Chapter 10

The aged red brick house had no yard to speak of. Stepping through the main gate, only a few strides led to a short flight of stairs, and ascending those five steps brought one straight to the front door. The modern digital lock fitted onto the worn door looked jarringly out of place, as though draped in clothes far too fine for it. In a house that had remained virtually untouched by renovation through the long passage of time, it was the solitary modern fixture.

Entering the six-digit passcode and stepping inside, Se-woong felt the tension drain from his body at the familiar sensory embrace of home. Ever since reaching adulthood, the time he had spent living elsewhere far outstripped the years he had passed here, yet home possessed an unmistakable solace. Very occasionally, he even caught himself half-expecting his mother and father to be sitting in the living room, just as they had once upon a time.

A familiar voice drifted lazily from the living room. “Maknae. Did you sleep out, or were you on duty?”

Or should he call it a substitute? Even without Mom and Dad, his eldest brother was here.

Sprawled out across the sofa, Se-hwan barely lifted his head to greet him.

“…Well, duty,” Se-woong mumbled.

After all, he had been with a superior officer, so it wasn’t an outright lie.

Se-woong reasoned as much, yet could not look his brother straight in the eye. Whenever he lied in front of his psychiatrist brother, he felt like a guilty bear hugging an empty honey jar while swearing he hadn’t touched a drop. The man was a doctor, not a mind reader, and yet.

Se-hwan teased, “Even a captain handpicked by a three-star lieutenant general has his limits. Can’t dodge weekend duty after all.”

“You’re a professor, hyung, and you still can’t dodge weekend shifts,” Se-woong retorted.

“That’s why I need to open a clinic,” Se-hwan declared, gesturing grandly. “Open my own practice. Maknae, should I start a livestream or something? If I make a name for myself doing that, it’d be great for setting up a private clinic. I’ve got the face for it, don’t I? Don’t you think I’d hit a hundred thousand subscribers in no time?”

As Se-hwan stroked his own face with precious care, Se-woong grimaced in utter disgust. Finding his younger brother’s reaction thoroughly delightful, the elder threw his head back and laughed heartily.

“I’m going to brew some coffee. You want some too?”

Straightening up, Se-woong nodded. “Yeah. Hot, please.”

Closing the book he had been reading, Se-hwan rose from his seat. Carelessly tossed onto the sofa, the book was a Russian classic whose edges had swollen from countless readings. Split into two volumes, even a single tome boasted considerable heft.

Se-woong surmised that his brother was in low spirits today. Whenever a patient Se-hwan had deeply cared for ultimately chose to end their own life, he picked up that very book as a way to gather his composure. Having lived apart for so long, there were many minor habits of his brother’s that Se-woong remained unaware of, but this was a habit so enduring that even he knew it well.

Though the brothers had kept this house all along, living together like this was practically a first since Se-woong had reached adulthood. Having entered the Korea Military Academy and lived in Hwarang Hall, and with this assignment being his very first posting in Seoul after commissioning, Se-woong was effectively returning home after years away. Se-hwan, too, had completed his residency in the provinces after graduating from medical school, leaving him little opportunity to truly settle at home until now.

Because of that, it was the second brother, Se-gyeom, who had guarded the house through all those years; ironically, just as the other brothers returned home, he had married and moved out.

From the kitchen came the hum and whir of a capsule coffee machine.

Calling out from the kitchen, Se-hwan asked, “Cha Se-woong, was it three spoons of sugar? Can I just put in two?”

“Three!” Se-woong shouted toward the doorway.

“You punk, how old are you to still crave sweets like this?”

Returning from the kitchen a moment later, Se-hwan lobbed an apple toward Se-woong without warning. Another apple was already wedged between his teeth, while two mugs were hooked together in one hand. Se-woong caught the casually tossed apple on pure instinct. This was not a conscious act of will, but a bodily reflex honed over years. Dripping wet, the apple looked as though it had only just been rinsed.

Setting the mugs down on the low table, Se-hwan pulled the apple from between his teeth. “Se-gyeom said he’s coming over later too. It’ll be nice to have lunch together for once. Anything you want to eat? There’s a new Chinese place down the street—want to go there?”

“Second hyung too? With… sister-in-law?” Se-woong asked.

“No, he said he’s coming alone. Young-ie went abroad for a performance—Paris or Budapest, somewhere like that.”

Se-woong blinked in bafflement. “Mixing those two up is a bit much… Aren’t Paris and Budapest completely different directions? One’s west and the other’s east.”

“Who knows? That’s exactly how Se-gyeom put it. Which means he doesn’t know for sure either. It’s not like that’s anything new for him,” Se-hwan remarked.

It was an awfully bleak remark to describe a couple married for less than half a year.

Since it had been an arranged marriage, building affection was bound to take time, but even so, the two showed no sign of growing closer. The fact that the newlyweds’ groom came running to the house where his brothers lived whenever he had free time said enough. For some reason, he had never once brought his wife along.

Se-woong murmured, “Still, they’re husband and wife. How can it be like that?”

