While he was unconscious, I briefly went down the mountain and purchased a portable flashlight. It was getting dark, and it was becoming difficult to see my surroundings. I had placed the portable flashlight on a rock beside me, so it was fairly bright. Although the lighting looked like something out of a thriller illuminating a murder scene on a dark night, it wasn’t bad.
However, Lee Hyeonseok slowly got up and brushed the dirt off himself, illuminated by that thriller-like lighting. This time, the sight was enough to make *me* pass out. Lee Hyeonseok showed none of the weak appearance he had displayed just before fainting. Somehow, he looked the most refreshed and healthy I’d ever seen him. He must have truly absorbed the mountain’s vital energy in abundance. Even I, who usually lied smoothly without batting an eye, didn’t know how to start this conversation.
“Is that hole my grave?”
“No, whatever you’re thinking right now is all a misunderstanding!”
“Ya? Ya?”
“No, it’s a misunderstanding!”
While I was choosing my words to clear up Lee Hyeonseok’s misunderstanding, he spoke first. When I quickly denied it in surprise, Lee Hyeonseok pointed out my informal speech first. Until just before he fainted, I had been speaking informally to him with some unknown courage—or as Lee Hyeonseok would put it, I had been “talking back.” Honestly, I’d like to see any test-taker who could be in their right mind after failing the CSAT. Anyway, I had justification to be confident, but in this current situation where it looked like I was about to bury someone, it wouldn’t be enough even if I got down on my knees and begged Lee Hyeonseok.
“My, even with a shovel and everything. Wow. You really prepared thoroughly, didn’t you?”
Lee Hyeonseok seemed to truly believe I was going to bury him, alternating his gaze between the shovel in my hands and the hole as he spoke. I had intended to bury him if he died, but I had absolutely never intended to bury a living Lee Hyeonseok. It was too—no, fucking unfair. Lee Hyeonseok had still been breathing up until the moment I started digging. I had no idea how to convey this injustice.
“This shovel was already here on the mountain!”
“Why would there be a shovel on a mountain.”
“I don’t know, but since it’s a mountain, it’s not impossible for one to be here.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Maybe someone buried a body here and left it behind?”
“Ah— so I’m that body, and you’re the one leaving?”
Even I thought these were absolutely ridiculous things to say. Still, I tried to refute him as calmly as possible, but Lee Hyeonseok was thoroughly sarcastic. When someone speaks this sincerely, shouldn’t you believe them? The sense of injustice kept rising up, but honestly, his sarcasm did have a point. Then Lee Hyeonseok pulled out his phone from his pocket. Thinking he was going to call 112, I rushed to him like the wind and grabbed his pants leg. Lee Hyeonseok looked down at me with an incredulous expression. Whether he did that or not, I looked up at him pitifully and desperately tried to persuade him.
“Wait, please hear me out. I really didn’t mean to do this!”
“Didn’t mean to? How can you still play innocent when there’s evidence and a victim right here?”
“You told me to take you somewhere with no people!”
“Then normally you’d take someone to a hotel, motel, or your house—not to a mountain.”
“I made a mistake in judgment. Please, just not the police…! My parents would be devastated!”
“A bastard who knows that does something like this?”
Lee Hyeonseok refuted my words one by one. I felt like I had become an actual criminal being interrogated at a police station. Even Lee Hyeonseok seemed momentarily confused and tilted his head.
“If I really intended to bury you, why would I have bandaged your head?”
“How would I know what a criminal is thinking.”
I presented the fact that I had treated him as evidence, but Lee Hyeonseok didn’t even snort. He seemed to have no intention of listening to me at all.
“Please, just hear me out.”
“I’ve heard plenty. Save the excuses for when we get there.”
Lee Hyeonseok brought the phone he was holding to his ear. In my desperation, I quickly reached out to snatch the phone, but Lee Hyeonseok raised his hand first. He had been on the verge of death just moments ago, yet I had no idea where such strength came from. I strained on my tiptoes trying to take the phone from him, but I couldn’t succeed due to the head-height difference between us.
“……”
“You give up pretty fast.”
When there was no sign of success no matter how hard I tried, I eventually straightened my posture. Lee Hyeonseok didn’t stop his mockery. He must have thought I had given up. However, contrary to Lee Hyeonseok’s thoughts, I was staring at a certain part of his body. If I kicked there, it might not be entirely impossible to snatch the phone, but I couldn’t know what would happen after that. While trying to take the phone, I had noticed that Lee Hyeonseok’s phone screen hadn’t dialed any number. I was about to kick Lee Hyeonseok in his vital spot with full force, but realizing there was still room for negotiation, I decided to change my approach.
“I’ll…”
“Yeah.”
