Things past their expiration date inevitably rot.

Names were no exception.

Living under the name of a dead child, Baek Saeon was festering day by day.

Yet he desperately learned and mastered whatever was necessary to avoid Baek Jangho’s notice.

Drowning in the river or surviving—those were the only two paths that existed in his mind.

To keep from sinking, he always stood on his toes and kept his chin high. He endured the relentless, suffocating flow of each passing day.

As a result, he learned to smile appropriately and respond with the right words at the right times.

"The girl you’ll marry later is the eldest daughter of that family. It wouldn’t hurt to win her favor in advance."

"Yes."

His stomach churned, but he steadied himself, now accustomed to maintaining his balance.

Being a grandson wasn’t enough—he was already being prepared for marriage.

An endless chain of shackles.

Watching his foster parents claw at each other every night, he saw marriage as nothing more than a display—a showroom arrangement. Business, profit, prisons, contracts, papers.

A union devoid of meaning or affection.

This world was full of filth and triviality.

Over time, a moss-like weariness settled on the boy’s face, one that didn’t suit his age.

One day, he overheard a phone conversation by chance.

"—Shut down the fishing spot."

"…!"

He froze on the stairs.

"There’s no more evidence to dispose of, and no one lives there anymore. Reclaim it as private property. By the way, have they still not found Sanghoon?"

If it was Sanghoon, he was the taciturn keeper of the fishing spot.

"Sigh… Never mind. The fool even left his fingers behind. Maybe he found some woman he fancied. The search ends here."

The boy’s pupils trembled.

Adolescence often brought erratic emotions, and today was just one of those days. But still, why did this feel so unbearable?

His chest felt crushed, as if the air had been forcibly squeezed from his lungs. The boy bolted through the back door, running wherever his legs took him, his eyes following familiar paths to shadowy, damp places.

Like an animal returning to its origin, he slipped into the darkness.

Understanding struck him abruptly.

"I always knew I’d come back."

His heart pounded loudly in his ears.

Somehow, he had always believed he would return to his hometown one day.

Yes, his hometown. The place where the real "he" had lived.

But now, that place was gone.

The location, the people—everything had vanished. The thought left him feeling strangely hollow, as though the shell he was wearing finally became real to him.

It was fake.

A performance.

The past three years, which had felt like a chain around his neck, swept over him like a landslide.

He wanted to scream until his throat burst, but all he could do was clench his fists tightly.

As his insides churned and his eyes burned with a winter-like chill, he stood there helplessly.

"…!"

Suddenly, his eyes met those of someone who had approached silently.

A child, small enough to barely reach his waist, with round rabbit-like eyes.

Their cheeks were painted bright red, as if colored with a crayon, and fine, staticky hairs stuck out from their head like a soft halo.

Was that even a person?

A doll, maybe?

The tension in his body loosened, and he let out a long-held breath. Realizing the figure before him was nothing more than a snot-nosed kid, he felt his strength leave him entirely.

Baek Saeon leaned against the wall and exhaled deeply.

"Um, hey… are you hurt?"

"…"

Perhaps because the small, delicate thing before him was so different from himself, a feeling of dirtiness and misery swept over him.

He had been holding it together—barely—but suddenly, a burning surge of emotion threatened to overflow.

Panicking, he quickly covered the child’s eyes.

No one could see him like this.

It was a defensive reflex.

"Ugh… ngh…!"

"…"

"Shit… ngh…"

Whose kid was this? How was he supposed to shut them up?

While he was using every ounce of his strength to choke down the lump in his throat—

"The baby squirrel can’t poop—"

"…"

"The acorns are yucky, but I like grapes—"

"…"

"Hey grape, hey grape, green grape—!"

"…"

"Hold your belly, squish-squish, rumble-rumble—"

"…"

"Roll-roll, zoom-zoom, toot-toot zoom—"

The sticky, black things clogging his throat seemed to burst into flames all at once.

What was that?

That bright, clear voice grated against his nerves.

It was a purity he had never experienced before in his life. And yet, it scared him as much as a corpse would.

Instinctively, the boy took a step back. The sound of his own retreating breath tickled him, and his ribcage felt oddly constricted.

It was comfort, but the unfeeling boy couldn’t recognize it as such.

***

"This man isn’t Baek Saeon."

"…!"

"His face is different, Grandfather. It’s not the same as the one I saw in the garden before—."

When the girl, his supposed fiancée, pointed a finger at him, Baek Jangho approached with a hearty laugh.

The old hand, lined with protruding knuckles, gripped the finely dressed child.

Baek Saeon’s face remained impassive, but his Adam’s apple quivered for a brief moment.

Then, the girl’s car overturned.

The crash was severe—a major accident in which her younger brother and the babysitter died, and both daughters were injured.

