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Eun Yu and Eun Hyeok lose their parents on a Saturday. Eun Yu’s world comes to an end in angry, frustrated words and screeching metal and shattered safety. She knew better (there were too many orphanages and shouting matches to say otherwise) but when faced with a family that listened... she didn’t know what else to do but take and take until there is nothing else to take because she’s burned it to the ground.
(She’s pulled out of the wreckage by firefighters whose voices fail to rise above the ringing in her ear.)
Ballet had been her one chance at being more than just an orphan who had been lucky enough to not just age out of the system and never have the opportunity to be more than a menial worker. She had talent as all her teachers and seniors had told her. The Lee family, her parents, had been happy to pay for lessons. She never understood why and never will.
Eun Hyeok wanted to be a doctor. The cram schools that he went to must have cost a fortune. But they’d still been willing to pay for her lessons. Even when she wasn’t truly their child. Eun Yu hadn’t known what to think. Especially since Eun Hyeok (“He’s your oppa, Eun Yu, call him that.”) didn’t seem to resent her for it.
But Eun Hyeok didn’t seem to have much of an opinion about anything about her. She rarely saw him as he went to cram school and then went to study alone at the library. Sometimes she didn’t see him for days, and when she did he’d just look at her with a blank expression that she couldn’t read. But her new parents were never worried about his absences and she’d wondered if she was just a replacement.
(Eun Hyeok is a second year at SNU and is on track to enter their medical school. He still comes to the hospital to see her even though she killed his parents. She watches as he patiently listens to the doctor, his face its usual blank coldness that she never knew how to react to. When he turns to her, she flinches. It’s her fault. Why is he here?
“Eun Yu-ie,” he starts, sitting down, and she never could understand why his words towards her were so soft, “Are you okay?”
She doesn’t know how to respond. Is anything okay? Why is he here? Doesn’t he hate her? It’s all her fault. She looks down.
Eun Hyeok’s hand covers hers and she tries to pull it out of his grasp. He doesn’t let her.
Throat dry, lips cracked, she croaks, “Why?”
He stares at her, solemn. “You’re my sister.”
She breaks.)
Eun Yu is discharged and Eun Hyeok takes a leave of absence from SNU.
She doesn’t know how to feel.
(She hasn’t known what to feel since she was adopted.)
On one hand he’d done it for her dream (and something inside her wails every time she puts on her ballet shoes), but on the other hand something inside her twists painfully whenever Eun Hyeok (“You know that you can call me oppa, Eun Yu-ie.”) answers a call from a friend or teacher berating him for giving up his future.
Every time she tries to bring it up with Eun Hyeok he Looks at her and her mouth falls closed. She doesn’t know what to say.
(She doesn’t know why he never sent her back.)
Eun Hyeok sells the apartment and they move into an apartment in a much more rundown building. He works constantly and when he doesn’t work he’s studying, still trying to pursue his dream when he could have just abandoned her and easily achieved it. She’s not allowed to work. Her brother tells her sternly that she’s just supposed to go to school, ballet lessons, and nothing else.
She doesn’t understand why he stays. Stays when she inevitably fucks up at school. Stays when she gets into fights. Stays when her audition goes poorly.
Why does he stay when she keeps fucking up?
And everytime that she fucks up she wonders how she’ll pay him back. How she’ll be someone worth being his sister, his family.
(“I won’t let you fail and even if you do I’ll support you.” Eun Hyeok stares at her after she’d just screamed at him to leave her alone after yet another failed exam. “Family doesn’t abandon each other.”
“I’m not your family,” she hisses.
His face changes - it becomes sad and how dare she make him look like that - and he reaches out to pull her into a hug that she fights. “You’re my only family now. All we have is each other.”)
It’s slow going but Eun Yu adjusts. She learns to stop letting her rage and pain dictate her actions. She learns to blend in at school so that Eun Hyeok doesn’t get pulled away from work to meet with her teacher. She gets better and better at ballet until she’s one of the top students in her class.
