As soon as I get home, I hear a terrible noise coming from the kitchen. I drop my backpack on the floor and rush to see the cause of the noise. I freeze in the doorstep when I see my brother looking at a broken glass on the floor, as shocked as me.
2 days. It's been two days since I've last seen him. That's why, ignoring the fact that there's a shattered glass on the floor and that Hobi never drops anything, we stare at each other for God knows how long. Before I run to my brother and throw my arms around him, like my life would depend on that.
"I'm so sorry." I say, engulfed in his T-shirt.
He wraps his arms around me and I hear him sniffling, which just breaks me even more. I hug him tighter. And we stay like that for seconds, minutes, maybe hours, before we pull away eventually.
"Yunhae-ah..." He says.
I look at him, waiting for what he has to say next.
"I'm sorry that I've never understood you, why... why you were always trying to help and trying to avoid being helped. I'm sorry." He continues.
The first words that come into my mind are "It's alright."
But it's not.
So I choose to tell him exactly what I feel, with the possibility of starting another fight, with the possibility of exasperating him. I just don't care anymore. I'm tired of hiding, I'm tired of hiding from him. If he's willed to stay, he has the right to know what he's staying for.
"I miss mom, oppa." I say, holding back my tears. "I miss her so much."
He wraps his arms around me and I break down in tears. Truth is, that's the first time I say that out loud. But it feels good to finally do it. It feels good, having the courage to speak in the first place.
"I miss her too, Yunnie..." He sighs. "I miss her too."
And I stay awake all night, thinking about everything that happened today; thinking about the peonies, thinking about JungKook, thinking about Hobi, thinking about my mom.
And like holding your breath, I can't hold back the thoughts that always come when I remember mom. I've figured out that there's no use in trying to chase them away, they won't go until they've wasted my mind completely. I chuckle. Maybe having sickness messing up with my mind might make me fall asleep eventually. That would be nice. Because I feel the exhaustion consuming me.
And maybe, that's the cause why I've been imagining everything that happened in that evening, realizing eventually that my brother has actually been away from home all along.
***
At 6:12 AM I reach second 7920 and I decide it's about the time I do what I've been thinking of doing ever since I went to bed 6 hours ago.
I leave my room and head towards my brother's. The door is cracked open and I can see him sleeping like an octopus on his comfortable bed, messy hair, shirtless and mouth slightly open. I sigh. I don't want to wake him up but the game my mind played for me last night made me realize I can do it any longer. It made me realize we can't just ignore each other. It's been two days. But I miss him already. He's working in the morning and practicing until late in night after that, that's his strategy of avoiding home. I don't have any strategy. It's on my daily basis.
I take a look around his tidy room, which is colored in tones of blue, white and black. Unlike mine, it looks cleaner. In my room, there are clothes, notebooks and papers everywhere. I see the bag he takes to his dance practices thrown in the corner of the room. There are some papers placed carefully on his desk near the window and his shelves with music CDs are untouched. There is also a framed photo of the three of us, mom, him and I. It was taken about 7 years ago. We looked happy. And hell did we know what the future was holding for us.
Somehow, I feel like this room defines him: clean, peacefull and really nice. He has his favourite things here and maybe that's why he likes his room. It's obvious.
I step closer to the window, just to be able to see our backyard, where my little greenhouse was. From my borther's room, it's not that visible, but from mine, I can see everything. Except I often keep my curtains closed exactly so I don't see anything.
"Yah-"
I hear a loud thump and I turn around to see what happened. There's no sign of body in Hobi's bed.
Because my brother was now laying on the floor with a thrown on his face.
"Yuna?" I hear him asking in a raspy voice and I smile.
He tries to sit but his legs are folded in the white quilt. He rubs his eyes wearily and it hits me that he must be tired. I am not. But Hobi is not me. He's a normal human being, moreover, a dancer and he needs sleep. And I bet he's far from the normal 8-hour sleep that he needs.
"Is anything wrong? Are you-..." he begins, still confused but I cut him off.
"I'm sorry." I say and he stops moving.
Then, he sighs and manages to unfold his legs from the quilt, before standing up and putting on a loose grey T-shirt, laying in the corner of his bed.
When he stands in front of me eventually, I'm suddenly so aware of the height difference. And how small I am compared to him.
"I know you have more to say, so I'll listen to you first." He says.
