# Chapter 32
‘Ichen.’
It was the name given to me by my mother, whose face I can’t even remember now. Back then, when I lived with my parents at the edge of a Canadian countryside, they didn’t even call me by my name.
I didn’t know where my parents came from. I still don’t know. Where I came from, where my roots are.
Such things weren’t important. I hadn’t even thought about it.
But if Woosang calls me by that name, am I ‘Teo’ or am I ‘Ichen’?
Since Woosang started calling me ‘Teo,’ I’ve thought of my name as ‘Teo.’ Still, if he were to call me Ichen, I would be fine living with the name Ichen.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t come to harm Teo. I just paid some money to buy your information. I just wanted to be with you, that’s all.”
“Woosang.”
“Just stay like this for a moment.”
At his words, I closed my mouth and quietly put down the spoon I was holding. My rapidly beating heart began to quiet down again.
Whether he knew it or not, he pressed his body closer to me, perhaps wanting to touch my back more.
“I’m sorry. I can’t be with you. If you looked into it, you’d know that I’m not a person who can be respectable. Actually, you’ve known it all along.”
“That’s not very important. I don’t care whether you kill people or buy and sell them.”
Just stay by my side. He murmured softly against my back.
When he was badly hurt, Woosang could have asked about me. But he didn’t ask anything, maintaining that silence.
What was Woosang thinking to keep me by his side? I was afraid he might fear me. Or he might even hate me.
‘How could anyone silence everything with just love and affection?’
I couldn’t understand. Looking back now, our approach was broken.
If I could have maintained boundaries then, if he had recognized my shortcomings and helped me fix them, I wouldn’t have been pushed this far.
I’m not trying to blame anyone. Regret comes when it’s too late.
We were people who couldn’t trust anyone in our lives. Just as I was blindly devoted to him, Woosang might have had similar emotions.
If so, there was only one conclusion.
“Teo, if you can’t stop because of money, I’ll give it to you. I’ve spent a lot looking for you, but I’m a fairly famous dancer. I can earn it back quickly after a few tours.”
Woosang turned me around and clung to me with an anxious expression.
An anxious expression. It was one I hadn’t often seen on him.
The genius dancer Yun Woosang, who was more dignified than anyone, wasn’t here. Seeing his constricted expression, suffocation and pain poured out all at once, like a thorn stuck in my throat.
I thought I could live well without him.
But that was all a lie. I didn’t want to let Woosang go.
As if we had been one body, I wanted to reattach my broken, limping body to him, like finding a lost leg.
One could probably live without a leg. But now that I’ve met a part of myself I thought I’d lost forever, I realized that all the emotions I had believed in were false.
But I can’t express these emotions. Suppressing my feelings, I quietly murmured.
“No. Money isn’t that important. I’m just living as predetermined. I neither like this job nor dislike it. I’m just, just living that way. And…, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I need you in my life.”
I tried to tell him to go back, but somehow my mouth wouldn’t move.
I bit the inside of my mouth hard and looked at his face, and his anxious eyes stared at my lips.
“You don’t need me…? Then, then what should I do to make you stay with me? I’ll provide everything. And, and if you get tired, then at that time….”
Woosang couldn’t finish his words and walked away from me with heavy steps. I swallowed bitterness at the vanished warmth.
His anxious footsteps caught my eye.
He slowly picked up the hammer he had put down beside the sofa and stood there blankly. When I tried to approach him, puzzled, he tried to strike his head with the thick hammer.
Bang!
Startled, I barely managed to run and grab his arm. I could stop it just in time, but I thought I heard something breaking in my ears.
“What, what are you doing…!”
My already trembling body seemed to seize the opportunity, bringing anxiety and fear to grip and shake me.
After embracing Woosang tightly, I threw the hammer he was holding hard into the corner of the room. I heard something breaking from somewhere, but it didn’t register at all.
Blood was seeping from Woosang’s palm, showing how much force had been used. I felt trembling. It wasn’t my body, but his.
After staying still for a while out of fear, I slowly raised my head to see Woosang crying.
“Why….”
Seeing him crying silently, with only tears falling, I realized something had gone terribly wrong. I thought I was the only one drowning in sadness after leaving Woosang.
But had Woosang been thinking of me too? Had he been sincerely looking for me without forgetting me?
‘That shouldn’t have happened.’
I felt my eyes growing hot.
I tried to forcibly erase Woosang from within me, to act as if he had never been precious to me. I brainwashed myself that life was always a story of one’s own.
