# Chapter 26
Though it was sad that Woosang avoided my touch, I blankly stared at him, happy that he was smiling at me.
Creak-
As I stood there watching him for a while, Hund was opening the front door and coming in. I stared at him blankly.
“You’re back?”
“……”
Hund didn’t answer.
Recently, he had been visiting once every week or two to check on the house.
All he did was bring me food and skim through the contents of my notebook. Even that seemed bothersome to him, as he would usually just flip through it hastily.
After staring indifferently at me standing blankly, he went straight into the kitchen without greeting. It seemed he had bought something again today as usual.
“What is it?”
“Stop being creepy and get out of here.”
“Yes.”
I stepped back without protest and watched him.
Recently, after learning that I cooked for myself, Hund started bringing ingredients that could be cooked rather than instant food. His consideration was both uncomfortable and satisfying.
We didn’t try to understand each other’s intentions, but that was more comfortable.
Wondering what he had bought today, I followed him into the kitchen, and Woosang came in too. He began examining the ingredients Hund was taking out. I looked at Woosang and spoke to him.
“Woosang, what should we make with this? We made pasta with this before, right? I liked that…”
When I asked with a slight smile, Woosang just smiled and pointed at the ingredients with his hand.
As I nodded and selected the items, Hund was looking at me with a strange expression.
I wonder why he’s looking at me like that.
“What is it?”
“…Who are you talking to?”
“Just talking to myself.”
“……”
I knew that the Woosang existing here was an illusion I created. But I didn’t have the courage to say with my own mouth that it was fake. Nor was there any need to.
Hund looked at me for a while, then passed through the kitchen and headed back to the entrance. Normally, he would check my notebook in the living room, but it seemed he would skip that task today.
Suspecting something, I followed him to the entrance, but he closed the door and left without even saying goodbye.
Click.
After searching for signs of Hund at the closed door for a while and confirming that his presence had completely disappeared, I headed back to the kitchen.
Woosang was already sitting silently at the dining table. This was something he often did in the morning.
Seeing him smiling gently while meeting my eyes, he seemed to want something. For him, I put water in the coffee pot and took out a teacup.
For a while, only the sound of boiling water echoed in the kitchen. Soon after, the sound of the coffee pot turning off was heard.
I put a black tea bag that Woosang often drank into the cup, then poured water. Since I didn’t particularly like black tea and had no intention of drinking it, I stared at the cup for a while, but since Woosang couldn’t drink it, I reluctantly sipped the black tea.
“Bitter…”
The aroma was bitter and stale.
“I don’t think it tasted like this before…”
I couldn’t remember well. As I blankly raised my head, Woosang had disappeared somewhere.
It was always like this.
He would repeatedly appear before me and then disappear, even though he wouldn’t always be with me. He was a harsh person.
Feeling annoyed, I quickly gulped down the hot black tea. My tongue screamed that it was hot, but I ignored it and quietly placed the empty cup in the sink.
I had originally planned to cook breakfast, but after drinking the tea, my appetite had long vanished.
With no choice, I neatly organized the ingredients I had taken out for cooking into the refrigerator and surveyed the inside. I smiled contentedly at the needlessly full refrigerator and slowly left the kitchen for the living room.
I had been spending most of my free time in the living room lately. In the living room, my notebooks and pens were neatly arranged, and notebooks I had already filled were stacked up.
I opened a blank page, wrote down today’s date, and noted that the refrigerator was full.
Scratch, scratch.
Only the sound of the pencil echoed in my ears.
Come to think of it, Woosang’s illusion seemed to start appearing after I began writing about Woosang in my notebook.
In a space that no one visited, there were only me and my notebook, and I was someone who knew loneliness. I arbitrarily drew Woosang in my mind after suddenly having to stand on my own.
Although Hund occasionally visited the house, Hund wasn’t an equal person to me. He was just something passing by. So my delusion could be justified.
I wanted to do so. Since I couldn’t see Woosang, this much could be allowed to me.
“Woosang.”
I called out to him blankly. Naturally, he wouldn’t appear. Yet I hoped he would. Just then, coincidentally, Woosang quietly appeared in the living room from behind.
I stared at him blankly.
Looking at it closely, somehow his eyes seemed blurry. I couldn’t remember his eyes. Maybe that’s why.
“…Say something.”
“……”
“Ah.”
What was his voice like?
Come to think of it, I hadn’t been able to remember Woosang’s voice lately. That’s probably why he couldn’t speak.
