That night, I had a nightmare.
The black water that now felt familiar filled my vision completely. The thin snow that had been lingering on my fingertips fell silently and sank into the water.
I leaned my upper body slightly and whispered toward the black water.
‘How many more times do I have to come here?’
I’d come back more than ten times. Some days it seemed like I came on my own feet, other days it seemed like I was dragged here. There were times I was calm because I knew it was a dream, and times I was appalled thinking it was real. There were times I threw my body in, times I turned away without throwing it in, and times I was caught by someone without being able to throw it in.
But what mattered was that it wasn’t the end.
So would it be the same this time too?
‘It’s cold…’
It was the last day of that year. I went out into the streets without even a suicide note, praying to be stuck in the dark bottom of this river water and die without a trace. If this was the last choice I could make, I believed without doubt that it was the last benefit allowed to me.
The winter of twenty-five, fallen without seeing the following year.
That bitterly cold death covered with dishonor…
“Don’t go.”
Then, a very small whisper resonated throughout my entire body.
“…Don’t go.”
Arms crossed over each other pulled me into a full embrace. Hot hands and firm arms strangled me and pulled me from water to land.
The body heat pouring down from above my head was vivid, as if not a dream.
“Han Ijae.”
I gasped as if escaping from deep river water. My body trembled as if suffering from extreme cold.
“Ijae-ya.”
Only after being dragged out to reality did I realize the owner of that voice was Seo Nakil. He was embracing me from behind as I lay curled up, pulling hard with strength in his crossed arms.
“Wake up, Han Ijae.”
“…”
“Please.”
I couldn’t answer right away. My chest felt stiff, perhaps from breathing heavily with difficulty. My back was unpleasantly damp with cold sweat.
“I hoped you wouldn’t have it today.”
Seo Nakil said softly with his forehead against my back.
“Because you seemed peaceful all day…”
After a brief silence, I asked in a parched voice.
“Have I had nightmares before?”
“About three times.”
“And you held me back each time.”
“I couldn’t just do nothing.”
“But it’s just a dream…”
“Even though it’s only a dream.”
He put a bit more strength into the arms holding me. Somehow he seemed a bit aggrieved.
“…You don’t know how much you suffer. That’s why you can say that.”
“…”
“Han Ijae-ssi.”
In the deep darkness, only Seo Nakil’s low voice was uniquely clear.
“What do you see in your nightmares?”
I wanted to answer him. Because it felt like he, who held me back and woke me so desperately, also had the right to know.
But at the same time, I couldn’t answer. Because this was something that ‘didn’t happen’ in our timeline.
If I revealed this enormous death that had become nonexistent yet was deeply embedded in my soul, you would most likely think I’d gone mad.
So.
“Just…”
I wanted to keep that shabby ending as my own secret.
“I was cold.”
Before my half-honest answer, Seo Nakil fell silent. He still held me firmly with crossed arms. The rigidly tensed muscles were just like a lifeline.
“A lot of wind blowing, and snow falling. So it was cold and hopeless.”
After hesitating for a moment, I turned to face him. When I flinched, Seo Nakil, who had been putting more strength in his arms, realized I was trying to get closer to him and loosened his hold on me.
My fingertips groping in the air touched Seo Nakil’s face. His forehead and cheeks were burning hot just like mine. He was like someone just pulled out after swimming through deep nightmares like me.
I carefully traced his smooth forehead, straight eyebrows, and eyes made of soft lines. Every time he slowly moved his eyelids, his long eyelashes moved like butterfly wings and tickled my fingers.
We calmed down lying close together like people wanting to shake off the cold.
“What dream do you think I’m having that you tell me not to go?”
Seo Nakil’s hand cupped my face. Unlike me who had been wandering in the air, he came precisely and put my cheek and ear in his large palm, carefully caressing them.
“When you have nightmares, your breathing changes.”
“…”
“At first it gets a bit rough like someone running, then you make groaning sounds as if struggling from being chased. Then at some point it becomes quiet.”
In this hopeless silence, Seo Nakil was confessing that he’d been listening only for my breathing.
“When your thin breath cuts off as if resting reluctantly, as if wanting to let go at any moment. There are times when it seems like you’ll fall into that dream and never come out.”
So that’s why he held me back. That’s what “don’t go” meant. Not just today but last time too, it was this man listening to my breathing while submerged in darkness who had embraced me as if holding me back.
“I’m okay now.”
At my clumsy comfort, Seo Nakil reached out his hand slightly. He rubbed my fatigue-soaked eyes with his thumb and whispered.
“Then sleep a bit more.”
“…”
“I’ll wake you if you have nightmares again.”
Why did those words bring relief? Leaning like this, it felt like that cold from earlier would never come again.
The hand that had been tracing his handsome face slid down slowly. He caught my lost hand and brought it down with his large hand.
The action of putting a bit of strength into the hand then releasing it resembled a beating heart. Every time his hand pulsed, warm warmth was quietly transmitted from him to me.
I fell asleep entrusting my body to Seo Nakil’s body heat. As he wished, and as I wished, the cold dream didn’t appear anymore.
Morning came.
Feeling the pouring sunlight, I opened my eyes. The light illuminating the city brightly lit up the room, but it wasn’t dazzling. It was thanks to the shade Seo Nakil cast.
As soon as I lifted my eyelids, our gazes locked.
“…”
The moment our eyes met, I knew. Seo Nakil had been watching me continuously. From before I wandered through nightmares, all throughout my escape from that deep water and arrival by his side. From when dawn broke in this room where night had been deep, until now when the sunlight became clear.
Even though waiting couldn’t be nothing.
“Seo Nakil-ssi.”
How could you do that?
How on earth could you have such a heart?
Was it the heart that wanted to send me to the moon, and introduce me to the walkway connected between the stars? Was it the heart that wanted to give me the spring of Jupiter and Mars as a gift, wishing I could sing forever?
So I thought I could no longer postpone this question.
“Do you love me?”
He wasn’t flustered by my question. He seemed both like someone who expected to hear such a question anytime, and like someone who had been waiting for that question for a long time.
I read affirmation in his black eyes. A sign that couldn’t be interpreted as anything other than love was engraved inside that gaze.
It clearly was, and yet.
“Does it matter?”
At the unexpected answer, I frowned. Because I couldn’t understand the meaning of the counter-question that was neither affirmation nor denial.
“Whether I love you or not isn’t important. Because you have a more urgent problem than that.”
“…”
“But if you need that answer to understand my actions, then yes. It’s love.”
He smiled faintly and asked me.
“If I say it was because of love, can you understand what I’ve done to you?”
Appearing out of nowhere and lying that we were inseparable, readily putting forth jaw-dropping amounts of money, wanting to hear my story, kissing me.
If the reason for all those actions—pulling me out of deep, cold nightmares and desperately embracing me—was love.
“No.”
“…”
“It doesn’t seem sufficient.”
It would sound very strange, but that’s how it was. Even though it was a stronger emotion than a sponsor’s or a fan’s feelings. Even though it was the hottest boiling and longest blooming of all the feelings I knew.
But very strangely, even that love seemed inadequate before your heart.
All your kindness seemed to rest below that, at some point I couldn’t imagine.
I had such a painful premonition.
