Wait, did he recognize me?
Should I awkwardly wave, or maybe smile?
I’m genuinely happy to see him, though.
Not having expected to be spotted in the audience, I felt flustered and couldn’t decide what expression to make — I just sat there with a stupidly blank look on my face.
How many seconds had passed? In an instant, the color drained completely from Kwon Wookyung’s face. Then, suddenly, he pressed a hand over his mouth and bent forward.
“…Kwon Wookyung?”
The director, who had just finished his greeting and was about to hand the microphone to Kwon Wookyung, reached out reflexively in alarm.
Before the director could even finish catching him as his body swayed and lurched, a flustered reaction rippled through the audience.
“Why is he like that? Is he sick?”
“Oh no, what’s happening……”
His face had gone white as a sheet, twisted in pain.
What’s wrong with him? Startled out of my wits, without even thinking about what I could possibly do, I shot to my feet.
“Oh——!”
“What is that pheromone——”
The commotion among the audience members covering their noses grew louder. The non-types looked bewildered, but I understood why. An uncontrolled wave of pheromones had erupted from Kwon Wookyung in an instant.
The manager who had been standing outside the door came sprinting in, and together with the director, supported Kwon Wookyung — whose knees had buckled so badly he could barely stand — and helped him out.
“What on earth is going on?”
While the staff tried to calm the audience members who had risen from their seats to watch Kwon Wookyung be escorted out, and while the actress stepped up to say a few words to manage the situation, I picked up my crutches and slipped out of the screening room.
It wasn’t that I had any clear idea of what I was going to do. It was just that a friend I hadn’t seen in so long had collapsed right before my eyes, and I couldn’t sit there and watch a movie.
Flustered, I moved my feet clumsily, trying to walk faster than my body could handle. That was my mistake.
“Ah——!”
In an instant, the strength drained from my limbs and my body crumpled to the floor. The sound of my crutches hitting the ground startled a nearby staff member, who quickly rushed over to help me up.
“Are you alright? Do you need further assistance?”
“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
With the staff member’s help I got back up and steadied my breathing. A mild shock and dizziness lingered in my head and refused to leave. By then, Kwon Wookyung and his people had already disappeared.
…He’ll be okay, right?
I hadn’t seen Kwon Wookyung in pain very often. Occasionally he’d had a cold and seemed under the weather, but something like that — almost never.
He had looked perfectly fine right up until he walked into the screening room, and then he had suddenly deteriorated so sharply he couldn’t even control his hormones. Was he pretending to be okay? If he wasn’t feeling well, he should have rested — why did he come to an event like this……
I took a deep breath, got on the elevator, and went down to the lower floor. After everything that had unexpectedly happened in a row, any desire to watch the movie had completely evaporated.
Even if it wasn’t intentional, I did see Wookyung in person — so I guess that counts for something.
But is this really how a reunion is supposed to go?
I hadn’t even properly acknowledged him, so I wasn’t even sure if Kwon Wookyung had actually registered that it was me.
A few seconds of crossed gazes — that was all. A hollow, indescribable emptiness washed over me.
I came down to the first floor of the building, sat blankly in a chair for a while, then headed down to the parking lot. Driver Park asked why I was out so early — I couldn’t give him a straight answer and just mumbled something vague.
The moment I got home, I lay down on my bed, pulled the blanket over my head, and squeezed my eyes shut. The scene from earlier kept circling through my mind.
The way Kwon Wookyung walked into the screening room. The faint smile. The gaze sweeping across the audience. The look of shock on his face. What had that reaction been about? Was it just because he had suddenly gotten sick? It had seemed like he recognized me… or had it? Maybe I was imagining things. He had never been the type whose inner thoughts were easy to read — but that expression was one I had never seen on him before, which made it all the more confounding.
My mind was a mess, and on top of that, my younger hyung let himself into my room uninvited, sat himself down, and started needling me. He even pulled the blanket off someone who was minding their own business under it and stared right into my face.
“I thought you went to see a movie — was it boring?”
“Yeah. He was handsome though.”
“What? I asked if the movie was fun.”
“Ah, I don’t know. Stop bothering me and get out.”
“Wow, look at the way you talk.”
I yanked the blanket back over my head.
Hyung tried to pull it off again, and I yelled and hollered until I chased him out.
Why do you have to make people worry about you?
Late Sunday afternoon.
The window was open, and the breeze coming in wasn’t too cold. It was an unusually mild day.
Still feeling drained from what had happened at the movie theater the day before, I had been lying around all day — but Haeyong came all the way up to my room carrying his leash in his mouth, pestering me to take him for a walk.
Get up and come outside with me, stop lying there — the intent was unmistakably clear in his sparkling eyes.
“Alright. Let’s go.”
