In the third-floor hallway, in front of the closed art room door, Cha Woodan and Cha Jeoh were conversing in low voices.
“What the fuck, why won’t they treat him? If you shove a knife in their face, won’t they obediently comply?”
“If it could be solved like that, the survivors here wouldn’t be suffering headaches over the healers either.”
“Then what do we do? That bastard Lee Gojun, won’t he come to his senses if you smack him in the head?”
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t tempted by Cha Jeoh’s rough remark muttered with sincerity. But Cha Woodan slowly shook his head. Healers were rare, and especially a talent like Lee Gojun who acted blindly devoted to Kim Hayoung would be hard to find elsewhere. So the path of rashly injuring or killing him had to be avoided.
Cha Woodan, swallowing a sigh, turned his body.
“Go check on the student council side. I’ll be next to Hayoung.”
Knowing that meant to just monitor without killing anyone as he pleased, Cha Jeoh frowned as if displeased. Soon he smoothed his expression as if there was no helping it and moved his steps.
Cha Woodan, who had been watching Cha Jeoh’s back moving away across the hallway, also turned his steps. Before long, reaching in front of the art room door, he knocked softly.
“Hayoung-ah.”
But there was no answer in return. Just as Cha Woodan rolled his eyes and looked inside the art room through the long window at the top of the door, it happened.
“…Kim Hayoung.”
The window that had been firmly closed until just before Cha Woodan and Cha Jeoh left the art room was now wide open. And there, Kim Hayoung was precariously leaning his body as if about to jump out the window. The movement of lifting his legs several times as if trying to climb over the window frame, then faltering due to the pain in his bandaged calf, stuck in his vision.
There was nothing more to watch. Cha Woodan roughly threw open the art room door and headed toward the window almost at a run while raising his voice. But his heart burned at that back that didn’t react at all, as if unable to hear.
As if he’d returned to that time when he had quietly stared at Kim Hayoung’s motionless back.
“Kim Hayoung!”
Cha Woodan, approaching close behind Kim Hayoung, covered his eyes and pulled him sharply toward himself. The sensation of the small body hitting his chest didn’t hurt. Rather, it gave him a sense of relief that drove away the creeping fear climbing up his spine.
Cha Woodan wrapped his arms around Kim Hayoung’s waist and pulled him into his embrace once more. His breathing that had become ragged in the meantime, he muttered in an unorganized tone.
“What are you doing?”
With the window open, why was he trying to fall down below?
Naturally, there was no answer in return. In that silence, Cha Woodan, slowly steadying his breathing, sat Kim Hayoung in the chair and moved to close the window. Soon he turned his head and stared at Kim Hayoung with eyes sunken and dyed in subtle emotion.
Kim Hayoung remained in place exactly as Cha Woodan had sat him, without the slightest movement. But that seemed to show that his mind was flying far away to somewhere else rather than originating from trust or stability toward Cha Woodan.
Cha Woodan, silently capturing Kim Hayoung in his vision, approached in front of Kim Hayoung without a sound.
“…Done. You can open your eyes.”
As expected, Kim Hayoung neither startled nor flinched slightly. He calmly lifted his eyelids as if he’d been waiting, and with that gaze unhesitatingly passed over Cha Woodan. Then he stared blankly at the window where he had been hanging as if about to fall.
He couldn’t take his eyes off Kim Hayoung’s profile. His lips the color of ripely edible fruit, his cheeks plump enough despite his thin body, his long eyelashes and the black pupils revealed beneath them. Beautiful—of course he was beautiful. But the reason Cha Woodan couldn’t bring himself to remove his gaze from him wasn’t for that reason.
‘…Why does he look so hazy?’
He was precarious. Like the mermaid in the fairy tale that became sea foam, a strange atmosphere thickly surrounded Kim Hayoung as if he would suddenly vanish at any moment.
Cha Woodan closed his mouth that had been weakly moving and savagely chewed the skin beneath it.
“……”
Perhaps if Kim Hayoung’s leg had been perfectly fine without injury, today he would have lost Kim Hayoung without even a chance to hold him back.
Kim Hayoung had tried several times to cross over the window ledge. In those actions, there was no hesitation from fear, no anxiety worrying about death. There was only the ignorant and reckless goal of stepping through the process, producing results, and reaching the desired destination.
Fortunately, Kim Hayoung couldn’t bear the wound on his calf and didn’t make it beyond the window, but if it had been a normal day without injury, it would have been more than enough time for him to have already jumped out the window before Cha Woodan discovered him.
