Spring had just begun to brush the hilltops with life. Cherry blossoms swayed gently under a pale blue sky, and the scent of fresh grass lingered in the breeze. It was a rare, perfect day—sunlight warm, the wind soft, and laughter echoing through the clearing where two families had set up a picnic.
Eun-ha, only four, sat in the middle of a checkered picnic mat, giggling as she stuffed her cheeks with strawberries. Her sticky hands left red smears on her dress, but no one minded. Her mother chuckled from the edge of the mat while her father lobbed a high serve across the makeshift net.
Min-jae, eight, sat under the shade of a nearby tree, deeply focused on arranging his toy cars in a precise formation. He didn't speak much, but his presence always anchored the group. He glanced occasionally at Eun-ha, shaking his head when she giggled too loud or squished a fruit in her hands, but there was a quiet protectiveness in the way his eyes followed her movements.
Their parents—two couples—were in the middle of a spirited badminton match. Rackets clashed with bursts of laughter, and mock arguments about the score turned into lighthearted teasing. A cooler full of cold drinks stood off to the side, a radio played an old tune, and the afternoon sun cast long golden shadows over the hills.
Then came the bag.
A white plastic bag, caught by a stray breeze, fluttered in from the road above the hill. It danced through the air like a mischievous spirit, tumbling and twisting with the wind. Eun-ha spotted it first.
"Balloon!" she squealed, stumbling to her feet and chasing after it, arms outstretched.
Min-jae looked up. "Eun-ha! No!"
His shout carried over the badminton court. The adults turned, startled.
The bag bounced again, just beyond Eun-ha's reach. She giggled, chasing it farther—closer to the edge of the hill, where wild grass sloped sharply downward toward the road. The breeze picked up, lifting the bag higher, dragging it just fast enough to stay out of her reach.
Min-jae dropped his cars and stood up. He knew that slope. It was steeper than it looked.
"Eun-ha! Stop!"
But she didn't stop. She didn't see the road. She didn't hear the approaching car. She was laughing.
All four adults reacted at once.
Her mother screamed her name. Her father dropped the racket and sprinted. Min-jae's father lunged forward. His mother shouted something incoherent.
The car came around the bend—fast, too fast for a narrow road on a hill. The driver saw them. Brakes screeched.
A flurry of motion—Min-jae's father shoved Eun-ha hard, just in time. A blur of bodies. Shouts. Horn. Tires skidding.
And then, the sickening sound of metal against flesh.
Crunch. Silence.
Time hiccuped. The air thickened. Even the leaves seemed unsure whether to move or stay still.
Min-jae stood frozen at the top of the hill, his toy car clenched so tight in his hand the plastic cracked. Down below, he could see the mangled front of the car against the slope. The broken guardrail. And tangled bodies. Limbs at unnatural angles.
He didn't know who had screamed last. All he knew was that Eun-ha now sat on the grass, dazed, her tiny palms scraped, her mouth trembling.
Then suddenly, she burst into tears—loud, guttural sobs that seemed to tear through her small frame. She stood up shakily and stumbled toward him, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her scraped hands clutched the hem of his shirt as she buried her face in his stomach, seeking comfort in the only person who remained.
Min-jae didn't move. Couldn't. He stood there, rigid and unresponsive, the shattered toy car still clenched in his fist. He looked down at the top of her head but felt nothing. Not warmth, not comfort, not even anger. Only a terrifying, cavernous silence.
He heard her crying, but it sounded distant. Like a sound underwater. He didn't cry. His body refused to let him.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
The sun kept shining. The cherry blossoms still danced. Shadows shifted with the breeze as if nothing had happened. But for Min-jae, the world had turned mute. The noise, the color, the warmth—it had all drained out, leaving only a dull, ringing void.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Min-jae had not spoken a word.
Eun-ha had cried herself into hiccups, her voice hoarse, her small hands still gripping Min-jae's shirt as if letting go would make him disappear. When a paramedic gently tried to move her, she wailed louder and reached back for Min-jae. He didn't respond.
By the time they zipped up the last body bag, she had curled into his side, exhausted and shaking. Min-jae stared ahead, blinking only when his eyes burned, but still not speaking.
Sun began to set and both children sat in stunned silence. One broken by tears, the other by emptiness. Their lives had shifted in a way they couldn't yet grasp—altered forever by a loss too vast for their young hearts to hold, too complex for their minds to name.
The funeral was a haze of black coats, muted footsteps, and the distant flash of camera bulbs. The estate grounds, usually serene and dignified, now buzzed with quiet chaos—reporters whispering updates into microphones, guests arriving in a procession of black sedans, and murmurs drifting like smoke through the crowd. The double tragedy had not only struck two families but sent shockwaves through the highest echelons of the country's business circles.
Madam Seo Yoon-sook stood at the heart of it all—composed, yet unmissably changed. Her stature remained proud, her posture straight, but her face bore the fatigue of a woman who had not allowed herself to break. She wore a black hanbok, the silk dark and unembellished, the only ornament the silver pin keeping her chignon in place. Her left arm pulled Min-jae in close; her right cradled Eun-ha, who clung to her like a baby koala, her face hidden in the folds of her robe.
