Knowing Brother-Chapter 35

He reached out over the wall, and now he was at a height that was more comfortable than Mrs. Choi. He jumped up hard in one go and caught his foot on the wall.

The side gate outside the yard was shaking violently, clanking clanking. It was a day with no wind at all. The sound of two men’s shoes lingered around the front gate.

Mrs. Choi put her index finger to her lips. Seol-woo put his arm on Mrs. Choi’s shoulder and jumped down to the ground. The two held hands and hid behind the cars parked in the alley.

Clang. The sound of the iron gate being kicked made his breath come out of his mouth.

Mrs. Choi grabbed her winter slippers and stepped on the floor with her socks. Seol-woo had been barefoot since leaving the house. He ran down the alley at full speed. The two of them were silent until they reached the main road where the sun was shining brightly. The sound of their breathing, muffled as they ran, filled their shaky vision.

Choi Seol-woo got into the taxi and clenched both of his knees. Mrs. Choi tried to hold her son, who was now taller than her, in her arms. Seol-woo leaned on his knees and rubbed his neck.

She couldn’t say goodbye to Won Dae-young. She couldn’t even say goodbye to the two-story house.

It was strange. It was the first time she missed the house she had lived in despite running away countless times.

Come to think of it, she didn’t have much to lose. Not being able to secretly look at Won Dae-young’s back as he squatted under the magnolia tree and smoked a cigarette. Not being able to call him over to her while lying on the floor. Not being able to play catch with a doll. Not being able to make Jjapaghetti while bickering in the dark kitchen. Not being able to see the lazy middle schooler coming down the stairs in his slippers.

That was all. Choi Seol-woo rubbed her bare feet covered in dirt and sand and wondered why she felt so empty.

She clearly thought she hadn’t made anything precious. Choi Seol-woo cherished everything in that house.

When I came to my senses after Mrs. Choi’s words, I was biting my finger until it bled next to my thumbnail.

* * *

The new house was in Ahyeon-dong, far from Bangbae-dong. Mrs. Choi was now an expert at finding houses. In half a day, she found a house on the first floor of a house, which was actually a semi-basement. The living room and the bedrooms of the new house were much larger than Won Dae-young’s.

There was less than a month left until the start of the school year. The desk was delivered from a local used furniture store, and a modular computer was brought into the living room. Other than that, her daily life was still simple. Choi Seol-woo spent the day in an empty house without any books, decorations, or belongings.

She expected Mrs. Choi to call her cell phone. However, no matter how many times she asked her throughout the day, she only got the answer that Won Dae-young had not contacted her.

Seol-woo went down the ramp that was right next to the house and found a pay phone. It was next to a supermarket that seemed like it would close soon. I called Won Dae-young from a pay phone every morning, noon, and evening. At night, I also called Mrs. Choi’s cell phone.

All I heard on the other end of the line was that the cell phone was turned off.

It was forbidden to visit that house again. Agents who had found out the location might be lurking around. That was a crazy act that could determine Choi Seol-woo’s life or death.

But Choi Seol-woo did something crazy. On the day he had promised to go get his school uniform fitted with Won Dae-young, he went to the two-story house.

The front door was locked tight. Seol-woo carefully hid behind the car. He decided to watch the two-story house from afar, waiting to call Won Dae-young if he came out.

“You have to investigate well without getting caught, John Watson. The people who were chasing me might still be wandering around.”

Only three days had passed, so the house should have remained the same. However, there were changes here and there. There was a pile of discarded items in front of the second-floor entrance, and there were several pieces of furniture with waste stickers in the yard.

Seol-woo pulled out a little more and examined the house closely. There were no rose-patterned curtains on the second-floor windows. An old woman wearing a long skirt was walking around inside the wide-open windows. The house was almost empty of furniture.

Confusion and shock struck Seol-woo at the same time. After looking around the alleyway once more, he ran to the front door. He shook the door and shouted.

“Excuse me.”

The old woman who came down the stairs slowly opened the door. The old woman had a face that was tired of the world. Her dry eyes and sharply narrowed eyebrows gave off an authoritarian vibe. She was self-righteous and mean, and that was the only thing that resembled Won Dae-young.

“What?”

“Dae-young called....”

“Didn’t Dae-young tell you? It’s been a long time. Since the decision to move.”

“......Where?”

