Chapter 1
The morning air was biting cold today.
The winters back home—where I was born and raised—were colder than this, sharper somehow. But it had been almost twenty years since I’d returned, and I could no longer remember if it had really been that harsh.
I’d gotten up early to buy bread, but when I came back, the heating clearly wasn’t working. Cold crept up from the soles of my feet, making me shiver.
My old place was never this cold. This apartment—with its absurdly high rent despite being old and crumbling everywhere—had the atmosphere of a prison.
I set my keys and the bread on the table, then grabbed the book I’d been reading yesterday before sitting back down.
Most people would have taken out butter, jam, or salami for breakfast. But I finished my meal the way I always did: stuffing the dry, plain bread into my mouth.
I was so absorbed in my book that I didn’t hear anything else until a familiar sound rang out.
Ding-dong—
I hadn’t lived here long, so I thought it might be the building manager or a neighbor. I opened the door slightly, but no one was there. The bell must have been rung from the front gate rather than my door. I picked up the intercom.
“Who is it?”
“……”
A prank?
Or had they already left because I’d taken too long to check?
It was still seven in the morning. Whoever was playing pranks this early seemed to be living quite a carefree life.
I asked a few more times, but there was no response. I was frowning, about to hang up, when I suddenly heard something through the receiver.
Bang bang bang!
The sound startled me—like someone striking the doorknob hard with a hammer. I froze in place.
I thought about going downstairs to check, but with noise that loud, the other neighbors would probably investigate too. I put down the intercom and sat back at the table.
Ding-dong, ding-dong—
The bell rang again.
“……”
I blinked a few times, then quietly slipped off my slippers and took out the gun I’d hidden under the table.
Concealing it behind my back, I approached the door carefully.
The anxiety that had troubled me until recently seemed to be returning. I swallowed once, my throat dry.
This old apartment didn’t even have a peephole.
I kept my presence as hidden as possible, standing far from the door.
“Who is it?”
“……”
Still no answer.
I asked one last time.
“Who’s there?”
“…It’s me.”
A familiar voice.
A slightly stiff French accent. Calm, as always.
Yet I remembered how his voice would stiffen just slightly when he called my name. I briefly considered whether to open the door or stay silent, but I didn’t have the strength to refuse him.
“…It’s been a while, Usang.”
“Yes. It’s been a while. May I come in?”
“Of course.”
Usang. Yoon Usang.
The person I’d met in Paris. The one who’d always troubled my thoughts. Just last night, I’d dreamed of him and encountered his phantom.
Maybe I was still dreaming. I knew that couldn’t be true, but I couldn’t help wondering. I tried to push away the absurd thought and observed him.
He’d lost weight since I’d last seen him, and there were faint dark circles under his eyes.
He must have noticed me looking because he smiled slightly.
He looked exhausted.
Is he alright? Concerned, I swallowed. Then I looked down and noticed something out of place.
A metal hammer.
Puzzled by this incongruous object in his hand, I raised my head again. Usang was smiling with his eyes curved, as if nothing was wrong. As if telling me not to ask.
A metal hammer. Blood-stained knuckles. Rough-looking fingers.
Then I remembered the small breaking sound I’d heard through the intercom downstairs, and I could only blink at him.
“I’m a bit tired. May I sit on the sofa?”
“…Of course. Would you like some tea?”
“Yes. Something with caffeine, if you have it.”
“Alright.”
At his request, I filled the kettle and took a black tea bag from the cupboard.
As I moved quickly to prepare the tea, questions began to grow in my mind.
How did Usang find me? Why? By what method?
I had no idea.
When I’d investigated his background, he was truly just an ordinary dancer.
Everything I’d seen of him was real. That wasn’t a lie. Or had they hired an ordinary dancer?
Maybe the feelings he’d had for me were all lies.
Could that be true?
No. It couldn’t be. That time couldn’t have been a lie.
And even if Usang had come to kill me, I wouldn’t think of resisting.
That’s what Usang meant to me.
I heard a small movement behind me. I deliberately kept myself busy, trying not to be conscious of his presence.
I took out jam and butter from the nearly empty refrigerator and poured water into the teacup.
Then I stopped moving as I felt warmth from behind me, waiting for the temperature he would share.