I reached out my hand and caressed the tears flowing down Woosang’s face.
It was incredibly warm.
He and I had tasted affection we had never even coveted, and as punishment for trying to possess it, we were collapsing so easily.
I faced a person who seemed strong but was weaker than anyone. The strong and perfect person I had imagined and created inside was nowhere to be found.
I felt the persistent trembling as I held Woosang tightly. After shedding tears for a while, Woosang bowed his head deeply and suddenly began to resist fiercely.
I was taken aback by Woosang’s struggling and felt like I might fall away. I couldn’t understand where such strength came from in his thin body.
Surprised, I adjusted my hold on his upper body and prayed for his excitement to stop. That was all I could hope for.
“Let go.”
“…No.”
His trembling voice made my body shake as well.
If he left, it would all be over.
I too would someday be able to erase Woosang’s shadow from within me. So there was no way Woosang couldn’t do it. No matter how shaken he was now, it couldn’t be impossible for Woosang to erase such a miserable past.
“Let go, you son of a bitch!”
Woosang’s voice had become highly agitated, and he was looking at me fiercely. My heart seemed to sink at his words. Woosang had never spoken harshly to me before.
No, he had never shown such emotions to anyone.
The intense emotion he was displaying was unfamiliar and frightening.
“Is that, really what you want?”
“Yes…!”
Carefully, I removed my hands from him and took a few steps back to look at him.
I saw Woosang looking utterly pathetic. Tired-looking, he was like my reflection in a mirror.
All of this felt like my fault.
If I had left then, when I first came to know emotions, when I realized I was a living person, perhaps we wouldn’t have been driven this far.
Or if I had left at some unknown time.
Recalling the past, a maddening chill swept over me. I closed my eyes tightly, wishing this was a dream, but nothing changed.
“You, you said you don’t need me. Then don’t worry about me now… Whether I die or not, don’t worry about me and leave me alone!”
He glared at me with bloodshot eyes and muttered as if grinding his teeth. Every word felt like a knife stirring my entire body.
He must clearly know that I can’t give him up.
‘So that’s why he can hurt me like this.’
I wanted to collapse at this thought that wasn’t even funny. What’s even more ridiculous is the fact that I don’t hate him for hurting me. But due to guilt, my body had no strength.
Even though we aren’t perfect people, I hated the fact that it’s possible to make someone miserable with just a few words.
Pain and sadness were still unfamiliar. Though no one was strangling my neck, it felt like someone had put their hand in my throat and was mangling it.
This was clearly a punishment for someone like me who had regarded others’ lives as trivial.
“I, I was wrong… I’m sorry. Really….”
Unable to bear his sharp gaze, I blurted out the words I had been hiding. I wasn’t sure if I was saying the right words, but I wanted to convey at least my feelings.
Like a defeated soldier stripped of his gun, I approached Woosang without any will to fight and slowly leaned against him.
“…Why. Why do you make me the bad person again? As if it’s all my fault.”
I couldn’t understand Woosang’s words as he muttered through gritted teeth. I wanted to raise my hands and embrace him, but I lacked the courage.
He bore the weight of me leaning on him and continued to shed tears.
I too shed tears while receiving his warmth. Actually, I missed this temperature. I had comforted myself that I was fine, and said I could live happily without him, but those were all lies.
I wanted to tell Woosang.
‘I don’t have the confidence to live without you anymore. I’m too tired.’
Just as I didn’t want to see Woosang’s ghost, but wanted to see him just as much. I muttered words I couldn’t say aloud only in my heart.
I wanted proof that we had burrowed deep into each other’s hearts. How wonderful it would be if we could do that.
Why, exactly why we became important to each other, I couldn’t remember clearly.
When I discovered that the feelings I thought were mine alone existed in him too, I couldn’t remember how I felt then.
I missed that time. I want to go back. I wanted to go back again.
“…I.”
At that moment, Woosang dropped his words with a tired voice. Surprised by his voice, I trembled slightly and focused all my attention to hear his words.
“I’ve changed myself a lot for you. And…, I wasn’t uncomfortable with it at all.”
“……”
Hearing this for the first time, I unconsciously tensed up and embraced him tightly. Someone’s heartbeat shook us both.
“Rather, I was happy and pleased because you seemed to fill the void I had. But you always tried to leave me. Even though you liked seeing me smile, I knew you were always thinking about leaving in your head.”
