# Chapter 13
Not long after, my stomach began to churn again.
“…Ugh. Damn it.”
Gasping breaths echoed in my ears. I doubted whether they were really my own breaths.
Thinking I might vomit on the bus, I got off at a stop I somewhat recognized and decided to walk slowly. I couldn’t possibly make an unsightly scene by vomiting in this situation.
Thankfully, the cool air settled my stomach, and my mind seemed to clear as well.
There must be a way out of this situation.
Yes. I needed time.
Time to return to how I was before.
I couldn’t remember clearly how long I walked or how I entered my home.
But ultimately, I was sitting alone on the sofa at home. Since it was still bright outside, I stared blankly at the dust floating in the sunlight without turning on the lights.
After thinking for a while, I remembered my turned-off phone.
Since I had turned it off when Woosang was in Spain, it had been about four weeks since I last turned on my phone.
I wanted to turn it on, but it wouldn’t power up, possibly because the battery was dead.
I plugged it into the charger and opened a book, reading sentences casually.
But the phone in the charger distracted me, and the sentences wouldn’t register in my mind.
Eventually, I closed the book and approached the phone, waiting for it to turn on.
Soon after, the powered-on phone silently lit up its screen.
After hesitating, I opened the message box, and only then did a flood of backed-up messages begin pouring in.
Below the landscape photo I had last checked in Spain, other landscape photos appeared in succession.
After sending landscape photos every day for 3-4 days, he seemed confused by my lack of response and asked what was wrong.
He must have called several times as well, as there were dozens of missed calls in the call history.
The last recorded message was full of his anxiety.
「Teo, please, please respond. I don’t know if this message isn’t being delivered because I’m in Spain, or if something has happened to you. Please call me as soon as you see this message.」
The Woosang in the message was trembling with anxiety. I understood why he had looked so anxious when he returned from Spain two weeks ago.
‘He must have come to Paris worried that something might have happened to me…’
He was worried about me.
He was worried about me as a person.
Seeing that message, tears suddenly streamed down. Although receiving affection from someone was unfamiliar, the sentences he sent were telling me that I was a living person.
“…So that’s it.”
I muttered those same words over and over.
For the first time, I realized it.
Never in my life had I been certain whether ‘I’ as a person actually existed in the world. I had always lived as determined, unable to think for myself. I liked accumulating knowledge, but that was just it.
My words were merely a method of transmitting programmed commands.
So I thought I was a fictional character existing in some novel.
But I was, in fact, a person existing in the world.
‘To think that I could be someone who could influence someone else….’
I couldn’t believe it. Too many emotions flooded all at once, making me feel suddenly choked up.
“Ugh…!”
Suddenly, nausea surged.
My insides were all twisted, screaming to expel what was inside.
Huk, sweat poured down like rain.
I tried to run to the bathroom, but I fell and retched on the floor.
“Urgh, wek.”
I felt a sour taste in my throat. I vomited everything inside. My throat burned, making me cough repeatedly. But at that moment, my vision was clearing up.
‘Were such things inside my organs?’
I had thought people were just full of blood and flesh.
I hadn’t thought there would be something else moving inside me.
That’s right.
I too was a living human.
I too was a person who actually existed in the world.
The tears wouldn’t stop.
I couldn’t believe that I was alive within someone else.
The emotions I had weren’t false.
So, I did like Woosang.
I liked him. I noticed my arm that he had grasped during our last meeting. Wiping away my tears, I grasped the arm that he had held.
I felt as if I could sense his temperature that shouldn’t exist.
“Ugh…”
Once again, gastric acid gushed from my throat.
After vomiting it onto the floor again, my head became extremely dizzy. My body trembled, possibly from dehydration. I knew I should get up and drink water, but my body wouldn’t move.
After gasping for a while, I collapsed onto the floor. My body had no strength.
‘I don’t have time for this…’
I needed to decide what to do next.
‘How should I live from now on?’
Amid all this, just one thing came to mind that I needed.
It was Woosang. I needed him.
I wanted Woosang to be by my side. I wanted to stay by his side of my own will.
I whispered his name over and over.
***
When I opened my eyes, my body felt heavy.
My body still seemed to be trembling, but I no longer wanted to vomit anything from inside. I wanted to stick to the floor forever, but I couldn’t. Just rolling my eyes to look at the window, I saw it was dawn, meaning I had been unconscious for quite some time.
I had been asleep for almost 12 hours.
The sour smell of gastric acid wafted from beside my head. Smelling that, I felt like I might retch again, so I staggered up to the kitchen and carefully swallowed some water.