I sigh. I guess this won't go the way I thought it would. But he's righr, I do have a lot to say. And hopefully, this time our conversation won't end with me running to my room and crying.
"I'm sorry that I shouted at you back then, I didn't mean to make you feel like you're the one responsible for what I'm going through, I didn't mean to blame you for any of this. But I still wish you'd give me a bit more space, because sometimes I feel like I'm suffocating. I know I've never told you this before, but I really miss mom, Hobi-ah. I miss her every single day and what's the worst is that whenever I think about her I remember that she's dead because of me and that I was so stupid and I-..."
"Hey, hey, look at me." Hobi says cupping my cheeks. "Please look at me, Yuna."
I look at my brother and he gives me one of those reassuring smiles that he always gives. I avoid my gaze.
"Yunie-ah, I'm your older brother, we've spent 18 years together now, you know I am the last person you could ever hide away from." He says. "So now, would you please look at me? I want to see you."
I slowly turn my head towards him and I find a spark of understandment in his eyes.
"Say whatever you have to say." He whispers calmly.
"I'm sorry-..."
"No, besides that, you've already said you're sorry and I got the point, okay? Something else."
"Okay." I whisper. "I don't know what to do, Hobi-ah. I'm... I don't know, I feel sad all the time, like there's no reason good enough for me to be happy. And useless, God, I feel so useless and empty. But I'm trying to ignore this... I don't wanna be a burden, I don't want people to think I'm crazy."
I inhale deeply, then I continue:
"And I miss mom, I miss her so much. It's not fair that she left us so early, I needed her and I will always need her, it feels like I'm missing a part of me."
I look at my brother and hold his arm, as if I was trying to hold onto the reality.
"I know all the doctors have said I'm sick, but I thought that pretending I'm not might be the cure. I was wrong. It's worse than ever now. And I'm scared that I did all of this to myself."
He wraps his arms around me and I turn my face to the side, staring at a random point somwhere on the wall.
"And I don't want to hurt you, or JungKook, or anybody else. It's not your fault that l'm sick. And you deserve to be happy."
"And you deserve to be happy as well." I hear my brother saying, his voice vibrating in his chest. "My happiness is you and as long as we're together, I'm happy. I'm happy that I can dance and be by your side at the same time. And honestly, that's everything I need. All you have to do..."
He gently pushes me away, holding my arms so I don't move too far. He looks me in the eyes and continues:
"...is to find the things that make you happy. And I'm sure you know what those things are. You just have to be brave enough to accept them."
I look at my bare feet, thinking about what he said before asking:
"What if my happiness hurts somebody I care about?"
Hobi hums something, thinking and then, he smiles.
"How do you know it would hurt them?"
"I just know."
"If they truly care about you, they will be happy as long as you are. Yes, it might hurt them, but remember that you have to be honest with yourself and love yourself the way you are. Otherwise everything you make yourself believe you feel, it's all an illusion. And when sincerity comes, it's all good eventually."
I smile. He's right.
"I miss mom, too. There are a lot of times I want to ask her for advice..."
He smiles wearily.
"But then I realize she's not here anymore."
I look at him carefully, really curious in what he has to say.
"I am really sorry, Yuna, I'm sorry that I haven't figured out that I was just worsening the situation sometimes. I should've... made you laugh more and made you look ahead instead of backwards. I was too focused on building a stable way of living for us to see that you were still hurting despite the time passing. And I'm sorry for that. When I finally realized that it was far from being done, I became overprotective, thinking that I might pay back for the times I neglected you. I was wrong."
He sighs.
"I'm thinking of quitting my job." He says and my eyes go wide. "I... I don't think being a cashier guy suits me, even in a record shop. That's not what I want. But I'll have to keep it going for a while, until I succeed to get somebody offering me a contract for a dance studio."
I smile.
"You can do it." I say. "I believe in you."
He wraps his arms around me once again and I close my eyes, listening to his heartbeat, the only song that could calm me down at this point. He inhales and his voice vibrates through his chest once again when he says:
"I don't think JungKook would push you away for being happy, you know? That's what he wants for you as well."
And instead of panicking that he understood who I was talking about, instead of being scared that I've let my walls down, I fall asleep in my brother's arms like a little kid after being told a fairy tale.
My life is far from being a fairy tale, but at least for now, I can sleep for a few hours, knowing that if the world would burn down, no matter what, my brother would dig me out of the ashes.