Se-hwan shrugged offhandedly. “Well, these things happen. Sometimes it’s actually more dangerous for a couple to share every single facet of their private lives right after tying the knot. A marital bond isn’t something that gets automatically installed just because you held a ceremony. Especially in Se-gyeom’s case.”

“Maybe so—I’m just worried my second brother seems too indifferent to his own household,” Se-woong conceded quietly.

“To put it the Cha Se-gyeom way, such a bond isn’t essential for survival or maintenance,” Se-hwan said, leaning back. “In short, not strictly necessary for daily life, you see. But things will probably improve. As Se-gyeom goes through life, a time will come when even he needs a cushion, and when that day arrives, he’ll look for one close by. Whether Young-ie can be that cushion for him or not—that’s the real question. Then again, maybe Se-gyeom could become her cushion instead.”

A cushion… Se-woong rolled the word over his tongue.

Considering Se-gyeom’s personality, the awkward distance between the newlyweds was hardly surprising. Beyond merely lacking warm affection, he possessed a chilling detachment that made one wonder if warm blood even ran through his veins—a coldness that left even his brothers shaking their heads. Why would he be drastically different with his wife? Listening in on a recent phone call of his, Se-woong had heard him address her with a rigid ‘No, that is not the case.’ It sounded stiffer than Se-woong himself, an active-duty soldier.

Still, no one outside a marriage could ever truly understand it, making any speculation premature. Perhaps they got along well enough normally, and he simply wished to rest at his old home on weekends. For now, this house where he had spent his entire life might feel far more comfortable than the newlywed apartment.

With firm conviction, Se-hwan said, “In any case, whatever suits a person best is what’s right. So you too, Cha Se-woong—never stop thinking about what makes you comfortable and what you actually like. That’s a discipline in itself, and you get better at it with practice.”

Reaching down, Se-hwan vigorously tousled the hair of his brother sitting on the floor below the sofa. His cheerful voice carried a faint undercurrent of emptiness. Though addressed to Se-woong, his words sounded almost as if directed at someone who could no longer hear them.

Se-woong gave a quiet, compliant nod. The bite of apple he chewed was sweet.

“Still, it’s surprising to see apples in the house,” Se-woong noted, looking down at the fruit. “Do apples even harvest in the spring?”

“Ah, the in-laws sent those. I got a message saying they were sending them and completely forgot, but when I looked today, ajumma had already unpacked and stored them.”

The in-laws. In other words, the apples had come from Shin’s family. Suddenly, the fruit in Se-woong’s mouth tasted bitter. Only moments ago, he had found the crisp flesh sweet. Had Shin’s mother personally chosen this strikingly red, luscious fruit?

During the early days of their relationship, he hadn’t given it much thought, but by their late twenties, Shin and Se-woong had grown curious about each other’s families. They knew of them through conversation, yet the reality that they remained strangers to the people closest to one another seemed to leave something incomplete. It likely began around the time their peers started marrying early, building households of their own one by one.

Yet in the end, they never introduced each other to their families. They could have simply presented one another as friends, but by that point, the reluctance to introduce each other as mere friends had already grown too strong. Besides, flesh-and-blood relatives possessed an instinctive sharpness; someone might have caught on to what lay between them.

Because of that, he had never once exchanged so much as a polite greeting with Shin’s family. Receiving fruit sent by Shin’s mother in his own home felt, in a word, surreal.

Se-woong made a conscious effort to divert his deepening thoughts elsewhere.

Clearing his throat, Se-woong asked, “Oh, right—ajumma mentioned her shoulder was hurting. Did you hear about that, hyung?”

“I set up an outpatient appointment for her recently, so she came by the hospital. It doesn’t seem severe yet—just aging, so to speak,” Se-hwan replied.

Se-woong stared down at his knees. “…I honestly couldn’t tell she was getting older at all.”

“Well, these days people don’t show their age on the outside so much,” Se-hwan noted. “Still, she’s looked after our house for over fifteen years now. Ajumma’s gotten quite old herself.”

Fifteen years already.

For the first few years after their parents died in the accident, the three brothers had bumbled through household chores in utter disarray, never even dreaming of hiring domestic help. None of them had any income back then—they were all still students—meaning there was no financial leeway whatsoever, and between three young men, they simply assumed that this was how everyone lived.

Then the neighbor ajumma helped sort out the disastrous mess of recycling piling out of the house a few times, and from there, the relationship took root. Before they knew it, more than fifteen years had passed. Not a single one of the brothers could dispute that being able to dress decently and avoid malnutrition was entirely thanks to her.

Reflecting upon the years spent with ajumma naturally brought back memories of the time their parents had passed away.

Se-woong’s memories of the day his parents died remained vivid. It had been a day of torrential rain—pouring so relentlessly that the school canceled all remaining supplementary classes and sent every student home. He had expected to find his mother waiting when he arrived, but the house was completely empty, leaving him to sit listening to the drumming rain as he waited for her.

Why had he done that? Sitting blankly in the dim house without turning on a single light, staring out the window, the landline phone that rarely ever rang suddenly broke into a chime. It was the very phone his mother had never brought herself to cancel, asking how she could throw away a number they had kept for so long, even as they frequently talked of getting rid of it since everyone used mobile phones now.