And for a brief moment things are going well.
She’s learning how to be a sister for the first time. How to recognize the slight fractures in her brother’s mask. How to make things just a bit easier for her brother after a rough day at work. How to listen to what Eun Hyeok says, or, more importantly, doesn’t say. How to make friends.
Or at least she’d thought she was making friends.
It all comes to a stop when one of her so-called ‘friends’ from her ballet class wears down the laces on her pointe shoes enough that the next time she goes on pointe she rolls her ankle.
Her world shatters in that moment as pain races up her body and tears well up in her eyes. She knew it was too good to be true. She didn’t deserve to have everything going well.
(Her teacher takes her to the hospital and calls Eun Hyeok - “Eun Hyeok-ssi, I’m afraid your sister has hurt her ankle. We’re at the hospital right now...”
Eun Yu has lost everything at this hospital. Everything but her brother, who still comes. Time and time again.
Eun Hyeok sits by her side, holding her hand, as the doctor tells her that she’s probably never going to be able to be a professional ballerina. Eun Hyeok sits next to her as she cries and cries and cries. He sits next to her as her tears dry up and she’s left with the knowledge that she’ll never be able to pay him back. He sits with her as her life crumbles to pieces.
All because she’d thought they were friends.)
Eun Hyeok takes her home on a grey, drizzling morning.
The next few months pass in a blur. She goes to school, goes to physical therapy, goes home. And then she does it again. And again.
She ignores Eun Hyeok’s concern as she drifts through the days. She goes to physical therapy because Eun Hyeok asks her to. She goes to school because Eun Hyeok expects her to. She stays out of trouble because she doesn’t want to trouble Eun Hyeok. She stays away from people because she can’t handle anymore heartbreak.
So she lurks around the apartment complex and watches. She watches that teacher go to church every week. She watches the man in 1410 receive delivery after delivery. She watches someone move into 1510. She just watches and watches until she figure out how to sneak onto the roof.
The man in charge of their complex creeps Eun Yu out so she makes sure that he’s always busy whenever she sneaks onto the room. Her physical therapist has approved her for light physical activity and Eun Yu has glimpsed enough of Eun Hyeok’s study material to know not to argue against that (not to mention the stern almost-lectures that he gave her after coming back from the hospital and after every physical therapy appointment that didn’t go well).
But Eun Yu needs ballet like she needs to breathe. She needs something that she’s good at. Because she’s not a good sister. Not a good friend. And not a good person.
She was good at ballet.
And one attempt at a glissade ruins that.
Her ankle screams and she falls to the ground. And that’s when she truly understands that her life is over. The small hope that had stayed lit within her when everyone had told her to not keep her hopes up flickers out of being. And Eun Yu doesn’t know who she is anymore.
But she tries again and again. Even when she gets the same result every time.
(“Your lesson fees.”
Eun Yu looks in the mirror, heart thudding in her throat. “I already paid for them.”
Eun Hyeok frowns at her; her knuckles whiten on the mirror. She can feel the silent question in his eyes - caring in the face of everything that she’s thrown in his face.
“Where did you get the money?”
“I met a rich guy.” Lie.
“Tell me the truth.” She can’t meet his eyes.
Swallowing, she rolls her eyes and looks at him. “If I tell you, would anything change?” No, because she’s not going anymore. She can’t. She can’t bear to lace her slippers over her feet anymore. She steels herself.
“Why are you so damn nosy?”)
And then the monsters come. And come and come. And they don’t stop.
She’s scared. Through it all, Eun Hyeok seems to find something in him that lets him shine. And she’s proud(?) of him. But she’s so scared. She’s scared that he’s going to be killed, that he’s going to turn into a monster, that he’s going to leave her.
(“Are you okay?” he asks, when they’re reunited.
