Water of the Womb p7

The comfort of the chair pulled me into a deep sleep despite the short time. I was irritated when I was awakened by an insistent tapping on my shoulder. I shrugged off the hand, determined to sleep more.

"Jaehyun." The sound of my brothers voice snapped me awake once and for all. I gaped up at him. For a moment I had forgotten how angry I had been just hours ago. I jumped off the chair and hugged him. My sudden launch staggered him back a few steps, but when he was steady again he returned the hug. But the moment he pressed in, I flinched away from the pain. Immediately he pushed me off him to look at me fully.

As he studied me, I studied him. His face was similar to how I remembered it, but with an older, more mature sharpness to it. His hair was stylishly cut and styled. But his clothes were the most different part of him. The outfit he wore seemed… expensive. A long coat, a pressed shirt, suit pants, and leather shoes. Not for the first time today, I felt conscious of my own raggedy appearance.

"You've grown so much," Taejun said softly. His words were choked with emotion. "But what happened to your face?" He reached out to touch the bruise but I turned my face away.

I started to answer but Taejun stopped me and quickly looked around. I looked around too, but didn't spot the study group from before. There did seem to be a few curious students watching our reunion. "Put this on." He handed me a cap and the scarf he had been wearing. Frankly I was tired of being looked at too, so I took them gratefully and put them on, winding the scarf around my face as well as my neck.

"Let's talk outside," he said hastily. He made for the door and I had to follow.

I wanted to say so many things to him but Taejun was briskly walking through the campus and I felt that he wanted to go somewhere before talking.

His long legs covered ground quickly and before long we had left the campus behind. I grew annoyed again in the enduring silence. "Taejun, where are we going?"

He stopped suddenly and looked around. I caught the look on his face. He seemed a little confused. For some reason it reminded me of the times I had run away from home directionlessly. "I'm… not really sure," he admitted. "Why did you come to Busan?"

I felt like the answer was obvious, so instead of answering him proper, I shot my own question at him. "Why don't you want anyone to know you have a brother?" The way he was acting and the extra hat he had brought for me had made it excruciatingly clear that he hadn't just not mentioned me, he had actively erased me.

Taejun flinched as though I had slapped him. "Jae-"

Suddenly anger rose up in me in a hot wave. In a moment all the hurt I'd endured over the last few days crystallised and I flung it like a weapon at my absentee brother. "I've never done anything to you or anyone that should cause you to be ashamed of me." I was so angry, my thoughts swarmed like a nest of hornets and I couldn't seem to decide what to yell about next so I just stuttered angrily, tripping over words incomprehensibly.

Taejun grabbed me by the shoulder. It was my bad shoulder, but at the moment I was so hot with anger I didn't feel any pain. "I'm not ashamed of you," he tried to say.

"Do you hate your family that much? Are that afraid of looking poor?" I yelled over him. "Or is it this?" I ripped the scarf from my neck to brandish the dark, blotchy welt on my face.

Passerby started turning their heads at the commotion I was causing. Taejun caught his breath. "No! For God's sake, stop this! Jaehyun, calm down, please, let's go somewhere to talk." He tried to grab me again but I dodged him easily.

"Here's as good a place as any," I snapped hotly. My head was ringing and I could feel my pulse in my teeth. "You care so much about what other people think. Just not your family!"

"You don't know what the people at my university are like," he said through gritted teeth. Clearly my anger was starting to affect him too.

"Yeah, I'll bet. Do they come into your house and beat you half to death for not being like them? Is that why you're dressed like a kkadonam??"

His eyes narrowed but I didn't let him reply. I continued to vent my fury at him. "How can pretend like you have no family at all! Do you want to know the things I endured while you were gone? Do you even care? I came all the way here on my last goddamn won, and where were you? Seoul! We were in the same damn city and you never even bothered to let us know, let alone visit. While you're out here living the life, I'm at home, watching every won I make disappear-"

"Enough!" He shouted. Even in all the times he had argued with my parents, he had never yelled like that. He was trembling with barely suppressed rage. The blaze of my anger flickered slightly at the sight. For a few moments we glared at each other in a silent rage.

"I came to Busan because you were supposed to be here," I said breathlessly. I was panting like I had just run a long distance. While my anger wasn't yet gone, my last rant had spent my breath and the crazed buzzing of my head had died down somewhat. "But you were in Seoul the whole time. Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't know if you wanted to talk to me still." He sounded so regretful and downtrodden that I almost felt bad for yelling. Almost.

"You didn't give me a choice, did you? You changed your phone number on me!"

"I…!" He cursed. Taejun rubbed his temples for a long moment, then continued. "I had my phone stolen. I had to change my number. Didn't Ma tell you? I called her."

"What?!" Suddenly my anger redirected towards my mother. "She never told me that!" I tried frantically to think of a reason why my mother wouldn't have told me.

Taejun looked at me with a hurt expression. "All these years, I thought it was thought it was you who didn't want to talk to me anymore. You never called."

So from his viewpoint, I was the one who walked away, only to reappear suddenly and start yelling at him. It sobered me instantly. "Dad made me make that call," I said, somewhat quietly. "I never would have done it otherwise."

"I know," he said, miserably. Deflated of our anger, we just stared at each other awkwardly.

"Ma never told me you were in Seoul, either… did she know?"

"No." He smiled wryly at me. "I think you probably know the reason why I wouldn't tell her I was back."

It made sense, but his comment still irked me. I had done my duty trying to help my parents while he pulled his disappearing act. I stared glumly at him, and he must have realised his misstep. He tried to change the subject abruptly. "Are you going to University now, or?"

