CHAPTER 61 #2
“I couldn’t breathe without Gong asking where I was going. Who I was seeing. When I’d be back.” His voice became uneven. “Then threats.”
He pulled his knees toward his chest. “If you don’t come, I’ll kill myself.”
The room went very still.
“If you go out, I’ll destroy your things.” Noeul swallowed. “If you love someone else, I’ll cut my wrists.”
Ji-Woo’s eyes widened.
Noeul looked at him. “And if I loved you more than him…” His voice faltered.
Ji-Woo already knew something terrible was coming.
“He said he’d kill you.”
Ji-Woo stopped breathing. “What?”
Noeul looked away.
“He threatened you?”
“Yes.”
“Because you loved me?”
“Because he thought I belonged to him.”
The words seemed to cost him. Ji-Woo’s face drained of color.
“Every month, he got worse,” Noeul continued before either of them could speak. “He stopped taking his medication properly. Auntie and I kept trying to get him back to the clinic.” He rubbed his thumb hard against his palm. “He was dangerous.”
A pause.
“To himself.”
Another.
“To us. To Haneul. To Duri.” His breathing caught. “And to me.”
A sob rose suddenly. He pressed one hand to his mouth and waited for it to pass. Neither Ji-Woo nor Duri interrupted.
“Then came the violence.” Noeul’s eyes remained on the floor. “He hit me again and again until my body was nothing but bruises. Like they were proof of how wrong I was.”
He looked at Ji-Woo then, and something in him broke. “How wrong was I, brother?” His voice cracked. “What did I do that deserved being beaten? Humiliated? What did I do?”
“Nothing.” Ji-Woo’s answer came immediately. His face had gone pale. “You did nothing.”
Noeul stared at him.
“I didn’t know,” Ji-Woo whispered, devastated. “I knew he wasn’t well. That’s why Mom sent me to Aunt Min-Seo, but I didn’t know he was hurting you like this.” He swallowed hard. “You were never at fault. He was.”
“Our mother?” Noeul shook his head. “No. That was me.”
Ji-Woo frowned.
“I insisted you stay away.”
“What?”
“I was terrified for you.” Noeul rubbed his hands together, harder and harder. “The times Gong mistook you for someone else and grabbed a knife…” He stopped. “There are more than I can count.”
Ji-Woo stared at him.
“Our parents weren’t strong enough to face the truth.” Noeul closed his eyes. “So I did.” The words came quietly. “I paid for their weakness. I just didn’t want you to share my fate.” His voice dropped further. “Or worse.”
Ji-Woo covered his mouth with one hand.
Noeul rocked slightly where he sat, his fingers tangled together.
He muttered something neither of them understood, then looked up. His breath caught. Every word felt like tearing himself open, offering pieces he had sworn no one would ever see.
“What destroyed me more than anything…” He stopped.
Duri’s stomach tightened.
Noeul looked at Ji-Woo. “…was when Gong started touching me in places brothers should never touch each other.”
Silence.
Noeul immediately covered his face and turned away from them. Neither Ji-Woo nor Duri spoke.
For several seconds, Ji-Woo seemed unable to breathe. Duri reached for the wall beside him, needing something solid beneath his hand.
Ji-Woo’s lips parted. Nothing came out. Then, finally, “What did you say?”
Noeul curled further into himself.
Ji-Woo took one instinctive step toward him, then stopped. Instead, he lowered himself to the floor a short distance away.
“Hyung…”
Noeul shook his head.
“You don’t have to tell me anything else.”
That made Noeul look at him.
Ji-Woo’s eyes were full of tears. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“But I do.”
“No.”
“I do.” Noeul wiped his face with trembling hands. “Because you need to understand.” His breathing remained uneven. “Gong threatened me all the time. He told me to stay away from the others. Especially Haneul.”
Ji-Woo listened without moving.
“He said he’d hurt them if I didn’t. So I started seeing them in secret or outside the house.” Noeul swallowed. “They were my best friends. That was all. I never had romantic feelings for any of them.”
His fingers curled into his palms. “But Gong didn’t believe that. In his mind, I had betrayed him. And I had to be punished.”
“About three years before Haneul’s suicide, Gong tried to stop me from meeting them at the park.” His voice became smaller. “That night…”
He stopped. Ji-Woo lowered his gaze, giving him what little privacy he could.
“That was the first time he touched me.”
Duri closed his eyes.
Noeul continued before either of them could respond. “That was the first time I wished I were dead.” His voice remained strangely calm now, almost detached. “After that, the beatings got worse. And he became more dependent. More obsessive.”
He counted the questions almost mechanically. “Where are you going? Who are you talking to? Who are you texting? Who did you meet?”
Noeul rubbed his thumb against his palm. “We shared a room.” The sentence was barely audible. “So it was easy.”
Ji-Woo’s face crumpled. “Hyung…”
“Mom and Dad worked long overtime hours. They came home late. Sometimes not until morning.” Noeul stared at his hands. “I hid everything.”
