April two years earlier

April two years earlier marks a spring of private crisis for In-hye, when persistent bleeding and memories of Yeong-hye’s suffering force her to confront a life shaped by endurance. The date also anchors the year her husband made a video of Yeong-hye: events that In-hye experiences as connected, even as she struggles to speak about them.

Illness and the delayed examination

In-hye bleeds intermittently for close to a month. Each time she washes her bloodstained clothes, she recalls Yeong-hye’s earlier wrist injury, but fear keeps her from seeking medical attention. She repeatedly resolves to go the next day, then postpones the visit, imagining that a serious diagnosis might leave her only a year, six months, or three months to live. The possibility makes her look back on her marriage as a period without happiness or spontaneity, sustained by her own perseverance and consideration.

When In-hye finally goes to the obstetrics and gynecology department where she gave birth to Ji-woo, she waits on the open-air platform at Wangsimni Station. Decaying temporary buildings and weeds growing beside unused tracks prompt a sudden recognition: she feels she has never really lived, only endured. She has believed in her goodness and tried consistently to do what was right, but that discipline has not given her a sense of having inhabited her own life.

The examination identifies a polyp on the vaginal wall, which the doctor removes. He tells her that it has come away cleanly, that the bleeding should soon lessen and stop, and that her ovaries are fine. The result rules out the grave illness she feared, but brings no relief. Back at Wangsimni Station, she hides behind a metal chair when the train arrives, afraid that something within her might make her throw herself in front of it.

A wound that outlasts its cause

The bleeding continues for roughly two weeks after the procedure, then stops as the cut heals. Yet In-hye feels as if an internal wound remains open and has grown larger than her, drawing her into darkness. The account distinguishes the physical problem, which is treated and resolves, from the emotional crisis that persists after the medical explanation is known.

Over the following four months, In-hye continues to manage her cosmetics shop and attend to its ordinary demands. She smiles at customers, recommends products, offers discounts and samples, places promotional posters, and replaces consultants who receive poor feedback. Her competence in these tasks contrasts with her growing sense of disconnection. In the evenings, she walks through hot, crowded streets while feeling that the inner wound is still pulling her away from the people around her.

Family memory and the spring’s wider context

The month belongs to the spring in which In-hye’s husband made a video of Yeong-hye. In retrospect, In-hye’s private bleeding and the image of her sister’s earlier injury recur together in her memory. The book thus places her bodily crisis beside a larger family history in which Yeong-hye’s distress has repeatedly been met with force, concealment, or decisions made by others.

In-hye’s later recollections give that history a longer chronology. Yeong-hye’s increasingly unusual behavior began about three years before the April memory, when she became vegetarian, lost considerable weight, and slept very little. At a family housewarming, their father forced meat on her; after spitting it out, Yeong-hye injured herself. In-hye remembers having stood by, and later questions whether she could have stopped their father, prevented the injury, or challenged the choices that followed. She also recalls Yeong-hye as the one daughter who bore their father’s beatings, while In-hye, the eldest, survived by becoming a dutiful, self-sacrificing caretaker. What she had treated as maturity, she later understands as a survival tactic.

Narrative significance

April two years earlier is not presented as a single public turning point but as a time recalled through In-hye’s belated understanding. The medical visit settles the immediate question of why she was bleeding, yet fails to settle what her fear and exhaustion have exposed about her life. Its ordinary locations—the clinic and the station platform—frame a recognition that cannot be reduced to diagnosis.

The spring also links In-hye’s experience to Yeong-hye’s story without making their suffering identical. In-hye’s body prompts memories of her sister; those memories, in turn, reveal the limits of her former role as the competent person who endured and cared for others. The period’s significance lies in that convergence: a minor medical condition ends, while the questions about family violence, responsibility, and a life spent enduring remain.