“What do I have to do for you to let this go…?”
At my words, Lee Hyeonseok smirked, and it looked exactly like the smile of someone who had caught their prey. He looked like nothing but a despicable villain. My stomach burned from the stress. I wondered if I might get gastritis soon.
“You’ll have to live at my house for a while.”
“Huh?”
What came out of Lee Hyeonseok’s mouth was completely unexpected. I unknowingly widened my eyes and demanded an explanation, but Lee Hyeonseok said nothing. He seemed calm, but somehow it also felt like he wanted something from me. While suspecting he might be a pervert, I remembered that Lee Hyeonseok wanted to see me explode. He probably intended to keep me by his side and get under my skin.
I wanted to kick him in the vital spot right then and refuse, but I thought it wouldn’t be too late to kick after hearing him out, so I asked about the duration.
“Until when…?”
“It won’t take long. Probably about a month or two?”
I had worried he might not answer or that there would be no set duration, but fortunately he did answer. It was even shorter than I had expected.
“Then you’ll really pretend today never happened?”
“Depends.”
“……”
“On your expression.”
I had looked at Lee Hyeonseok with a face full of slight expectation, but as expected, he was an asshole, an unlucky bastard, and a dog. My face gradually crumpled, but Lee Hyeonseok pointed it out. There was truly nothing I could do as I pleased. So I put on a smile.
“Your answer.”
“I look forward to working with you.”
Even demanding an answer at the end—he was truly something else. But what could I do. Lee Hyeonseok spoke to me like a dog, but I replied prettily like a flower. As if he was about to head down the mountain, Lee Hyeonseok made a call to someone. A loud voice came from the phone, but Lee Hyeonseok coldly ended the call with just one sentence: “Whatever, just hurry up and get here.”
“Which way do I go down?”
“Ah, if you go straight that way, you’ll get there.”
When Lee Hyeonseok asked me for directions, I considered telling him the wrong way, but since someone was coming to pick him up, I obediently gave him the correct directions.
“Hey.”
“?”
Just when I thought he was going down the mountain alone, he suddenly called me. Since I was pouring water over the parts that might have my fingerprints and wiping them with the bandage just in case, the startled me was met with a somewhat uncomfortable stare from Lee Hyeonseok.
“Let’s say, giving you a hundred, a thousand concessions, that you came to the mountain because I told you to go somewhere with no people. I’ll chalk it up to you being really shocked. But why did you dig?”
Fortunately, Lee Hyeonseok seemed to believe that I hadn’t intended to bury him. When he asked in a voice full of unease from his question, I was a bit flustered. Lee Hyeonseok had stopped me from taking him to a hospital. I had brought him to a place with no people for now, but suddenly I became worried. What if Lee Hyeonseok, who hadn’t received treatment, actually departed from this life?
“I was going to bury the clothes that got blood on them while wiping hyung’s blood, and the bandage wrapped around your head, and the brick…”
“……”
“The ground was hard, so it seemed like it wouldn’t dig well by hand…”
I had thought, just in case—really just in case—that I should bury the evidence first. Burying Lee Hyeonseok was something I agonized over until the very last moment. If he hadn’t woken up by the time I finished digging enough to bury him, I might have buried him. It was a thought that came out when my anxiety about my parents finding out I killed Lee Hyeonseok and losing their affection reached its peak. Looking back now, it was obvious I would have been caught quickly, but at that time, I didn’t want to lose the love of parents who loved me, even if they were just characters from a setting, so I couldn’t think normally.
Even if it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t take the CSAT and there was a possibility of extenuating circumstances, murder was still too much.
“…For that, isn’t it a bit deep?”
“I got absorbed in digging…”
Lee Hyeonseok pointed out the depth of the hole. Fortunately, the depth was only about shoulder-height, so it wasn’t entirely unbelievable. Probably.
“Alright.”
Lee Hyeonseok shook his head. He looked at me somewhat like I was crazy, but I decided to ignore it. I stood there for a while until I couldn’t see him anymore, cursing his future.
It was truly exhausting. I wanted to go home and sleep quickly, but thinking of my parents, I couldn’t muster the courage to go inside. Unable to move and standing rooted in place for a while, I suddenly heard footsteps. I tensed up thinking it might be an assailant, but it was Lee Hyeonseok. For some reason, Lee Hyeonseok had an expression like he was going crazy.
“Do you want me to bury you here? What are you doing not coming?”
“Huh? Huh?”
Without even listening to my answer, Lee Hyeonseok grabbed the back of my neck and went down the mountain. When I nearly fell because I couldn’t get my balance properly, Lee Hyeonseok simply dragged me along. He was so strong that whenever I was about to stumble, he steadied me.
