‘Ah, it’s acting up again.’
At that moment, I was staring at the camera when my stomach started churning and dizziness came over me, so I leaned against the window and closed my eyes. And as I let my body sway with the car’s movement, after a while the taxi seemed to have arrived at its destination and stopped.
However, the car just stopped in front of the alley without going in. The taxi driver said with a troubled face.
“Whew, this is an alley so it’ll be hard to get out?”
“Then it’s fine if you drop me off here.”
Once inside the alley, there was a way to get out through another road, but my stomach was too upset anyway and I was dizzy, so it seemed better to get out of the car.
I hastily paid the taxi driver and got out of the taxi. As I staggered while getting out, the driver looked at me with a worried face, but I smiled even brighter.
“Take care!”
Tak-
Looking at the receding taxi’s rear, I pulled my hood all the way over and moved my steps while falling into thought. There’s a live broadcast tomorrow so should I sleep early today? But I also want to watch the music video release at midnight.
“……Will I even be able to fall asleep?”
These days at night, even when I fall asleep, it doesn’t feel like I’m sleeping. When I dream, I seem to wander in endless sadness before opening my eyes. Still, I dozed off a bit at the shop, so I think I can manage even if I don’t sleep much this time……
Thinking such thoughts, I trudged toward the dorm, and there was a store at the corner. Seeing a full-length mirror with advertisements on one side, I slowly approached and gazed at the face revealed between the dim lights.
Something I’ve been feeling lately is that Ka Jerim’s face no longer feels unfamiliar. Rather, the face from when I was Cha Hohyeon feels strange, and it feels like it’s not my face. I’ve only lived as Ka Jerim for a few months, yet it’s strange that Cha Hohyeon, who I lived as for over 20 years, is becoming faint in my memory.
But I guess I have to live as Ka Jerim now.
It’s natural, but every time I realize this, I can’t erase the bitter feeling.
“Ha, it’s cold.”
The cold that hadn’t been felt at all suddenly came rushing in. I forcibly tore my gaze from the mirror and quickened my steps toward the dorm.
Then, a car came in beside the dorm building and stopped a little distance away from me. I frowned at the car’s lights, then realized that it wasn’t an unfamiliar car and narrowed my eyes.
“Hm?”
That car, I’ve seen it a lot somewhere. For instance, the one I rode in a few days ago……
“……Like Yoon hyung’s car.”
But soon I smiled self-deprecatingly because it seemed like an absurd thought. How would Yoon hyung know where the dorm is and come here? In any case, I was thinking that I always only have ridiculous thoughts when the car door opened and someone came out of it.
It was Yoon hyung.
At first, I stopped and stared at him blankly, wondering if I had seen wrong, but he was quickly going in front of the dorm when he confirmed my face standing across from him, then suddenly changed direction and started running toward me.
“Sunbae-nim?”
The moment I called Yoon hyung who was suddenly standing right in front of me, hyung stretched out both hands toward me and tightly embraced my neck. Having barely managed to rest my nose on his shoulder, I blinked my eyes then slowly opened my mouth.
‘What’s happening?’
Belatedly coming to my senses, I was startled and pushed, but hyung’s strength was so strong that I couldn’t escape. Rather, unable to overcome hyung’s strength after pushing away, I staggered back and my body tilted.
Still unable to grasp the situation in the darkness, I blinked slowly and stood there blankly with a dazed face. And hyung spoke while embracing me.
“I was scared. Whether it was a side effect of the medicine I was taking, or if it was a mental illness I didn’t know about acting up.”
Yoon hyung took medicine and had a mental illness? That’s not good. With a worried heart, I reflexively grabbed him and tried to ask one by one like before, but slowly loosened the strength in my hands.
‘What am I, for me to worry in my position.’
The current me and him had no relationship. Just an acquaintance, and the situation where I caused trouble was everything between us. The reality where I couldn’t even worry about hyung was too painful.
Hyung, who had been speaking, gasped for breath as if out of breath. Somehow, if I pushed Yoon hyung away now, it seemed like hyung would be pushed away. But……
‘I can’t push him away.’
I didn’t want to escape. I couldn’t understand this situation at all, but this moment of being with hyung felt so good.
Because Yoon hyung’s embrace after so long was warm, I didn’t want to escape.
Truly ridiculously, not knowing my place.
Yoon hyung’s voice was trembling with tension. What is he trying to say? Thinking such thoughts, I stayed quietly in his embrace then closed my eyes.
‘It smells like Yoon hyung.’
No matter how hard things were, he always made sure to wash and wear his clothes, and his appearance of always valuing cleanliness came to mind. This hyung’s fluffy soap smell was so welcome after such a long time, yet I felt like crying.
