Sin ||KookV||

15

The cigarette burn scars on my legs weren't all caused by Dad. At the time, my hyung was at the age when little boys were scoundrels, and I had just turned four, also a very unlikeable age. The two of us often had intense bad blood brewing between us.

He had his own little bedroom, while I slept with our parents. From a young age, I already had an insatiable curiosity about his bedroom. I wanted to touch every little thing in his room, but he didn't let me touch anything and locked up all the drawers and cabinets. The moment I stepped into his room, he would yell at me to get out.

Of course, there was no way I would listen to him. I took advantage of a time when he had gone out to play with people his age in the area and snuck into his room, sprawling out on his desk as I played with his things.

His worksheets were still on the desk. My hyung's writing was extremely good-looking, though I couldn't recognise more than a few words. There was a pile of comics on his desk too. I did my best to tiptoe and take one to flip through. It just so happened that there was a pen lying next to his worksheets, so I took it and wrote in the book. My words were slanted and wobbly; I didn't know how to write so that it looked as good as my hyung's.

I stayed in his room for a long time until he suddenly returned. He shouted loudly without warning and dragged me off the chair, throwing me out of the room.

At a loss, I sat on the floor and wailed while he held the comic book I had vandalised, clenching his teeth in anger. Our parents were annoyed by my crying, so they lectured my hyung, Isn't it just a book, you're almost entering middle school and still reading comics? We're confiscating it.

Tears welled up in my hyung's red-rimmed eyes as he glared at me, and I cried even harder. The two of us wanted nothing more than to kill the other.

The next day, my hyung took me out to play and threw me to a group of little hooligans. He even laughed and said to me, "I'm going to school now, Taehyung, you can play with them."

Once he left, my nightmare began. Apparently, all memories before the age of six were supposed to be hazy, but I had a deep impression of this. That group of little hooligans pinned me to the ground and extinguished cigarette butts on my thighs. They kicked my stomach and legs forcefully too. All I felt was pain and fear as I screamed, Hyung, save me.

He did come and save me, just that he was half an hour late, but I still took him as a hero and didn't understand why he was crying. Later, even when he told me the truth, I still could only clearly remember the scene where he carried me away.

From then onwards, my huyng gave in to me no matter what. I also did my best not to anger him, but I couldn't help but want to go near him. Even though he found me annoying and unlikeable and didn't let me go into his room and onto his bed, I couldn't help it. I liked the smell in his room, and the bed had the smell of my hyung's shampoo.

Actually, Mum and Dad didn't like me; they preferred hyung. My hyung could bring glory. No matter what grade he was in school, he was always in the first place. On the other hand, I was very cheeky, a little hoodlum who would play like crazy wherever I went.

My dad only cared about drinking and playing mahjong, so he was never concerned with family matters. He just beat me up every night when he came home.

I heard my mum say that they hadn't originally planned to give birth to me, but the doctor hadn't given her an IUD after she gave birth to my hyung, and as the saying goes, you can't avoid getting your shoes wet if you often walk along the river, so after a few years, she accidentally got pregnant with me, this burden.

In my heart, I thought it would have been great if my mum had just let go of me back then because now I was being delayed from reincarnating into better hands. But of course, I didn't actually care.

The year I turned six was when the relationship between my hyung and me truly warmed up. My aunt was coming over to stay for a while so the temporary arrangement in my house was that my dad would sleep on the couch, my mum and aunt would sleep in the master bedroom and I would seek shelter in my hyung's little bed.

On the second day of this arrangement, I shockingly found out that my hyung had wet the bed. I touched a few of the patches on the sheets; it was wet and sticky. At the time, I didn't know about wet dreams, so I thought that when one had studied a lot they would have this sort of sticky urine. This was all because my hyung was too outstanding.

His face was darkened as he used tissues to wipe the bed sheets and his underwear. He took his underwear off as well and asked me to turn around and not look. I was worried about him, so I took some tissue and helped him wipe his little one. His face darkened even more.

My mum asked us what we were fussing about so early in the morning. I raced to answer first and said I had wet the bed and my hyung was helping me to clean the sheets.

As expected, my dad beat me up with a feather duster and my mum was annoyed, scolding me as she went to wash the sheets. My aunt laughed at me the whole day too. My hyung gave me all his snacks and even after my aunt had left, he still permitted me to sleep with him.

My hyung attended boarding schools during middle and high school, so only I was at home. During this time, the relationships in the family were already very cold. My mum didn't have any more worries so she often went in and out of clubs while my dad got addicted to gambling. He wasn't at home during the day and at night when he came home he would rummage through the cupboards and drawers to find the money. If he was drunk, he'd have an extra task: beating me.

There were four people in my home, yet I lived like a left-behind child.

Every weekend, my hyung would come back to see me, so like most of the working class, I looked forward to the weekends. And when he came back, I would pretend I hadn't needed him to come back at all.

Two years later, my mum ran off with someone else and took my hyung along with her. My dad had lost his dignity; there was not a glimmer of light left on his face. All of his fiery anger was directed at me. I didn't like to go home, going home was no different from getting executed.

Every day, I longed for my hyung, longing for him to save me again. He never came, so he definitely didn't want me anymore.

"Taehyung."

"Darling."

I felt something on my face. My hyung was kissing me, his big hands rubbing my back.

I was expressionless, letting him help me clean the tears and snot off my face.

As my hyung wiped my face, he said, "I just went to the balcony to smoke for a moment. What are you going to do when you start university?"

At night, as long as my hyung had left me for a moment I would start having nightmares. I lost my mind when I couldn't smell him. It had been a long time since I was last separated from him; I couldn't leave him. Perhaps I had been sick from the start.