As naturally as if it were meant to be, I could feel my heart racing again with Usang’s arms and chest embracing my back.
He rested his face casually against my back.
“…Teo. Your heart is beating fast. Ah, would you prefer if I called you Ishen?”
“…How did you know that name?”
Ishen.
My birth name from childhood. But it had been so long since anyone had called me by it that I couldn’t even remember. I no longer remembered the days when I was called that.
So although it was my birth name, it was also one of the most unfamiliar names to me. Of course, “Teo”—the name I’d given him—wasn’t a name I’d used for very long either.
I liked whatever name he called me. It didn’t matter if it was Teo or Ishen, or even something else entirely, as long as he was the one saying it.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t come to harm you, Teo. I just paid some money to buy your information. I wanted to be with you.”
“……”
“Let’s stay like this for a moment.”
At those words, I closed my mouth and quietly put down the spoon I was holding.
Fortunately, my racing heart began to quiet down again. Whether he knew this or not, he pressed his body even closer to my back.
“Usang, I’m sorry. I can’t be with you. If you’ve looked into it, you know I’m not someone who can hold his head up. Actually, you’ve known that from before.”
“That doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if you kill people or buy and sell them.”
Just stay by my side.
Usang muttered quietly.
I couldn’t say anything.
Had I ruined him? But I couldn’t refuse Usang. Perhaps it was the same for him.
Neither of us had ever received affection from anyone, and when we met each other under those circumstances, we couldn’t help but be special to one another.
But thinking about it now, our approach was wrong.
If I’d been able to maintain boundaries then, if Usang had recognized and corrected my shortcomings, we wouldn’t have been driven to this point.
“Teo, if you can’t quit your work because of money, I’ll give you money. I spent a lot finding you, but I’m a fairly famous dancer, you know. I can earn it back quickly after a few tours.”
Usang turned me around and pleaded with an anxious expression.
With confused emotions.
It was an expression I hadn’t often seen on him. The proud genius dancer Yoon Usang wasn’t there anymore.
Whenever I saw that expression on his face, suffocation and pain washed over me all at once, as if a thorn were stuck in my throat.
These emotions were unfamiliar to me.
I’d never had anything precious, and I’d never disliked that fact. Seeing how painful this was, I thought it would have been better if I hadn’t created something precious in the first place.
Regret always came back to me.
“That’s not it. Money and material things aren’t important to me. I just live according to what’s been determined for me. I neither like nor dislike this job. I’m just—I’m just living that way. And… I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’re necessary in my life. That’s why I left you, and I have no regrets.”
After stringing together these harsh words, I was about to tell him to leave, but somehow the words wouldn’t come out.
I knew it too. The truth was, I didn’t want to let him go. Besides, this was the first time I’d spoken harshly to Usang.
Guilt I’d never felt before began to fill my body. But I tried hard not to say I was sorry.
Biting the inside of my mouth firmly, I looked at his face. His anxious eyes looked at my lips.
“You don’t need me…? Then, what should I do to make you stay by my side? I’ll provide everything. And then, and then if you get tired of it, at that time…”
Usang couldn’t finish his sentence. He was lost. I was about to reach out my hand because it pained me, but I stopped.
I had no choice.
He stepped away from me and stumbled. I swallowed the bitterness at the loss of his warmth. His anxious footsteps haunted me.
Usang slowly picked up the hammer he’d put down next to the sofa and stood in place blankly.
I felt uneasy. As I tried to approach him, he attempted to strike his own head with the thick hammer.
Bang!
Startled, I barely managed to stop him. But I could hear the sound of something breaking in my ears.
I hugged him tightly and threw the hammer he was holding into the corner of the room. His palms were bleeding from how hard he’d been gripping it. I could feel him trembling.
When I looked up, I saw Usang crying.
I thought I was the only one who’d left that place in silence and was immersed in sadness.
But the fact that Usang had been thinking of me too seemed to revive sensations I’d forgotten.
The breaking sound came from him.
He and I were crumbling so easily for the sin of trying to possess something we’d never even dared to desire. I thought we should never have met in the first place. But I couldn’t turn away from his brilliance.
Even if I went back to that place many times, I would surely have followed him with my eyes.
And, perhaps, I would have acted the same way I did then.
