With that little heart pounding hard, my brother grew up. My older brother has grown up to be much bigger and cooler than me. By the time he entered school, he was no longer as frail as he had been as a child.

But her weak heart remained the same. Still, my brother was a coward and poor at dealing with people.

My brother's wounds had not healed. And the number of new wounds was increasing.

When he turns 8, he has to go to school. And my older brother was a special education student due to autism.

My brother had the choice of going to a special school, a special class at a regular school, or a regular class at a regular school. He went to regular classes at regular schools.

No, it's not his choice. To be precise, it was the choice of the mother, the guardian.

My mother wanted my brother to grow up as a normal person, living with normal students. So my brother went to school in a regular class at a regular school.

I don't know what my brother wanted. But at least it was different from my mother's thoughts.

As a result, my mother's choice was not a good one. Things didn't go as well as my mother had thought.

She was a mother who had no idea of the innate cruelty of children.

My older brother, who was always shaking and couldn't even properly answer questions, quickly became isolated at school. My older sister, Amara, was at school, so my older brother was okay for the two years, but my older sister, who was four years older than him, soon graduated and moved on to middle school.

After my older sister disappeared, my older brother became a direct target of harassment.

Is it human nature to get pleasure from tormenting life that is smaller and weaker than oneself? The children tormented my older brother as if they were squeezing a small hamster to death. My brother's injuries increase in his body and mind due to the children's pure cruelty.

He is my older brother, whom I cherished.

However, as I entered school a year later, all I could do was hold my brother's hand and bring him home from school. The only thing my brother asked me to do was not to tell my mother.

According to my brother, he was okay with the physical pain because he was used to it and that it was no big deal to be hit by an elementary school student.

But what's really scary is that it's a nuisance to my mother and my family.

My brother said it was okay, but I didn't want to ignore that feeling and delve into it.

Some kids made fun of me when they saw me leaving school holding hands with my older brother. But I didn't care. I have never let go of my brother's hand. Even now that I think about it, I think it was a good thing. If I had let go of his hand then, I might never have been able to hold my brother's hand again.

Then, one day.

The school was turned upside down when my mother found out about the bullying after seeing my older brother come home covered in mud. 

But that was all.

The school's position was that punishing children for simple 'playfulness' was too harsh on young children. Moreover, the number of male students involved in the 'prank' was too large. It would have been a much easier solution for the school to take issue with my older brother's lack of social skills rather than punishing all those children, sending them to different schools, and acknowledging the school violence.

In the end, the incident was passed over, and the school came up with no solution other than promising to prevent a recurrence. My older brother was clearly a victim of school violence, but no one took action.

However, direct harassment has decreased significantly since then. Subtle bullying was inevitable, but at least the violence that I could see was gone.

And my brother survived safely and reached his graduation ceremony.

On the day of graduation, my brother was smiling happily.

It was my first time seeing my brother smile like a sunflower.

"Lye, thank you."

"Brother, Why are thanking me all of a sudden?"

"Thanks to you, I didn't give up. The reason I graduated safely was all because of you. So thank you."

"Oh my. My brother, you're so cute. But what if you go to middle school and have to be alone? Are you okay without me?"

"Hum. It may be difficult, but I will try to change. I will change so that I don't worry my mom, my sister, and you."

My brother was trying to stand on his own two legs. To me, my brother felt like a caterpillar was turning into a butterfly.

"Yes, brother. I will support you!"

I took a commemorative photo holding my brother's hand tightly like I always did. My mother, holding her camera, was in tears.

My older brother, who became a middle school student, really changed. He started eating a lot, and his height and size grew. He exercised every day, running or doing push-ups and sit-ups.

Above all, he cured his stutter when she started practicing scripts with my mom.

Although he was still very nervous when receiving a lot of attention or talking to strangers, like when giving a presentation, it was a really big improvement for my brother.

After seeing my brother's growth and his desire to change himself, I thought that he would be okay even though there was no Amara or me in middle school.