Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

“This one,” Dad said, pointing to the photograph of the furious bald infant, “is you. About three hours old. You screamed for the first two hours straight, and then you stopped and looked at us like we were the ones who should be apologizing.”

“That seems correct,” I said.

He laughed. It was a small sound, surprised out of him. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

He moved to another photograph. A woman with white hair and a face like a crumpled paper bag, sitting in a chair, holding a baby that was clearly the human Sera.

“This is your grandmother. My mother. She called you a ‘very serious baby’ and predicted you would grow up to be either a CEO or a dictator.”

“Which did I become?”

“A scholarship student at Korea University, which she said was ‘close enough.’” He smiled. “She passed away two years ago. She would have loved to see you now.”

I looked at the photograph. The crumpled face. The serious baby. The hands that held her like she was something precious.

“What is a grandmother?” I asked.

Dad’s smile flickered. “It’s… your parent’s parent. Your mother’s mother is your grandmother. My mother was your grandmother too. They’re the ones who spoil you and feed you too much and tell you stories about when your parents were young and embarrassing.”

“I don’t remember any of that.”

“I know.” His voice was soft. “I know you don’t.”

He moved along the wall, pointing to more photographs. Mina’s first day of school. A family trip to a place called Busan where the human Sera had apparently refused to get in the water because it was “too salty.” A birthday party with a cake that had too many candles and a girl in the centre who was trying very hard not to laugh while her family sang at her.

“That’s you at sixteen,” Dad said, pointing to a photograph of the human Sera in a graduation gown, holding a certificate, her smile so wide it looked like it might split her face. “You got into the advanced arts program. You cried when you found out. Happy tears. Your mother cried too. I cried. We all cried. It was a whole thing.”

“You cried because of a paper?”

“Because our daughter was exceptional. Because she worked so hard and it paid off. Because—” He stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. “Because that’s what parents do. They cry when their children succeed. And that paper which we called certificate is a gateway to many opportunities, which we are so proud of you”

I stared at the photograph. The human Sera’s face was bright with joy. Her friends were gathered around her, their arms linked, their smiles just as wide. She looked happy. She looked loved.

I had never looked like that.

Not once in my entire existence had I ever smiled at anything the way this girl smiled at her friends, her family, her life.

And she was gone.

This body that I wore—it had belonged to someone. Someone who climbed out windows to go to that place which I now know is called concerts, I still need to know what that means. Someone who caught creatures bigger than her torso. Who cried happy tears when she got into a somewhere she wanted. Who had parents who loved her and a sister who drew her picture and left her ramen with notes that said EAT, WEIRDO.

And now that someone was—

“What happened to her?” I asked.

Dad’s hand paused on the next frame. “What?”

“The girl in these pictures. The one who looks like me. What happened to her?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He turned to look at me, and there was something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. Something heavy. Something that looked like grief, but not quite. Something that looked like hope, but not quite either.

“She’s still here,” he said quietly.

I shook my head. “I’m not her.”

“I know.”

“I don’t remember any of this. I don’t remember the sea creature. I don’t remember having the paper. I don’t remember the grandmother. I don’t remember—” I gestured at the wall, at the dozens of photographs, at the life that was spread out before me like a book written in a language I couldn’t read. “—any of it.”

Dad was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached out and touched the frame of the photograph with the sea creature. “Do you want to see more?”

“What?”

“More pictures. We have albums. Lots of albums. Your mother is… she likes to document things.” A small smile tugged at his mouth. “She has an album just for the first year you were born. Another for your first day of school. Another for—well. She has a lot of albums.”

I looked at him. At his hopeful expression. At the photographs on the wall that told the story of a life that was not mine but was also, somehow, mine now.

“Yes,” I said.

His smile widened. He disappeared into the living room and returned with an armful of thick books, their covers worn, their spines cracked from years of use. He set them on the dining table, and then he kept going back for more, until the table was covered in albums stacked three high.

“Your mother is going to kill me,” he said, slightly breathless. “She wanted to be here for this. She wanted to—” He waved a hand. “But she’s not here. And you’re asking. So… Too bad.”

He opened the first album.

And for the next hour, I learned what it meant to be Sera.

