It came in the form of a confession—
"Mom having an affair with a wealthy classmate."
And the sound of fists pounding on our door—
"Dad chased by debt collectors."
Until one day, he simply disappeared.
Vanished.
"In front of money, there was no family."
"Love was pointless."
That was the conclusion life carved into me.
Afterward, my sister went to Seoul.
She believed she could save us.
She believed she could start over.
She believed in love.
I didn't.
Now, standing alone at the shore, the sunlight too bright to bear, I lifted my eyes toward the horizon.
There was only one thing left for me to do.
"So now… I am going to Seoul."
Not for a dream.
Not for a future.
But for answers.
For truth.
For Bidan.
After meeting Mr. Shin, my sister changed in ways that were small at first — then frighteningly absolute. His presence seeped into every corner of her life like a slow, deliberate poison. Even the way she said his name was different.
Mr. Shin.
Not his real name.
Not even his initial.
Just Mr. Shin, an ambiguous title delivered with shy reverence, as if speaking anything more intimate would burn her tongue.
"He's a professor. That's the basics~" she would giggle into the phone, her voice soft and fluttering, as if she were discussing a gentle crush rather than a man twice her age who remained indifferent and distant.
She adored him with a devotion far too large for the scraps he gave her.
"Isn't Mr. Shin really cool…?" she would ask me, her eyes glimmering with a dreamy light.
But their interactions were minimal — barely even interactions at all.
He would come to the reading room. Borrow a book. Leave.
That was all.
There was no romance. No warmth. No sign of mutual affection.
And yet she built him into something mythical, untouchable.
One day, I watched him myself — the man behind the name. A stiff, dark silhouette in a suit, sitting hunched over the desk. He didn't fidget. He didn't move. He didn't glance at anyone. He just sat there, consumed by something only he understood.
"He really sits long, Mr. Shin," she murmured beside me, almost admiringly.
"But he's been sitting there for three hours already."
Her voice was soft, dreamy.
Like she was under a spell.
As I watched her watching him, a heavy dread pooled in my stomach. This wasn't love — it was obsession. A frightening, hungry attachment seeking something impossible.
Later that evening, I sat on the sand by the water, staring at the pink sunset bleeding over the ocean. My phone rested against my ear.
"I don't get it; what's so cool about that old man…?" I muttered, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
Her reaction was immediate. Violent.
"WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MR. SHIN??" she screamed, the fury in her voice ripping through the line.
"YOU'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN HIM!"
I froze, struck speechless.
"DON'T YOU EVER TALK BAD ABOUT MR. SHIN IN FRONT OF ME AGAIN!!!"
The words were sharp enough to cut.
Not at me — through me.
I hung up slowly, letting out a trembling breath.
"…Sigh. …Sorry," I whispered to no one, my voice dissolving into the cold air. Another wave surged forward, brushing my shoes — CHULSEOK — as if the ocean itself was reminding me how small I was in this mess.
"…There must be some charm I just don't know…" I told myself, though I knew the truth: whatever she saw in him, it wasn't real. It was an illusion she could no longer pull herself out of.
And then I saw it.
A flash of silver on his finger.
A wedding band.
My breath hitched. A cold, nauseating shock rushed down my spine.
That's why I hated him.
Not because he was older.
Not because he was distant.
But because he was married — a married man letting my sister fall deeper and deeper into a fantasy while he sat silently, offering nothing, refusing nothing, ensuring she drowned in her own hope.
The phone calls from Seoul became unbearable.
She cried as she studied.
She whispered things that didn't sound like her anymore.
"I don't have the confidence in my future to keep living…"
"I just wanted love…"
"What do I do…? What should I do now??"
Her voice would swing wildly — desperation to rage, desperation to despair.
"At this rate, Mr. Shin will never love me…"
"STOP CALLING AND ANNOYING ME FOR REASONS LIKE THAT WHILE I'M STUDYING…!"
"FUCK, YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY TOO…!!!"
I had never heard her shout like that.
I had never heard her break like that.
I hung up, shaking.
But her last words echoed constantly in my mind.
"I want to die…"
And then she did.
She hanged herself at home.
Now, no matter where I look, no matter how bright the world is, I see her final expression — that desperate, hollow stare — burned into the darkness behind my eyelids.
My sister is gone.
After meeting Mr. Shin, my sister changed in small ways that grew, day by day, into something terrifyingly irreversible. She never said his name. Instead, she wrapped him in an ambiguous, oddly reverent title:
Mr. Shin.
She admitted she was too embarrassed to call him by his real name.
"He's a professor. That's the basics~" she'd say, her voice rising in a soft trill I hadn't heard since childhood.
