SESSION 26
“Visiting Gong in the hospital shortly before his death was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.”
Dr. Kim looked up from her notes. “One of the most?”
Noeul gave a faint, humorless smile. “There’s competition.”
She didn’t react to the joke. Noeul looked away. “I don’t remember many details of the room.”
“What do you remember?”
“The smell.” His answer came immediately. “Disinfectant. Strong. Heavy.” He rubbed his thumb against his palm. “It bothered me because it was nothing like our room at home.”
“The room you shared?”
“Yes.” He became quiet. “When the door opened…” Noeul swallowed. “What I saw shook me.”
Dr. Kim waited.
“He was lying on the bed with his hands restrained to the rails.” His voice softened. “My brother.” He shook his head. “But not the Gong I remembered.”
“What was different?”
“Everything.” Noeul stared at the floor. “His eyes used to be bright. Even when he was angry, there was life in them. That day, they were cloudy. Empty.” He paused. “His hair was hanging around his face. He looked exhausted.”
“What did you say?”
“I said his name.” Noeul could still hear himself. “‘Gong?’” His voice cracked slightly as he repeated it. “For a second, I thought he recognized me.”
“And then?”
“He did.” Noeul corrected himself. “I think he did.” He looked toward Dr. Kim. “But then his face changed.”
“How?”
“He scowled.” Noeul’s mouth tightened. “And he said, ‘Noeul? What are you doing here?’”
Dr. Kim nodded. “What did you tell him?”
“That I wanted to see how he was doing.” Noeul gave another humorless laugh. “Stupid question.”
“Why?”
“Because obviously he wasn’t doing well.”
“That doesn’t make the question stupid.”
Noeul shrugged. “He laughed at me.”
“What kind of laugh?”
“Bitter.” Noeul looked back toward the memory. “He said, ‘Fantastic. Living my best life in the Land of the Mad.’”
Dr. Kim’s expression didn’t change.
“I told him it wasn’t the Land of the Mad. That it was a clinic. That they were trying to help him.”
“What happened?”
“He got angry.” Noeul’s shoulders tightened. “He said, ‘Help me? How? By locking me away from everyone? By taking me away from you?’”
Dr. Kim noticed the change in his breathing. “And then?”
“He blamed me.” His voice dropped. “He said I hadn’t fought for him.” Noeul looked down. “That I just let them take him.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Like I’d betrayed him.”
“Did you believe him?”
Noeul hesitated. “At the time?”
“Yes.”
“No.” Then, after a pause, “Yes.”
Dr. Kim waited.
Noeul sighed. “I knew why he was there.”
“Why?”
“Because we couldn’t manage him anymore.” His jaw tightened at the word. “He was dangerous.”
“To whom?”
Noeul went very still. “To himself.” A pause. “To other people.”
Dr. Kim didn’t ask him to name them. Noeul continued anyway. “To me.” The word came quietly.
“So you understood why he was hospitalized.”
“Yes.”
“And still felt you had betrayed him.”
Noeul looked at her. “He was my twin.”
“That explains the feeling.”
Noeul’s brow furrowed.
“It doesn’t prove the feeling was accurate.”
He looked away again. “I told him I didn’t want him there either. That I just couldn’t take it anymore.” His voice tightened. “I wanted to explain everything.”
“What stopped you?”
Noeul laughed once. “What was I supposed to say?”
Dr. Kim waited.
“That I was scared of him?”
“Yes.”
“That I was exhausted?”
“Yes.”
“That I couldn’t sleep properly because I didn’t know what he would do?”
“Yes.”
Noeul stared at her. “That he had…” He stopped.
Dr. Kim said nothing.
Noeul’s fingers curled. “That he had crossed every boundary a brother could cross?”
Dr. Kim’s gaze remained steady. “Yes.”
Noeul looked away. “I couldn’t.”
“What did Gong say next?”
For several seconds, Noeul didn’t answer. Then his face changed. “He said I was his twin.” His voice became quieter. “The person he trusted and needed more than anyone.”
Noeul’s breathing slowed in the wrong way. Too controlled.
“And?”
Noeul stared at the floor. “He said…” His throat tightened. “‘You’re mine.’”
Dr. Kim remained still.
