“I really know this was unnecessary consideration. But when he was resenting me back then, if I had told him the fact that I wasn’t trying to kill him but that he tried to commit suicide alone, I felt like he would really die the moment he walked out the door.”
“……”
“So no matter how much I hated him, I couldn’t bring myself to say even that.”
Cha Hohyeon who tried to kill himself, and Cha Hohyeon who doesn’t know that.
Go Yoon despaired at the fact that there wasn’t just one or two things to resolve.
What was Cha Hohyeon’s expression like when he roughly pushed him away that day? He was in pain, in so much pain. When the image of Cha Hohyeon suffering in agony came to mind, Go Yoon’s heart hurt so much it felt like it would tear apart.
“No, this isn’t what I wanted……”
The thing he thought was the best choice had produced the worst result.
Go Yoon let out a low groan and slowly slid down against the door, slumping down. How could he possibly face Cha Hohyeon with dignity now? Now, even if Cha Hohyeon said he didn’t want to see him anymore, he couldn’t argue back even once, and disappearing had become the proper thing to do.
In front of the despairing Go Yoon, Kang Juno asked.
“Aren’t you going to ask what I said to Ka Jerim?”
Go Yoon’s eyes turned toward Kang Juno. Kang Juno opened his mouth.
“I told him to imitate Cha Hohyeon. To imitate him so perfectly that he could even fool Go Yoon.”
“……Why?”
“If it meant you could stay by our side just fine, I wanted to create a fake Cha Hohyeon and keep him by your side.”
“……”
“Now everything’s ruined though.”
Kang Juno also calmly stated the facts as if he had now given up on everything. Go Yoon felt like this whole situation was his fault and directed the anger and hatred he had felt toward Kang Juno until coming here at himself instead.
“It’s all my fault.”
The person who should have died was right here. Go Yoon couldn’t dare measure how hurt Cha Hohyeon must have been. Cha Hohyeon had asked him to wait, but unable to endure that time, seeing only Kang Juno and the members suffering and acting on that, all the resentment poured onto himself.
Why did you act so stupidly back then? If only you hadn’t done that, Hohyeon, Juno too. There wouldn’t have been everyone hurting each other and receiving those wounds right back.
Just as Go Yoon was about to cover his face with his hands while letting out a self-deprecating laugh, he heard voices from behind.
[Aren’t you going in? What are you doing?]
[……Yeah.]
At the familiar voice, Go Yoon’s eyes widened. Kang Juno, who hadn’t heard yet, was still staring blankly at the floor, and Go Yoon got up from his seat, turned his back on Kang Juno, and opened the door.
In front, an employee carrying food bowed toward Go Yoon and moved aside. And Go Yoon, withdrawing his gaze from the employee, saw Ka Jerim standing quietly looking at the door without even taking off his shoes in front of the door, and instantly froze, barely managing to open his lips that wouldn’t come apart easily.
“Hohyeon-ah.”
His voice trembled miserably. Ka Jerim had covered all his injured wounds with makeup, chosen neat and pretty clothes to wear, and was standing quietly right in front. And when his eyes met Go Yoon’s, he pulled up the corners of his mouth in a smile, but seeing that smile, Go Yoon felt like his heart dropped with a thud.
‘Don’t tell me he heard everything?’
He could immediately tell it wasn’t a smile from being glad to see him, but a smile to hide pain. Even though this place had good soundproofing, Kang Juno and himself had just been talking right in front of the door, so he probably heard everything. At such a close distance, it would be stranger if he hadn’t heard.
“Where did you start listening from?”
When Go Yoon asked that, Ka Jerim quietly looked into his eyes as if trying to figure out Go Yoon’s intentions. After staring at Go Yoon for a while, he took off his shoes and opened the slightly open door.
“The door was slightly open.”
Ka Jerim stepped toward the wide open door. Then seeing Kang Juno standing behind Go Yoon, he bowed his head, closed the open door again, and passed by Go Yoon’s side.
“I have something to say to Juno hyung…… Let’s talk later, hyung.”
For some reason, Go Yoon felt like there would be no “later” between Cha Hohyeon and himself, so he urgently turned around and stared at Ka Jerim’s back, but Ka Jerim was already in front of Kang Juno.
Kang Juno stood still like ice at the unexpected situation, then soon looked at Ka Jerim’s face as he handed over the <Cha Hohyeon Guide>.
“I came to return this.”
* * *
The content the hyungs talked about inside was so shocking that I wanted to open the door but couldn’t bring myself to. I tried to kill myself? I had no memory of it at all.
