A month ago, she had received the results of a regular health examination: her cancer had returned. My mother, who had endured three liver resection surgeries and even a liver transplant, could not accept the reality that the cancer had metastasized to her other organs. In the end, while I was at work, she jumped from the seventh-floor living room window.
It’s not like she had wanted to be born in the first place… This life thrust upon her so arbitrarily had brought her nothing but immense pain. If a person’s life were a story, then she had met a terrible bad ending.
I stood there blankly for a while, then started by cleaning the sink. I couldn’t just let the house swarm with bugs. Mute as an angry person, lips pressed tight, I threw out the food waste and silently washed the dishes.
But when I checked the side dishes my mother had made in the refrigerator, I lost all motivation in an instant. I had to throw away all the side dishes that had started to spoil… but I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it. Far from cleaning, I lost even the confidence to fall asleep here tonight, or to wake up tomorrow morning and repeat the day.
It wasn’t the kind of intense sorrow that brought tears streaming down. It was simply suffocating, painful enough to make breathing difficult. While she was undergoing chemotherapy, I had always kept the possibility of my mother’s death in mind, but I had never imagined she would leave in such an extreme manner. Perhaps because of that, rather than sad, I felt hollow. And angry.
Having barely finished cleaning just the sink, I sat blankly on the sofa without even turning on the TV, then approached the living room window as if in a trance. When I opened it, the hot midsummer breeze tickled my nose. I stuck my head out and looked down at the ground, and the last scenery my mother had seen unfolded before me.
Seeing the flowerbed destroyed by my mother’s death made me feel truly strange. The thought suddenly crossed my mind that if I fell from up here, I could end it all without destroying anything else. If I could just die like that, it seemed it would be so easy.
There would be no need to force myself to imagine a future, no need to erase my mother’s traces, no need to struggle to fall asleep. When my thoughts reached the point that there was no one who would miss me if I died, a feeling of utter powerlessness seized my entire body.
Every time I gripped the railing tightly, chills ran down my spine. My throat closed up as though oxygen had grown thin from being unable to breathe, and my breathing grew increasingly rapid. In my dizzy mind, only one thought kept repeating: if I just fell like this, if I could just die like this.
I didn’t want to clear out the side dishes in the refrigerator.
I didn’t want to throw away the cosmetics on the dresser or my mother’s clothes.
No, I didn’t even want to sleep anymore, or eat.
And I already knew there was only one choice that would allow me to do none of those things.
But that night, in the end, I couldn’t jump from the railing. I just stood before the window for hours, staring at the last trace my mother had left in this world. Unable to do this or that, gazing down at the distant ground, U Jiheon suddenly came to mind.
…He had jumped from the seventh floor of the company building, I had heard. Had that kid felt this same powerlessness, wanting to give up on everything just like me? A guy who had parents, money, everything—what could he have lacked to want to die? I had heard he hadn’t even succeeded, only injured his innocent head and lost his memory. I had spoken coldly to U Jaemin about it, but truthfully, I couldn’t help but worry.
Life often veers off course entirely because of a small trigger. The thought that I might have been that small trigger for U Jiheon lingered in my mind like an impurity, drifting about.
On the other hand, I thought that if he had been in such a desperate situation that he wanted to take his own life, perhaps it was fortunate he had lost his memory. Either way, now that he had lost his memory, he probably didn’t think he had to die again. The eighteen-year-old U Jiheon had been willful and ill-mannered, but he hadn’t been depressed.
Suddenly, the image of him from eight years ago came to mind—the kid in his school uniform, crying. With that insane temper and his large frame, he had looked so pitiful with tears hanging at the corners of his eyes. U Jiheon’s crying face had given me a small shock, and for a long time, I couldn’t forget that last image of him.
When I let go of the railing, my breathing slowly steadied and my head gradually cleared. Only then did I remember that I still hadn’t paid back the money I owed my father. After the funeral, while sorting through my mother’s belongings, I had discovered a bankbook with a little over one hundred million won in it.
