The feelings they tried to keep in their pasts, their losses, their suffering, insecurity and absence...it was time for them to embrace their destiny.
Started: 13 April 2019
Ended: 29 June 2020
Thank you for the journey
I had scattered the wet leaves on the spot where Taehyung went down. I didn't mean for it to happen, but I was responsible for all of it. I was the one who'd sprinkled the calcium chlordie over the road. But I'd only done it with good intention: to preevent the road from icing over.
In fact, I'd done it for myself because I truly believed that I would've been the one to make the next delivery. And the ones after that.
"Do you know what's really dangerous?" The question became a loop in my mind, playing over and over again.
"He must've ridden over the leaves and slipped."
If I had just left the leaves where they were, if I hadn't moved them, covered in calcium chloride, would he have been safe?
---
Several people were already at the bus stop, waiting for the first bus of the day. I nodded my head in a silent greeting. I kept my head down. I tried avoiding making eye contact with anyone.
Finally, the first bus arrived and I boarded. I didn't really have a specific plan thought out for today. I just wanted to have some time to myself wthout my parents. Without seeing my mom's exhausted face. Without my withdrawing brother. Without seeing dad struggle througth the day with his illness. To get away from our family, our fortune doing downhill. To get away from the sacrifice, the obedience I had to maintain.
I wanted to escape my ill fate and the poverty that was running with it.
Poverty eats into the heart of life. It turns precoius things into something meaningless. You give up on things that shouldn't be given up on. Poverty lets doubt, fear and despair creep into your life.
---
After what the men had said last night when I delivered their food, I rode home in a daze. I couldn't remember who I talked to, what I did after that or what I said. My mind and body had grown numb.
I couldn't tell if it was cold, windy, or how it smelled. My brain had all but frozen. Only when I reached the dogs and they had started barking did I snap back into reality.
All of a sudden, memories I thought I had moved on from came back: Hopping from one place to another. Slipping on the road and traveling back to owner to deliver more food. Competing with all the other boys for the delivery job. The boys who laughed at me. My classmates in their uniforms coming onto the bus. The dogs. The barking. Their eyes threatening.
It was too much for me.
I almost screamed out: "Stop it! What do you want me to do?"
But I held myself back. I knew better than that.
I remembered dad's voice, feeble and frail, ringing in my ears. I remembered what he'd told me as I carried him on my back on after we'd gone to the hospital. I remembered not wanting to hear what he had to say. I remember pretending not to hear him.
I so badly wanted to unhear what he'd said. I didn't want to think about it.
"Go, Namjoon. You must survive."
ｖｏｔｅ ＋ ｃｏｍｍｅｎｔ ＋ ｓｈａｒｅ
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