“Why?” Ji-Woo whispered.
Noeul gave him a look almost of disbelief. “How could I tell them?”
“Because he was hurting you.”
“He was my twin brother.” The answer came instantly. “Our family was already falling apart. Gong was sick. Mom was exhausted. Dad barely knew what to do with him. And I…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t bring more shame into our family.”
Ji-Woo looked stricken. “There was no shame in what happened to you.”
“I know that when I say it about someone else.” Noeul looked away. “I tried to stop Gong. I did. But when he had his episodes, I was afraid of him. I never knew what he was going to do.” His breathing quickened. “More than once, he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill all of us.”
Ji-Woo’s eyes filled again.
“I had to protect you.”
“No, hyung!”
“I thought I did,” Noeul corrected himself before Ji-Woo could. “I thought that was my job.” His gaze fell. “You. Mom. Dad. Haneul. Everyone.”
A long silence followed.
“And then I found out what he did to Haneul.” Noeul’s mouth trembled. “He was abusing him too.”
He covered his face again. For several seconds, there was nothing but his breathing.
Then the sobs came.
“I feel filthy.” Duri’s expression broke. Noeul pressed both hands against his face. “I hate this body.” His shoulders shook. “No matter how many times I wash it, I still feel him.”
Ji-Woo began crying silently.
“I still feel Chung-Hee.” Noeul dragged his hands down his face. “I look like Gong. I have his face. His blood.” His voice fell to almost nothing. “Sometimes I look at myself and I don’t even know who I’m looking at anymore.”
He stared down at his hands. “This body doesn’t feel like mine.”
Noeul’s next words came slowly. “It feels like I’m carrying him inside me.” He swallowed. “Like I’m carrying a rapist inside me.”
His fingers curled against his chest. “I can’t even touch myself without feeling dirty.”
Duri finally spoke. “Noeul hyung…” Then stopped. He didn’t know what words could possibly follow what he had just heard. For once, he didn’t try to find them.
Noeul looked at him.
There was fear in his eyes now. Not the wild terror from earlier. Something quieter. More vulnerable.
Duri moved a little closer but stopped before touching him. “Hyung.”
Noeul looked away.
“Do you know what I think when I see your scars?”
Noeul gave a bitter laugh. “I can imagine.”
“No, I don’t think you can.” Duri sat down on the floor a short distance away. “I think you survived.”
Noeul’s expression tightened. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.” Duri shook his head. “I don’t know what would make this better.”
Silence.
“But I know one thing.”
Noeul looked at him.
“What Gong did says something about Gong. What Chung-Hee did says something about Chung-Hee.” Duri swallowed. “It doesn’t make you dirty.”
Noeul slowly shook his head. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because you didn’t do anything.”
Noeul’s voice became eerily calm. “Being raped by two different people isn’t a coincidence.”
He stared at his hands. “I must have done something.”
“No.”
“Maybe I provoked them.”
“No.”
“Maybe I…”
“Hyung.” Duri’s voice sharpened just enough to stop him.
Noeul looked up.
“You were a kid when Gong started doing this to you.”
Noeul flinched. Duri immediately softened.
“And you told Chung-Hee no.”
Noeul’s eyes dropped again.
“What exactly are you blaming yourself for?”
Noeul rubbed his hands together. “How disgusting is it?” he whispered. “Your own brother. Someone who shares your face.” His expression twisted. “It isn’t normal.”
“No.”
Noeul looked at him sharply.
Duri held his gaze. “What Gong did wasn’t normal.” A pause. “That doesn’t mean you weren’t.”
Noeul’s breathing faltered. Ji-Woo made a broken sound beside them.
Noeul looked toward him. Ji-Woo’s face was wet with tears.
“I didn’t know,” he said again.
“I know.”
“No.” Ji-Woo shook his head. “I mean I really didn’t know.” He lowered himself to the floor beside his brother, leaving space between them. “I thought Gong hyung was jealous of Haneul. I thought that was why he hated him so much.”
Noeul looked away.
Ji-Woo swallowed. “But it was about you.”
Noeul’s body went still.
Ji-Woo immediately corrected himself. “Not because of anything you did.” Noeul looked back. “He was jealous of everyone who mattered to you. He wanted everything. Your time. Your attention. You.” Ji-Woo wiped his face. “That wasn’t love, hyung.”
Noeul covered his face. “I’m so ashamed.”
Ji-Woo shifted closer but still didn’t touch him.
“I didn’t want you to know the truth about Gong,” Noeul whispered. “Or about me.”
“There’s nothing about you I’m ashamed of.”
“You didn’t read his note. His fantasies about me…” Noeul’s voice broke. “You would’ve hated knowing we shared his blood.”
“No.”
“You would.”
“No.”
Noeul dropped his hands. “How are you supposed to live with brothers like that?” His eyes filled again. “And what if I become sick like him?”
“Hyung.”
Noeul shook his head. “We were identical.”
“So?”