“Nonhyeon-dong.”

The attitude of cutting off the words and only giving the bare minimum information made the person in front of him feel intimidated. Seol-woo still raised his head without lowering his eyes. There was no reason not to ask about Won Dae-young. The woman who had been looking at Seol-woo here and there opened her mouth again.

“Seol-woo?”

“Yes?”

“Dae-young told me to tell you. Cheer up and do well in middle school.”

The woman suddenly let out a deep sigh. Her cold voice was filled with resentment.

“Rumors about you guys holding each other in the hospital spread to Dae-young’s friends. It must have spread all the way to Hyungil Middle School and even high school. Don’t you know how sensitive boys are to such things? It takes only a moment for rumors to spread. Your Dae-young brother went to take care of that.”

The middle school students who were hanging around the mart with Won Dae-young all had bad impressions. There was no way those kids would go around talking about such things. The mother said in a slightly depressed voice.

“You seem to be thinking about going to Hyungil Middle School, but it would be better to go to a different middle school. Daeyoung has shown himself at school so far and will still have friends, but you’ll be in trouble if you’re labeled as a weird kid from the beginning.”

Seolwoo didn’t want to shrink away, so he deliberately avoided the mother’s eyes. The mother faintly trembled as she watched Seolwoo like that.

“You know, right? Daeyoung is a track and field athlete. He’s not an amateur, he’s going to be a professional track and field athlete.”

“Yes.”

“Now that he’s back in school, he’ll have to think about going to high school and improve his skills that he lost while he was resting.... It’s become a hassle because of his friends.”

“.......”

“After class, he has training every day, and he has to prepare for the entrance exam in the evening. You guys might not know, but the top universities in our country aren’t places you can get into just by studying a little without a strategy.”

It was ambiguous whether ‘you’ was referring to Won Dae-young and Choi Seol-woo or to Mrs. Choi and Seol-woo.

“How fierce is the competition? In addition to the physical education department, there are many competitors in one or two top-tier places.”

The lady who finished what she wanted to say turned around and went up the stairs and came back holding a paper bag.

“Want to take it? I told you to return it.”

It was a paper bag containing an orange dinosaur doll that had been used for throwing and catching and a few writing instruments that Seol-woo had given her. Inside was a note that had dried up and shriveled up. The marker pen was smudged, but the contents were legible.

Go and be happy, hyung

The distrust I had felt toward all the lady’s words until then had all turned into trust.

It was a mistake that Won Dae-young had chased away the yellow-eyed man for Choi Seol-woo. It was just a procedure for him to live comfortably at home and inherit the property in the future. Even if he had left for his friends’ house on a cloudy, rainy morning, he would have returned home someday for money. It wasn’t because of Choi Seol-woo that he stayed here. Looking back, why didn’t I see something so obvious back then?

The fact that he had recommended them to come to the same school was also before he found out that his friend had secretly seen their secret, childish sensuality. The backpack that had disappeared through the crack of the hospital room door seemed to belong to Won Dae-young’s acquaintance.

Now, Choi Seol-woo was just a character in an annoying rumor to Won Dae-young.

Seol-woo immediately folded the note and stuffed it into his pocket. He mustered all his strength to hide his distorted face. The woman stared at Seol-woo’s indifferent face for a long time. It seemed like she was waiting for Seol-woo to collapse, so # Nоvеlight # Seol-woo purposely opened her eyes more fiercely.

“Do you have anything else to say?”

“No. Ah... Wait a minute.”

The woman went back up to the second floor and came back down a few minutes later. Meanwhile, Seol-woo was trembling with anxiety, wondering if the garbage collector would show up. The woman who came to the front door handed her a piece of paper that was in a file.

“I wonder if it might be helpful. I knew you were sick, but I didn’t pay attention to you. It’s a little late, but you can transfer to a special school at any time. It’s not that I’m not going because I don’t know the information, but I might have missed something. Okay.”

The contents of the printout were a list of special schools and alternative schools in Seoul. Seol-woo turned around, feeling greatly humiliated.

“No, that’s okay.”

Seol-woo turned around without saying thank you. But the woman responded as if she had heard her thank you.

“Okay, be careful.”

The voice that raised the end of her words was kind. If someone had heard that voice, they wouldn’t have been able to imagine the rudeness that had just been done to Seol-woo.