It’s meant to feel suffocating, quiet, and hopeless — the heaviness of living with someone who loves you so fiercely he’s destroying himself, and you don’t even know why.
You notice the first cracks on an ordinary morning: his eyes, usually just tired, look hollow. Not tired from studying or staying up gaming, but something deeper — a kind of emptiness that scares you more than any bruise could.
At school, he barely speaks. Walks behind you instead of beside you. When you ask what’s wrong, he just mutters, “Nothing. Just tired.” But you know his “tired” by now. This is something else.
That night, you come home late from study club. The house feels wrong. Too quiet. Your footsteps echo down the hall to his room. The door’s ajar. Inside, the light is harsh, white and cold. And Heeseung is sitting on the floor, back pressed against his bed, notes scattered around him like fallen feathers.
You freeze in the doorway. Your heart beats so hard it hurts.
“Oppa…?”
He doesn’t look up. His hands are shaking, curled around a piece of paper crushed nearly to pulp. His breathing is ragged, uneven — like he’s been running, but there’s nowhere left to run.
You step closer, and your gaze catches the mess: pages and pages filled with your name. Dates. Times. Scribbled words that barely make sense: “Avoid the crossing — 16:35” “Don’t let go — 14:12” “Failed.” “Failed.” “Failed.”
And in between, shakier lines: “Please live.” “Please, just once.”
Something cold slams into your chest.
“Heeseung… what is this?” you whisper.
Your brother finally lifts his head. His eyes shine wet under the lamplight, and the sight rips something open inside you. You’ve never seen him look so breakable.
“I can’t do it anymore,” he rasps. His voice is so quiet you barely catch it. “I keep losing you. Every time. I try everything. You still die.”
You don’t understand. The words are wrong, impossible. But the way his shoulders shake, the tears slipping down his face — those are real.
“Oppa, what do you mean? I’m right here—”
“Not for long.” His voice cracks, raw and desperate. “Not for long. It’s always today.”
He chokes on a sob and buries his face in his hands, breath catching in broken gasps. Your strong, stubborn older brother — the one who always walked a step ahead, who always told you it would be fine — is falling apart in front of you, and you don’t know how to stop it.
“I’m so tired,” he whispers into his palms. “But I can’t lose you again. I can’t.”
You kneel beside him, trembling. Your hand reaches out, hesitant, then rests on his back. His shirt is damp from sweat and something else — something that feels like despair.
And in that tiny space, lit by the cold bulb overhead, you finally see it: your brother isn’t afraid of dying. He’s afraid of watching you die, again and again, until nothing is left of him but the memory of your last breath.
You don’t know how to save him. You don’t even know what he’s fighting.
All you can do is hold him as he shakes, and pray that this time — whatever “this time” means — you’ll both still be here when the sun rises.