‘Then that blood……’
Then what I couldn’t see in detail that day because I was in a panic started to come back to mind. When I had just regained consciousness, I saw blood coming from Juno hyung’s hand, and at the time I thought that blood came from hitting me.
But thinking about it now, that wasn’t an amount that could flow from hitting someone. It wasn’t blood from hyung hitting me, but blood from me biting Juno hyung’s hand.
“Hohyeon-ah, where did you start listening from?”
“The door was slightly open.”
When the door opened by Yoon hyung at that moment, I pretended to be calm and finished opening the half-open door and entered that room.
‘Do well. You can do it.’
Today was the first day I’d been outside in a long time.
I even stopped by a shop for the first time in a while to neatly trim my hair that I hadn’t taken care of until now, and chose only the prettiest clothes from among the clothes at home to wear. Because this could be the last time.
But I only thought about styling and stupidly didn’t think about my facial expression. I felt like I was going crazy not knowing what expression I had now since I didn’t practice expressions before coming.
“I have something to say to Juno hyung…… Let’s talk later, hyung.”
I’m not too distorted-looking, right?
Not a wounded face, right?
I look calm, right?
‘It’s okay.’
Just smile.
Like that, I passed by Yoon hyung who was trying to hold me back and took steps toward Juno hyung. It wasn’t that far from the threshold to where hyung was, but that distance felt so far. Like the distance between my heart and Juno hyung’s heart.
“I came to return this.”
Actually, I was shocked earlier outside the door to hear the story that I had tried to commit suicide, but even in the midst of this, I was more relieved that hyung hadn’t tried to kill me.
“Thank you for stopping me from trying to die. Not knowing that, I only resented hyung…… no, sunbae-nim for no reason.”
“Ka Jerim.”
Juno hyung’s face after hearing my words was completely distorted. It was an expression as if asking if I was okay now after hearing such a story. Even though to him I might look like a scammer trying to imitate Cha Hohyeon, he was still worried about my wounds.
Hyung was still the same. Nothing had changed at all.
Juno hyung, who might seem cold and bad on the outside but is so kind on the inside. So now that I learned the fact that hyung didn’t try to kill me but that I tried to commit suicide, I rather thought it was fortunate. Because I could still remember hyung in a good way.
I looked at Juno hyung for a moment, then turned around and alternately looked at Yoon hyung’s face still full of worry, then smiled slightly.
‘The hyungs are the same but only I changed.’
I changed. The hyungs haven’t changed at all, but only I changed.
Before, being positive and smiling was several times easier than crying, but now I find smiling harder than crying. I never thought about death before, but now I’m drawing death in my head countless times. I closed my eyes and fiddled with the USB I was holding tightly in my hand.
‘I’ll disappear.’
I might disappear. If Ka Jerim’s body died once, so when I felt like I wanted to die, my body followed along in sympathy with that emotion, I could at least try to tell Juno hyung that I am Cha Hohyeon.
But what if that’s not it? What if the time I should die is approaching?
What if Cha Hohyeon should die again now and Ka Jerim should take over this body?
Then I must absolutely not reveal the fact that I am Cha Hohyeon. I didn’t want to give the hyungs the pain of losing me twice.
So I decided.
To turn away.
After making up my mind like that, I lifted my head toward Juno hyung in front again. I practiced countless times what I should say to hyung before coming here today, but in the end I couldn’t say those words.
“I rejected all the variety shows. No matter how much I think about it, I don’t think I can imitate him.”
First, the first thing I wanted to say to Juno hyung was that I am Cha Hohyeon.
“And this seems like a proposal Kang Juno sunbae-nim would like too.”
And second, I wanted to talk about things only hyung and I know.
“Let’s not act like we know each other anymore.”
Third, it was to say let’s see each other often from now on.
“I’ll just live as if this never happened too.”
Fourth, it was to say I love you.
But contrary to what I wanted to say, the words came out the opposite.
Juno hyung’s face after hearing my words had a strange expression for some reason. Looking at his face, I couldn’t bring myself to say that the younger brother hyung had been searching for, waiting for, and missing was actually me.
Because I knew. That entering someone else’s body like this wasn’t normal, so it wouldn’t be strange to disappear at any time.
Even so, I wanted to spend time happily with the hyungs. So even the situations where Yoon hyung trembled with anxiety that I might disappear, I actually knew about them but deliberately buried them and stayed by hyung’s side.
‘I’m selfish.’
I really was a selfish person who only thought about myself. My staying by Yoon hyung’s side was greed thinking only of myself, without thinking at all about Yoon hyung who would be left alone after I disappeared.
