If you treat someone like a monster, they will become one. –
Criminal Psychology
After school ended, I went home to find my father eating instant ramen next to Eunsu. When I checked on Eunsu, asleep in the corner of the room littered with soju bottles, his body was feverish. I tried to shake him awake, but he only groaned in response.
“Daddy, Eunsu’s sick. He’s burning up.”
My father poured soju into a metal bowl, took a swig, and stared at me through bloodshot eyes by way of response. Looking back on it now, can I really say that our father was alive then? He must have been in his early thirties at the time. Never able to look at him without terror and shuddering in fear since my first moment of life, I had nevertheless long learned the devil’s tricks in that hell.
“Daddy, I’ll buy you more soju. You’re all out. I’ll run to the store.”
The belching beast of a man pulled a five-hundred won bill out of the pocket of his sweat- and piss-soaked pants and handed it to me. I ran. The cold medicine Mom used to take—the only thought in my head was that I had to buy those small pills that came in a bottle.
The rain had stopped, and the world was flushed with the light of spring. To this day, I still don’t know why all that dazzling green everywhere as I raced to the pharmacy affected me so deeply. For a long time afterward, whenever I saw the different shades of green that dyed the mountains in spring, I was overcome with an inexplicable sadness. The villagers planting rice seedlings in the paddies watched casually from a distance as I ran past. I used the money to buy Eunsu’s cold medicine and returned home.
The moment he saw the bottle of medicine in my hand, my father’s eyes flashed. He wrenched the bottle from my hand and began hitting me. The ramen bowl flipped over, and I was caught in his strong hands and flung onto the narrow wooden porch outside. If it were not for Eunsu, I would have run away. I did not know where, did not know if there was a place on this earth for me to run away to, but that’s probably what I would have done. Each time my father’s fist came down on me, flames seemed to shoot up from my eyes. Then I passed out. When I came to, the woman from next door was feeding Eunsu and me broth. She told me she had saved some medicine made by an older man from a neighboring village and that she had given it to Eunsu. My father was passed out drunk, and I could hear the worried murmurs of our neighbors coming from the side porch.
Eunsu was fast asleep beneath a blanket. The room had been straightened up. Eunsu’s lips and cheeks were flushed, and he kept muttering something. I didn’t want to hear what he was saying. I, too, wanted to call out for our mother. I wanted to ask why she had left us behind. Several nights passed, and then it was morning. I think maybe it was the third day. I decided to go to school, so I went over to check on Eunsu. His fever had broken.
His curly black hair was damp with sweat and sticking to his pale forehead. After a moment, his eyes opened and he spoke.
“Yunsu, the house is full of smoke. It’s full of smoke.”
After that day, Eunsu’s eyes could not make out anything other than a faint light. My little brother had gone blind.