She asked me every night, like a refrain she never tired of,
"Isn't Mr. Shin really cool…?"
But nothing about what she described resembled romance.
Their "relationship" barely existed — he borrowed books and left, a ghost passing through her life with quiet indifference.
Yet my sister crafted entire universes out of these scraps.
I watched him once in the reading room, a dark silhouette framed by a desk lamp. His back was straight, his shoulders stark under the clean lines of his suit. He hardly moved. His stillness felt cold, rigid — a wall impossible to approach.
"He really sits long, Mr. Shin," she whispered, her voice tinged with awe.
"But he's been sitting there for three hours already."
She sounded like she was watching a deity in meditation, not an ordinary man reading academic papers.
Then, with a flutter of excitement, she murmured,
"Then~ ah, I should ask him to have dinner with me. What should we eat~"
Her cheeks flushed.
Her hands trembled.
She looked bewitched.
I stared at the rigid figure across from her, dread creeping into my chest.
It wasn't love in her eyes.
It was devotion — blind, consuming, dangerous.
"…There must be some charm I just don't know…" I tried to tell myself, though the words felt thin.
Later that evening, I sat by the sea. The sky was a soft pink bruise across the horizon, the waves whispering against the sand. Phone to my ear, breath stuck in my throat, I muttered:
"I don't get it; what's so cool about that old man…?"
Her reaction slammed into me with brutal force.
"WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MR. SHIN??" she screamed, voice cracking.
"YOU'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN HIM!"
"DON'T YOU EVER TALK BAD ABOUT MR. SHIN IN FRONT OF ME AGAIN!!!"
Her voice trembled with a ferocity that didn't belong to her.
I jerked the phone away, stunned.
When I hung up, my whisper felt like a broken apology drifting into the wind.
"…Sigh… …Sorry."
But the apology wasn't for her. It was for the widening gap between us — a gap shaped like a man who barely knew she existed.
Then I saw it.
A flash of cool silver on his left hand.
A wedding ring.
That was the moment something solidified inside me — a hard, bitter core of hatred.
Not born of jealousy or judgment.
But because he was married.
A married man letting my sister spin fantasies around him, letting her erode under the weight of her own hopes.
The phone calls from Seoul grew unbearable.
Her voice changed.
Her world narrowed until it was only him.
"I don't have the confidence in my future to keep living…"
"I just wanted love…"
"What do I do…? What should I do now???"
Then the mood swings.
The frantic writing.
Her voice stretched tight like a fraying thread.
"At this rate, Mr. Shin will never love me…"
"STOP CALLING AND ANNOYING ME WHILE I'M STUDYING…!"
"FUCK, YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY TOO…!!!"
I had never heard her like that.
I had never been afraid of her voice before.
And then — our last call.
"I want to die…"
She hanged herself at home.
Weeks later.
A detective placed two pages into my trembling hands.
"This was found at Ms. Lee Bidan's residence," he said softly.
"You should read it yourself."
The cover page was stark, almost eerily plain.
DEPARTING
My sister's final manuscript.
Her last story.
Her will.
She had become a librarian at S University in Seoul, clinging to survival while waiting for the day she would write again. And in the end, she did write — but not a novel, not a dream.
A farewell.
The pages trembled as I lifted them, breath shallow, the weight of her handwriting pressing down on me like a verdict.
This was the last piece of her.
The last voice she would ever give the world.
The name he spoke—
"Ms. Lee Bido?"
—stabbed into me with a cold, surgical precision.
It wasn't even her real name, not the legal one I had only just discovered in her will.
But it was the name she used when she felt powerless, small, when she wanted to escape herself.
Not I.
The name of someone disappearing.
And the man who spoke it stood before me like a perfectly assembled shell.
Mr. Shin—no, Shin Sajun, professor, married man, the quiet gravity that had warped my sister's world—looked exactly as she had described:
the smooth suit, the firm line of his jaw, the hair combed meticulously to the side, glasses framing tired, intelligent eyes.
A precise man.
A man who lived in straight lines.
A man who never looked back.
"I've heard a lot about you, Mr. Shin," I said, my voice sounding cracked and foreign, as if it belonged to someone else. The papers in my hand trembled, though I fought to keep them still. "My sister left a note. A farewell."
His gaze flicked to the crumpled pages, then back to me.
Not curiosity.
Not grief.
Just acknowledgment, the bare minimum of human response.
"She wanted you to know," I continued, each syllable scraping out of my throat, "how pathetic she was. Her words. Her last words."
The silence that followed was terrifying.
He didn't swallow.
Didn't blink.
