Chapter 71: Please Help (3)

From that point on, I only have fragmented memories.  

It was definitely a span of a few days, and I had been present for every moment, without exception.  

Inside the ambulance heading to the hospital.  

By then, a white sheet had already been placed over Shihyun’s face.  

No, it wasn’t white anymore. It had turned so red that calling it “white” wouldn’t have been accurate.  

I remember the hospital.  

And at some point, Yuri was there. Hyunseong was, too.  

At the funeral, Shihyun’s mother just sat there blankly, as if she had forgotten how to cry.  

A few people came, I think. I don’t remember their faces. They were supposedly distant relatives.  

Originally, it was supposed to be a simple family funeral. Shihyun didn’t have many relatives, and no one from his father’s side even showed up.  

But that wasn’t how it ended.  

A few hours later, strangers in black suits arrived.  

At first, I thought they were more of Shihyun’s relatives. Since his mother was still sitting in a daze, Yuri and I were the ones who faced them.  

What did they say?  

They mentioned they were from some company.  

As far as I knew, they had nothing to do with Shihyun.  

*Click.*  

The people who followed them began flashing their cameras and taking photos.  

…I later heard that the photos weren’t used in the end.  

They thought I was Shihyun’s real older sister and took the pictures, but they found out I was just a neighbor with no blood relation.  

These people came without knowing anything, talked to me without knowing anything, and left again without knowing anything acting like they knew everything.  

Next, a labor union from another company came.  

And again, the flashes went off.  

Apparently, those photos couldn’t be used either.  

While I was standing there in a daze, Yuri seemed to have caught on to what was happening.  

She got angry and chased them out, not caring that they were snapping pictures of her or shouting questions at her.  

Hyunseong, who still had long hair back then, did the same. Both of them furiously drove the people away.  

Soon after, condolence wreaths began to pile up ones no one had ordered.  

They were made of white chrysanthemums, with thick ribbons tied around them.  

When Yuri read the writing on the ribbons, she got angry again. The delivery drivers had to take the wreaths back before they were even placed at the funeral home.  

People who weren’t dressed in black came with bulky cameras but were chased away by Yuri.  

An older man with a head full of white hair came, only to be turned away by Hyunseong this time.  

But eventually, so many people kept coming that we couldn’t handle it anymore. All we could do was try to block them at the entrance.  

Fortunately, by then, Shihyun’s high school friends, who had just finished their graduation ceremony, and my college friends, who had heard the news, came to stand guard with us.  

At the very end of it all…  

The man who had been driving that truck came.  

The kids let him in.  

He knelt down and kept repeating that he was sorry.  

Neither I nor Shihyun’s mother said a word to him. We couldn’t even meet his eyes. We didn’t know what we might say or what we might do if we did.  

Without a single word from us, the man knelt there for two or three hours before lowering his head and leaving.  

I don’t know what happened to him after that. And I don’t want to know.  

“You don’t need to know.”  

After everything was over, when I asked Yuri about the people who had come, she answered with a hardened expression.

But I couldn’t live forever without knowing everything. Time passed, and eventually, I saw the news and read the articles.  

There had been a conflict between labor and management.  

It just so happened that the accident occurred during that time, on a day that was too bright, too beautiful.  

Photos of the accident quickly made their way online.  

The image of a young woman holding a bloodied teenager in her arms, crying out in anguish, was perfect for a headline. The article spread across the internet in no time, reaching the entire country.  

People speculated about the truck how it was overloaded, how the brakes failed, how the driver might have been drowsy.  

Some blamed the driver for falling asleep at the wheel, while others blamed the company for overloading the truck.  

What could have been a minor news story, buried in the corner of a newspaper, instead exploded online.  

Meanwhile, rumors began to swirl about why the deceased graduate ran into the path of the truck, and a tragic narrative started to form.  

The labor-management conflict reached the ears of several lawmakers from the country’s two main political parties.  

