Amidst the raging wind and rain, a person was tightly hugging a tree.

“Seung Joo!”

Eun Soo rushed out in surprise.

“What are you doing right now?”

Seung Joo, wearing a raincoat, was hugging the tree. He was startled to see Eun Soo.

“Elder sister, why are you out here instead of sleeping?”

The howling wind was so fierce that even though they were right in front of each other, they had to shout at the top of their lungs to barely hear each other’s voices.

“I’m asking you what you’re doing right now!”

“The wind is blowing too hard, I’m worried the tree might fall over!”

Eun Soo was flabbergasted. In the midst of a typhoon, a person was using their body to support a tree. How foolish could one be?

No matter how important the apple tree was, people came before trees, not the other way around.

“Let’s go inside.”

She immediately grabbed his arm to pull him, but Seung Joo shook his head and stood his ground.

“Just a little longer. They said the typhoon is almost passing.”

How long had he been out here like this? Even though he was wearing a raincoat, Seung Joo was drenched from head to toe.

“Are you crazy? It’s only been a short while since you recovered from being sick in bed!”

Shouting in anger, Eun Soo pulled Seung Joo’s arm even harder.

“There’s no need for this. I don’t believe what that shaman said anyway.”

“Why don’t you believe it? You have to believe it. We need to believe in something and wait with hope.”

Even at this very moment, the rain pouring down like rods was painfully pummeling their entire bodies. Eun Soo was exasperated by how he was foolishly hugging the tree.

“Are you an idiot? If he was alive, do you think he wouldn’t have come back for 15 years?”

What an irony this was. The very words Kwon Seung Joo had said were now coming out of her own mouth. After being so furious back then…

Eun Soo was only now realizing. The reason she had been so angry was because she actually had the same thoughts herself.

“Let go of this and come inside. This is all meaningless!”

No matter how much strength she mustered to pull his arm, the man who was much bigger and stronger than her didn’t budge an inch. She was infuriated.

“My younger brother isn’t coming back anyway. There was never any hope to begin with!”

Why are you making me say these things? Amidst the cold raindrops pelting her face, something hot suddenly gushed out.

However, the very person who told her to give up hope said the exact opposite with the same mouth.

“How can a person live without hope?”

While firmly hugging the tree, Seung Joo shouted.

“Deep down, you don’t want to give up either, right? You miss your brother, right? You want to believe he’s still alive, right?”

His desperate cry pierced through the sound of the rain and reached her ears.

Yes, why wouldn’t she miss him?

Her six-year-old little brother who liked being carried on her back more than on their mother’s.

The child who used to wait by the front gate, wondering if his elder sister would be back from school now or later.

The child who, upon seeing Eun Soo’s figure from afar, would break into a bright smile on his tiny face and come running.

[Elder siste-e-er!]

More than anyone, Eun Soo wanted to believe it. That he was alive. But…

“I haven’t given up on Mom either. I will never give up.”

“……”

“So don’t you give up hope either, elder sister.”

Yes.

Eun Soo let go of Seung Joo’s arm that she had been holding. Instead, she went to the other side of the tree, spread her arms wide and tightly hugged the apple tree.

As if embracing the lost younger brother.

Amidst the relentlessly raging wind, the two of them were tightly hugging the tree together.

*

How much time had passed? The wildly wailing sound of the wind subsided, and the rain also let up a bit.

After drying herself and changing clothes, Eun Soo turned on the electric heater that looked like a fan on the wooden porch. As the warm heat washed over her frozen body, it felt extremely pleasant. As she lay close to the heater drying her wet hair, Seung Joo, who had changed in his room, approached hesitantly.

“It’s cold… Can I come over there too?”

It seemed he was aware that his body was that of an adult. It was funny how he was trying to gauge her reaction, worried she might feel uncomfortable.

“Come here.”

When she patted the spot next to her, Seung Joo carefully approached and sat down hunched over, keeping some distance.

“You said you’re cold, come closer.”

Seung Joo moved up near Eun Soo’s feet as she lay there. The way he stealthily settled at her feet reminded her of a big dog.