Cameras clicked. Murmurs swelled. But Madam Seo did not flinch. Her eyes were rimmed with red, yet dry—like a storm cloud heavy with grief but refusing to rain.
"The Seo and Han families weren't just business partners," a reporter spoke in a low, composed voice into the microphone just outside the estate gates. "They were family in all but name. When Han Jae-seok lost his parents in a house fire, the Seo family took him in. Raised as a foster son, he and Seo Jin-woo were more brothers than friends. Together, they expanded the Seo Group into one of the country's most influential business empires."
Another voice picked up, "The tragedy occurred during a monthly picnic. Four lives lost. Only the children survived."
The camera lens zoomed in—first on Madam Seo's composed face, then on Min-jae's blank one, and finally on the tiny head buried against her chest.
"They're calling her the miracle child," said a third anchor. "Little Han Eun-ha, the sole survivor of a tragedy that claimed four lives. And now, Madam Seo, now in her sixties, is expected to resume control of the company, stepping back in after years away."
Inside the ancestral home, silence had returned. The wide hanok halls were draped in white cloth, with chrysanthemums arranged in long garlands. The air held the scent of incense, wood polish, and distant grief. Every surface had been wiped, every corner cleared—yet nothing could cleanse the heaviness in the air.
Min-jae hadn't shed a tear. His suit was pristine, but his eyes hollow. He sat when asked, walked when guided, but his mind was elsewhere—stuck on the slope, on the sound, on the final instant before impact.
That night, after the last guest left and the reporters were gone, the house was finally quiet. The staff had dimmed the lights. Madam Seo, still in her funeral attire, lay between the two children in her own room—her back against the headboard, one child on each side.
Eun-ha was fast asleep, her cheeks still blotchy from the afternoon's crying. Her tiny fingers clutched the edge of Madam Seo's sleeve as if afraid she'd vanish in the night.
Min-jae, however, lay still with eyes wide open, staring at the wooden beams above. The moonlight filtered through the windows, casting pale lines across the ceiling beams, faint and cold. He hadn't spoken a word all day, but the silence now felt unbearable—like something pressing down on his chest, suffocating and sharp.
A sudden breath hitched in his throat. Then another. And then he broke.
The sobs tore out of him without warning—loud, gasping, unrestrained. The kind that made his shoulders shake and his stomach ache. The kind that had waited in silence, too big for words, too deep for a boy to understand.
"She killed them," he wept. "She ran after that stupid bag... they tried to save her... and now they're all gone."
Madam Seo turned her head and drew him into her side, her palm cradling the back of his head.
"Oh! my baby," she said softly, "It was the driver—he was drunk. He shouldn't have been behind the wheel. She's just a baby. She didn't know."
"I don't care," he sobbed harder, fists clenched against her side. "She shouldn't have run. I hate her."
Eun-ha stirred, murmuring something in her sleep, her arms tightening around the fabric of Madam Seo's sleeve.
Min-jae glanced at her, his eyes filled with fury and helplessness. The rawness of grief twisted his gaze into something too heavy for a child to carry.
Madam Seo didn't argue. She didn't correct him. She knew pain had to pass through anger before it reached anything softer. She simply held him, steady and quiet, letting him fall apart.
She shed a few quiet tears—nothing loud, just enough to ease the pressure behind her eyes. Her grief surfaced in quiet tremors—tears she didn't try to hide, slipping down her face as she held him close.
And when his sobs finally slowed, when his breath became shallow and tired, she stroked his hair with a trembling hand. She didn't say anything more—just stayed beside him, breathing through her own sorrow.
Min-jae stared ahead, tears drying on his cheeks, his chest still tight but his breathing slowly easing. He didn't speak, didn't think. The heaviness hadn't lifted, but his grandmother's arms anchored him, made the silence feel less empty. He shifted closer, resting his head against her shoulder. It felt safe there—quiet and warm, and for the first time in days, just enough.
His body, exhausted from holding so much, began to give way to sleep. No more thoughts. No more anger. Just warmth beside him, the faint sound of her breathing, and a weight he couldn't name.
Sleep didn't come all at once. It crept in slowly, gently dulling the edge of his pain. As his eyes finally began to close, his gaze drifted once more toward Eun-ha—still curled against their grandmother, breathing softly, her cheeks damp.
She was the reason they were gone. The one who ran after that stupid bag, laughing—while everything else shattered around her. Min-jae stared at her small frame curled beside their grandmother, fast asleep, her breathing soft, as if nothing had happened at all.
He didn't understand how she could sleep so peacefully. He didn't want to. All he knew was that she ran—and because of that, they died. That was the last thing he remembered, and it was enough.
And with that bitter thought still burning in his chest, Min-jae finally drifted into sleep—slow, silent, and heavy as stone.