Healer

The neighbourhood where Sejin lived was the place where the sun reached the fastest.
It was so close to the sky that you could reach it with just your hand, so the seasons came the earliest.
Even if they lived in a place overlooking the world, the locals longed for the lower neighbourhood.
So they went to work from dawn and worked until late at night, but their poverty only grew deeper and deeper.

Sejin lived alone with his older brother.
Their father was hit by a brick at a construction site and was bedridden in the hospital like a vegetative person for several months.
Their mother was busy lamenting her condition over alcohol and tobacco companions, so she didn’t have time to take care of their father.
He had even witnessed his mother holding a bottle of wine while in her womb.

On Christmas, it was chilling to the bones, his mother, who was drunk that day too, was found frozen to death on the street in the neighbourhood.
After that, Christmas became a nightmare for Sejin.

“Beautiful.
As beautiful as your mother.
But don’t take after the fate of your mother who was caught committing adultery and froze to death.”

A grandmother, who sat on a backstreet bench, babbled as she showed her only a couple of teeth left.
She expressed her concerns about everything about Sejin; that misfortune happened in succession, and his cursed fate of being a foolish brother’s younger brother.

Sejin was not worried about the future, nor was he angry about the reality he was in now.
He was just out of breath every day and had no time to worry about the future.
When the grandmother motioned for him to come forward while holding out a piece of candy, he frowned and speeded up his walking.

Sejin’s house was in the middle of a sloping neighbourhood.
Like any other house, it was closely attached to the house next door, and cement was applied to the gap between the slanted roof and cracked walls.
When he opened the door, the glass supported by tape rattled.
He took off his shoes and walked in, and a faint smell of exhaustion wrinkled the tip of his nose.
When he passed the kitchen and entered the room, he saw his brother sitting in a daze.
He walked straight ahead and picked up the blanket.
As expected, a catastrophe had happened in his brother’s tracksuit.

“Ah, seriously! When did you take off the diaper? You were wearing it until I came, weren’t you?”

The older brother had the look of a dog that had been kicked.

“… I don’t like it.
It’s wet and it hurts…”

The older brother was 21 years old, but he spoke formally to his middle school aged brother.
He didn’t go to college or work.
Without a diaper, he would make the whole room a sea of ​​urine, and if someone didn’t take care of it, it would stink for days and days.
The older brother had a room with only bedding and hangers, and in his world, the younger brother was the most feared guardian.
The locals called such an older brother a fool.
Sejin hated people who called him that, and was ashamed of his older brother who was called that.

The church choir sister had said that his older brother had a heartbreaking illness.
And that he was trapped in his own world and that he missed the time of his treatment, so the disease had deepened.
Sejin was sorry that he didn’t know that and criticised him, but it didn’t change that he didn’t help.

When Sejin glared at him fiercely, the other touched his greasy hair and avoided his gaze.
He dragged his brother into the kitchen.
He took off his pants and poured cold water to the bottom.

“It’s cold! It’s cold!”

“So who’s going to take off the diaper? There is no hot water because the gas is cut off and the boiler is broken… Hey! Aren’t you coming here?!”

The older brother could not stand the ice-cold water and ran to the corner of the kitchen.
Even if he was coerced with candy, he stuck to the wall and didn’t seem to be coming forward.
Sejin pointed his finger at the cupboard.

“Oh? A rat! That’s a rat’s tail in the pot, isn’t it?”

As his brother’s nerves focused on the cupboard, Sejin did not miss the cha