Right. I don’t know why hyung is being like this, but let’s stay like this just a little longer. After today passes anyway, there won’t be any reason to be held by hyung or to meet him again.
So I closed my eyes tightly as if escaping from reality to hold back the tears that were about to come out and stayed quietly in his embrace, when at Yoon hyung’s next words, I immediately opened my eyes and slowly opened my mouth.
“Hohyeon-ah.”
My name, so familiar and longed for, was called by another person. But the target hyung was calling wasn’t directed at Cha Hohyeon who had already been cremated and disappeared, my body. It was directed at me, currently Ka Jerim, who is alive and breathing, thinking, moving, happy, sad, and able to feel emotions.
As I froze, unable to believe if what I heard was really my name, he gently patted my back and spoke again as if it wasn’t a mistake.
“Cha Hohyeon.”
It felt like time had stopped.
“If I’m going crazy and having this delusion.”
“……”
“Can’t I stay crazy forever?”
I even forgot how to breathe.
* * *
A silence flowed. Ka Jerim replayed in his head several times whether he had properly heard Go Yoon call him Hohyeon. Then, as if he had understood properly, he staggered back with a pale face.
“You seem to be saying something that doesn’t make sense right now.”
Go Yoon quietly looked at him who had escaped from his hands. Ka Jerim was awkwardly pulling up the corners of his mouth to smile while shaking his head. As if this wasn’t right, the more he continued speaking with a trembling voice, the more Go Yoon’s expression became distorted.
“Cha Hohyeon.”
Go Yoon reached out his hand to Ka Jerim, but Ka Jerim kept shaking his head and stepped back, almost falling several times but somehow trying to get away from Go Yoon.
“Cha Hohyeon sunbae-nim passed away. Why are you calling a dead person me?”
“……”
“Why are you looking for someone who’s already dead and gone from this world?”
Seeing Go Yoon’s crumpled shoes as if not properly worn, thin t-shirt and outerwear as if he had quickly run out of the house, hands turned bright red from the cold, and finally Go Yoon’s gaunt face, the more Ka Jerim engraved his appearance in his eyes, the more his heart seemed to collapse.
He wanted to tell Go Yoon.
Why are you wandering looking for me like this, to the point of collapsing and destroying yourself so much? To grieve moderately and quickly dust yourself off and get up – it’s been several months and you’re still like this? He wanted to say that he wished he would please forget him now.
‘The dead should remain dead.’
He had already seen their faces suffering on screen, at his own funeral. Meeting the members again? Of course that’s good. But.
‘What if I disappear again?’
This body wasn’t his own body but Ka Jerim’s body. And since this situation was impossible both common-sense-wise and medically, the problem was not knowing how it would end. Whether he could remain in this body and live until the end, or disappear. That’s why they couldn’t be together even more.
“……Stop looking.”
‘Now forget, and I hope hyung lives happily.’
With such a wish, he closed his eyes tightly and said so. His heart started to ache throb by throb, and his hands trembled the whole time he spoke. For him, who was used to wishing for others’ happiness rather than his own and had lived his whole life that way, the current choice of telling him to stop looking was so painful yet natural.
“What would people think of sunbae-nim like this? Just last time an article came out……”
That day, even though they had just ridden together in a car to move, all kinds of speculative articles appeared. From Go Yoon’s mental illness to hospital sighting stories, all kinds of articles poured out.
But the Go Yoon he met that day didn’t have any mental illness, nor did he turn the car because of trauma. The reason he hurriedly turned the car was because of his companion’s – his own – seizure. Go Yoon spoke well to him, his junior, and wasn’t afraid of people enough to go into a cafe himself.
But the reporters saw what they wanted to see, and the public also judged Go Yoon as they wanted. All kinds of mental illness labels were attached to Go Yoon, and tremendous sympathy poured out saying he needed treatment.
To Ka Jerim’s feelings, those comments felt like hate comments in the name of sympathy. He wasn’t someone who should receive such evaluations, nor someone who should receive such sympathy. Because the person called Go Yoon was dignified and cool, he didn’t want to leave the blemish called ‘Cha Hohyeon’ or the exception called ‘Ka Jerim’ in his life any longer.
However, Go Yoon didn’t care about such things at all and didn’t bend his will.
“Other people will look at me like this and say I’ve finally gone crazy, disparage and ridicule me. I’ll probably be completely ruined under their evaluations. Honestly, I might not be able to endure it.”
“……”
“But still, I will look for you.”
Go Yoon’s voice was so resolute it couldn’t be stopped. Hearing those words, Ka Jerim closed his eyes tightly.
Please. He hoped he wouldn’t cause any more trouble.
