[Short Story] His back was so wide.
iced coffee
His back was so wide.
/
My father's appearance after drinking alcohol couldn't have been more brutal. His gestures became more violent, shattering dishes and furniture.
Eventually, the youngest son had to be crushed under a bookshelf before he came to his senses and ran outside.
The second son, who had been struggling to save the youngest son, always erased any trace of his father's visit with a look of resentment.
I wasn't worried. My father was a strong man, so strong it was almost scary. Seeing him not shedding a single tear as he bid my mother farewell, I realized: impassive. That was the one word that could describe him.
Rather, it was only the younger siblings who suffered every day who felt sorry for him.
There was a father who would sleep with such worries and wake up breathing deeply while sleeping.
It was a routine, a routine that was always repeated. So routine that I had become numb to it, and just somehow managed to get over it.
But, something was particularly strange that day.
The father, who was more drunk than expected, swore and swung his fists at his youngest and second sons.
When the second child finally exploded and started cursing, the father let out a ragged breath.
- I'm sorry.
Was it my imagination that made my father, who had been avoiding going out like that, look so narrow today?
/
- Are you Mr. Kim ○○'s guardian?
Thanks to the request for ramen, I took out a bag of ramen I'd been saving and cooked it up deliciously. I was washing the dishes when the phone rang and I ran to my ear, only to hear my father's name mentioned.
- Yes, that's right?
- This is ○○ Hospital. You were brought to the hospital after attempting suicide.
Thud. My heart sank. I hurriedly grabbed my old coat and left the house.
/
- The patient's current condition is not good, so please be careful.
I opened the door to my father's hospital room without thinking.
- Attempted suicide by jumping into the road.
- Oh, son?
I ignored the nurse shouting behind me and grabbed my father's hand.
-Father, why are you dying!
- ,,I won't die.
Our ○○. My father, who held my hand with a faint smile, let out his breathing that got faster and faster.
- Please be born as a son of an ugly father in your next life too.
ah .
The short mechanical beeping sound became longer. Tears welled up among the nurses and doctors who had rushed in.
/
It was when I was rummaging through the drawers to get my father's belongings.
I lifted a fairly thick bundle of paper. It rustled. I had placed the gently turning bundle in a box, intending to discard it.
I read the paper with a feeling of bumpiness.
-
Oh, my father was weaker than I thought.
/
Even the drunken father felt a deep sorrow. However, his sons failed to notice his narrow back and simply dismissed it as their father's fault. To the father they loved. To the son who will love his father forever.