“Woof!”
Haeyong gave one bounce and one bark, then wagged his tail and trotted out the door ahead of me. I slowly made my way downstairs in the light clothes I wore for walks. Haeyong was pacing back and forth on the first floor, waiting for me.
“Mom, I’m taking Haeyong for a walk.”
“It’s getting dark out, will you be okay?”
“It’s just a short walk, it’s fine.”
“You have to be back before dinner, okay?”
“Of course.”
Haeyong waited patiently while I put on my sneakers and took hold of his leash. Once he understood that I couldn’t run like I used to, he had learned to walk at a slow, leisurely pace to match mine. Smart and sweet as he was.
When we stepped outside, the sun was slowly setting.
The days were still short this time of year, so darkness would fall quickly.
I should be back within thirty minutes, I thought, and started heading toward our usual walking path. It was such a quiet residential neighborhood that aside from the occasional passing car, there was barely any sound.
Once out through the gate, Haeyong sniffed the air, perked his ears up, and suddenly tugged me to the left. The exact opposite direction of where I had been heading.
“Haeyong, why are you going that way?”
“Bark!”
Haeyong glanced back at me and barked, then spun his tail like a propeller.
What on earth does that mean?
“Alright, alright. Fine, let’s go that way.”
I shrugged and just followed along behind him.
Both Haeyong and I knew all too well what was in the direction of the left turn.
The house where Kwon Wookyung used to live.
Smaller than our house where five people lived, but a two-story house with a garden.
A few days ago when I had come out for a walk, I had passed by it once — and through the gap in the gate I had noticed the garden was poorly kept. Just as Haechan hyung had said, it seemed like no one was living there anymore; an empty house ever since Kwon Wookyung had moved out.
Even back when Kwon Wookyung lived there, the house had always had a hollow feeling to it. It made sense — a house that should have held multiple people, with only that one kid living in it alone. But the sight of it completely empty was an entirely different feeling from back then. An air of disorder and bleakness hung over the place, kept up only to the bare minimum — it looked so unlike what I remembered that I found myself reluctant to walk past it.
Even the bricks of the outer wall were familiar. Of course they were — I had climbed over that wall and snuck in more than a few times, ignoring the perfectly functioning front gate.
“Awoooo——!”
When we passed the wall and reached the familiar gate, Haeyong turned his gaze toward the inside of the gate and let out a low howl. The way he looked back at me seemed like he was saying, take a look inside.
“Huh……?”
I peered in without thinking much of it — and got a start. The neglected garden was the same as it had been a few days ago, but light was leaking from the first floor of the house that should have been quiet and empty. With the surroundings darkening, the light spilling from inside showed all the more clearly. Someone was in the house.
“What.”
A new owner? A burglar? Or maybe……
I could have just walked on, but my feet wouldn’t move.
Unable to make up my mind, I lingered in front of the gate — and eventually found myself standing in front of the intercom. I could press the doorbell.
Instead, I keyed in the four-digit passcode.
Beep—.
The gate opened.
“Ha…… what.”
A hollow laugh escaped me on its own. How do you go six years without changing the passcode?
213. My birthday.
The story of how my birthday became the passcode for Kwon Wookyung’s house was just as absurd. It was a house I went in and out of every single day, and I had gotten fed up with having to ring the doorbell — so I asked him to tell me the passcode. Kwon Wookyung had glanced at me sideways and then, without any fuss, told me the number was my birthday.
“Huh? Why is your house passcode my birthday?”
“You’re the only one who ever comes and goes anyway.”
“That’s kind of ridiculous, but at least it’s easy to remember.”
With the same baffled feeling as I’d had back then, I pushed open the slightly ajar gate with my hand.
The passcode being unchanged — does that mean the owner hasn’t changed either?
Haeyong slipped through the opening without hesitation and tugged the leash as if to say, hurry up and come on.
“Haeyong, your hyung is struggling here. Slow down a little.”
The unhurried pace from earlier was nowhere to be found — he was cutting across someone else’s garden at quite the speed. I let the leash out as long as I could and followed behind, slightly out of breath.
Having succeeded in dragging me all the way to the front door, Haeyong even stood up on his hind legs and scratched at the door with his front paws.
“Kyiing—”
“Calm down. That’s it, stay still.”
After patting his head and back for a good while, he finally settled down and sat quietly beside me. But the way his tail kept thumping against the ground made it clear he’d jump up and start causing chaos again if I didn’t knock on the door soon.
“Why do I feel this way.”
A strange new owner might come out — and yet… somehow, I had a powerful, inexplicable feeling that if I knocked on that front door, Kwon Wookyung would appear. It was a baseless certainty, given that apparently he had moved out long ago — but the feeling wouldn’t go away.