The cold water wouldn’t go down at all, so I put water in the coffee pot and forcibly poured hot water into my body.
My trembling arms and legs at least maintained enough strength to stand.
Holding my dizzy head, I went to the bathroom and showered. While being showered, I washed away the tears that flowed out and changed my clothes.
I thought about what to do next.
Now I had to live.
I couldn’t just exist.
Now I had to face reality.
***
A week had already passed since I realized my feelings for Woosang.
I vomited everything I ate due to the tightness rising in my throat. Even drinking just water made me nauseated, and my insides were desperate to expel everything as if they would vomit out my internal organs.
But fortunately, after a short yet long week, I could at least eat thin soup.
“Ha….”
I forcibly swallowed the sigh that naturally flowed out.
After vomiting all week, my throat was raw, and my mouth was a mess. Maybe I could eat slightly heavier food, but I decided to be content with putting soup or warm water down my throat, fearing something serious might happen if I vomited more.
After organizing my thoughts, I wanted to contact Woosang, who must have been worried about me, but since I didn’t know how to start the conversation, I always thought about what my first words to him should be during my free time.
I opened my mouth and checked the shape of my lips in the mirror. I had to do that because I wasn’t sure if what I was uttering was proper.
‘I’m not sure what words would make him listen to me.’
Recently, as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning, I accessed the SNS of Bel, Woosang’s friend.
Occasionally, there were photos of Woosang there.
Since uploads on Woosang’s SNS and homepage had stopped quite some time ago, I had no choice but to secretly look for his image like this, like a thief.
“Pathetic.”
I muttered absent-mindedly.
It seemed that Woosang, Bel, and other dancers were immersed in practice, sweating, as if an outdoor performance schedule had been set again recently.
The schedule had already approached to tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
I hesitated whether I could visit on such an early schedule, but if not tomorrow, I wouldn’t know when Woosang would perform again.
Wanting to contact Woosang in advance, I repeatedly turned my phone on and off, but after a few days, I concluded that I would have to go directly if I wanted to meet him.
I could easily make an appointment with just one text message, but I didn’t want to do that.
I, who had never shed a tear in my life, lately had tears leaking out as if someone had poked my tear glands with a knife.
My throat and tear glands, which had just calmed down a bit, still wanted to cause a riot and shook me back and forth.
“…This shouldn’t happen.”
Even with self-affirmation, I couldn’t stop the tears, of course. Meanwhile, Woosang in the photos was expressionless, the opposite of me.
Standing next to Bel, listening to her story with his arms folded silently, he looked somewhat haggard.
He seemed hurt, like someone who couldn’t find interest in anything. I wondered if it might be because of me, but I pushed such thoughts out of my mind, thinking he couldn’t be so emotional just because of me.
I wanted to be by Woosang’s side, but he might not want that.
I couldn’t completely deny that fact. If he no longer wanted to see me, I could gladly leave for his sake, though it would hurt my heart.
I shouldn’t force my emotions on others.
Especially someone as lacking as me could clearly force affection on him without even distinguishing properly.
I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be a broken person to him.
The tip of my tongue was very bitter. I thought as I ran my hand through my hair.
If he gives me a chance, I will never miss this opportunity.
I will definitely not do that.
I blinked once and took my gaze off the phone to look at the mirror.
It had only been a week, but my body had noticeably lost weight and my muscles had rapidly decreased. I didn’t want to visit him with such an unsightly body, but there wasn’t much I could do.
To look as neat as possible, I shaved the protruding beard and went to the hair salon to get a haircut.
Normally, I would have just gone to the salon in front of my house, but this time I went to a famous salon and spent several times more money than usual to trim my hair.
I wasn’t sure if it was that different, but judging by the staff’s compliments that it looked great, it seemed not bad.
After tidying up like that, my dirty appearance looked relatively neat.
As someone who had never groomed myself to show others, everything felt awkward, but if Woosang would look at me because of these little things, that wouldn’t be bad either.
‘Will he smile at me as always?’
With an expression that couldn’t smile or cry, I frowned and thought that way.
At the thought of seeing Woosang, my stomach, which hadn’t been hungry, was now clamoring for food.
But having continuously retched, all that remained at home was shriveled ham and expired cheese.
Scratching my head, I realized there was canned food that Woosang had bought a month ago, so I took out that can of corn from the cupboard and somewhat appeased my stomach.
I still couldn’t swallow large amounts, so I just scooped some of the canned food into the soup and put it in my mouth, but the sweet taste of corn somehow made me feel like crying.
Once again, my broken tear glands tormented me.
He who made me move was somehow a bit hateful, yet I missed him so much.
There was no way to define this emotion.