Didn't even shift his weight.
It was as if grief, remorse, guilt — none of it existed in the language his body knew how to speak.
My vision drifted to his wedding ring, that small band of polished silver that had ruined everything. It caught a shard of winter light, flashing like a knife.
My sister had cried over that ring.
Had raged at me because of that ring.
Had written her final confession because of that ring.
I felt something uncoil in me, something sharp and venomous.
"After driving my sister to death, you dare show up?" I whispered, the words trembling with heat. "You dare stand here looking like—like this?"
He didn't argue.
He didn't defend himself.
He didn't even attempt to correct me.
Instead, he lifted his hand—a thin, pale hand with prominent knuckles, cold as porcelain—and reached out toward my arm.
I flinched violently, revulsion surging through me.
"DISGUSTING."
My voice came out as a hiss, raw and shaking.
I snatched my arm away, as if his touch carried poison.
"What were you to my sister?" I demanded, breath coming unevenly, lungs burning with the effort not to cry. "Who were you to her?"
He gave no immediate answer.
His eyes drifted—just slightly—to a point past my shoulder, as if searching for a detail on an invisible blackboard.
His face remained still, carved in that same emotionless calm.
The silence stretched until something in me cracked.
"Please… say something," I begged, my anger collapsing inward, crushed under the weight of grief. My throat tightened. "Say anything."
And then he did.
"…I'm sorry about Ms. Bidan."
The numb tone.
The formal phrasing.
The distance.
As if she were a student he vaguely remembered, not a woman whose life unraveled around his existence.
The words hit me harder than a shout ever could.
SORRY?
That was all he had?
My chest tightened, grief and fury knotting together until I couldn't breathe.
"THAT'S IT?" I screamed, voice breaking open. "That's ALL? She DIED!"
He didn't argue.
He didn't comfort.
He simply turned, his tall frame shifting with mechanical smoothness, and walked away.
Each step slow, deliberate, final.
It wasn't a retreat.
It was a severing.
The kind that left no loose threads, no explanations, no closure.
And just like that, he disappeared into the cold air of the library hallway, the echo of his steps dissolving into silence.
I was left standing alone
—with nothing but a hollow apology,
a crumpled two-page will,
and the aching truth that my sister,
Lee Bidan
who had once wanted to become a novelist,
spent her last hours writing not a story
but a confession no one else would ever hear.
The cold, wet sand pressed against the backs of my legs, seeping through the thin fabric of my clothes, but I didn't move. The beach was silent except for the waves, their rhythm steady, indifferent, almost mocking. I stared at my phone, the screen dim, the message still glowing faintly like an exposed nerve.
Mr. Shin.
His name sat there in the draft box like something rotten I had forgotten to throw away.
A message I had never sent.
A truth I had never confronted.
I scrolled up, my thumb trembling.
"WE WERE DRUNK THOUGH…?!"
The words jumped out at me like a slap.
A panicked thought I'd typed in a rush, breathless, defensive, hoping my friend would absolve me of the guilt even I didn't want to admit to.
Hoping alcohol would be enough of an excuse.
Hoping that if I didn't send it, if I never acknowledged it, it would cease to exist.
But reality doesn't delete itself.
The memory rose with agonizing clarity.
The sharp smell of soju lingering in the narrow alley.
The neon glow spilling onto the pavement.
His hand adjusting his glasses as he searched for something in his pocket.
My heart pounding not with attraction but with some twisted mix of curiosity and envy.
The kiss wasn't romantic.
It wasn't passionate.
It wasn't even meaningful.
It was an accident born of blurred judgment and a willingness to test the forbidden fruit my sister worshipped.
And I had kissed him.
I, the sister who claimed to hate him.
The sister who mocked him.
The sister who said she didn't understand what was so cool about that "old man."
But I understood.
Too well.
And that was the first betrayal.
The second came when I hid it.
I pressed a hand against my forehead, nails scraping the skin as if I could claw the memory out. The waves crashed again, louder this time, their spray cold enough to sting.
I thought back to her voice on the phone.
Breathing fast.
Sniffling.
Borderline hysterical.
"I don't have the confidence in my future to keep living…"
I used to think she meant her dreams, her career, her writing.
But no.
She had read that message.
She had seen his name pop up on my screen.
She had discovered that the man she placed at the center of her world had touched me—her sister—first, or last, or maybe it didn't matter.
What mattered was that she felt replaced.
And I had hung up on her.
I hung up on her final cry.
Her final warning.
"STOP CALLING ME… YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY TOO!"
The words replayed mercilessly, reshaped now with the truth carved into their edges.
She wasn't lashing out blindly.