Noeul swallowed. “‘Your body is mine.’”
The room went quiet.
“He said I was supposed to protect him.” Noeul’s eyes filled. “And that instead, I abandoned him.” A tear slipped down his face. “He said I betrayed him.”
Dr. Kim let the silence remain. Noeul wiped at his cheek. “I still hear it.”
“The words?”
“Yes.”
“Which ones?”
Noeul answered without looking at her. “‘You’re mine.’” Another tear. “‘Your body is mine.’”
Dr. Kim waited.
Noeul’s voice became almost inaudible. “I hate that sentence.”
“Why?”
Noeul looked at her sharply. “Because he meant it.”
Dr. Kim didn’t answer immediately.
Noeul’s jaw trembled. “He didn’t mean it metaphorically.” His hands tightened together. “He meant my body belonged to him.”
Dr. Kim nodded once.
Noeul’s eyes dropped. “And after everything he’d already done…” He stopped. The words became difficult. “Can I even call him just my brother after that?”
Dr. Kim didn’t rush to answer.
Noeul looked down at his hands. “He had been inside me.” The sentence came out flat. Almost detached. The room seemed to contract around it. “He was my twin.” His voice broke. “My brother.” Another pause. “And he still thought he had the right.”
Dr. Kim leaned slightly forward. “Did he?”
Noeul looked at her. “No.” The answer came quickly. Then his face changed as though he had surprised himself.
Dr. Kim said nothing.
Noeul swallowed. “No,” he repeated more quietly. “He didn’t.”
Silence.
“The nurse came in not long after that.” Noeul rubbed at his eyes. “She said our time was up.”
“What did you do?”
“I stood.” His gaze drifted. “My legs were shaking.” He gave a small laugh. “I wanted to say something before I left.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” He looked frustrated. “Anything.”
“To repair what had happened?”
“Yes.”
“To reassure him?”
“Yes.”
“To ask for forgiveness?”
Noeul’s expression tightened. “Probably.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“What did Gong do?”
“He looked at the wall.” Noeul stared past Dr. Kim now. “Like I wasn’t there.”
“How did that feel?”
“Worse than if he’d screamed.”
Dr. Kim nodded.
“When I left the clinic, his words stayed with me,” Noeul continued.
“Which words?”
He didn’t need to think. “Betrayed.” A pause. “Abandoned.” Another. “Mine.”
Dr. Kim wrote something down. Noeul watched her.
“Those words followed you after his death?”
“Yes.”
“Do they still?”
Noeul laughed quietly. “Doctor.” She waited. “I built half my life around them.”
Dr. Kim put her pen down. “What do you mean?”
Noeul stared at his hands. “I kept thinking that maybe he was right.”
“In what way?”
“That I abandoned him.”
“Did you?”
“I agreed to the clinic.”
“Did you have the authority to hospitalize him by yourself?”
“No.”
“Did you create his illness?”
“No.”
“Did you make him stop taking his medication?”
“No.”
“Did you make him threaten people?”
“No.”
“Did you make him hurt you?”
Noeul stopped. His eyes dropped. “No.”
Dr. Kim waited. “Then what exactly did you betray?”
Noeul’s mouth opened. Nothing came. He looked irritated. “I don’t know.”
“That may be worth sitting with.”
He exhaled. After a while, he said, “I betrayed the version of us he wanted.”
Dr. Kim looked at him.
“The twin thing,” Noeul continued slowly.
“What twin thing?”
“That we had to be everything to each other.” His fingers moved toward Gong’s ring. “He hated anything that came between us.”
“People?”
“People.”
“Your independence?”
Noeul nodded.
“Ji-Woo.”
Another nod.
“Haneul.”
His hand stopped against the ring. “Yes.”
“Your body?”
Noeul closed his eyes. “Yes.”
Dr. Kim’s voice remained calm. “So when you say you betrayed him, what you may mean is that you stopped submitting to the relationship Gong demanded.”
Noeul looked at her. “That sounds cruel.”
“To whom?”
“To him.”
“Was refusing to belong to him cruelty?”
Noeul said nothing. Dr. Kim waited.
Finally, he said, “No.”
“Was allowing him to be hospitalized because he was dangerous betrayal?”
Noeul’s eyes filled again. “No.”
