Chapter 56: You Are the Star Inside Me

As I stepped out the school gate, I began pondering what kind of story I should write for the contest.

Though my mind was overflowing with countless ideas for genre fiction, I couldn’t seem to get a solid grasp on the type of general fiction required for the contest.

“At times like this, input is best. I should stop by the bookstore first.”

I suddenly thought that perhaps my inability to find direction was due to a lack of input.

You have to know the market to pick the right goods and sell them to the customer.

Before I started writing, I decided to study and deepen my understanding of literary fiction.

I chose books that topped the current bestseller lists, focusing on works of literary fiction, and studied them intently.

It was less ‘reading’ and more ‘research.’

Just as I had when I first became a writer, I fell into the depths of literary fiction.

I read certain scenes over and over, analyzing sentence structure to see how emotions were unraveled and expressed.

I also paid close attention to how the author built up a character’s feelings, how the point of view was fixed in each paragraph, organizing my thoughts in a notebook and repeating the process of reviewing and revising my notes.

The first book I opened was Song of the Blind Season.

It told the story of a protagonist wandering through a rural village in the dead of winter.

This novel built emotion not through dialogue, but through static scene descriptions and recurring images of objects.

It never directly described the character’s loneliness, but squeezed the reader’s heart with small objects like shoes leaning against a wall in an empty house, or an unboiled pot of ramen.

The second book I read was Summer Under the Stairs.

Set in a small urban apartment, it gradually revealed the relationships between three different characters.

Through this work, I learned about depth of perspective.

The author looked deeply into one character’s inner world, but instead of stating emotions outright, hinted at their heart’s direction through the rhythm of actions—‘hesitation’ or ‘the moment a gaze lingered,’ for instance.

I admired this approach.

The third book was a work called When the Umbrella Closes.

It told the story of a daughter searching for traces of her late father, interweaving quiet reminiscences with blurry weather in every scene.

This novel was particularly masterful at restraint of emotion.

‘That day, she opened her father’s old umbrella. As if he were still alive.’

Just one line, but it struck me with a resonance greater than tears.

Through reading these books, I gradually developed a systematic understanding of what literary fiction dealt with and how to approach it.

Emotions do not appear directly in the sentences. They are expressed through actions, objects, and spaces.

The perspective is fixed deep within the character’s inner world. Not the observer’s, but the experiencer’s point of view.

What matters is not the scale of the incident, but the amplitude of emotion.

Explanations are minimized, leaving room for the reader to fill in the blanks.

As if dissecting a book on psychology, I analyzed the structure of each work.

Today, I picked up Walking Between Light and Shadow.

I heard it was themed around family.

As I turned the pages, I thought: I don’t know when, but someday I, too, want to write words that quietly speak to someone.

I immersed myself in the book, determined to make this study worthwhile.

“Now I finally understand what kind of writing literary fiction is.”

Closing the book, I murmured quietly.

The structures and sentences of the works I had read over the past few days lined up neatly in my mind.

“That means the way I write changes depending on what kind of story I want to tell.”

There isn’t only one way to write a novel.

Some, like genre fiction, pull the reader in with dramatic events.

Others, like literary fiction, compress emotions and leave a lingering aftertaste.

What mattered most was ‘what’ I wanted to write, but that just wouldn’t come to mind.

“Sigh, I don’t know. I get the feel of it, but nothing’s coming to me for a theme. Maybe I should drink some water and think about it.”

I racked my brain for a good idea, but nothing came to mind.

My frustration manifested as thirst.

I got up from my seat and went down to the living room for a drink of water.

“Haha, must have fallen asleep watching TV. Even at home, how can she sleep in this cold?”

When I got to the living room, Dahye had fallen asleep on the sofa with the TV on, belly exposed.

Her shirt had ridden up, leaving her stomach bare, and she hugged a cushion with her face buried in it.

Dried drool at the corner of her mouth showed just how deeply she was sleeping.

“Good grief, really.”

I quietly fetched a blanket and covered Dahye’s body.

“If you’re that sleepy, you should go sleep in a warm room.”

With gentle hands, I softly brushed Dahye’s hair aside.

A warm energy radiated from Dahye’s face.

“When I last saw you, when I last held you in my arms, I remember that day.”

My little sister’s face, gradually growing cold atop the hospital bed.

Back then, I couldn’t do anything.

All I could do was hold her hand and cry.

When the doctor and my parents said I had to consent to the declaration of death, I vehemently refused.

Dahye, who hadn’t left a single word until the very end.

I spent the night recalling her tear-stained sleeping face.

I can’t count how many times I replayed the videos of Dahye’s voice, which I can no longer hear.

But, now, Dahye was here by my side like this.

I lightly touched her forehead.

She was warm.

Her breathing rose and fell evenly.

Just seeing her like this made my heart swell.

