Hongbin sat there looking at Wonshik. Wonshik was looking back, unblinking and silent. Hongbin didn’t really know how to start the conversation, but he figured saying anything to break the silence would be better than this staring contest. “So your name is Wonshik?” The spirit nodded. “And Taekwoon is your brother?” Another nod. “I see. So, if you don’t mind me asking. Why did you call your mother a liar? What was she lying about?” The spirit’s blank face turned into one of anger. “Everything. I don’t think there was a time she ever told the truth really.” Wonshik got closer to Hongbin on the bed. “She promised me and Taekwoon so many things, and she never stuck by her word. And for that my brother is suffering.” Hongbin’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why is he suffering? What did she do to you two?” Wonshik his lips then. “ I think it would be easier if I just showed you.” After saying that Wonshik gently placed his palm on Wonshik’s forehead. Hongbin closed his eyes and was met with a vision.

    Hongbin was back in the bedroom he was before. But it looked different. There were no toys thrown about the room, in their place where some pieces of clothing and pages of sheet music. Hongbin heard music coming from another room, so he got out of the bed he was sitting on and walked to the source of the noise. He walked into another room that had a grand piano in the center, and there were a few other instruments around the room. But the piano was a centerpiece no doubt. At the bench of the piano were Taekwoon and Wonshik. They looked different from the last time he saw them. Taekwoon looked older, his shoulders had filled out, and he was almost the height that the Taekwoon he knew was. Wonshik looked worse for wear. In the last vision Hongbin had, Wonshik looked like a healthy young boy. But in his teenage years Wonshik looked sickly. His face was gaunt, and it looked like he had shaved his hair off. Unlike Taekwoon he wasn’t sitting on the bench, rather he was sitting in a wheelchair next to it  His head was resting on Taekwoon’s shoulder and Taekwoon sat at the very edge of the bench to accommodate him. Taekwoon was playing the piano. The tune was soothing, but there was a sadness to it that pulled at Hongbin’s heart strings. “Taekwoon. Do you think I’ll die?” Taekwoon’s fingers jerked on the keys, and then there was silence. Taekwoon turned his head. “Why would you say that?” Wonshik lifted his head. “Because that’s all mom talks about. She just talks about how sick I am and how much money we’re spending on my medical bills. I mean she seems convinced that I’m gonna be gone any day now.” Taekwoon bit his lip. “We can’t think like that Wonshik. Positive thinking remember?” Wonshik scoffed. “Thoughts can only do so much Woon. If thoughts could cure cancer I’m sure I would have been healed by now. But here I am. Taking all these medicines that seem to be doing more harm than good.” Wonshik slams a hand onto the piano keys. “And the worst part is somedays I feel fine. Somedays I feel so normal, like I’m not sick at all. I have the energy to just live life, but it all comes crashing down the next day.” A few tears slip out of Wonshik’s eyes. “I don’t wanna die.” He says quietly, letting out a sob before repeating himself. “I don’t wanna die Woonie. I’m scared.” More sobs wracked Wonshik’s thin frame. Taekwoon wrapped his arms around his brother. He squeezes him tightly, not letting go when Wonshik tries to wiggle out of his grasp. “Listen to me. You aren’t gonna die. Mom and Dad will do everything in their power to make sure of that.” Taekwoon rubbed comforting circles onto his brother’s back. Eventually they ended up crying together. Hongbin looked up from the scene and saw Wonshik looking down at the memory. “He was wrong.” Was all he said before the scene changed.