She was drowning.
And the hands pushing her underwater were his—and mine.
I closed my eyes, but all I could see was her face.
Smiling shyly when she first mentioned him.
Beaming when he borrowed a book from her.
Glowing with fragile hope.
And then the final stare.
Empty.
Accusing.
Hopeless.
A stare I could never unsee.
"I was the one who ended up being left alone," I whispered into the dark shoreline. My voice cracked. "But I was also the one who pushed her toward the edge."
The sand under my palm felt icy.
My heart felt worse.
Everything she had written in that will—the confession of unrequited love, the torment of nightly phone calls, the humiliation of chasing a married man—had one missing page.
The page that belonged to me.
I had destroyed her world long before she tied that knot around her neck.
And now, sitting here with the waves' relentless CHULSEOK… SWOOOSH… in my ears, I realized something horrifying:
My sister didn't just die because she loved the wrong man.
She died because she trusted the wrong sister.
I drew my knees to my chest, hugging them tightly, shaking as though the cold were carving into my bones. The guilt wasn't an emotion anymore.
It was a living creature
wrapped around my throat
squeezing
and squeezing
and squeezing.
The will was still folded in my bag.
Two pages soaked in her final truth.
But the most damning truth of all was the one she never knew—
or perhaps the one she knew too late.
The waves kept whispering their indifferent rhythm.
And I sank deeper into the undertow of guilt, unable to breathe, unable to speak, unable to scream.
The wind off the water had turned sharper, knifing through the thin layer of my clothes, but I barely noticed. What I felt—what I could not escape—was the sting of the two crumpled pages digging into my palm.
My sister's handwriting.
My sister's final breath pressed into ink.
My sister's final judgment.
The pages rustled faintly, fragile from how tightly I was gripping them. It felt like holding her bones.
I exhaled, the breath trembling, white in the night air.
Everything was a contradiction:
Her love was pure.
Her obsession was toxic.
Her will was honest.
My secret was foul.
I looked down at those pages—DEPARTING, written in her careful strokes—and every line felt like a finger pointing at the wrong man. Or maybe the right one. Or maybe at both of us. Or maybe at no one, because grief twists logic until nothing stays straight.
Her will named him.
My guilt named me.
The truth was a knot braided by three hands: her desperation, his indifference, and my betrayal.
But who would ever untangle it if I didn't speak?
One person.
Me.
And I had no intention of letting the world know what kind of monster I truly was.
The waves crashed again—SWOOOSH, CHULSEOK—as if urging me to decide. The night around me felt like a stage with no audience, just the universe watching, waiting, judging in silence.
I closed my eyes.
If I exposed the truth, I would become the villain in my own sister's tragedy.
The sister who kissed the man she worshipped.
The sister who hid it.
The sister who hung up on her final cry.
No forgiveness existed for that sort of evil.
But if I kept the secret…
Then Bidan's story would stay clean.
The world would remember her as a girl destroyed by a married man's negligence, not by her own sister's betrayal.
A martyr.
Not a fool.
Her will wanted him to hurt.
She wanted her death to strike him like a blade.
And I—
I wanted redemption that was no longer possible.
But I could at least offer her vengeance.
I unfolded the pages, smoothing them with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. They were soaked at the edges from the damp air, already soft, already dying. The ink shimmered faintly under the moonlight—her voice reaching across the final distance.
"Tell him what his marriage did to the silly girl who just wanted to be loved."
A silly girl.
A girl who believed in stories.
A girl who trusted me.
The wind tugged at the paper, as if trying to pull it from my hands, to scatter it before I did something unforgivable. But my fingers curled tighter.
I took out my lighter.
A small click.
A thin flame, trembling like it shared my guilt.
The paper caught instantly.
A curl of orange.
A breath of black smoke.
The edges turned brittle before my eyes, folding inward like dead petals.
I watched the will die.
Her final words curled into ash, spiraled upward, and drifted over the dark waves—joining the vast, indifferent sea.
The firelight flickered against my face, turning my tears into molten streaks. My throat burned as if I had swallowed the flame myself.
I wasn't just burning the evidence of my sister's anguish.
I was burning the last proof of her truth.
I was burning the page that could have condemned me.
And somewhere inside, the last part of me that was honest turned to ash too.
When the flame reached my fingertips, I let the final glowing scrap fall onto the sand, where it hissed and died.
The night grew silent again.
No applause.
No forgiveness.
Just the cold sea and the acrid scent of smoke clinging to my clothes.
I whispered into the darkness, as if confessing to a ghost:
"I'm sorry."
But the wind carried the words away before they could reach anyone.
𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐄𝐃 .....