It was money I had scrimped and saved a few years ago to pay back what I had borrowed from my father, which I had given to my mother. I couldn’t know why that money was still sitting there untouched, but I thought I should pay it back now, at least.
…Yes, there was no rush. Whether I died or lived… at least it wouldn’t be too late to think it over again after paying back that money. As soon as I thought that, the longing for death that had boiled up in an instant sank to the depths of my heart, as if it had never been. Not that any motivation to live had been born. Both continuing to live and choosing death required passion. The current me was nothing but an empty shell, devoid of any will.
Even so, I felt my mind grow somewhat lighter. Ironically, by slipping ‘death’ among the countless choices in life, I felt a little like I could breathe again. The long marathon called life, which I had thought I had to finish to the end, was in fact something I could give up on at any time.
Just as my mother had.
Just as U Jiheon had.
***
“You came, Yun Seonga. Really… thank you so much. My parents are incredibly grateful too.”
U Jaemin had come out to the hospital lobby to meet me, rushing over with a smile spread across his face. He seemed quite excited. He had looked after his younger cousin, U Jiheon, in the past as well, but it hadn’t been to this degree….
He seemed to have been greatly shocked by U Jiheon’s act of making such an extreme choice as suicide. No, not just U Jaemin—all the members of the U family seemed terrified. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have called me again, asking me to meet their son.
“…What floor is the hospital room on?”
“It’s the twenty-second floor, but there are only two rooms on the entire floor, so you’ll have plenty of space. There’s a bed for a caregiver, and the bathroom has shower facilities, so you won’t be uncomfortable staying there. There’s also a TV and computer, and for meals you can choose between Korean, Chinese, or Western food—just place your order in the morning.”
“This isn’t a hospital, it’s practically hotel level.”
“…The only son of Rian Industries is hospitalized here… this much is to be expected.”
“….”
“Anyway, you’ll be able to stay without any inconvenience for the month you’re nursing Jiheon. …If Jiheon happens to ask how the accident happened, just tell him it was a car accident. My mother is extremely sensitive because she’s afraid he’ll remember that he tried to take his own life.”
“…Alright.”
After answering briefly, while waiting for the elevator to come down, U Jaemin, who had been glancing at me, cautiously asked.
“Can I ask why you suddenly changed your mind? You said you absolutely never wanted to see Jiheon again.”
“….”
I turned my head and swept my gaze over the people in the hospital lobby. The sight of people busily moving about, each living the life they had been given, caught my eye. Perhaps because I had been cooped up in a silent house and was now mingling among people. Somehow, it felt a little easier to breathe.
…It had already been a month since my mother passed away. In that time, U Jaemin had contacted me so relentlessly it was tiresome. When I couldn’t take it anymore and blocked his number, he somehow found out and came to my apartment.
When his pleas didn’t work, he didn’t hesitate to spout nonsense about offering hundreds of millions of won, about finding me a job for re-employment. He had looked incredibly desperate and earnest. But I hadn’t changed my mind because of U Jaemin.
After my mother’s death, I had completely lost the will to live. I was lethargic, sometimes depressed, and occasionally thought it would be fine to die. Once the depression started, it wasn’t easy to shake off alone. I had considered getting psychiatric counseling, but I never put it into action. That, too, was something only possible with an active will to live.
These days, the only thing I did was hole up in the quiet house all day, killing time. I felt like I was going crazy. In fact, last night, I had impulsively cut my own wrist. But I hadn’t succeeded, and all I gained was the painful lesson that self-harm is a terrible thing.
Of course, the starting point of all my depression was my mother’s death, but that wasn’t the whole story. The person who had endured the hardship of fighting illness together with me had died by such an extreme method as suicide, and life had lost its purpose as though a tightly stretched rubber band had snapped. Each day felt like a buoy drifting on a vast ocean. I was anxious about how I should live the rest of my life, whether I could even live it.
Then, last night, while opening the living room window and looking at the rainy night sky, I had suddenly thought that I should meet U Jiheon. This, too, was an extremely impulsive decision.