She’s not but she nods anyway. He gives her a look that she knows means that he knows she’s lying. She’s always lying now. There’s no other way for her to get through this without lying.)
Their numbers dwindle.
Eun Yu doesn’t know what to think about Hyun Soo. About Eun Hyeok using him as a tool. She knows that Eun Hyeok doesn’t view life like that. But his every action makes her doubt.
(“Oppa,” she starts hesitantly.
He looks up at her from his... command center. His face softens in the harsh light of the CCTV.
“Is...” she doesn’t know how to phrase her worries.
But her brother knows her better than she apparently knows him. “As long as Hyun Soo doesn’t turn, I’ll do my best to make sure nothing hurts him. But we don’t have a choice if we’re going to survive.”)
She doesn’t know how much longer she can do this. There’s blood and arguments and it’s all too much.
(Eun Yu’s fingers clutch her sleeves as she slides to the floor next to Eun Hyeok. The CCTV casts a flickering light across his face as he settles a hand on her shoulder. She breathes shakily.)
She finds herself smiling as she talks to Hyun Soo. Eun Hyeok and Hyun Soo mirror each other and that knowledge lightens something in her. Perhaps -
(“Stay out of it. You aren’t even my real brother.”
He slaps her.
He’s never slapped her before. She stares, heartbroken. “You’re fucking unbelievable.”)
They save Mr. Han from the monster. Her ankle hurts.
(“Let me.”
It’s forgiveness and an apology all wrapped in one.
Her heart aches. His glasses are broken and he’s blind without them. She fixes them.
And things are just a bit better.)
Yi Kyung leaves then returns and Eun Hyeok has to perform surgery on Ji Soo. She’s scared but she knows Eun Hyeok is better than this .
(“So? Are you saying that you won’t do anything?” She knows he can. “Just do something! Do whatever you can. I need to get revenge on her.”
She can’t have Ji Soo dying before she proves that the world doesn’t revolve around Ji Soo.
Even through her confidence, she asks, “Are you sure?”
She’s never seen Eun Hyeok look so nervous. As long as she’s known him, he’s always been steadfast and sure of his actions.
“I will be.”
Eun Yu watches as her brother, her genius brother that deserved more than what she ever gave him, prepares for a surgery that he’s never done before.
And even when the mission fails he still does it.
No matter what she says and how hurt she is, her brother will never fail to amaze her.)
Ji Soo wakes up and Eun Yu is relieved because it means that Eun Hyeok won’t have another death on his hands.
(“Promise.”
“Congrats. It’s your first love.”
Eun Yu is furious. She did this for her brother. “Oh my god, you’re infuriating. Ya, Cha Hyun Soo!”
Why this man, boy, fails to stand up for himself is something she’ll never understand. No matter how much she avoided people, she never took any of their shit.
She tries to get him to flip off her brother but he just smiles at the ground. Rolling her eyes - because how is someone who can’t handle her brother’s sarcasm and dryness supposed to be with him? - she stalks off, resisting the urge to punch Eun Hyeok’s shoulder.)
And then they’re trapped between two monsters. One twisted by something to become inhuman and unnatural and the other all too human.
It’s too much and not enough all at once.
Eun Hyeok puts himself in danger again and again and Eun Yu can’t handle it. He exchanges glances and quiet conversations with Hyun Soo and something in her aches for what could have been if it hadn’t been for the universe turning against them.
And then it’s the end...
They’re so close to escaping, but Hyun Soo isn’t with them.
(“I’ll go get him.”
She stops him. She can’t lose him too.
“I’ll come back. Don’t worry. I’ll come back safe.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”)
It’s a lie.
He’d told her it was a lie. And she still fell for it.
She breaks.
One. Last. Time.
(“Oppa!” She tries to go back for him. “ Oppa! ”
They won’t let her.)
And suddenly she’s the last of her family.
She was never meant to have a family. And yet she’s the one who lost them all.
Alone. As she always should have been.