The first Chuseok after Dad died was a golden long weekend. My two sisters flew to Jeju clutching designer handbags. I told them I had covered the flights—and the beef for four—then quietly wired ₩2.8 million from my banking app to another account.
Recipient: Kim Hyun-woo (M).
Memo: card payment.
The Moment I Touch the Ring
I have grown accustomed to keying in the entry code of my married brother’s newlywed flat. 8282. It isn’t his birthday. Neither of my sisters knows the number.
When the door opens, the smell of musk slaps my nose. He has already left for work. I slide open the silver ring-display box on the shoe cabinet.
Inside is not a wedding band engraved with my name but a USB drive containing my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding footage. I plug it in; the ballroom flickers to life. As the bride in white glides down the aisle, I catch a glimpse of myself waving a white handkerchief behind my brother. I was smiling then, and I made a vow: I would keep this marriage from ever breaking.
Why They’ll Never Know
My sisters think I earn less than ₩60 million a year at a middling company.
- Big one: “Unni, you don’t even drink Starbucks. Where does your money go?”
- Little one: “Omo, you could’ve bought yourself at least one nice bag.”
I just smiled and opened my banking app again. Over the last six months alone, ₩7.3 million has flowed into my brother’s account. If they knew, both girls would faint.
Hyun-su and I—and His Wife
Hyun-su married a colleague the year I graduated and was job-hunting. She was two years younger, yet the word sister-in-law stuck in my throat like a fish bone.
On the wedding day the bride called me into the waiting room.
“Ah, sis-in-law, could you hand me my purse? The groom says he forgot the money.”
I lifted the wallet from the table and drew out a paper envelope inside: ₩3 million in cash.
“Here. In return, tonight… it’s fine, isn’t it?”
I gave a small nod. Hyun-su glanced me up and down and gripped the envelope.
That night the groom stayed out drinking until dawn. I lay in the empty bed in his place, breathing the perfume lingering on the pillow.
Why You’re Still Listening
You probably think what I’ve done is wrong. Yet you’re not shocked. Because you, too, have secretly coveted what isn’t yours—someone’s name, someone’s place, someone’s future.
Everyone obsesses over what they cannot have. I coveted the institution called brother, the legal title of spouse held by the woman named Hyun-su, and the future they would build together. That wasn’t love; it was obsession. And obsession always grows in the dark.
A Night of Numbers
Last week my brother met a loan officer. He said he had secretly borrowed money from me without his wife’s knowledge. Naturally, the loan came from my second account—private lending at 5 percent.
He thanked me. “Honestly, without you…”
I know the second meaning folded inside those words: Without you the marriage would have been impossible—and Without you I don’t know where I’d be right now.
“Why do you keep living alone, unni?”
my sisters asked. I only smiled. A woman doesn’t live alone; she keeps someone else’s place empty.
One Last Question
If it were you, how much of another person’s life would you ruin to protect the life of the one you love? And in return, would you truly inhabit that person’s future, or would you spend the rest of your own life merely filling it with numbers?