# Chapter 33
“That is….”
I couldn’t relax my tense body, as if he had read my inner thoughts. He seemed to know everything. The fact that I wanted to abandon him and leave, and also that I didn’t want to leave but had prepared myself to do so—all of it.
Tears flowed again for no reason. It was an inexplicable anxiety. I wanted him to understand me, but right now, I wished he would look away.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know? I could tell everything.”
A hollow laugh escaped from his lips.
“I’ve always known I could be abandoned at any moment. Do you know how miserable that makes me? So I was afraid that if we were apart even for a moment, you would disappear without a trace, I….”
“……”
At that moment, he slightly pulled away from me and tried to move away from his seat. His steps were unsteady. Woosang, limping slightly as he moved forward, was more desperate than anyone else in the world.
In this moment, we were people who had nothing. As I raised my head to follow him, I saw sharp eyes looking at me, frightening in their intensity.
I couldn’t move, afraid that something might explode. It felt like I couldn’t breathe. Before long, he knocked me over and climbed heavily on top of me.
I looked into Woosang’s eyes. The eyes that always shined were no longer there. Only unfocused pupils were staring at me.
He scared me.
“…Woosang.”
“Well then, would you like to die with me?”
He smiled as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t answer.
“Since you threw me away like trash but won’t let me die…. Wouldn’t it be better if we died together?”
“…I.”
“I don’t even remember what kind of person I was before this. So, say you’ll do it.”
He suddenly grabbed my neck. His hands were trembling madly, but the gradually increasing grip strength was impossible to ignore.
“Let, let go…”
“Be quiet.”
I coughed and sputtered, but his expressionless face only approached more terrifyingly. I was starting to suffocate. I might really die.
I struggled with all my might, raising my arms to grab Woosang’s arms. But for some reason, he didn’t budge.
‘If I die, who will remain here?’
That thought suddenly occurred to me.
It would be Woosang looking down at my corpse. Him, looking down at my cold, lifeless body.
I recalled the past. Me, gasping at a dead Asian man covered in blood, mistaking him for Woosang. Now I understood why that man seemed familiar. Through him, I had foreseen my own future.
“Say you want to live!”
Woosang screamed. What would change if I did? Woosang hadn’t clearly told me whether he wanted me dead or alive.
I wanted to ask why no one would give me the answer.
Somehow, I didn’t care anymore.
No one had ever shown me that affection existed in this world. And the person who did show me was now trying to kill me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
At that moment, looking into Woosang’s unfocused eyes, one worry surfaced.
I was born without knowing, but he wasn’t. So I couldn’t leave him like this.
Even if I ended up ruined, I didn’t want to leave behind the fact that I had broken him. My vision blurred from lack of oxygen, but I somehow struggled to push Woosang off. This couldn’t end like this. If it did, my trace would remain here even after death.
I lifted my leg and kicked his side forcefully. It was hard to muster strength when all my energy had drained, and my body wouldn’t listen. Woosang didn’t fall off easily, but he started to groan in pain.
“Cough, haa….”
His coughing sound stuck strongly in my ears. Woosang, who at first hadn’t budged at all, seemed to tire from my resistance and loosened his grip with a strange expression.
Not missing that opportunity, I pushed him off hard enough to make a loud sound.
“Haa, haa…”
Our rough breathing filled the room. The tension still hadn’t disappeared. If Woosang pounced on me again, I would be helpless.
‘No. I can’t lose consciousness now.’
For a while, I breathed rapidly to hold onto my consciousness and strained my eyes. Seeing the wetness around my mouth, I must have drooled without realizing it.
“…Teo.”
It was Woosang’s voice. A tired voice was calling me. Though my vision was blurry, I crawled bit by bit and slumped down beside him. I composed myself and answered.
“…Yes.”
“Wake me up a little later. I’m too… tired…”
He mumbled in a tearful voice, curling his body and hugging himself.
“I will. …I will.”
My throat hurt too much to speak at length. Tears poured down without drying. I felt chills throughout my body, perhaps from dehydration.
Woosang seemed to be experiencing the same, his trembling shoulders looking pitiful. His hunched figure looked like a child thrown out into the world.
He looked like someone too afraid, cold, and scared to do anything. Just like my reflection in the mirror.
We were miserably stuck there, in the same posture, as if we had always been one.
***
In the neighborhood where I lived as a child, it snowed even at the end of April. Having no proper clothes, I always played alone in front of the house in the same outfit. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t even know how to go.
