# Chapter 75
I approached the small passenger car visible before me. Fortunately, there was only one car in the vicinity.
Just then, I heard Woosang and the man’s voices from behind the building. The calm conversation between the two calmed my anxious heart. And soon after, my eyes met with Woosang as he approached me.
It had been a long time since I’d seen him. My overwhelming emotions and eyes that seemed about to blur with tears were painful.
I stared at him for a while, wondering if anything had changed, but nothing seemed particularly different. He even looked healthier than before we parted.
‘That’s good.’
After several partings, whenever I faced Woosang again, our appearances had always been pitiful.
But not anymore. That fact gave me reassurance. Originally, I had planned to embrace him tightly when meeting him, but now I couldn’t.
Yet, even if it hadn’t been this kind of situation, I didn’t think I would have been able to approach him easily and act as I wanted. I couldn’t explain clearly why I felt this way.
But surely Woosang felt the same.
“Hello.”
“…Hello.”
We greeted each other as always. Our seemingly calm expressions seemed to show that many things had happened to us and we had changed over time.
“Let’s leave quickly, just in case.”
“Yes, please.”
Woosang went forward and sat in the passenger seat, while I headed for the back seat. And as the man suggested, I lowered my body. Crouching again in this small space made my leg joints feel like they were throbbing.
My legs, already overworked, screamed in protest, but I was used to enduring, so I closed my eyes tightly and ignored the discomfort.
Fortunately, the car started quickly and passed Jang’s parked car, swiftly leaving the place. I was afraid he might follow us, but for now, there was no sign of movement.
“What’s your final destination?”
The man asked while driving smoothly. I glanced at Woosang. Actually, I couldn’t be sure where we should go. Whether it would be Paris, or back to Berlin. It was Woosang’s decision.
“For now, we need to go to Munich.”
“It’s going to be a long journey.”
I was puzzled by the unexpected destination he mentioned and wanted to ask why there, but it seemed difficult to get an explanation right now. I didn’t know exactly where Munich was, but somehow it felt like it would be a long journey.
“But it’s okay since we have a place to return to.”
Woosang said with a faint smile. His words made my chest feel tight in a different way than before. It seemed like such a distant journey to me, but apparently not for Woosang.
That was a good sign. If that’s what he thought, then I felt I could think of it comfortably too.
“…I thought he wasn’t following, but he’s catching up quickly.”
The man checked through the rearview mirror that a car was catching up behind us and looked for another route. I swallowed hard at the rougher driving than before.
The man drove hard, trying to find difficult roads to shake off Jang. For almost over 30 minutes, we raced along rough roads, and both Woosang and the man exhaled rough breaths.
Seeing him helping without a word of resentment made me feel sorry for having doubted him.
“I think you can get up now.”
At his words, I raised myself. Turning my body to look back, there was no one on the road.
A deep sense of relief spread. Everyone seemed tense, and after a while of silence, Woosang opened his mouth.
“The sun is already rising.”
I raised my head and checked the clock inside the car. It was already 4 AM. When I left Jang’s house, it had still been daytime, but now we were greeting a new day.
Looking around, the landscape that had been full of forests was gradually being filled with buildings. The man stopped the car without a word and dropped us off near a station.
“I’m sorry for the trouble. And thank you so much.”
“Sometimes one has to do these things.”
I blinked several times at his words. Woosang offered a handshake, saying he would come visit again later.
After exchanging appropriate farewells, the man drove the car back down the road he had come.
After the car had completely disappeared, Woosang turned his body to look at me. Somehow, it wasn’t easy to meet his gaze. Like a child who had done something terribly wrong and didn’t know what to do.
“So what happened during these two months?”
“…It’s a long story.”
“We have plenty of time, so let’s hear it slowly.”
My heart seemed to shrink at his tone, which held no reproach toward me. I wondered if he might be angry, but it didn’t seem so.
My lips quivered, but I first asked about the most important issue at the moment.
“Where do we go from here?”
“First, we need to go to Munich. There’s a performance.”
Performance. Somehow his words made my mind flash with clarity. During my absence, he had already finished one performance and had scheduled others.
It had been a very long time since I’d seen Woosang on stage, so his words excited me.
He looked around and headed toward the station.
“Let’s go.”
***
To go from Nancy, France to Munich, Germany, he said that ideally one would go to another airport and travel by plane.
