Knowing Brother-Chapter 25

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"Normally, I rested during the day and only moved at night when there were fewer people.

But one morning, knowing that I had to pass through a deep forest, I kept going even after the sun had risen.

It was early spring, and the beautiful sunlight and fragrant air made me feel joyful.

It felt as if the kindness that I thought had disappeared long ago was coming back to life.

I was a little surprised by this new feeling, and I entrusted myself to it.

I forgot my loneliness and ugly appearance, and dared to dream of being happy."

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Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

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[EP 2. Android]

It took me a long time to finish reading the children's version of Frankenstein. Some might scold me for taking so long, not knowing the circumstances, but I, Choi Seolwoo, an android being chased by a secret organization, didn’t attend school and spent almost every day at home, learning knowledge by myself. Looking up words in the dictionary and understanding the numerous words in the book was a laborious task.

The children’s literary collection that Mrs. Choi found at a secondhand store was already worn out, which I liked. If it had been new, I would have had to handle it carefully to avoid getting fingerprints on it.

Nothing upset me more than seeing something I liked get damaged. I was so obsessive that even if a single bristle of a toothbrush was crooked, I would scream and cry in frustration. If a stain got on my shoes, I would throw them in the trash, dirtying them, and rage until my voice was hoarse.

Sometimes, Mrs. Choi found it difficult to endure me. After causing a ruckus demanding that I be moved to a different room because I was too noisy, I learned to suppress my anger. But even if I didn’t cry, the pain in my heart was the same. Whether I cried out loud or not, it was equally heartbreaking if something I cherished was damaged, no matter how small.

It really hurt. I didn’t understand why Mrs. Choi couldn’t understand me.

Not being able to control things—this was a major issue for me. Because, in my view, most things around me were beyond my control.

For example, the big wall-mounted TV, smartphones, a house that looked brand new, a father and mother taking their child to Seoul Grand Park for a ride, friends gathering at a casual restaurant to have birthday parties.

These were things that other people were allowed to have, but for me, they were things that couldn’t be obtained without magic.

Even my birth was like that. My birth wasn’t something Mrs. Choi decided on her own. I found out about it by overhearing the couple from the owner’s house talking in the yard.

Just throw her out. She's an unmarried mother, and from the looks of it, she’s a woman who comes home every morning from some bar.

She’s pitiful. It’s not like the second kid’s behind.

Oh dear... What should we do if she rolls around without a plan and suddenly has a kid? She’s young, so maybe she should learn some skills and get a decent job. What will this kid grow up learning? Tch tch... It’s just sad for the child.

My ability to understand language and arithmetic wasn’t slower than my peers, but because I was a secret android, I couldn’t go to school. I had to take multiple pills twice a day. Until I reached the age of fifth grade, I had to endure boring homeschooling, and I had to wait alone for Mrs. Choi, who worked late into the night.

Most of the significant parts of life were beyond my control. So, when something I could control didn’t go as planned, I got furious.

Why can’t I go to school? Wait, isn’t this child abuse?

They say his development is slow. I guess his intelligence is low. How can a 12-year-old who just learned Hangul sit in a first-grade class? We can’t put him in a first-year class at that age.

"Fucking idiots."

I turned up the volume on the TV and mocked the owner’s uncle and aunt with curses I’d heard in a drama. I wasn’t slow in development, I was just an experimental android being chased by a secret organization, so I had to stay hidden. That’s why I had to take pills to suppress the signal.

I spent every day at home alone. As I grew taller, Mrs. Choi took me to move houses late at night, and sometimes we stayed in inns for a few days before moving to another house. This happened several times.

“Bad uncles keep finding out where we are and chasing us!”

“Even though you’re taking the medicine, why is this happening? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. Seolwoo, you’re taking your medicine properly, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Those uncles are really good at digging up information. They’ve got spies everywhere, watching where I live, always keeping an eye on us. So you must never open the door to anyone other than me, okay?”

“Then let’s make a secret code! Like a sign for mom.”

“A secret code? Where did you learn such a difficult word?”

“From OCN.”

