"And then I'm probably going to jot that down in my bucket list, huh."
That was how I had written "Get to 100 days with my boyfriend," too–after being jealous of a passerby just like this. Thankfully, I had recently learned that it was all trash thanks to Eric. I actually felt pretty bad for myself.
"Don't be jealous. There's really nothing special about dating~ Your boyfriend is Eric~ He's trash~."
I whined next to Ye-an, even if she wouldn't be able to hear me. I whispered it into her ear. I honestly, genuinely wanted to stomp on those dreams of hers. Just so I could erase some of my embarrassing moments.
Ye-an just continued to stare at the sky. She obviously couldn't hear me.
"This hardship has to end someday, right?"
"…..of course it's not going to end. I'm just going to take on more and more part-time jobs, and….."
"But won't there be a time when I'm so much freer than I am now?"
"No, no, when that time comes, I probably would've died a long time ago from overworking."
I anxiously stared at Ye-an, who continued to ask and answer her own questions alone. My past self placed a leaf on her head and shook her head furiously.
Ye-an, who was currently taking a quick break on a bench, seemed completely at peace about her situation. She shoved the Chocopie* she got after she donated blood and choked after she ate it too quickly before breathing out a long sigh into the air. I could feel exhaustion seeping out of every breath she took.
Ye-an seemed like she was tired of being miserable and was just tired. I couldn't help but become immersed in my feelings from then. I smiled bitterly as I sat next to Ye-an and stared at the same night sky with her.
I was probably secretly worried that Yehwan had burnt the ingredients again even as I stared into the sky.
"Just until all of them grow up...."
Ye-an rubbed her face into her hands and sighed.
"I'll just pretend that I'm lending all of the good parts of my life to my future self. I'm just pushing them to the future."
Ye-an muttered to herself, over and over again. But the situation was still hard, no matter how many times she said it. Her exhausted expression stayed the same.
"After all of them become independent, I'm going to do anything and everything I want to do, all the time. Like eating a whole chicken by myself."
I quietly sat next to Ye-an and listened to her laments.
Okay. Eating a whole chicken by yourself. That's something you wanted to do. I'll remember it and do it for you when I return.
"I don't have any friends, so I want to make a friend."
That's sad. It's okay, you made a ton of friends.
"I want to go out wearing pretty clothes. I want to play crane games and win plushies and go eat around at famous restaurants."
I have gone out to play wearing some dark, lame robes, but I'd never gone out wearing pretty clothes. I'll do that for you too.
"I want to become honest about my feelings without having to feel like I have to be a good role model for my siblings. I didn't even have the luxury to be sad when mom and dad died."
...….
Ye-an looked excited at the prospects of her future, but still looked sad. She didn't look miserable, but just looked exhausted. Ye-an's shoulders drooped as she accepted her situation without any complaints.
I couldn't help but feel something hot settle in my heart as I watched as Ye-an listed her hopes for a future that held no promise.
I knew exactly what would happen next, after all.
I couldn't think or say anything.
"But not yet."
Ye-an shook her head after a long silence.
She had probably just thought of Semi, who was struggling with division. She must've also thought of Yehwan, who lived and died for bibimbap with egg and ketchup.
Moreover, she must've thought of Se-yoo, who was walking an incredibly tumultuous road, but was seeming to get better.
I quietly floated next to Ye-an as she kicked a random rock as she walked. She was probably comforted by the fact that her life couldn't get worse.
–Ring
She was pushing her hair back because of the wind when the loud chime of her phone rang in the quiet area.
Ye-an, who had been slowly, slowly walking, paused and stared down at her phone. There was a new message alert on the brightly lit screen of her phone.
She didn't have much of a reason to get a message, so Ye-an assumed it was a spam message and frowned for a moment. But when she noticed that the sender was a familiar institution, she immediately unlocked her phone.
"Ohhhhh…."
Ye-an stopped walking and stood there, right in the middle of the street. Her eyes grew wide in surprise and she read the letters on her screen over and over again.
It was a message that she had won an exhibition contest that she had applied to after being tempted by the cash prize.
"I got some extra cash….."
This had come at an expert time–her part-time work boss kept telling her that he couldn't pay her so she had been worried, so the cash prize was akin to finding an oasis in the desert. I made it a habit to participate often in competitions and exhibition contests with cash prizes and had won often, but this had an unusually large cash prize.
"Wow, you're so excited now."
Ye-an was quietly dancing in excitement, not even a shred of exhaustion to be found. She humped left and right as she moved excitedly. Oh, man, how embarrassing.
"Should we have a little meat party at home?"
I locked my phone screen again and shoved it back into my pocket. My steps were a lot lighter than earlier.
I would be able to enjoy a bit of my money–the prize was quite large.
"No, I can't just use all of the money that I had just gotten. I need to save more in situations like this."
Thinking back, that day was a luckier day than usual. My part-time job was boring and exhausting, but there hadn't been a lot of customers. I'd been able to read an entire novel (Hestia and the Bastards) all in one sitting, and I had won a cash prize just when I had been worried about money.
I shoved the idea of a meat party aside and decided to buy a few small gifts for my siblings.
Ye-an turned to head towards the stores.