"No." I hadn't even finished high school. I didn't want to make small talk with Taejun. I still wanted answers. "You didn't answer my question. Why didn't you tell anyone about me?" The moment I asked, I regretted how I had phrased it. It sounded childishly self-centered and petulant.

Taejun let out a long sigh. He was full of pauses today. "There's no good way to say this, so I'll just say it. I didn't want people to know about my family, because it would ruin their impression of me. I… I needed to look like I was one of them, not for my self image, but because it would affect my chances of getting connections and internships." He started to say something else but stopped himself.

I could probably guess what he had wanted to say. You probably wouldn't understand. At least he held back from patronising me.

"Was it worth it?" I wanted that question to hurt him. It didn't seem to.

"I did get a placement in the NIS." He was clearly proud of the achievement.

I was shocked, and admittedly, impressed. "You work for the NIS?! Narc."

He couldn't help it; he laughed. I did too. It wasn't even that funny of a comment, but perhaps we were both just relieved that we weren't yelling anymore.

"I… didn't think our reunion was going to be like this," he said, somewhat pathetically.

"Me neither," I replied glumly. I remembered how happy I had been on the bus, how optimistic I had been on my way to find Taejun.

Taejun looked off into the distance. "Do you want to go back to Seoul?"

"I don't have a choice, do I? You're not here and I literally have nothing." I stared pointedly at Taejun's nice clothes. Surely he wasn't heartless enough to leave me in Busan with nothing but the clothes on my back.

"Did you really spend your last won getting here?" asked Taejun.

"Yeah." I was too ashamed to tell him how most of it had come from a child.

I couldn't read the expression he had on his face. "I'm going to call a taxi to take us to the KTX station." He stepped over to the curb. I watched him flag down a taxi. What a bigshot, riding taxis.

I sat with my arms crossed as Taejun instructed the cab driver where to go. He turned to me and picked up where we had left off. "I can't believe you came all the way to Busan with nothing. You're lucky you ran into Park Soomin," he said, shaking his head.

Lucky? He didn't know the half of it. I decided to throw him a bone in front of the cabbie. "Your hubaes act like you're some kind of celebrity."

It worked. Taejun smiled and then coughed embarrassedly. "Do they? Well, I worked hard to leave a good impression on people." This Taejun was a lot more prideful than the one I remembered.

"And now I've gone and ruined it all by appearing, haven't it?" I looked away and out the window.

"Jaehyun, stop thinking like that. Like you said, you've done nothing to make me ashamed of you," Taejun said gently.

I didn't want to start up this conversation again. I continued to look out the window until we reached the KTX station. Taejun paid, and I followed him silently as he walked up to the ticket counter and bought a pair of tickets.

"They might gossip a bit, but I'll explain it to them later," Taejun said suddenly. It was a bit odd for him to suddenly continue the conversation so much later. I had the feeling that he had been thinking about it the whole time until now. I gave him a look but continued to hold my silence until the train was ready to board.

We settled into our seats. It was clear that Taejun found my silence uncomfortable, because he tried again to start a conversation.

"How bad is it at home?" he asked quietly.

"So now you want to know?" I responded petulantly.

"Don't give me that. I-I care about you, Jae." His voice cracked in the middle of his sentence. For the first time in my life, I felt some sort of power over him. So I pushed my advantage, childish as it were.

"It really doesn't seem like it." I could tell my words really hurt him this time. He drew back. He looked so small now. Taejun had always been so tall and radiant in my memories, and this sad, crumpled person before me now looked nothing like that. I felt a pang in my heart for being so cruel. I knew he did care. He came running to Busan as soon as he knew I was there, despite being so far.

"But at least you came to get me in Busan," I mumbled, regretfully. My peace offering revived him somewhat. He took a shaky breath in and looked at me sadly.

"I… I couldn't just let you be there alone," he whispered at last. I thought of at least two hurtful things I could say to him in response, but I didn't.

I hated that I kept pushing him away, even though he was trying to make amends. So I just answered his question. "It's much worse than when you left. Dad's gambling got really bad and he's really in debt now. Park Bonghwan's gone now, and some asshole named Han Jungho collects from us now."

I stared up into the ceiling glumly as I considered just how much money dad owed now.

"Was he the one that did that to you?"

"Yeah."

Taejun sucked in air sharply. "Is that why you tried to find me in Busan?"

"… yeah. I don't… I don't want to deal with dad anymore." Admitting it, even to my brother who had already done it years ago, made me feel like a traitor.

"You shouldn't have to," Taejun reassured me. But one sentence wasn't enough to erase all the years that had literally beaten in the bonds of responsibility that I carried with me.

"When we get back to Seoul, you don't have to go back to them. You could stay with me," Taejun said.

That surprised me. I looked at him. Despite the fact that I had gone to Busan to do just that, the events of the day had convinced me that he wouldn't want that.

"Really? How are you going to explain that you suddenly have a brother?" I was certain that he had continued to keep the secret outside of university.

"Jae, I'm at the NIS. They know I have a brother. Just not our family situation. Probably."

"Oh." That made sense.

"Well… I do want to live with you." I had to wrestle each word of that confession out, fighting my pride to admit that I needed my brother and that I didn't want to deal with my parents anymore.

Taejun let out a big breath like he had been holding it. "I'd always hoped you'd come find me one day," he said shakily.

That made me choke up. With both of us rendered unable to speak, we just sat there, overwhelmed by the moment. The divide between us hadn't disappeared, but in this moment it had begun to heal at last.

With nothing but the sound of the high speed rail rushing along, the atmosphere was solemn as both of us were lost in our thoughts. I didn't know what he was thinking, but my own mind was whirling with thoughts so fast I could hardly follow them. Finally, Taejun broke the silence.

"Jae… can we talk like we used to?"

I could give him that.

"Alright."