Holding Mrs. Choi’s hand, I would jump over windows in the middle of the night and run down dark alleys, or stay in musty-smelling inns for days, but it didn’t feel difficult to me. It felt like an adventure. Like I was the hero in the action films OCN would air.

...How am I supposed to pay this back?! Am I really going to kill someone? I can’t die. I can’t die leaving him behind!

One night, Mrs. Choi screamed loudly in the bathroom of the inn. She was always fighting with people, but that night her voice was so torn that it sounded truly painful.

I climbed onto the vanity chair, filled the kettle with water, and started boiling it. When the button clicked down, I opened the lid and blew on the hot water. Searching for a cup, I found a paper cup. But it barely held any water, so I carefully poured the slightly cooled water into a plastic bottle.

As I poured the water, the plastic bottle suddenly crumpled. It seemed the bottle’s shape changed with hot water. I picked up the crumpled bottle and crouched in front of the sobbing Mrs. Choi.

“Mom, does your throat hurt? Drink this.”

Mrs. Choi looked at the bottle and wiped her nose, crying harder. I leaned against her and scolded her.

“When you told me to cry quietly, why is it different when it’s you? The owner can hear all of it.”

Frequent moves helped me fix my bad habits. My tendency to not tolerate things I cherished being damaged fit perfectly with it. I couldn’t make a desk or something I valued from the start, so I learned a method when I was young.

“Mom. Just throw it away before it becomes precious. If you don’t like that bracelet breaking, just throw it away now!”

Since then, I didn’t make things I wanted to cherish. Not people, not things. Then, I felt at ease. There was no need to cry until my throat tore. Whenever I got a secondhand desk, I would draw all over it with colored pencils and markers to ruin it first, so it wouldn’t be ruined by someone else. I would deliberately break the bristles of a toothbrush. I’d buy shoes and purposely get them dirty with playground dirt. Then everything felt comfortable.

So, after we moved into a second-floor rental house in Bangbae-dong, the only thing I had left to cherish was Mrs. Choi.

“Hey, miss. You don’t live in this neighborhood, so you wouldn’t know, right? You came here because you didn’t know.”

“Hmm? Why, Grandma? What do you mean by that?”

“They sell it cheap, right?”

“Well, yeah, it was cheap, but why! Tell me.”

I grabbed Mrs. Choi’s hand tightly while she was talking to an old woman, who was holding a cigarette in her hand, in the alley. The gray-haired old woman also held a cigarette in her hand.

“Ah, save money and just live here. Just be careful of the second son of the landlord on the second floor.”

“The second son? Why? How old is he?”

“He’s really something. It’s rumored he’s not fit to be human. He’s fourteen now, doesn’t go to school, and hangs out with runaways, coming home only at dawn. They say it’s dangerous, so no one lets their kids walk around near here. His older brother is top of the class, but I don’t know how the two sons turned out so differently. They say his mom can’t even do anything about it.”

“Ugh... is that true? Really?”

Mrs. Choi grabbed my hand tightly. It hurt so much that I cried out. The old woman sitting in front of us laughed at my temper.

“His dad must be working somewhere far. He comes home sometimes, but every time, he fights with his second son. It must be noisy.”

“Ah, damn, it’s so annoying. The landlord’s wife never told me anything like that!”

“Of course, she wouldn’t want to scare you, would she? Little lady. Next time, when looking for a room, you should ask the neighbors.”

“I was in a hurry. Ah... it’s so annoying.”

The old woman tried to comfort Mrs. Choi.

“Will anything really happen? He’s a guy, not a girl. If you’re worried, you can just live here for a month or two and then move out. But the kid, is he always inside the house? His face is smooth, huh?”

“You shouldn’t judge people by their appearance, Grandma.”

A burst of laughter came out. I looked up and surveyed the second floor of the house. ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) There were several broken flowerpots in front of the door, and the window covered with rose-patterned curtains showed nothing inside. The laundry hanging on the rooftop and shoes stacked in front of the door suggested there were four or five people in the family, but nothing looked particularly unusual.