It was almost the end of the year. Soon, the year would move on and our siblings would grow a year older. Se-yoo would get grosser, Yehwan would become more mature, and Semi would become cuter. And for myself, I would become a legal adult. The next year was one that held a lot of meaning for me.
Usually, we celebrated the new year by eating something special, but this year was a bit special. I decided it wouldn't be bad to buy gifts for each of them. Yehwan would get a cooking device, Semi would get a dinosaur coloring book, and Se-yoo….. He was studying properly, so maybe an allowance or some school supplies. Oh, then that meant that it would cost just about the same as the meat. Should we just eat instead?
Ye-an seemed a bit more lively thanks to the cash prize.
It was normal for people who were in difficult situations to become overly excited when they could see a shred of hope in their lives.
My past self was suppressed. The fact that I had to take care of my younger siblings held me down. I had given up what I had deserved, suppressed my emotions, and had ignored my wants and needs to live.
I knew well how much it hurt to be restricted from doing what you wanted to do, so I always wanted my siblings and anyone else to live by their choices.
….Even if I couldn't do anything at the time myself. I still dreamt as I lived, though. I dreamed of a day when I wouldn't care about anything else but my personal choices and would be happy, without caring about money or circumstances.
I hadn't really thought too deeply about myself, so I didn't know what I had wanted to do at the time. If I didn't know what I wanted to do, then maybe something like a civil servant? Maybe? They had a decent salary, so I felt like it wouldn't be a bad choice.
Currently, my responsibilities were towards my siblings and not just myself, so I would try my best to be responsible to them too. But if I just lived on like this without falling into despair, if I just tried my best every day, then I believed that the day would come. It was just one of those days when I just felt strangely hopeful.
I was almost done paying for the debts that I had stupidly taken on with the inheritance money, so I would soon be free of that. Se-yoo, my sole source of worry, was well on his way to maturing, and if I took care of my younger siblings until they grew up, then I would fulfill my promise to my parents.
Of course, I would play with and meet and take care of my siblings even after they grew up, too, but I would probably feel a lot less pressure to be responsible for them. I could probably hop to somewhere extreme like Alaska and not have to worry because my siblings were grown.
That was what I meant when I said that I would free them from myself after they grew up. I would probably stick close to them, though. Just because they were my sense of comfort.
I, Ye-an, was just upbeat. I bought the gifts and even got them wrapped with their respective letters on the spot.
I had a handful of presents in one hand and bought four pieces of carp bread on my way back home.
The carp bread had already been getting cold since I bought it. It seemed like it hadn't been selling–it looked like it had been there for a while. Ye-an received the cold carp bread and thanked the grandma who was running the stand. I liked cold things, so I didn't really complain.
I munched on the cold and soggy carp bread and walked the unusually quiet streets.
"It's cold…."
When I muttered to myself, I could see my breath forming, almost like smoke rising from a European chimney.
I could see cars here and there on the street. It was a bit late for cars to be zooming around, so it seemed pretty empty.
The cold, grayish gust of wind slapped my cheek as it passed. My warm breaths in the air felt green. It resembled the street light's flashing green lights. That day was a colder day than usual, so it felt like the street camera had a gray filter on it.
I could only hear my humming in the complete silence. I rubbed my hands together to warm them up. I worried about happy things like how I would hide the gifts that I was supposed to give on new year's, and what I would do if they opened them up earlier. My split lips stung slightly so I licked them, but they only split more.
I touched the split scars on my hand and only thought about yesterday and today.
Every day was a struggle. It wouldn't have been weird for me to just pass out right then and there. Life was a struggle since birth, and I couldn't remember a time when life wasn't a struggle. I had never thought that I was the only one struggling. I did, however, feel like I was the only one that couldn't stop the cycle of misery. Even moments before my death, I thought that I would live in misery like this but still held a small shred of hope.
I would have a more difficult time from here on out. I would have to give up a lot of things because of my responsibility from here. But next year, I would become more free under the law, and I still had a lot of time, so-
Screech, bang!
Hot blood slowly drenched the cold asphalt ground. Black hair and blood began to cover the soft smile on the familiar looking face. It was so quiet that the sound of wind seemed to echo in the air. I could hear the red-faced, drunk driver curse from within the car.
This was the last of my memories.
The driver, whose face had been thrust onto the steering wheel, didn't seem like they had discovered the unconscious girl on the ground. They hit the girl on the ground again and continued driving. The green light of the crossing light was still blinking.
All of the belongings in her bag sprawled around Ye-an. The book that she had been reading earlier had also been thrown out of her bag. Blood was everywhere on the ground, so the book, alongside everything else, slowly turned crimson.
The golden magic circle on the cover of the book was already gone. I threw the now-useless book down onto the ground.
I stared as I died, alone on a cold winter night. A cold dead body on top of the cold floor. I couldn't help but remember my dead parents' bodies. I felt like I was reliving the moment when I had to confirm my parents' corpses by myself.
I had been born without fanfare, and I had died without fanfare. I couldn't keep my promise to my parents, I couldn't fulfill my dreams, just.
Without accomplishing.
T/N: I chose to keep the last sentence as "Without accomplishing" because it's also an open-ended statement in Korean. There aren't any specifics to what Ye-an couldn't accomplish, because it was literally anything and everything she had wanted to.