My heart aches more than the limbs wrapped in casts. This hospital smells like formaldehyde. Just as formaldehyde preserves decaying things, smell acts like a preserving agent for memories. The hospital smell calls to mind this memory from last summer: It had been pouring since dawn. Half-asleep, I answered a phone call. I earnestly wished for an earthquake or war to erupt, to destroy everything between the moment I received the message and the moment I had to relay it to my father and the mother of my brother. My stepmother nagged me to tell her what the phone call was about. I could barely open my mouth to tell them. My father’s mouth spilled the yogurt he was drinking. I passed out. I don’t remember how we arrived at the hospital. I was bawling—I couldn’t enter because of the repulsive smell. I cried outside. I didn’t care if others thought I was overly dramatic. Fuck them. I preferred to jump off the Han River bridge than to look at my brother covered in a white sheet. Why couldn’t I actually go through with that fantasy?

Hyunwoo, my stepbrother, and I were often asked if we were twins. We went to the same school and were in the same class level, but he was a quiet honor student and I was just another student. Strange rumors followed us. We commuted to school separately and ignored each other when we ran into each other in the hallway or the school yard. He was eight months younger than me, but never called me nuna, or big sister, and I didn’t care about the secrets he so obviously was keeping. I often try to understand why I didn’t kill myself when he died … or after. It feels shameful to keep on living. But sometimes I’m proud of myself and my life. My mind changes so much. It’s like a pot of porridge that rapidly boils over and just as rapidly cools down. I feel addicted to my life, even if it’s meaningless and degrading.

“Hohoho, you’re awake! You must be hungry.” A woman who looks like a doctor approaches my bed and then addresses a nurse. “It’s been more than six hours since the surgery, right? Okay, bring her some porridge.” The nurse adjusts the IV drip, and leaves the room. “Hohoho,” the doctor laughs again. “Look at him. He is out.” She bends down to shake the man in the low cot awake.

“Mother, leave me alone. Let me sleep ten more minutes!” the man complains. Then there’s a thump as he falls off the cot—he must’ve tried to turn over. Grumbling, he stands up holding the side of my hospital bed and smiles at me. It’s Jihyun, the dentist.