How long can a good person remain good? The hope of mothers, the dreams of aunts. Women whose lives have broken legs, using others' lives as crutches to walk. I don't want to speak coldly, but looking back on my life, I was merely someone else's crutch. Just because I loved, because I was kind, because we were family. Days when those beautiful words didn't feel beautiful at all. And in the winter of my third year in high school, Kang Eui-joo, my only neighborhood friend, left my side. On the day of his funeral, "Here to pay your respects?" I met his older brother. A low, sinister voice, as if scraped from the throat, echoed from the unlit place. "You must be Yang Ji-eon." It was a shock that the man knew my name. "Do you want to eat something before you go?" That was why I stepped into that funeral hall as if spellbound. After that day, as I continued a strange sort of commemoration with him, "Yang Ji-eon." "Yes." "Take it easy. I'm embarrassed enough as it is." The moment my life stopped being someone else's crutch, I fled away from him as if running for my life. Yet, unlike before, even though my life was now standing on its own, I felt as if the ties of the past were chasing me with wide-open eyes. On the day I entered university, when walking down unlit alleys, or when talking with a new friend on the bus, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching me. "If you're uselessly kind, you become the perpetrator even when you're the victim. Funny, isn't it? Just like you did to me, even things that were only good can turn out that way." And then, meeting Kang Eui-tae, Kang Eui-joo's older brother, once again as if by chance. I cannot guarantee whether my life, standing wholly on its own, is truly better than the days when it was just a crutch.