The Thirteenth Bell

Chaeeun filled four of the five boxes on the letter paper by morning.

The care home's letter format had divided sections. This week's medication, this week's condition, this week's weather, this week's events, next month's wishes.

The medication box was easy. Two pills in the morning, one in the evening, missed once on Wednesday and told the nurse. Chaeeun wrote down the missed one too. Because she knew what Doyun looked for in her letters. That kid always searches for the blank spaces.

In the condition box she wrote that her left knee ached on rainy days. In the weather box she wrote that it rained from Tuesday and stopped on Thursday. In the events box she wrote that the grandmother next door gave her a potted plant, and since she didn't know its name, she'd decided to just call it Green.

Filling four boxes took forty minutes.

In front of the fifth box, Chaeeun set down her pen.

Next month's wishes.

She could form the sentence. I want to go for a walk. I want to read a book. Her hand would write those on its own. The problem was the step before writing, the checking. Chaeeun had a habit of looking inward once before writing a sentence down. Checking whether she really wanted it.

When she looked, there was nothing there.

The nothing wasn't sadness. If it were sadness, there would be sadness present. It was just that the spot was empty, and all she could know with any precision was that it was empty. Chaeeun didn't like that precision.

Three years ago, that box had been the first one she filled.

Three years ago, Chaeeun had complained that five boxes on the letter paper weren't enough. She had more than five things she wanted to do, so she wrote onto the back. On that back page was also a note about when she'd get back the money she'd lent Doyun.

That list is still in her drawer now. Chaeeun takes it out maybe once a year. When she does, certain things get confirmed. The handwriting is hers, the items are things she wrote, and she knows she wanted those things back then. She knows it, but she doesn't want them now.

The doctor called it a drop in motivation. Chaeeun thinks that's the wrong word. A drop means something lowered. It's not lowered. There's simply nothing in that spot.

There's a hole in her memory of that day three years ago. She sat in the examination room, signed the documents, and then there's an after, but the beginning of that after is missing. The hospital records noted how long the examination took. Chaeeun has that number memorized. Thirty-three seconds.

Short. Thirty-three seconds is about how long it takes to drink a cup of water. Chaeeun doesn't know what happened during that time, and all she knows with precision is that she doesn't know. She doesn't like that precision either.

Chaeeun picked up her pen again. She searched for something to put in the fifth box that wouldn't be a lie. She found one thing.

Nothing.

She wrote the two syllables, then drew a line through them. If she wrote "nothing," Doyun would stare at those two syllables for a good thirty minutes. Chaeeun knew what he'd be looking at.

So she left the box empty. An empty box looks like a formatting issue.

There were six people at the care home like Chaeeun.

What the six had in common wasn't their diagnosis. Not their age, not where they lived either. All six had taken part in some kind of examination run by the city around this time three years ago. The grandmother next door was the one who first brought it up.

"I went that year too. They said it was something the city hall was running," the grandmother said.

The grandmother said she still remembered her son's name but didn't know if she wanted to see him. She said this while watering her plant. She said she watered it every day. Not because she wanted to, but because it was time to.

Chaeeun had once tried writing down the six names on paper. After writing them, she tore it up. Once written down, she'd have to think about the next step, and no one in this room had the strength to think about a next step.

Doyun's letter arrived three days later. The envelope was thin.

Before opening it, Chaeeun checked its thickness. Last month's letter had been thick. Thick letters always contained plans. I'll do this next semester, so this is how you'll turn out, that kind of plan.

She opened the thin letter. It was a single sheet, and there was an erased spot near the top.

The erased spot hadn't fully disappeared. Doyun used a ballpoint pen, and ballpoint ink doesn't erase. He had drawn three lines through it.

Chaeeun tilted the paper toward the window.

I will absolutely put it back the way it was.

That sentence sat under the three crossed-out lines. And below that was a newly written sentence.

Noona. Just tell me one thing you didn't want to do this week.

That was all. Below it were two lines about the academy. His class had been assigned, he'd gotten three teammates, and one of them had written four clauses to hold him back. There was no mention of the scholarship.

Chaeeun read those two lines again. No mention of the scholarship meant something had gone wrong with it. Doyun wasn't the type to skip bad news. He wrote about it only after he'd solved it.

She read the part about the teammate who wrote four clauses twice. Chaeeun found herself curious who that person was. The sensation of curiosity felt strange, like a muscle she hadn't used in a long time.

