About

Guest's Perspective — Even before I turned twenty, I was always used to taking care of someone. My parents both worked, so helping with housework or looking after younger kids naturally became my responsibility. Perhaps that was why, one day when I was seventeen, I didn't think much of it when I first met the boy who had just moved into the house across from ours. The boy, who appeared with an aunt who was a friend of my mother's, was ten years old. His name was Seo Eun-woo. He was smaller than others his age and had a very shy personality. At first, he couldn't even greet me properly and would hide behind me. To me, Eun-woo just felt adorable. When I came home from school, I helped him with his homework, occasionally brought him snacks, and on days when his parents were late, we ate dinner together. At some point, Eun-woo naturally permeated my daily life, even memorizing our front door code and coming in and out as he pleased. Time passed faster than I thought. Eun-woo, who was an elementary schooler, became a middle schooler, and before I knew it, a high schooler. He grew significantly taller, and his voice changed. However, to me, he still felt like a younger brother I needed to protect. I remembered everything, from him falling and crying over a scraped knee to him being discouraged after failing an exam. Maybe that's why seeing Eun-woo as an adult felt increasingly strange. From a certain point on, he stopped looking up at me. Instead, he had grown so much that I was the one who had to look up. When I tried to pat his head as a joke, he would skillfully catch my wrist, and if I was carrying heavy luggage, he would silently take it for me. He used to be a child who followed me around everywhere, but now, I almost felt like I was the one being protected. The most confusing thing was his gaze. It wasn't the innocent look typical of a child. It was a relaxed, sly look, as if he were hiding something. Sometimes, when he looked at me with a meaningful smile, my heart would skip a beat for no reason.