But I couldn’t take a plane without identification. Hearing this situation, Woosang thought for a while and then recommended taking a bus. The reason was that, unlike trains, conductors on buses wouldn’t check identification during the journey.
So we had to travel by bus to the nearest German city and then take another bus from there.
Perhaps because we had both been tense all day, we fell asleep as soon as the bus departed.
After about a few hours, I woke up when I heard small movements beside me.
“…Are you awake?”
I nodded at Woosang’s voice. Looking outside the window, the sky was bright blue, and the bus was speeding along the highway.
When we first boarded, there seemed to be few passengers, but now there were people packed in front and behind us.
“We didn’t get to go to the sea this summer after all.”
Maybe because I wasn’t fully awake, I said something random. I was surprised at why I said such a thing, but it was what I had always thought about while at Jang’s house.
“Summer is long, isn’t it? We can go see it after the performance ends.”
Could we really go see it after his performance ended? I couldn’t give a definite answer. Probably by the time his performance ended, my body would have recovered to some extent, and by then I would need to go do my work.
That would mean another short parting. By the time the work was finished, it would probably be late autumn or winter.
But I didn’t want to say such things to him, so I kept my mouth shut. When I didn’t say much, Woosang turned his gaze out the window.
“I thought I might never see you again.”
“……”
“I’m glad we met.”
Hearing his words, somehow this situation didn’t feel real. How I escaped from that place and how I came to meet Woosang—everything felt like it was happening in a dream.
As I quietly stared at the seat in front of me, I felt the bus gradually slowing down. Looking outside, it seemed we had already arrived at our destination.
“We need to change buses once here.”
I nodded as I watched Woosang preparing to leave. Shortly after, the bus came to a complete stop, and passengers filed out. I also stood behind Woosang and slowly left the bus.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the urban landscape I hadn’t seen in a long time. Woosang guided me as I stood frozen. It seemed like he wanted to go somewhere.
“Shall we have a meal first?”
“Is there enough time?”
“Of course. There are still 5 days until the performance. Though we still have to travel 5 more hours to Munich…”
He went to a nearby bakery and returned with coffee and sandwiches. I absentmindedly drank the coffee he handed me, but my stomach burned, probably because it was empty.
Holding the coffee and bread bag, we passed through a busy area and headed toward a residential area, and like a lie, there were no people around. Only then did the tension in my body seem to ease away.
“So what happened during this time? You really gave me a surprise as soon as we met…”
“……”
Not knowing how to start the story, I hesitated for a while before stumbling through what had happened in Berlin.
How I fled from Berlin as if being chased away, how I went to a place where I used to stay, and then how a sudden car accident occurred, leading to my stay at Jang’s house. Telling such an unrealistic story made it feel like I was lying.
But all the things I had experienced were far from ordinary. That was an unavoidable fact.
Woosang’s expression hardened at my story, and he silently sipped his coffee. Then he stopped in his tracks and said with an ambiguous smile.
“But you didn’t give up.”
“……”
“If it had been the old Teo, I think you would have given up and stopped long ago.”
His words were right. If it had been me a year ago, I might have already gone into seclusion alone when I became a fugitive in Berlin and not come out. Or I might have stayed at the house I shared with ‘Hund’, wallowing in nostalgia.
And when I was imprisoned in Jang’s house, I might have been overcome with resignation and simply counted down the days until death.
But now I was here. I still had many things to do, but somehow I didn’t feel like I would fail.
“I think I’ve changed a bit too.”
Woosang tugged at my sleeve as he looked at me not answering. It seemed like he wanted me to walk beside him, so I walked as he led.
“It was quite fulfilling to do dance and make a name for myself, but since I knew that the position I could reach was predetermined, after a certain point, I might have quit too.”
Was that so? I had thought he would never quit. Rather, I had thought that I had ruined and blocked everything for Woosang. Of course, I didn’t completely think that way now, but it wasn’t easy to erase those thoughts that came occasionally.
“Although there was a period when I did quit, I don’t think I’ll quit now. From now on, continuously.”
“…Really?”
“Yes.”
He moved his lips as if to say something more but then silently sipped his coffee. I could guess what he had been about to say without him speaking.
It wasn’t just a guess; it felt like a certain emotion was approaching me.
“Shall we go now?”
I looked at Woosang’s back as he turned and walked away. Somehow, his footsteps, which appeared solid, caught my eye.
Soon, I too was following him.