---

The baby albums were the longest. Page after page of a small, bald creature who grew slowly into a child with curious eyes and a stubborn set to her jaw. There was Sera taking her first steps (faceplanting into a couch). Sera eating her first solid food (rice porridge, which she apparently threw at the wall). Sera at a playground, on a swing, her face a mixture of terror and exhilaration that Dad said was “the exact expression she still makes on roller coasters.”

“This is you at four,” Dad said, pointing to a photograph of a small girl in a yellow raincoat, standing in a puddle that went up to her knees, her arms spread wide, her mouth open in a scream of pure joy. “You loved the rain. You used to beg your mother to let you go outside when it stormed.”

“I like the rain,” I said, surprised by my own words.

Dad looked at me. “You remember?”

I considered the question. Did I remember? Not the raincoat. Not the puddle. But the feeling—the wild, untamed joy of water falling from the sky, of being small and wet and completely free—that feeling was somewhere in this body. Buried. But there.

“No,” I said. “But I like it anyway.”

Dad nodded slowly. He turned the page.

The school years were next. Sera in a uniform, which I know what is called, was too big for her. Sera at a science fair with a volcano that had apparently “erupted too enthusiastically” and stained the ceiling. Sera with a group of friends at what looked like a birthday party, all of them with cake on their faces, all of them laughing.

“That’s Jiyoung and Haejin,” Dad said, pointing to two girls who appeared in photograph after photograph. “Your best friends since middle school. They’ve been calling every day to check on you. Your mother has been telling them you’re resting.”

“I have friends?”

“You have friends. Good ones. The kind who shows up with soup when you’re sick and fight with you about everything and would probably commit small crimes for you if you asked nicely.”

I stared at the faces. Two girls, their arms linked with Sera’s, their smiles bright. They looked at the human Sera like she was someone worth looking at.

“I don’t remember them,” I said.

“I know.” Dad’s voice was steady. “But they remember you.”

The awards came next, which I now know what those papers and other things are called. Certificates and trophies and photographs of Sera standing on stages, holding things, looking proud. Art awards. Writing awards. A scholarship certificate that was framed separately, with a note attached in handwriting I recognized as Mum’s: Our daughter, the scholar.

“You worked very hard for this,” Dad said, touching the frame. “Your mother and I—we didn’t have much when you were growing up. The restaurant was new. Money was tight. But you never complained. You studied. You worked. You got yourself into Korea University on your own merit.” He looked at me, and his eyes were bright. “We were so proud of you. We are so proud of you.”

I didn’t know what to say.

In the High Heavens, pride was a sin. A weakness. A crack in the armour of celestial perfection that could be exploited. Angels didn’t speak of pride. Demons sneered at it. And I—I had never been proud of anything. I had simply been. Existing was not an accomplishment. Power was not a virtue.

But these humans—these strange, fragile, ridiculous humans—they had taken this small creature and fed her and clothed her and celebrated her. They had saved her first steps in photographs. They had kept her awards. They had loved her.

And now they were looking at me—a stranger in their daughter’s body—with the same eyes. The same hope. The same fierce, inexplicable love.

“You’re doing it again,” Dad said.

“Doing what?”

“Staring.” He smiled, but it was a watery smile. “You used to do that when you were little. Just… stare at things. Your mother said you were processing. I said you were plotting.”

“Which was correct?”

“Both, probably.” Dad answered. Which I nodded in agreement.

I looked back at the photographs. The human Sera’s face. My face. A life I didn’t remember living.

“Tell me about the creature called fish,” I said.

Dad laughed. It was a real laugh, warm and surprised. “Oh, that. That was last year. We went camping in this island called Jeju. You and Mina were supposed to be fishing with me, but you both got bored after twenty minutes. Then, somehow, while I was making lunch, you caught that monster. We still don’t know how. Mina thinks you cheated.”

“How does one cheat at fishing?”

“That’s what I said!” He was grinning now. “But Mina was convinced you’d bought it somewhere and pretended to catch it. She made you hold it up for that picture so she could ‘document the evidence.’”

I looked at the photograph again. The human Sera’s grin was triumphant. Defiant. The look of someone who had just done something impossible and was daring the world to question it.

“I like her,” I said.

Dad’s grin softened. “Yeah. She’s pretty great.”