The small wooden porch quickly became warm. Seung Joo soon began nodding off. No wonder he was sleepy, considering he had been out there for hours in the middle of the night instead of sleeping.

“If you’re sleepy, lie down and sleep. I’ll sleep here too.”

Seung Joo asked, startled.

“Is it okay for me to sleep next to you?”

“Why, are you worried I’ll do something to you?”

“No!”

Seung Joo quickly shook his head.

“I just thought you might be uncomfortable…”

“What’s there to be uncomfortable about? You’re my younger brother.”

Seung Joo muttered happily and obediently lay down beside her.

“…Yes, elder sister.”

He must have been quite exhausted, as Seung Joo fell asleep as soon as he lay down, true to his word. Watching his thick chest rise and fall rhythmically, Eun Soo thought to herself.

The world sure was full of unexpected things. To think Kwon Seung Joo would be lying next to her sleeping.

If her past self from a month ago heard this, she absolutely wouldn’t have believed it. She would have said such a thing could never happen even if she died and came back to life.

Eun Soo quietly observed his sleeping face. It was still a frighteningly neat and handsome face. So much so that one had to wonder how a person could look like that.

Looking at his face, her heart ached. A dignified, kind, and deeply caring child.

[A person cannot live without hope.] [Hope is the worst poison.]

How did you, of all people, end up becoming an adult who doesn’t believe in hope…?

Although it was still raining outside with occasional thunder and lightning, her heart felt utterly at peace with Seung Joo by her side.

Using the sound of the rain as a lullaby, Eun Soo also fell into a deep sleep.

*

The typhoon had passed, but the rain continued for three more days after that.

Fortunately, the wind wasn’t too fierce, so the apple tree was unscathed. But after the heavy downpour, a large corner of the eaves finally collapsed. It was the opposite side of the part that had collapsed and been repaired last summer.

Eun Soo called the repairman she frequented from the local equipment store and asked for an estimate. The repairman checked here and there and shook his head.

“The roof itself is too old. The pillars are weak too. At this rate, the whole roof might cave in, so it would be best to do an overall repair.”

The lawyer who had come to notify them of the impending demolition had said something similar.

[The pillars supporting the roof are also dilapidated, posing a risk of collapse at any time…]

Eun Soo was only now realizing that those words hadn’t been a lie.

“I’ll slowly fix the roof when I have some room financially. For now, let’s say we just repair the eaves as an urgent measure?”

“Even then, it’ll probably cost around a million won.”

He was well aware of Eun Soo’s situation. If he could give a low estimate, he would, but he wasn’t the type to rip people off. The materials cost plus the minimum labor fee probably amounted to that much.

After the repairman left, Eun Soo let out a deep sigh that seemed to sink into the ground.

“I’m sorry. I’m the real owner of the house, so I should be the one fixing it…”

Seung Joo looked apologetic and didn’t know what to do with himself.

“It’s fine. I would have gotten it fixed on my own without contacting you anyway. That’s how I’ve lived all this time.”

It really was true. The rent was practically nothing, so she never once contacted them to ask them to fix the old house here and there, afraid they might just tell her to leave.

“Let’s see, a million won…”

Eun Soo did a rough calculation.

Every month, she left only the minimum living expenses and used the rest to pay off debts, so her life was always tight with no room to spare. The cost of flyers and banners that went in from time to time was also considerable. To make matters worse, now there was Seung Joo too.

One might think how much more food expenses could there be with just one more mouth to feed. But originally, Eun Soo didn’t really eat proper meals, so her food expenses were close to zero. But now with Seung Joo around, she was buying fish she never ate before and even meat. So it wasn’t just adding one more spoon to the meals she used to have.

In the end, she had no choice but to work part-time after getting off work. Of course, it was prohibited by company regulations, but she had no other options. She couldn’t live with the eaves collapsed like this.

The one fortunate thing was that the part-time job was just a stone’s throw away. It was the kimchi factory she had worked at since college. It had started small as a family business, but word of mouth spread and it grew, so now it was a proper factory that was always short on workers.

