Night returned with a quiet that felt strangely familiar, like an old friend who knocked gently on the door but carried bad news behind his back. Ha Jun walked home slowly, his steps steady but lacking purpose, as if he were moving only because the world expected him to. The road glimmered slightly beneath the streetlights. A thin layer of mist clung to the sidewalks where small puddles reflected lights like tiny trembling stars.
The day had drained him more than he cared to admit. After Ji Hye left for her class, the energy he had mustered for her faded quietly. He managed to attend one lecture, then drifted through the halls until everything began to blur. Faces moved past him like passing cars on a distant road, present but unreachable. The noise around him felt echoing and distant, like it had been swallowed by the walls before reaching his ears.
Now the moon was rising, and the sky above him looked pale and fragile.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Again.
And again.
He ignored it until he reached the small bridge near his neighborhood. The water beneath it moved slowly, carrying reflected moonlight across its gentle currents. He stopped and inhaled deeply. The air tasted of cool water and fallen leaves.
He finally took out his phone.
Five missed calls.
Three messages.
All from his older sister, Sae Rin.
He opened the first message.
Where are you.
Second.
Mother has been crying since afternoon.
Third.
Come home. We need to talk.
He let the screen darken again. For several minutes he stood on the bridge, letting the world rest quietly around him. He did not know what waited at home. He did not know what he was supposed to say or how he was supposed to present himself. All he knew was that something was coming, the type of something that shifted a family into silence before it revealed its face.
He rubbed his thumb along the side of the phone. His breathing felt shallow.
Eventually he walked home.
The house stood in a muted glow from the porch light. The windows were lit, but the inside felt strangely still, as if the rooms were holding their breath. When he pushed the door open, the quiet inside met him like a wall.
Sae Rin stood near the dining table. Her expression was drawn and tired. Her hands were clasped in front of her as if she had been waiting for him in that exact position.
Their mother sat on a chair with her face buried in her hands. Their father stood behind her, one hand squeezed around her shoulder, the other pressed against his forehead.
The air felt heavy enough to settle on his skin like dust.
Sae Rin looked up first. Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Ha Jun. Sit."
He took a breath and stepped forward. His younger sister Ji Hye, who was twenty, sat in the corner, knees pulled to her chest. Her eyes were red. She looked at him but did not speak.
He sat slowly.
His mother lifted her head. Her eyes searched his face with the frantic worry of someone who feared they might lose something before they even understood what was happening.
"Ha Jun," she said, voice trembling, "is something wrong with you."
The words pierced him like cold water.
He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
His mother continued, "You have been distant. You have lost weight. You hardly eat. You come home late. You look so tired." Her voice cracked. "What is happening to you."
He lowered his gaze.
Sae Rin stepped closer. She sat beside him and placed a hand on his back. "Tell us," she said softly. "Please."
He felt their eyes on him. Their worry. Their fear. Their love. All pressing against him at once.
He lifted his hands to his face and exhaled shakily.
The truth swelled inside him like a rising tide. He wanted to release it. He wanted to tell them everything. He wanted to say the words he had swallowed for years. But the fear of hurting them held him in place. The fear of disappointing them. The fear of being seen not as their happy boy but as someone fragile and breaking.
His father spoke quietly, almost gently. "We are your family. Whatever it is, you do not face it alone."
Alone.
The word echoed in his mind.
Alone was all he had been. Alone was all he understood. Alone was the only shape he knew how to be.
But he could not say that.
Instead he said, barely audible, "I am just tired."
His mother shook her head. "This is not just tired."
Silence fell. The kind of silence that wrapped around everyone in the room and forced them to confront their own helplessness.
Ji Hye, the younger sister, finally stood. She approached him slowly and knelt beside his chair. Her hand wrapped around his arm.
"Do you remember," she whispered, "when I told you that I wanted you to share the weight with us one day."
He closed his eyes. Her words returned to him clearly. That night had been filled with tears he did not shed and truths he could not speak.
She continued, her voice trembling, "That day is today."
He swallowed hard. A painful ache spread across his chest, the kind of ache that made him want to run away and stay at the same time.
His father took a step forward but did not speak. His mother covered her mouth with her hand, tears slipping through her fingers.
Ha Jun finally whispered, "I do not know how to explain it."
Sae Rin rubbed his back gently. "Start anywhere."
He opened his eyes and stared at the table. The wood grain swirled like an endless circle. He felt his throat tighten again.
"I feel like I am drowning," he said softly.
His mother gasped. Sae Rin froze. Ji Hye gripped his arm tighter.
He continued, voice shaking, "I smile because it is easier than trying to explain how much everything hurts. I pretend to be fine because I do not want to add to the pain this family already carries."
His father swallowed, his jaw tightening.
"And at night," Ha Jun whispered, "I fall apart. Every single night. I feel like something pulls me down and I cannot breathe. I do not sleep. I barely eat. I do not know how to stop it."
His mother began to cry quietly, shoulders shaking.
Sae Rin wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. "Why did you not tell us earlier."
"Because I did not want to worry you," he said. "Because I wanted to be the strong one. Because I thought if I kept smiling long enough I would eventually feel okay again. But I do not. I never do."
Ji Hye touched his cheek with trembling fingers. "You do not have to pretend anymore."
He felt tears rising, stinging the corners of his eyes. He rarely cried in front of them. Not since the night they lost their youngest sister. The night that shattered something in him that he never rebuilt.
His father spoke softly, voice firm but full of emotion. "You will not face this alone again."
The words settled over him with a strange mix of comfort and fear.
Comfort because he wanted it to be true.
Fear because he did not know if he deserved it.
Sae Rin held him tighter. Ji Hye leaned against him. His mother stood and placed her hands on his face, her tears falling onto his skin like warm rain.
And for the first time in years, Ha Jun allowed his own tears to fall. Slowly at first, then freely, breaking through the walls he had built around his heart. His breath shook. His shoulders trembled. The weight that had pressed against him for years shifted, only slightly, but enough for him to breathe in a new way.
The room was filled with tears and soft murmurs of love, as if the family was stitching his broken pieces together with their presence.
But even after the tears began to fade, and even after he leaned against them with trembling relief, a part of him knew the truth.
This was not the end of his struggle.
This was only the moment when his family finally saw the cracks.
The storms inside him were still there.
The silence inside him still called his name.
And somewhere deep in his chest, he felt something unsettling. A sense that something darker was waiting for him. Something he would eventually have to face alone, no matter who stood beside him.
He wiped his face slowly, and for a moment, looked toward the door.
It stood slightly open.
As if the night outside was waiting for him.
As if the next chapter of his suffering was already reaching its hand into the room.
The quiet season was far from over.
And it was only becoming colder.