Some broadcasting networks picked up the story as well.  

The people who flooded into the funeral home were tangled up in that web of chaos.  

Some came drawn by the scent of money; others had no real connection to the incident.  

One civic group even set up a memorial altar in the middle of Seoul without permission, only to be criticized and forced to take it down.  

At first, public opinion was divided, but then someone from the funeral wrote about what had really happened that day.  

People who saw the truth began to feel disgusted, and the outrage turned toward those who had caused the disgraceful scenes at the funeral. The photos, unfortunately for them, were too clear to deny, and they couldn’t escape public condemnation.  

All of this, I learned only later.  

For a brief moment, I became famous.  

The face in the news articles was pixelated, but earlier, unedited photos had already spread online.  

For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to go on the internet.  

The pictures had circulated everywhere, showing Shihyun’s face as he lay in my arms. And the state he was in…  

I took a year off from school.  

The year I thought would be the most memorable…  

Instead, it became unforgettable in the worst way possible.

*

That day, the child Shihyun saved left no lasting impression.  

Neither the child nor their parents showed up at the funeral.  

Or maybe they were hidden among the crowd that had gathered back then.  

I couldn’t say for sure since we never met in person.  

All I remember is that the child who flashed briefly through my field of vision looked very young.  

“They were young, and it didn’t seem like their parents were around either.”  

“….”  

When I spoke quietly, Yuri bit her lower lip hard.  

I didn’t think she didn’t know.  

I just thought she might have been scared.  

Maybe someone pushed her from behind, and when she got up, such a horrifying scene was unfolding before her eyes.  

Someone was screaming. Someone was shouting something loudly.  

Terrified, she might have just run away to somewhere, anywhere.  

Even if she came back later, measures might have been in place to keep her out.  

By the time she truly understood what had happened, the situation had probably already spiraled out of control, burning wildly.  

Would she have been able to tell her parents?  

While people paid attention to the boy who died performing a righteous act that day,  

there were only vague speculations about the girl who had caused it all.  

“But still…”  

Yuri tried to force her words out, then let out a long sigh.  

“Fine, if that’s how you feel as someone directly involved, who am I to say otherwise.”  

Honestly, I felt frustrated too.  

Why did it have to be at that place, at that time?  

Why did it have to happen to us?  

Why the overloading? Why the drowsiness?  

…And why, of all things, did Shihyun have to be so kind?  

Of course, I knew all of it was just a meaningless string of “what-ifs.”  

Shihyun grew up to be such a kind person because that’s who he naturally was. But… part of it was my fault too.  

I showed off in front of Shihyun, trying to look cool.  

I wanted to seem better. I always wanted to be impressive and beautiful in his eyes. I wanted to appear kind.  

So, I intentionally displayed acts of kindness around him.  

I said things that made me seem good, acted in ways that made me look virtuous.  

And Shihyun, admirably, trusted me completely.  

He always tried to be a good person.  

That’s why his kindness was different from my hypocrisy.  

He genuinely wanted to act kindly.  

And it was that genuine kindness that I fell for.  

That was Shihyun.  

And before I realized it, I found myself trying to emulate him, the person who brightened everyone around him with his goodness.  

So, it was because Shihyun was there that day.  

Because he was that kind of person.  

Because I liked him.  

That’s why everything that happened on that day was something that couldn’t have been avoided.  

….But if that’s the case, then ultimately, wasn’t the reason behind it all.

If I hadn’t tried to look good in front of Shihyun,  

If I hadn’t shown off or tried to stand out unnecessarily,  

If I hadn’t liked Shihyun…  

If we had shared fewer conversations,  

Laughed less,  

Or better yet, if I had no reason to be there in the first place…  

If Shihyun had arrived at that spot just a little later or a little earlier  

In some way, could Shihyun have survived?  

Yes, no matter what I blame, it’s all meaningless.  

The only undeniable cause was me.  

Because it was me, I can’t be the one to forget Shihyun.