“Dahye, you are your brother’s star. I’ll be the vast universe that lets you shine. So never lose your smile, always be happy.”

This was what I used to say to my little sister in my previous life, when I’d finally grown up.

“Uh...wait.”

Just as I was about to get lost in sentimentality watching my sister sleep, a story idea suddenly flashed through my mind.

You are the star inside me.

I quietly repeated the sentence that had appeared in my head.

A confession carrying my heart.

Love realized only after losing, a heart that I can now deliver before it’s too late.

I wanted to capture that feeling in writing.

Not to gain something, but to leave behind words out of a wish to protect.

“Dahye, thank you. Thanks to you, I think I’ll be able to write something I can be satisfied with. Good night.”

I picked up the remote lying haphazardly on the floor, turned off the TV, took a bottle of water from the fridge, and went upstairs to the second floor.

[Title: You Are the Star Inside Me.]

Everyone, gazing up at the night sky, must have at least one star they cherish for their own reason, but for me, the star has always been my little sister.

I am my sister’s universe.

May she always shine as a star in my heart.

Sunlight slants in through the window.

I remember the day I first held my sister.

So tiny and light, she was so adorable and lovely.

She curled up against me, seeking comfort.

Whenever I saw her like that, I steeled myself as if I had suddenly grown up.

My sister was easily startled by small things.

By the sound of a light suddenly turning on, by thunder on rainy days—she’d always come running and hug me.

When she squeezed my hand, I squeezed back just as tight.

I remember the scene where a small shadow, smaller than mine, clung to my side wherever I went.

My sister followed me like a shadow, whether I went to the playground or went to buy snacks.

“Dahye followed me everywhere, even when I went to the playground, even when I went to buy snacks. She was always right behind me.”

Even now, the image of Dahye as a child is vivid, as if it happened just yesterday.

We went down the slide together, and when she sat on the black rubber swing, I would stand on the swing and rock back and forth with her.

If I climbed the jungle gym, Dahye would follow.

When I fell asleep, she’d crawl over and sleep under the same blanket with me.

“As we hit adolescence, we slowly drifted apart, each taking our own time. We’d fight over the smallest things.”

Like who got to use the computer, or what to watch on TV.

“We didn’t know then how happy that daily life was.”

As I recalled those memories, I slowly pressed my fingers to the keyboard, filling the monitor with words.

[When my sister laughed, the world seemed brighter.

On days she fell asleep with her head on my lap, her quiet breaths would warmly wrap up the end of my day.]

It’s always a struggle to translate inexpressible feelings into words.

But each time a sentence was completed, I felt great fulfillment and satisfaction.

[“If you ever get lost, I’ll become a lighthouse and show you the way.”]

Yes, that was what I promised to do back then.

I paused for a moment before writing the next sentence.

“Why did I act that way back then? If only I’d been a little more patient at the time.”

I pretended to be the grown-up to Dahye, but I was just a child myself.

As an adult, I went even further astray, living each day regretting the path I’d taken.

Having lost my original intention, I eventually broke down and went through a difficult time.

My self-esteem plummeted, and I became an adult who lost his temper over trivial things.

What set me straight was genre fiction and writing.

For some, it was vicarious satisfaction, but for me, it became a goal.

[But I couldn’t keep all my promises.

If anything, I shone my light the wrong way and led my sister down the wrong path.

And yet, she didn’t falter; she found her own way and kept walking.

At one time, when I used to shield her from the rain, she pressed on, enduring the rain herself.]

I didn’t help my sister in her lonely steps—if anything, I made things harder for her.

“Looking back, under the name of ‘big brother,’ maybe I took too much for granted. I felt a sense of duty to protect her, but at the heart of it was always the idea that I should be at the center.”

Once I escaped from that perspective, I finally realized that we were ‘siblings’ and ‘family’—caring for and supporting each other as we moved forward together.

Even if you leave the embrace of family, you always return eventually.

It may vary for everyone, but it took me a whole seven years.

The image of my sister in her twenties had disappeared, replaced by her in her thirties.

I can only feel sorry for not being there to share that time with her.

“Having many memories together means we influenced each other that much.”

Even now, I remember those days: the day we walked together through a snow-covered alley, matching our footsteps so we wouldn’t fall out of sync.

Remembering each moment, I pressed the keys with new strength.

With each completed sentence, something warm was etched into my heart.

So I wouldn’t forget; so I could love once again.

I poured my heart into my writing, completing You Are the Star Inside Me.

If this work is recognized, I hope it can help others feel the preciousness of family as I did.

[Even if we walk different paths, we are people who have grown up holding the same memories. And at some moment, those memories become the greatest strength for each other.

Family carries a resonance that doesn’t disappear, no matter how far apart.

Family is not someone who protects you—it is a companion who grows alongside you and completes you.]

I hope this writing reaches everyone.