Then what about other days?
‘When Kim Hayoung recovers from his injury?’
Something like this had happened before too. Hadn’t Kim Hayoung, who was clearly supposed to remain alone in the art room, disappeared without a trace and been discovered in the schoolyard?
‘If he disappears without me even having time to find or catch him?’
From what he’d heard, even Kim Hayoung himself didn’t know why he moved on his own or exactly where he was trying to go so desperately. That meant, in other words, that Kim Hayoung couldn’t control or stop such reckless movement with his own will. Then there was no other solution except for others to force him.
“…Hayoung-ah.”
Without realizing it, he raised his voice and called out to him before his eyes. An eternity-like instant passed, and Kim Hayoung responded softly.
“Yeah.”
It was always like this. Kim Hayoung acted as if he wouldn’t leave even a single drop of trace not only on others but even on the space he stayed in and the world itself. Kim Hayoung himself didn’t let in traces from the outside either. Even Cha Woodan and Cha Jeoh, who had obvious visible differences between them, he still couldn’t manage to memorize even their two names, let alone compare them, so it was as good as saying it all.
Then who could remember Kim Hayoung and notice his existence? Conversely, what on earth in this world was Kim Hayoung himself remembering and facing?
‘As if he lives alone in a different world.’
As if he would abandon and leave this place the moment an opportunity arose.
Before thinking, his hand reached out first. Supporting Kim Hayoung firmly with both arms, he lifted him up. Kim Hayoung’s flustered voice echoed by his ear, so Cha Woodan moved his mouth for a moment and then slowly curved the corners of his eyes.
“Just. I’m moving you to the bed.”
Rather, if he completely shattered his leg or ankle, and blocked Lee Gojun from treating him even after he woke up.
Cha Woodan, feeling Kim Hayoung gripping his shoulder to support his body, turned his steps without hesitation. It was quick to reach the bed placed in the spacious area at the back of the art room. When he lowered Kim Hayoung onto the mattress full of fluffy blankets, there was a low creaking noise.
Kim Hayoung sat leaning against the headboard instead of lying down. However, even after lowering him from his embrace, Cha Woodan didn’t step back. At that, Kim Hayoung blinked lukewarmly and questioningly looked over Cha Woodan who was half covering him.
“Why this time?”
“……”
“Hey, twin.”
He rolled his blank eyes and stared at Kim Hayoung’s calf wrapped in bandages. Then he carefully moved his hand and fiddled with the bandage bearing traces of hardened bloodstains.
Right. If from now on, due to his uncomfortable leg, movement was difficult and he couldn’t leave for somewhere.
“…Cha Woodan.”
Cha Woodan’s hand, which had at some point lightly gripped Kim Hayoung’s thin ankle, flinched and trembled. He froze blankly, wondering if he’d heard wrong, when Kim Hayoung opened his mouth again.
“Cha Woodan, what are you doing right now?”
Cha Woodan. That word seemed to pass through his eardrums once more and coil deep inside his head.
“It hurts because you keep touching it.”
“…Ah.”
Only then did Cha Woodan, pulling his body back, slowly withdraw his touch. But he didn’t leave Kim Hayoung’s side, and still in a state of kneeling by his legs, he only blinked his eyes and raised his palm to cover his mouth.
‘I don’t want to let go.’
It had changed from that time when the apocalypse era had just arrived. Something enormous beyond comparison to the faint, utterly faint wish that if Kim Hayoung was already dead there was nothing to be done, but if he was alive he wanted to meet him once more, had already taken root inside.
No, it hadn’t changed.
‘From the beginning.’
From the moment he first discovered Kim Hayoung in the quiet library, catching his eye even more because he was different, it might have been something with a different texture from simple curiosity.
‘I can’t let go.’
Kim Hayoung must stay by our side. If Kim Hayoung himself insists on leaving this place and standing alone, we too will abandon this place and pry open and force our way into your world.
“Say it again.”
“What?”
“My name, say it again.”
Cha Woodan’s two eyes that had been wandering through the air reached Kim Hayoung, whose flustered expression hadn’t subsided. He, furrowing his brow as if unable to understand, reluctantly made a sound.
“Cha Woodan.”
“Yeah. Why are you calling me?”
“What do you mean why am I calling you? You asked me to say your name.”
The words asking back in displeasure couldn’t be more satisfying. A low laugh burst out from between Cha Woodan’s teeth.
