The only thing more evil than feeling nothing is not knowing that you feel nothing.
– Charles Fred Alford, What Evil Means To Us
After I started going to school, my little brother Eunsu followed me there every morning. Since he wasn't allowed inside, he used to squat at the corner of the schoolyard wall to wait for me until school was over. Eunsu was different from me. When the other kids hit him, he never grabbed a stick and hit them back. If a stronger kid picked on me, I would fight him to the bitter end, sinking my teeth into his forearm if I had to, but not Eunsu. His fate, like our mother’s, was to submit to the lash of destiny and do nothing but cry. School would end and I would rush out to find Eunsu trembling and shivering against the wall, his lips blue from the cold. Our daily meal was the cornbread that was rationed out to the students at school. I used to save my piece and not take a single bite even while the other kids were eating theirs and my mouth was watering for a taste. On some days, I would find Eunsu sitting there with a bloody nose; on other days, I would find him crying with his pepper hanging out because his clothes had been stolen by the other kids.
For a long time after, I used to wonder whether I had really loved my little brother. I don’t know. All I do know is that I wanted him to be happy. I think maybe those times we spent together, walking home and sharing the cornbread that I had managed not to eat, might have been the happiest times of both of our lives.
One day, it rained. It was spring, but the weather was cold, and the sky that started off clear in the morning grew dark, and suddenly the rain was like poles of water coming down. I didn’t hear a word the teacher said and just stared out the window. There was nowhere outside of the school where Eunsu could stay dry. An image of him in the rain passed before my eyes: like a young pigeon left behind in an empty nest, he was crying so hard that his eyes were swelling up. As soon as the first period ended, I ran out the gate.
Standing there in the rain, Eunsu was so surprised to see me come out earlier than expected that he smiled from ear to ear. The rain beat down mercilessly on his face, but he was beside himself with happiness. I lost my temper. Since I had no umbrella either, I was no better off than he was, and my clothes were getting as drenched as his.
“Go home,” I told him.
“Don’t want to.”
“Go home!”
“No.”
It hurt to have to send him back to our house where our drunk father would grab the first thing he saw when he awoke, whether a stick or a broom handle, and beat my little brother with it. But the rain was coming down hard, so I grabbed Eunsu by the collar and dragged him toward home. I left him in the alleyway that led to our house and turned to leave, but he followed me out. I turned around, grabbed him by the collar again, and dragged him back. I turned and ran, but he kept following me. I ran back to him again and started punching him. And like a fool from the planet of submission who doesn’t know the meaning of the word disobedience, Eunsu took the blows while clinging to the hem of my shirt. I wailed away at him like a crazy person. Blood spurted from his nose and soaked into my clothes along with the rain.
“Listen to me,” I said. “If you don’t go home right now, I’ll run away, too. I will leave you and run away. Now go home and don’t come out again!”
Eunsu stopped crying at once. He let go of my shirt. My running away would have been worse than a death sentence to him. He gave me a resentful look and turned to go. That was the last time we looked each other in the eyes. And it would be the last clear image of me that Eunsu ever saw.