Eun Soo had worked there since it was small in scale, and the owner was so fond of her that they told her to come anytime if she needed money. In fact, last year too, when she urgently needed money to replace the front gate, she had worked part-time for two weeks after work.

Seung Joo immediately objected.

“That’s absurd. Work is hard enough, how can you work part-time on top of that?”

“Then what do we do? It’s in that state, so we have to fix it for now, don’t we?”

“I’ll work instead then. My body is an adult’s, so I can work. I can carry things like cement at construction sites, right?”

“If the site supervisor recognizes you, you’ll end up on the 9 o’clock news.”

The representative of Daewon Construction carrying cement at a construction site. It would be more than enough to make the news. Just imagining it was so ridiculous that Eun Soo chuckled, but Seung Joo was serious.

“Then at a convenience store or something. If it’s not the construction industry, they won’t know me.”

Someone recognizing him was a problem, but even putting that aside, Eun Soo had no intention of making Seung Joo work. He was still a child who hadn’t properly adapted to the current world and hesitated to go out alone.

“Enough. Just study hard and focus on returning to the company, that’s how you can help.”

“But…!”

“I won’t do it for long, just around ten days will be enough, so don’t worry.”

Eun Soo cut Seung Joo off and spoke as if making a resolution.

“You better not discipline me later for working two jobs?”

*

2:00 AM.

Even though his eyes were looking at documents at home, his mind was only worrying about Eun Soo.

Thinking it was past the time she should be back and why she wasn’t coming, he couldn’t stand it anymore and went outside to check. There, he found Eun Soo collapsed on the wooden porch.

“Elder sister?”

He called out, startled enough to stop his heart, but fortunately, Eun Soo had simply fallen asleep. As he got closer, he could hear her steady breathing. She must have returned from her part-time job and collapsed on the porch in exhaustion, falling asleep as if passing out before even taking off her shoes.

Eun Soo had been returning past 1 AM, even 2 AM, for a week now. Then she would wake up early the next morning and head to work again.

And yet, she never once complained to Seung Joo about being tired. Instead, she worried about Seung Joo who had to stay home alone all day. Like a real elder sister worrying about her younger brother.

[Did you eat your meals properly? You must have been bored all day by yourself.]

Seung Joo carefully removed the shoes from the small feet sticking out from the edge of the porch. The heels were intact as if they had been repaired, but overall, they showed signs of being worn for a long time. The soles were worn thin like paper, making his heart ache.

‘While doing this, she bought me new sneakers.’

Seung Joo suddenly hated himself. A stupid fool who couldn’t even work and just ate up food despite being so big. An idiot adult with no money to his name.

Of course, he must have money somewhere, but he didn’t know which bank his account was at, had no ID, and didn’t know the password either.

If only his memories returned, he could fix the roof for her, buy her new shoes, and also…

There were endless things he wanted to do for her, but he himself couldn’t do anything.

He gazed at the sleeping Eun Soo and then carefully lifted her up. She was as light as paper, making his heart ache. The thought that he was a burden on the slender shoulders of this small woman drove him crazy.

[I didn’t grow taller because I couldn’t eat well.]

Recalling the face that smiled nonchalantly while saying such a sad thing pained his heart.

From that one story, he could roughly guess the entire environment she had grown up in. If she couldn’t even eat properly, how much worse would other things have been?

Did she ever get to go out with her parents like other children? Did she ever get to wear pretty clothes? She must have always lived cautiously, reading the mood under a mother who was solely focused on finding her lost child.

He himself was born as the only son of a wealthy family and enjoyed all sorts of luxuries growing up. At least until his parents separated, he lived a life with nothing to envy in the world.

And yet, this woman who had nothing was protecting him with all her might. When he should be the one protecting her.

Eun Soo didn’t even stir as he carried her and laid her down, that’s how exhausted she was. She simply slept, oblivious to the world.

He carefully laid her on the blanket and left the room. Instead of returning to his own room, Seung Joo sat leaning against Eun Soo’s door, buried his face in his knees, and prayed earnestly.

Please let this night pass slowly. So that Eun Soo can sleep a little longer.

And yet, he still hadn’t realized what this feeling was.