Occasionally, “Hund” took care of me instead, and that’s how the concept of family became meaningless to me.
The form of affection I had was at most the bread placed on the table. So I had no choice but to be blindly devoted to anyone who gave me happiness.
But what I feel for Woosang isn’t simply blind devotion to the first affection I’ve received.
I wanted to know exactly what that unclear thing was. I wanted to fully embrace the word “affection.”
‘That’s all I want.’
I blinked and looked around. I must have fallen asleep for a moment. Looking around, I could see Woosang still asleep amid the mess of the house.
“…Woosang.”
I called him softly, but there was no answer. Carefully, I reached out to embrace him, laid him on the bed, then dragged myself to the kitchen and drank a glass of water.
The chill that had lingered throughout my body somewhat subsided, but I still didn’t have the strength to stand.
Staggering into the living room to sit on the sofa, I noticed the sofa that had been knocked over and the table with one leg collapsed from a thrown hammer.
The mess looked unfamiliar.
‘I should clean up the house first…’
I had no idea where to start. It seemed pointless to try to think with a brain that wasn’t functioning.
I turned my head to look at the room where Woosang was sleeping. I went back into that silent room. I stood beside him carefully, trying not to make footsteps that might wake him.
“…I thought you would forget someone like me. I thought I wouldn’t mean much to you.”
I muttered as if talking to myself, and slowly lay down beside him. I couldn’t bear to see his deeply furrowed expression.
‘Still, I should try to start over.’
Just as I had thought love and affection only existed in books, I also thought that every incident would naturally have an easy solution. But that wasn’t the case at all.
Life was more complicated than I thought, and it constantly reminded us that we were alive.
Unable to hold my drooping eyelids, I fell asleep again, feeling Woosang’s breath faintly touching my cheek.
***
I woke up hungry. I didn’t know how long I had slept, but it seemed quite some time had passed.
“The time….”
Checking, fortunately, only an hour or two had passed. Was that fortunate? Seeing that Woosang wasn’t awake, it was.
I needed to clean the house, but my hungry stomach was screaming.
Wondering if there was any leftover bread from breakfast, I went out, but the bread I had placed on the plate had disappeared.
“…?”
Looking around carefully, I found it turned over under the table. No matter how hungry I was, I couldn’t eat that.
I thought about going out briefly, but if Woosang woke up during that time, he would surely look for me.
“Woosang, are you awake?”
I approached him carefully and asked, but still there was no answer.
‘If I’m not here, he’ll definitely look for me.’
I didn’t want to give him that miserable feeling ever again. So going out wasn’t an option.
While I was wondering what to do, I remembered that the bakery in front of the house also took delivery orders.
The bakery owner, with whom I had become acquainted, had handed me a business card and said:
‘Call me when you need delivery. If it’s around here, I’ll just bring it over.’
‘Is that okay?’
‘It’s not for other customers, but I’ll make an exception for you.’
Remembering this, I found the business card tucked between notebook pages.
I wasn’t used to receiving this kind of favor, but the owner seemed clearly like a good person. This business card also felt like a kind of favor to me.
As I tried to make the call, another problem arose. I couldn’t find my phone. The new phone I had bought was surely somewhere with its power off, barely used. I had no choice but to carefully take the phone from Woosang’s pocket.
“Did it need a password?”
Having never seen the inside of Woosang’s phone, I couldn’t remember if it was locked or not.
As I turned on the screen and checked, the phone was locked with a fingerprint method. Wondering if such a method existed, I stared at it for a while, then quietly approached the bedroom where Woosang was and rubbed his finger on the screen.
Zing-
With a message saying it was wrong, the phone vibrated, and I panicked, worried that Woosang might wake up, but fortunately, he didn’t seem to feel the vibration.
After several failed attempts, I finally found the correct finger to unlock it, and the background was set to an old photo of me and Woosang.
Knowing that Woosang didn’t usually take photos, he rarely asked me to take pictures. Most of the photos we had together were secretly taken by Bel when we met her.
But there was one day, intense with summer light, when Woosang had asked to take a photo together.
I recalled his anxious appearance then. I didn’t know why he had asked with worry at that time. But now I seemed to understand.
In the photo, our strangely tense expressions were captured at a place where the Seine was visible.
‘Yes, there was such a time.’
The last summer was like this—anxious, yet happy.
I knew it was greedy to want to go back to that time. But I couldn’t stop the longing.
