🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 3
What does it mean to die?
The death I had vaguely imagined was one where the Grim Reaper waited for me.
I would stubbornly refuse to go with him, and he would glare at me with cold, merciless eyes.
But the death I actually faced was like wandering somewhere between this world and the next—a dreamlike haze.
That dream was so warm and comforting that I found myself thinking, Ah… maybe my end wasn’t so terrible after all.
In that pleasant dream I hadn’t had in so long, Dad was there, Mom was there, and my sister was there too.
It was a memory from when I was seven years old, all of us gathered around the table laughing as we ate together.
Even though I knew it wasn’t real, tears welled in my eyes at the dream of those childhood days—a dream I had begged and begged to see again but never once managed to have.
“Eat properly. Don’t leave food behind.”
“Dad! Han Yeoreum stole my sausage!”
“Bleh! Then why were you saving it? You should eat things while you still have them.”
“Yeoreum, what kind of way is that to talk to your older sister?”
“Ugh, Mom always picks on me!”
My eight-year-old sister, sitting beside me, laughed as she watched me puff out my cheeks in annoyance.
I was upset that Mom and Dad wouldn’t take my side, but when I looked back at the table again, they were suddenly gone.
Instead, sitting there was my thirty-one-year-old sister, wearing a beige cardigan and a scrunchie with a large flower decoration around her wrist.
She smiled at me.
For some reason, that smile looked exactly like the smile Mom used to wear when I was little.
My sister gently brushed my hair back with warm, tender hands before carefully speaking.
“Gyeoul… Han Gyeoul.”
* * *
“Gyeoul… Han Gyeoul.”
At the faint voice drifting through my blurred consciousness, every nerve in my body sharpened.
“Please… wake up…”
A man’s trembling sob pierced painfully through my ears.
The sound of him crying in misery shook my mind violently, and a splitting headache crashed over me.
Please, someone make that crying stop.
“Shouldn’t you leave now?”
Another man’s voice cut through the sobbing.
Low. Very low.
That deep voice, like something echoing through a cave, pushed away the crying that had been throwing my thoughts into chaos.
It sounded steady and comforting, like the thump of a heartbeat, and my frayed nerves eased a little.
Of course, that didn’t mean the words themselves were kind.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“President Joo.”
“You know better than anyone that it’s not a good look for you to be lingering around this hospital.”
“I-I’m Gyeoul’s friend. We’ve known each other for over twenty years!”
“Then if those twenty years meant that much to you, maybe you should’ve married her.”
“Sir!”
“Don’t overstep.”
Even the man’s calm, monotonous voice had turned sharp.
“Han Gyeoul is my wife.”
“……”
“This isn’t your place to interfere.”
At the sound of my sister’s name, my drifting consciousness slowly began to return.
Forcing my heavy eyelids open, I blinked slowly.
Within my blurry vision, I saw one familiar face and one unfamiliar one.
“Gyeoul!”
The man rushed toward me as if he were about to embrace me.
His once-small face was swollen and ruined from crying.
Looking at his mess of a face, I realized he was the owner of the miserable sobbing that had been scraping at my nerves.
I stared blankly at Jihoon oppa, who looked ready to burst into tears again at any moment.
“Are you awake? Do you recognize me?”
At his question, I slowly nodded and turned my gaze away.
The man standing at the foot of the bed said nothing despite my stare.
Arms crossed, he simply observed me silently.
No.
He wasn’t unfamiliar.
That man was…
“…Brother-in-law.”
A cracked voice, rough like metal scraping against metal, escaped my throat.
The indifferent eyes fixed on me sharpened instantly.
Frowning at my own failing voice, I struggled to speak again.
“…B-brother-in-law… where’s my sister?”
“I think we should call the doctor.”
The man—my brother-in-law—answered in a completely emotionless tone.
At his words, the man standing behind him like a shadow hurriedly bowed and left the room.
Still clutching my cast-covered right hand while sobbing uncontrollably, Jihoon oppa looked at me.
“Oppa…”
“…What?”
“My sister… what happened to her?”
“…Gyeoul, what are you trying to do to me?”
