# Chapter 66
I got off the bus and looked around. Perhaps because the weather was good, the area was packed with tourists. I wasn’t used to the unfamiliar scenery and atmosphere.
It was hard to believe I had been locked away for so long with such a bustling, beautiful place nearby. But feeling the warm air and sunshine, it didn’t feel completely unfamiliar either.
It had only been about 4 years since I left this place.
But thinking about it, 4 years wasn’t that short a time. Considering everything I had experienced during that time.
As I was lost in thought, someone pulled on my sleeve. It was a street vendor trying to force me to buy something.
“No, thank you.”
“Oh, you’re French?”
“Yes.”
My awkward appearance and strange tension must have made me look like a foreigner. It wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t bother correcting him.
The man persistently followed me, trying to push his goods, but perhaps because the weather was good, I didn’t feel particularly annoyed.
To go to where I used to live, I shook off the vendor, went out to the road, and hailed a passing taxi. Greeting the driver, I mentioned the name of the city near where I used to live.
“It will take quite a long time to get there. Is that okay?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
“It’s an hour by taxi alone? You might be better off renting a car…”
“Don’t worry about the fare.”
The driver sighed deeply at my insistence on taking a taxi for a journey that would last an hour, then reluctantly drove along the road.
Through the radio the driver had on, French naturally flowed. It was different from Berlin, where unintelligible German had flowed. That fact was giving me a small sense of relief.
Through the window, I saw the sea again. Though there was no way the sound of waves could reach inside the car, I listened to the faint sound that seemed to reach me.
Though I was clearly in a situation where I was being pursued, at this moment, I didn’t care either way.
“There’s nothing much around there… What are you going there for?”
“It’s my hometown.”
“Ah, I see.”
With that small lie, I closed my eyes and tried to clear away the thoughts that were welling up for no reason.
There was no time to be filled with any emotions.
***
After getting off the taxi and walking for about 2 hours, I could finally see the house where I used to live.
Though the sky was still clear, the air around was cold because of the tall trees. After looking around for a while, I walked toward the house and noticed that one of the windows was broken.
“Why…”
Looking at it now, I realized I had left without closing the shutters when I left the house. I hadn’t done so because I never thought anyone would come to this area.
Yet there were traces of someone’s presence here. If my colleagues had come, they wouldn’t have left such amateurish signs of intrusion.
It must have been the work of a thief scouting the area.
Even in this place, which I thought no one would ever visit, someone had left their mark. In the end, it seemed that trying to hide and conceal oneself had little meaning.
I took out the key I had wedged between the door frame and opened the door.
“I’m back.”
And with a small murmur, I entered the house.
Despite it being summer, this place was still cold. For someone like me who had lived in cold places, this temperature would have been considered warm.
That’s what I thought back then.
I entered the house with my muddy shoes and dusted off the old dust covering the sofa. I had expected the house to be in shambles, but it was more intact than I thought.
Perhaps they thought there was nothing worth taking and just left. My nose tickled from the dust that filled the air.
After sitting for a while, I went into the room where I used to stay. The old door creaked as it opened.
Before me were a bed, a desk, a chair, and several bookshelves. That was all.
‘Was this place always this spacious?’
The room, with few items and filled mostly with books, looked lonely. I couldn’t remember what I was thinking when I lived here.
I didn’t feel like I was alive. Naturally, I thought everyone felt the same.
After looking around for a long time, I climbed onto the bed with my shoes still on. The old mattress made an uneasy sound.
As I blankly stared at the ceiling, I felt empty and suffocated. I couldn’t just keep swallowing my breath and dying in this vast space.
Now I couldn’t go back to my previous life.
I got up and headed to Hund’s room. Thinking about it, I had never entered that room before. He had told me not to enter, and I had never disobeyed.
After hesitating for a long time, I cautiously went inside.
Creeeeak-
Like my room, his only had a bed, desk, and bookshelf. After his death, I buried his body in front of the house, and I never organized his belongings after that.
I had expected a more complex scene, but for some reason, I felt drained.
I approached the bookshelf to see what books were there, and noticed a collection of similar-looking books tucked in one corner. I reached out and pulled one out.
