Lee Jaehwan
Brotherly Love
WARNING:
This story may contain some triggers.
-death of a loved one
-child abuse
-child molestation
-drepression
-suicide
-drug addiction
If you are more comfortable reading a happy version of this scenario, please follow this link: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/941341/7
Thank you!
The last place you ever pictured yourself at was your brother’s funeral. There was no way any of this was real. You tried to convince yourself that everything was a dream, a really twisted and horrible one.
Everything seemed fine when you had spoken to him last week. You two planned for him and his daughter to visit you and your family over a weekend. This would have been the first time your niece would meet your newborn son. He sounded excited about it and even promised you that, if your husband agreed to babysitting, he would take you out to dinner.
When you got the call from the hospital where he had been taken, you were so sure they had the wrong number.
“Are you the younger sister of Lee Jaehwan?” a grim voice had asked.
“Yes, who is this?”
“I’m so sorry ma’am, but your brother passed about an hour ago. We tried everything we could, but he got to us a little too late. The-“
“I’m sorry, you have the wrong person. My brother is in excellent health. There is absolutely no way he’d be dead.”
“Ma’am please understand. We found your number on his phone as the person he talked to most frequently. I’m sorry to ask this of you, but since you’re the closest family member he has, we need you to come in and identify the body. Unless you would like to give us your parents’-“
“NO! I-I mean, we lost contact with them a very long time ago. They probably wouldn’t even care if you tried finding them anyway.”
You agreed to come in and “identify” the body. Of course it wasn’t Jaehwan. Jaehwan was perfectly fine. Jaehwan was always perfectly fine. You asked your husband to drive you to the hospital.
“Do you really think it’s not him?” asked your husband. He had been Jaehwan’s closest friend ever since they met in middle school. They were only a year apart, but Hongbin looked up to Jaehwan as a male influence since all he had were older sisters.
“I’m positive. I talked to him just last week. He was so excited to get the weekend off so he could come and visit us. This is obviously a huge mistake.”
“I’m coming with you” he said as he parked the car.
“Fine, we can both laugh in their faces.”
You walked up to the front desk and asked the nurse where the morgue was. She looked at you with a sympathetic expression and led you to where the body of “Lee Jaehwan” was being kept.
Even though you saw it with your own eyes, even though the nurse offered her condolences, even though Hongbin had to hold on to you so you wouldn’t fall, it still wasn’t real.
Your niece had been at daycare that morning, but you couldn’t bear to go get her. Hongbin called his grandmother and asked her if she would take care of both your niece and your son until tomorrow. After hearing the news she immediately agreed and told Hongbin not to leave your side for one moment.
“She’s going to feel like a part of her died. “She warned him.
He held you all day long while you just sat there. He was worrying about you so he asked you to tell happy stories about your childhood. Stories with Jaehwan.
You told about the day Jaehwan got you out of the house. He never once complained about the abuse he received from your parents. All he cared about was your safety. He would never let you leave his sight, but one day your dad had pulled him into the garage to yell and hit him because he wasn’t getting the beers to him and his friends fast enough. You had been left alone in your room, but you stayed hidden in case someone were to wander in. Your mom was drunk too, like always, and she walked into your room.
“Hey ! Where are you hiding now?”
You didn’t respond.
“Get out here or you’ll be sorry when I find you.”
Jaehwan told you to never respond no matter what they said.
“Your dad is really beating up on your brother. He’s gonna keep going until you come down.”
Jaehwan said he would be okay no matter what they did.
“He might as well go on until he’s dead. All you kids do is mooch off of us.”
Jaehwan dead? He was all you had. No, you wouldn’t let them. You scrambled out of hiding and you mom smirked.
“Good girl. C’mon, our friends wanna meet you.”
Their friends did want to meet you. And they wanted to take off your clothes. And they wanted to touch you.
When your dad brought Jaehwan back in, he was bloody and limping, but he still ran towards you at the speed of light. He grabbed you and ran out of the house, ignoring your parent’s taunts and their friend’s complains. When he felt it was safe to stop, or when he couldn’t ignore the pain he was in, he took off his shirt and put it on you. He was significantly taller than you so the shirt fit you like a dress.
You two walked until you reached the other side of town. The house was pretty big and there were people enjoying a barbecue outside. The boy that was playing basketball dropped his ball as soon as he saw both of you.
“Jaehwan what the hell happened to you?!”
“Remember when I said I ran into a door? Well the door got mad and ran into me. Multiple times.”
“This isn’t funny man. C’mon let’s get you some medical attention.”
“Can your sisters let her borrow clothes first?”
Hongbin was about to ask why you were only wearing a t-shirt, which he had figured out was Jaehwan’s, but decided against it when he noticed you were still sobbing.
Hongbin’s sisters cleaned you up and dressed you. While Jaehwan was getting checked out, they held you while you kept sobbing. When Jaehwan finally got out after getting stitches and a few x-rays to make sure nothing was broken, he ran to you and hugged you. He kept asking you if you were okay and he made you tell him what they did to you.
“They took off my clothes.” You said through sobs.
Beside you, Hongbin was clenching his fist, Jaehwan was ready to murder someone.
“That’s it?” he asked. You nodded. They hadn’t touched you. Jaehwan had saved you just in time.
Pretty soon after that, your parents were sent to prison and the Lee family took you in. Jaehwan promised them he would get a job after his graduation and you two wouldn’t be there for more than a year. They reassured him that you could stay as long as you wanted. You were barely going to start high school and they encouraged Jaehwan to attend a university. You both ended staying there for four years. Eventually, you and Hongbin began dating with Jaehwan’s strong approval. You were a freshman in college when Hongbin proposed after you two were dating for three years. Jaehwan got married that same year and had your niece another year later after your wedding. You both had found you happiness.
So why had the coroner told you Jaehwan committed suicide? Why had you signed paper work to take full custody of your niece?
You would have never guessed your brother suffered from depression. It all clicked though. After his wife died, Jaehwan was not the same. With Hongbin taking care of you, he saw no reason to live. He knew you would take care of his daughter if he were gone. You read it all in the note he mailed to you.
After three months without Jaehwan, you were finally able to start sleeping regularly. You ate all the food Hongbin gave you and you were more willing to leave your house. Although your brother’s death left an emptiness in your heart, you couldn’t help but feel grateful that although he suffered most of his life, he never stopped caring about you. Even though he couldn’t take it anymore, he tried his best to make sure you would be taken care of. Now the only thing you could do was help your niece and son grow up understanding how amazing and fun your childhood was thanks to your older brother Lee Jaehwan.
So I went to this website and analyzed this chapter. Here are my results:
(This is actually really cool cause he's my favorite author)
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