She remembers the day she first brought Yeong-hye here. A bright afternoon in early winter. The closed ward of Seoul General Hospital was actually quite near her house, but the admittance fee was more than she could scrape together, so she’d asked around a bit before settling on this hospital, where the treatment was apparently quite good. It was when she’d met with the doctor at the other hospital, who wanted Yeong-hye to be discharged, that she’d been advised to consider outpatient care.

“So far, the results that we’ve observed directly have been good. She probably isn’t in a position yet to return to any kind of social life, but the support of her family will be a great help.”

“That’s what I was told last time, too,” she told him. “I believed it, and had Yeong-hye discharged. But now it seems like that was the wrong thing to do.”

Though the ostensible reason for her not wanting Yeong-hye to be discharged, the reason that she gave the doctor, was this worry about a possible relapse, now she was able to admit to herself what had really been going on. She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She’d been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she’d never even known they were there.

Luckily, Yeong-hye was in favor of being admitted. Dressed in everyday clothes and telling the doctor in a distinct voice that she was comfortable there in the hospital, she had seemed calm. The look in her eyes was clear, and the set of her mouth was firm. It was almost impossible to tell her apart from ordinary people, aside, of course, from the fact that, skinny to begin with, she was at that point alarmingly thin. In the taxi on the way there she’d gazed quietly out of the window, showing not even the slightest hint of unease, and when they sent the taxi away she’d obediently followed her sister as though they’d simply come out for a stroll. She’d looked so normal that the receptionist had actually had to ask which one of them was the patient.

While they waited for Yeong-hye’s documents to be processed, In-hye said to her sister, “The air is good here, it’ll give you more of an appetite. You’ll be able to eat a bit more and put on some weight.”

Yeong-hye, who at the time was just beginning to speak again, cast her gaze toward the zelkova tree on the other side of the window and said, “Yes…there are big trees here.”