A book with no title. It seemed like a diary.
In all my life, I had never once thought about what he was thinking. I just assumed he would be there.
‘We were always like that.’
I had always just existed here, so I thought he would too. But as soon as I read the contents, I knew that wasn’t the case.
“Acting like it was nothing…”
Hund seemed to be regretting his life. I couldn’t believe that word was written in his life. I was about to read more, but when I discovered my name written there, I immediately closed the diary.
My heart was racing wildly.
I didn’t want to know what he thought of me. He needed to remain in my mind as a ruthless person.
It seemed that while he acted as if trampling on others was natural behavior, inwardly he wanted to give up everything.
After standing still for a while, I put the diary back on the bookshelf.
This was deception. He had arbitrarily turned my life upside down, and in the end, he himself wanted to escape from life.
But it was too late to regret. I had grown up hopelessly broken, and he had already reached the end to turn back time.
‘Yes, if it were me, I would certainly regret…’
The air that had felt cold now froze me. My head hurt.
I thumped my suffocating chest a few times with my hand and moved again. My insides twisted with uncertainty.
“Still…”
This wasn’t my final destination. I know. That for me, this place was simply the past. I was different from Hund. I wouldn’t die alone and lonely like him.
I shook off the thoughts trying to capture me and gathered what I needed. I looked around to see if there were any old items I might need, but nothing seemed worth taking.
It made sense. The owner of this house was still Hund. Even if he had generously sent me to Paris and handed over the remaining assets to me, this house could never be mine.
I went outside and looked at the old car that had been stuffed in the garage for a long time. It seemed I would have to go back to Berlin with this.
An inexplicable emotion kept trying to tie me down, but I left the house without any lingering attachment. I wanted to burn the house to leave no trace, but in the end, I couldn’t do it.
‘I’ll come back with Woosang someday… to show him that I lived here.’
He would surely like it. It might be because it’s a trace of my past, or because it’s a disconnected space untouched by any gaze.
Leaving a place for us to return like this wasn’t a bad choice.
I grabbed the now unfamiliar steering wheel and recalled my destination. It would take about 10 hours to reach Berlin. I would prefer to travel by other means, but that wasn’t possible.
After about an hour, the sea appeared before my eyes. Now, as the sunset approached, the sea was dyed red.
If Woosang and I stood there, would our faces also be dyed red? I tried to imagine us in my mind.
But perhaps because of the emotions crowding in, nothing was easily imagined. Instead of Woosang’s face smiling with a reddened face, all that came to mind was a cold expression, silently walking into the sea with a chilly demeanor.
The only way to erase my current emotions was to move forward. As always, I felt like I would eventually reach some answer.
***
“What’s wrong?”
“…I got a message from Teo.”
“Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
I shook my head at Bel’s question.
As I checked the message again, it said that Teo wouldn’t be in contact for a while and that it would be better for me to return to Paris.
I knew he had been planning something without my knowledge recently. It was probably about the people who had been persistently following him.
I was upset that he left without saying anything to me, but it was also something I had expected.
He had been noticeably anxious lately. He was tormented by some emotion I couldn’t resolve, and he tried not to show it.
We were different people, so we couldn’t easily solve each other’s problems. If he didn’t speak about it, I couldn’t interfere arbitrarily.
I called Teo’s number, but his phone was turned off.
Although he said it would be better to return to Paris, I still had practice left. Now it was really time for the performance.
If I canceled the performance even one more time here, it might become difficult to continue activities in Europe.
“Teo says he’s going back to Paris first.”
“What? He’s just leaving without watching the performance?”
“Yes. He contacted me saying there was an urgent matter.”
“Well, I’m sure you two know what you’re doing.”
Bel muttered as if she didn’t want to worry about it. I would like to be able to ignore it nonchalantly like her, but I knew I couldn’t.
We had already come to occupy too large a part of each other. So I could only trust him and wait.
After this performance ends, and once Teo’s business is somewhat concluded, it might be good to take a long trip to the sea as Bel suggested.
Surely, we, having become stronger, would not make the same naive mistakes as before.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
She gave me a suspicious look. I pretended not to notice and decided to focus on what needed to be done.