It had already been three months since Woosang and I parted.
Three months. This long yet short time seemed sufficient to forget someone else’s voice.
‘What would Woosang be doing now?’
Perhaps Woosang had forgotten me and already found and left with someone new.
If so, it would be confirmed that I had been abandoned, which might actually make me feel more at ease. Even though I gave up on him first, I inappropriately wished that Woosang would abandon me first.
Just then, my phone vibrated.
Bzzz-.
How annoyingly noisy.
It’s probably an alarm from Hund.
After my body had recovered recently, I often went out to work with Hund.
Although one of my legs was still troublesome, it wasn’t a significant problem.
After seeing Woosang get hurt, I thought I wouldn’t be able to do this work anymore, but that wasn’t quite the case.
Others besides Woosang still remained worthless to me.
Strangely, I felt no guilt whatsoever. I couldn’t forget Woosang, but my sensibilities were clearly returning to how they were before meeting him.
“That’s a good thing.”
A smirk involuntarily escaped me. Yes, that was the most right direction for me.
As I picked up my phone to check my email, Woosang suddenly leaned his head in. He seemed to want to check the contents. It was something he used to do often.
Startled, I turned my head, and my eyes met with that blurry figure. Unfocused eyes and a lifeless expression faced me. It wasn’t the Woosang I knew.
With a dizzy sensation, I recklessly threw a book that was beside me.
Crash!
I heard the sound of something breaking.
Somehow nausea welled up, and I hurriedly covered my mouth. It wasn’t the Woosang I knew. Of course.
He was no longer here.
“Damn it…”
I couldn’t stop the tears that were trying to leak out. A sour taste rushed up in my throat. I couldn’t bear it.
This whole situation just felt like a lie.
Only the sound of urgent breathing indicated that I was alive. At that moment, at the edge of my vision, there was an order from Hund telling me to come to a designated place in 3 days.
That screen was the element that best indicated that I was in this place. I checked it with blurry eyes, put the location in my mind, and then casually reached out to turn off the phone.
I curled up and lay on the floor on my own.
Everything was so sickening. I had no idea how much time I would need.
‘What if I end up living like this for the rest of my life?’
I think I had seen such a book before. The story of an abandoned human. The ending was predictable. There was no way it could be happy.
Everything was just sickening.
***
Three days later, I still had Woosang’s sickening specter before my eyes.
After changing into outdoor clothes and neatly organizing my appearance for once, I was looking in the mirror when he was there, watching me from behind.
I deliberately ignored it and went to the entrance.
As I opened the door and was about to leave, I unconsciously looked back, and the specter was still looking at me. I waved to it in greeting.
“Goodbye.”
He waved back to me and greeted me. That appearance looked so much like the living Woosang that somehow a corner of my heart seemed to ache strangely. It was a pathetic thought.
Perhaps because it had snowed yesterday, the streets were slippery from the snow. Since the weather was cold, the snow didn’t seem like it would melt quickly.
As I kicked the accumulated snow with my foot, the snow scattered softly. Somehow disliking that sight, I kicked the snow again.
Walking while tormenting the innocent snow for a while, I saw Hund at the end of the alley. Without greeting him, I approached and quietly positioned myself beside him. Hund examined me and then scolded me.
“Are you a child? Kicking snow around.”
“……”
When there was no answer, Hund glared for a while, then clicked his tongue softly and stood there watching me.
He didn’t seem to have any intention of saying anything to me. What might Hund be thinking?
‘Is unhappiness really the only thing he wants for me?’
I wanted to open my mouth and ask, but I knew better than anyone that there was nothing I could say.
“Let’s go now.”
He walked ahead without nodding. Looking at his back, which was becoming increasingly hunched with age, I wanted to strangle him to death right there, but what would be the point of that?
If a killer kills a killer, who would receive the punishment?
I couldn’t guess.
But what was clear was that neither of us would live a whole life. When and what kind of death would I, and he, face?
Even if I had stayed with Woosang, could I have been completely free from this past?
No way. In the end, leaving Woosang wasn’t a forced action but a necessary one.
At this sad conclusion, bitterness clung to the corners of my mouth. I blew out white breath to release the stuffiness.
Thump, thump.
Only the sound of footsteps echoed in the street. There were no noisy sounds of people or honking horns that I used to hear when I was with Woosang.
No traces of anyone remained anywhere.