Hongbin is standing in a kitchen now. Wonshik’s mother was taking care of his medication for the day. After making sure she had all of his medicines she walked into the living room, where Wonshik was walking from one side of the room to the other. “Wonshik! How many times have I told you not to walk around?!” Wonshik looked like a deer in the headlights. “But-but mom, I feel fine. Shouldn’t I only be using a wheelchair if I can’t walk? Look, I’m walking fine.” Wonshik’s mother was hearing none of it as she herded him back into the wheelchair. “I’ve told you before Wonshik, you need to stay in your wheelchair.” Wonshik sighed. The Wonshik next to Hongbin spoke then. “I never questioned her about it again. She was my mom, why would she lie to me. She said I needed to stay in the wheelchair because the doctor said my legs would get weaker from the cancer. I never understood it though. I felt healthy most of the time.” Hongbin looked back to the scene and saw Wonshik drinking his medication. The Wonshik next to him sneered. “Those ‘medicines’ she fed me everyday. She was in charge of giving them to me. No one else saw what they were and no one else picked up my ‘prescriptions’.” Wonshik shook his head, his face twisted into an ugly scowl. “Those are all herbal supplements.” Hongbin looked at Wonshik is shock. “Wait, you didn’t need the wheelchair and those medicines are fake?” Wonshik jerked his head in the direction of the memory in front of him. “I never knew it, but look at what she was doing.” Hongbin looked back at Mrs.Jung, who was talking on the phone. “I’m telling you Hyejin this sympathy card is a goldmine. I pull up a sob story that the kid is dying and the cash flows in.” There is a pause before Mrs.Jung let’s out a peel of laughter. “Of course the kid doesn’t know he’s not dying. He’s just as fooled as everyone else. If anyone ever questions how sick he is I just put a little rat poison in his soup.” Another pause. “If he dies he dies. Why should I care? I never wanted kids anyway. Besides if he actually kicks the bucket it just gets me more sympathy money.” Hongbin was horrified. How could someone be so cruel? He turns to Wonshik, whose eyes are filled with tears that are threatening to fall. “She lied. She always lied. She lied about being a good mother. She lied about my health to everyone. She lied about loving me.” Wonshik rubbed at his eyes. All of this raised a question that Hongbin had wanted to ask since he first laid eyes on Wonshik. “How did you die?” Wonshik sniffled. “I can’t show you. Please don’t ask me to show you that day.” Hongbin’s mouth became a straight line. “I know you don’t want to go back to that day. But I need to know what happened Wonshik. You don’t have to show me. But tell me?” Wonshik wrapped his arms around his waist, it looked like he was physically trying to keep himself together. “It was maybe three years back? My dad was starting to get really suspicious of my mom since he never saw any medical bills in the mail. My mom told everyone that I was going to the hospital like three times a month. So he confronted her about it. Of course there were no bills, all she did was give me sleeping pills and then she drove to the hospital when I was asleep. Then she would sit in the parking lot until I woke up. When I came to she would tell me what the doctor said. She got paranoid after just being able to lie her way out of that. She wanted to prove that I was sick, so she made the soup again. But she put something different in it. It was so much stronger than the rat poison and she just put it in thinking I was just gonna get a little bit sicker than usual.” Wonshik squeezed his waist tighter. “I was with Taekwoon and I just . . . I just started getting really sick. It was hard to breath, I was throwing up blood, and my stomach felt like it was on fire. And Taekwoon did everything he could to help. But I didn’t make it. Oh Hongbin, the look on his face when he figured out I had passed. He was devastated. But when he figured out what my mother had been doing . . . I never want to see him like that again. He broke.” Wonshik couldn’t stop the tears this time. “He would sit at my grave, just crying and apologising to me. He would kneel in the rain and hug my tombstone, wailing about how it should have been him. He would scream for hours, asking for us to trade places. How could he think that?!?” Hongbin gathered Wonshik in his arms. Hongbin was shaking, trying his hardest to keep his tears at bay. “That’s why I need you to help him. I can’t cross over knowing that my brother still thinks that it’s his fault that I’m dead. I can’t be happy in the afterlife if I know that my brother is suffering because of what that witch did to me. Please Hongbin, you have to help him!” Wonshik grabbed the front of Hongbin’s shirt, wrinkling the fabric. Hongbin patted him on the back. “I will do everything in my power to help. I want you to be happy, and Taekwoon deserves to be happy too after all that has happened.” Wonshik looked at Hongbin in the eyes, a small smile graced his face. “Thank You Hongbin. Thank you so much.” A bright light engulfed them both.

Hongbin opened his eyes and noticed he was back in his room. Wonshik was gone, but Hongbin found a strange peace with that after everything he just saw. He slowly got out of bed. It was much too early to get ready for work, but Hongbin felt like he needed to get out of the house and just walk for a while. Hongbin locked his door and started walking. He felt Wonshik’s presence next to him. “Go to the cemetery. It’s my anniversary.” That was all Wonshik said before he disappeared. Hongbin knew what Wonshik was hinting at and sped his pace up a bit. Hongbin had never been to the cemetery, but his instincts led him to the right place. Hongbin tightened his coat as he slowed his pace, the night air chilling him to his bones. Hongbin looked carefully for Wonshik’s tombstone. The sight that greeted Hongbin’s eyes when he found the grave broke his heart for the third time that night.

Taekwoon was curled in a ball on the ground in front of the tombstone.