Baek Jangho delivered the news while flipping through the newspaper at the breakfast table.

"They should’ve been more mindful of their words."

"Are the daughters okay?"

Baek Saeon found himself asking before he realized it, and his grandfather’s gaze settled on him, calm yet penetrating.

"Your fiancée injured her ears. They say there’s a high chance she’ll never hear again."

It wasn’t the eldest daughter he was curious about.

But the boy, skilled at masking his thoughts, asked nothing further.

If her injuries were severe enough to result in deafness, he figured the second daughter couldn’t have escaped unscathed either. The thought made the muscles in his neck tighten.

"It’s for the best, really. Chairman Hong will be even more grateful to us for accepting his disabled daughter into the family."

The words were shameless.

"Your birth isn’t exactly above reproach, so taking in an imperfect bride isn’t a loss. On the contrary, we’ve placed him in our debt. All in all, it’s a profitable arrangement."

From that day, the nightmares became more frequent.

Baek Jangho wielded power like a tyrant.

That damned Baek Jangho.

"Hrk…!"

He jolted awake, his back drenched in cold sweat. It was just a dream, yet the phantom smell of water and rot clung to his nose.

"Hah… hah…"

The world was made of water.

And the human body, 70% of it was water.

It was horrifying.

Suddenly, it felt as though his throat were tightening, his breathing turning shallow. Then, in the pitch-black darkness, a single light flickered on.

"…!"

It was the house next door.

Perhaps that was when it began—when the lighthouse-like glow started cutting through the boy’s nightmares.

"…"

They said the older sister had damaged her hearing, and the younger one had lost her voice.

Tonight, once again, Baek Saeon sat alone in the dark, basking in the faint glow of that light.

A child who stayed up while the world slept, secretly working diligently under the lamplight.

"…Hong Heeju."

He murmured the name indifferently, letting it roll off his tongue.

At first, he watched her out of suspicion, unsure what she might say or spread around. He’d even thought about crushing her spirit at one of the social gatherings they attended.

But when he grasped her hand, it was so small and soft that his resolve dissolved before he could act.

After the accident, all those plans became pointless.

They said she had developed selective mutism from the trauma.

"…"

Unconsciously, he furrowed his brow.

On sleepless nights plagued by nightmares, he often found himself drifting back to sleep while watching Hong Heeju silently practice sign language until dawn. This routine continued until his conscription.

Was it because she couldn’t speak?

She was the only one who never spewed venom, who stayed quiet.

Staring at her silhouette reflected in the window, she seemed like a tropical fish in a small tank, her movements glistening in the light.

Surely, her body was filled with water too.

The droplets that sprang forth from her fingers, unable to form words, stirred something in him.

He hated and feared water, but Hong Heeju’s water…

Her water was willpower—a sign that she was alive.

In time, her silence became the most fascinating sound in his dreary world.

"You should sleep early if you want to grow tall."

Baek Saeon clasped his hands behind his head and sighed, almost to himself.

She was different from him. She kept living, endlessly.

And that was a wonder.

***

The child grew steadily.

And as she grew, so did the boy, keeping their eye levels always aligned.

But he didn’t mind.

Even if her pace was slow, observing Hong Heeju’s growth was Baek Saeon’s only hobby.

Spotting the differences between yesterday and today.

Like solving a spot-the-difference puzzle, watching the little girl next door made his days pass with a surprising sense of enjoyment.

It was easier to breathe when focused on her than when consumed by the empty shell of his own life. In that sense, she was surprisingly useful to him.

"Don’t doze off."

He slammed his hand on the desk, glaring at Hong Inah.

"Your little sister isn’t even asleep, so what gives you the right to nod off?"

Despite being his fiancée, there was nothing about Hong Inah that he liked, from top to bottom.

Frowning, he resumed grading practice exam papers, drawing slash after slash with no emotion. Suddenly, he noticed the peculiar silence in the room.

Without lifting his head, he glanced upward—

"…"

What’s this?

Baek Saeon tilted his head slightly.

Hong Inah’s drooping head was now being supported by the small hands of her younger sister. Hong Heeju, flustered, looked up at him with pleading eyes.

Asking for help?

"…"

She could just smack her awake.

Resting his chin on his hand lazily, he thought: Is she even human?

The only people he considered human were his grandfather Baek Jangho, his elder brother Baek Uiyong, and his sister-in-law.

His eyebrow twitched involuntarily.

Hong Heeju, worried her sister’s face might touch the cold surface of the desk, wedged her tiny hands beneath her sister’s head.

Baek Saeon stared at those small, bloodless hands, resembling autumn leaves.

So hopelessly kind.

Clicking his tongue, he circled an answer on the test paper with his red pen.

Then, with a loud thunk, he delivered a firm flick to Hong Inah’s forehead.