No one answered my question.
Jihoon oppa only cried harder while my brother-in-law watched me expressionlessly.
Panic began rising inside me.
Their silence filled me with dread.
Why wouldn’t anyone answer me?
Why was my heart pounding so anxiously?
Even after hearing my sister’s name over and over, she still hadn’t appeared.
Fear and suffocating unease swallowed me whole.
“Han Gyeoul… where is Han Gyeoul?!”
“Get a hold of yourself.”
At my desperate scream, a cold voice came from the foot of the bed.
As if suppressing his irritation, my brother-in-law let out a shallow sigh before glancing at the sobbing Jihoon beside me.
Then he spoke slowly.
“You’re Han Gyeoul.”
“…What?”
“And Han Yeoreum is your younger sister.”
“W-what are you talking about…?”
“Your sister died in that accident.”
For a moment, it felt as though every sound in the world disappeared.
Except for one voice.
His.
I bit my lip, unable to believe I had heard him correctly.
Frowning slightly, he looked at me and spoke calmly.
“You should at least see your sister off.”
There was no emotion in his voice.
And somehow, hearing that made me feel relieved.
Ah.
So this really was just a dream.
The last thing I saw was his lowered gaze fixed on me before the world sank back into darkness.
* * *
“…Han Gyeoul was the only survivor recovered from the accident site. Honestly, if a passerby hadn’t reported it, her life would have been in danger too.”
I blankly stared at the doctor speaking incomprehensible words in front of me.
“Fortunately, the surgery went well, and the fact that the patient is young has greatly aided her recovery…”
His voice faded into meaningless noise as he flipped through papers and explained my condition.
Slowly, I turned my gaze toward the mirror sitting on his desk.
The reflection staring back at me was familiar, yet strange.
Large double-lidded eyes.
Long eyelashes.
A sharp nose.
Pale lips.
Long straight hair falling to the chest.
A woman both unfamiliar and familiar looked back at me through the mirror.
I lifted my head toward the doctor, who had been talking endlessly.
Watching him read through the chart with a serious expression, I slowly opened my mouth.
“Doctor…”
“You lost your younger sister in the accident— Ah, yes? Please go ahead.”
“…Can people experience hallucinations after an accident?”
“Hallucinations?”
“Yes.”
My flat question made him frown in confusion.
After studying me carefully for a moment, he answered cautiously.
“After experiencing severe trauma, some patients develop PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder. Hallucinations can occur as part of that.”
“…Then is seeing my sister’s face instead of my own also a symptom of PTSD?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Because I couldn’t save my sister… am I seeing her face instead of mine out of guilt?”
The woman in the mirror wasn’t crying.
She only stared back at me with a face as dry and lifeless as a tree whose roots had rotted away.
Sympathy filled the doctor’s eyes at my calm question.
I watched him lower his head before turning my gaze back to the mirror.
My sister was still there.
Not me.
My sister, whose naturally pale face had turned deathly white.
The bright light that had once filled her large eyes was gone.
Scratches marred the flawless skin she once had.
A stranger stood in the mirror.
The doctor quietly held out a navy-blue handkerchief toward me.
I stared blankly at it.
“You can cry… it’s okay to cry.”
“……”
“I understand this is even harder because you believe you survived while your sister didn’t.”
His voice trembled with sorrow as he tried to comfort me.
But strangely enough, no tears came.
“But Han Gyeoul…”
“……”
“Please live.”
“……”
“For the younger sister who left first, please endure this grief and keep living.”
“…No.”
Staring blankly at the thin arms that looked little more than skin and bone and the small hands covered in scratches, I shook my head.
The doctor swallowed back tears as he looked at me.
And calmly, I continued.
“Han Gyeoul is dead.”
“Miss Han Gyeoul…”
“The woman who died on that freezing road…”
“……”
“It wasn’t Han Yeoreum.”
“Miss Han Gyeoul…”
“It was Han Gyeoul.”
The woman in the mirror was smiling.
That pitiful woman, too broken to even cry, smiled because she could not weep.
“My unbearably pitiful sister.”
