I walked with the collar of my long padded coat pulled up tight, the cold pressing in harder without you here.

The news kept saying that spring and fall were getting shorter every year because of climate change, but this year winter didn’t wait.

By mid-November, the cold had settled in – sharp, unrelenting, freezing everything in its path.

Even with thick gloves and a scarf wrapped tightly around me, the wind sliced through my skin like icy blue blades.

I used to send you photos of myself bundled up in that ankle-length coat, and you’d always laugh, teasing me from across the ocean – saying I looked like a giant cockroach.

You never knew how brutal Korean winters could be, not really.

Not since you moved to the U.S. with your parents when we were young.

I didn’t understand it either – not until I came back.

When you finally came to Korea to see me for the first time, you screamed the moment your plane landed at Incheon Airport. It must have been in February when the cold was at its worst.

—”This is insane, Seo-hae. How do people live here?”

We were sisters, born three minutes apart.

Eun-sae called me “unnie,” but whenever she felt like it, she’d just say “Seo-hae” and call me by name.

After experiencing the bitter cold of negative thirteen degrees Celsius – with a wind chill that felt like negative twenty – Eun-sae became a die-hard fan of long, padded coats in just one day, joining the ranks of “cockroaches.”

—“It was a matter of survival. I get it now.”

From then on, even when she came to Korea, she made sure to avoid winter. This year’s cold must have been especially brutal for her.

But I didn’t dislike winter.

Having lived on the relatively mild west coast of the U.S., I was at first a bit overwhelmed by the dramatic seasonal changes, but I quickly came to appreciate the good things about winter – the cold, crisp air; the colors of the landscape as if overlaid with a bluish-gray filter; the soft, cozy textures unique to winter clothing.

But now that Eun-sae is gone in winter, this season will always feel like loneliness and sadness to me.

The season in which I lost you – and in a way, I lost myself.

Have I ever known such a cruel season?

Eun-sae. Why did I have to lose you?

What brought you to this point? I still don’t know.

Not really.

Those last few days, you seemed like yourself.

Almost.

But now that I know how it ended… when I look back, something feels wrong.

—“Unnie.…Seo-hae.”

She gently touched my blunt fingertips, worn from years of plucking countless strings, and called my name in a faint voice.

—“I wish I had been the older sister… I wish I had been you.”

Did she smile after she said it?

Or was it a smile at all?

At that time, I spent every single day buried in rehearsals for a performance at a major theater – my very first as a gayageum player.

I’d leave for the rehearsal room at dawn and come home late at night.

Preparing for a stage that could mark a turning point in my career left me drained – completely exhausted.

I didn’t have the time or the strength to take care of Eun-sae the way I should have.

But Eun-sae took her own life.

And Eun-sae took her own life.

So Eun-sae took her own life.

The process is blank – hollow, as if someone erased the pages.

I don’t know how to put it into words.

All I’m left with is the end.

Eun-sae died by suicide.

It was about ten days before the show.

All she left me was a short message saying she was going back to our parents’ house and then back to the U.S. I thought that was it.

Simple. Nothing more.

But then came the sudden news of Eun-sae’s death – and instead of stepping onto the stage I had dreamed of for so long, I found myself boarding a flight to America.

My colleagues in the traditional music ensemble were kind.

They understood and gently suggested that I come back after the funeral and participate in the performance.

But I said no.

No musician can miss more than a week of rehearsal and go on stage as if nothing had happened.

It doesn’t work that way.

Didn’t Leonard Bernstein once say, “If I don’t practice for one day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, my wife knows it. If I don’t practice for three days, the audience knows.”

Fortunately, the Gayageum section had the most players, so my absence could be absorbed without too much disruption.

With the understanding of my colleagues, I left the rehearsals halfway through.

And on the eleven-hour flight to Eun-sae’s funeral, with my mind clouded and unfocused, I felt like I was wandering through a fog from which I couldn’t find a way out.

It wasn’t until I returned that I realized something.

Until then, I hadn’t even looked at the traces Eun-sae had left in my house.

Her room had been locked since she left.

I stood in front of the door and took a few deep breaths – so many that I felt dizzy – then slowly opened it.

The room was spotless.

Too clean.

Almost unnaturally so.

There wasn’t a strand of hair left.

Nothing of her.

It was completely unlike the Eun-sae I knew – who always left little pieces of her daily life scattered everywhere like breadcrumbs.

And that’s when it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

You were never coming back.

You left… to die.

Why didn’t you tell me?

Did you think I was too busy to care?

Too wrapped up in my own world to make room for you?

But if you’d just tried – if you’d just tried to talk to me – I would have listened. I promise you, I would have.

At the very least… I wouldn’t have had to stand there, helpless, watching your funeral being arranged.

You left me with so many questions – and now you’re gone.

Gone forever.

“…Ah.”

Lost in regret, I almost missed my stop.

In the biting cold, my breath turned white and drifted away like smoke.

A dark shadow stretched over my feet and I looked up.

Towering above me was a massive building – an art hall that housed both a gallery and a concert hall.

Songun Art Hall, part of the Cultural Foundation.

Banners fluttered on the wall below its gracefully carved name.

Contemporary Creative Gugak Festival – Dancing the Music, Playing the Dance.

“Gugak Orchestra Gamanhan Sori
Korean Dance Troupe Hani”

I stared at the list of performers for a moment.

That’s right.

Today was the press preview of the traditional music festival I couldn’t attend.

Here, at the Songun Art Hall.

It was a spontaneous visit that I hadn’t even told the other members about.

Sitting alone at home, I kept circling the room, chasing Eun-sae’s ghost.

I couldn’t stay there any longer.

I briefly considered contacting the other members, but decided against it.

Just before a performance, musicians are at their most sensitive, especially in front of such a large stage.

They probably wouldn’t even be able to make small talk, too tense to do anything but concentrate.

If I were to suddenly approach them now, it wouldn’t be a welcome surprise-it would just distract them.

At the entrance, I presented the invitation and found my assigned seat as indicated.

It was a ticket I had set aside early on, thinking that Eun-sae might attend.

She used to show up at my performances like a surprise gift.