“Was having friends betrayal?”
“No.”
“Was loving Ji-Woo betrayal?”
“No.”
“Was your body ever his?”
Noeul stopped breathing for a second. Dr. Kim didn’t look away. “No.” The word trembled.
She waited.
Noeul repeated it. “No.” His fingers closed tightly around the ring. “My body was never his.” He struggled to get the words out.
Dr. Kim nodded. “No.”
Noeul stared at the floor. For several seconds, he couldn’t speak. Then he said, “But I still loved him.”
“I know.”
“I still miss him.”
“I know.”
“He hurt me.”
“Yes.”
Noeul’s eyes lifted. “And I still wish I could go back and save him.”
Dr. Kim’s expression softened. “Those things can exist together.”
Noeul wiped his face. “I hate that.”
“I imagine you do.”
He laughed through the tears. “I wish everything were simpler.”
“Most people do.”
Noeul looked toward the window. “I was scared after I left the clinic.”
“Of Gong?”
“Of myself.”
Dr. Kim waited.
Noeul rubbed his palms together. “I kept thinking about his illness.”
“What about it?”
“That we were identical.” His voice became quieter. “Do you remember the day you first spoke to us about his diagnosis?”
“I do.”
“My mother asked about me.” Noeul looked down at his hands. “She asked whether the same thing could happen to me because we were identical twins.”
Dr. Kim nodded slowly.
“And you told her my risk was higher.”
“I told her that having an identical twin with a serious psychiatric illness could increase your vulnerability. I also explained that increased risk does not mean certainty.”
“I know.” A faint, humorless smile touched Noeul’s mouth. “But I don’t think I heard that part.”
Dr. Kim remained quiet.
“I was terrified, Doctor. Gong was sitting right there. Mom was crying. Appa barely believed there was anything wrong with him, and suddenly I was hearing that maybe one day…” He stopped.
“That you might become ill too?”
Noeul nodded. “I think something changed in me that day. I started waiting for it.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For Gong to appear inside me.”
Dr. Kim leaned forward slightly. “Noeul, vulnerability is not destiny. And Gong’s illness is not Gong himself. Just as experiencing depression, anger, dissociation, or thoughts that frighten you does not make you your brother.”
Noeul stared at her. “But after that day, I started watching myself.”
“For symptoms?”
“Yes.”
“Mood changes?”
“Yes.”
“Anger?”
“Yes.”
“Thoughts you didn’t like?”
“All the time.” His expression tightened. “Every bad thought became evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“That I was becoming him.”
“You keep treating two fears as though they’re one.”
“What two fears?”
“Developing Gong’s illness and becoming someone who hurts people.”
Noeul stared at her.
“They are not the same outcome.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means one is a fear about your mind. The other is a fear about your character.”
Noeul’s expression tightened.
“Gong was ill,” Dr. Kim continued. “But illness did not make every choice for him, and it does not make a person cruel by definition. Most people with severe mental illness are far more likely to be harmed than to harm someone else.”
“So you’re saying he wasn’t sick?”
“I’m saying both things can be true. Gong was sick. He was also responsible for the harm he caused. But neither fact means you will become him.”
“So even if I became ill…”
“You would need treatment and support.”
“But I wouldn’t become him.”
“No. You would still be responsible for your choices, and you would still be you.”
Dr. Kim leaned back. “And now? Do you believe you are Gong?”
“No.” The answer came more quickly than it once would have.
“Do you believe having his face makes you him?”
“No.”
“Having some of his genes?”
Noeul hesitated. “No.”
“Being traumatized?”
“No.”
“Being angry?”
“No.”
“Having thoughts that frighten you?”
Noeul looked at her. “No.”
Dr. Kim nodded.
Noeul sat quietly, then looked down at Gong’s ring. “I think I’ve spent years treating every similarity between us like a warning.”
“And every difference?”
Noeul frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Did you notice those too?”
He went still. After a moment, a faint smile touched his mouth. “Not nearly enough.”
Dr. Kim picked up her pen again. “That sounds like somewhere we can continue next time.”
Noeul nodded. His fingers remained around Gong’s ring. But this time, he wasn’t gripping it like evidence against himself. Just something that had belonged to his brother.