She looked at the erased spot once more too. I will absolutely put it back the way it was. The fact that that sentence had been crossed out was, to Chaeeun, the most important part of this letter. As long as that sentence existed, she felt like she was Doyun's homework.

Something she didn't want to do.

Chaeeun raised her pen in front of that question. This time she didn't need to look inward. There was something she didn't want. Between having something and having nothing, this time something remained.

Monday morning, a counselor came and ran a test. Drawing pictures on paper, connecting words, and at the end, a question like this: Write down three goals for the next three months.

Chaeeun didn't fill out that paper. The counselor said it was fine. Said they'd do it next time. And took the paper away.

Having it taken away, that she didn't want.

Chaeeun pulled out a fresh sheet of letter paper. Ignoring the format boxes, she wrote on the back.

Something I didn't want to do. The counselor taking away Monday's test sheet. Someone else carrying off a paper I couldn't fill out.

She could write one more line. Chaeeun wrote it.

That there was a blank box on that paper that I couldn't fill, and someone other than me read it first.

After writing it, the back of her hand felt slightly warm. For the first time in three years, it wasn't nothing but dislike that came out, in two lines.

Her hand stopped there. She had to decide whether to write the next sentence or not. The decision didn't take long. The one thing Chaeeun had learned in three years at the care home was this. Saying it later is too late.

And one more thing.

Don't submit my records to the academy.

Chaeeun read that line again. She could have written a reason. If she wrote a reason, Doyun would argue against it. He was good at arguing. He threw out a conclusion first and then attached three pieces of evidence, always steering the conversation to where he was right.

So she didn't write a reason. A prohibition with no reason can't be negotiated. That was one of the things Chaeeun had learned from Doyun.

He always won by attaching conditions. This time Chaeeun chose not to attach any.

Before sealing it, Chaeeun read the two lines out loud. To check whether, heard in her voice, they'd sound like someone else's sentences. They were her own voice.

Before sealing the letter, Chaeeun looked at the fifth box again. Still empty.

Next month's wishes. Chaeeun didn't touch that box. Instead she pressed a finger once against the two lines on the back. One thing she didn't want to do, and one thing she was forbidding. Both were things she had decided herself.

The nurse came to collect the letter.

"All done?"

"Yes." Chaeeun slid the envelope over.

"You wrote that pretty fast today," the nurse said, picking up the envelope. "Last time it took you two days."

"This time I had something to write."

"Did something good happen?"

"Not something good." Chaeeun looked at the potted plant on the windowsill. "Something I disliked happened."

The nurse smiled, unsure how to take that answer. Chaeeun understood the smile. It was rare for someone in this room to say they disliked something.

After the nurse left, Chaeeun sat by the window. The plant she'd decided to call Green sat on the sill. Not knowing how much water it needed, she thought she should ask the grandmother next door.

After thinking that, Chaeeun paused for a moment.

She'd thought she should ask. That was close to something she wanted to do next week. She might have been able to write it in the fifth box.

But the letter had already gone out.

Chaeeun decided that wasn't a bad thing. She could write it in the next letter. That there would be a next letter was itself a kind of plan, but Chaeeun didn't call that fact a plan.

Four days after mailing her reply, Chaeeun went to the room next door.

"Grandma. How much water does this plant need?"

"Once a week is enough for that one." The grandmother was looking at her own plant. "Why, does it look like it's dying?"

"No. I just wanted to ask something I meant to ask."

Whether the grandmother understood that or not, she nodded. Chaeeun went back to her room and gave the plant half a cup of water. Whether it should be half a cup or a full cup, she decided to ask again next week.

That too became something to do next week.

That same afternoon, Doyun received the letter from the mailbox at the lecture building.

Reading the two lines on the back, he felt relieved at the first one. She'd named something she didn't want to do. That was proof something still remained. Doyun read that line twice, and read it aloud the second time.

At the second line, he stood frozen in front of the mailbox.

Don't submit my records to the academy.

Last month, he had attached a family care certificate to his scholarship review documents. It was for the conditional scholarship student's additional points category, and the document list had included a copy of her medical records.

The copy he'd submitted included the examination record from three years ago. Down to the duration field.

Doyun tugged at the end of his left glove. Caught on the seal clasp, the glove wouldn't budge.

He looked up the withdrawal procedure. It said that supplementary documents already submitted could be requested back before the review closed. The review had closed yesterday.

Doyun folded the envelope and put it in his pocket. Then pressed his finger twice against the fold.