# Chapter 95
I recalled my uncle’s words from the past. When he told me to go to Paris, what feelings did I have?
Surely I felt nothing. Looking at how not a single memory surfaces even now, I was certain.
I thought I would spend each day in the house he provided in Paris, longing for death just like before, but my life now was vastly different from what I had imagined.
Countless events emerged and disappeared. Clear events and ambiguous ones. I felt so many things.
As I sat on a chair in the hospital waiting room with my eyes closed for a while, someone shook my shoulder.
“Are you awake? The patient is up now, would you like to see him?”
The nurse I had greeted in the lobby was smiling gently at me as I woke up. I glanced at the clock on the wall.
10 PM. What was supposed to be a brief nap had turned into more than 2 hours of sleep. Still, that short rest seemed to have helped, as my mind felt somewhat lighter.
“Yes, I’ll go.”
I sluggishly got up and followed the direction the nurse was heading.
The nurse opened the tightly closed hospital room door and then left as if her job was done. Through the open door, I saw a familiar figure.
Woosang, whom I expected to barely have his eyes open with a tired face, met my gaze with remarkably clear eyes.
A small smile had somehow formed at the corners of his mouth. That smile, whose meaning I couldn’t grasp, made my body stiffen to the point where I couldn’t move.
Sitting alone in a two-person hospital room, he looked particularly pale.
I gathered my thoughts and extended my foot to enter, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed inside.
“Why aren’t you coming in?”
“…”
I couldn’t gauge how many times I had faced him in a hospital bed like this. Nevertheless, he greeted me with his usual tone as if nothing had happened.
“How are you feeling? Your leg…”
I carefully observed him as he lay in bed, standing a step away.
“My leg is fine. They say I’ll need rehabilitation therapy for a while, but there shouldn’t be any major problems.”
“That’s good.”
His seemingly unaffected expression felt like it was scraping my insides with a knife.
It was just hours ago when he had trembled with anxiety and leaned on me.
The emotions Woosang had exposed, bursting forth with anxiety, still remained within me.
So even if his expression was calm now, his actual feelings wouldn’t have subsided.
There wasn’t a single word I could presumptuously offer him.
“Teo.”
He called my name with a slightly softer voice. I hunched my shoulders and turned my head to look at him, having been staring at the corner of the bed.
“What do you want to do in Canada?”
Woosang asked me.
I was considerably taken aback, not expecting him to bring up that topic at this point. I reached out randomly to grab the bed rail and closed my mouth.
“You brought it up first. Tell me.”
“Right now, your body should…”
“I’ve already been told my leg will heal, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Later, let’s talk about it later.”
But Woosang gave me an intense gaze as if he absolutely needed to hear this now. Though I wanted to run outside immediately under his burdensome gaze, he wouldn’t allow it.
“Tell me now. I want to hear it.”
“…”
Urged by Woosang, I squeezed my eyes shut and opened my mouth with difficulty.
“…I thought I might try studying.”
“Studying?”
“Working seems… still difficult for me, and I want to learn step by step. Since I don’t know if what I know is right or wrong, I thought it might be good to learn now…”
Since I hadn’t prepared what to say, I spoke whatever came to mind. I worried whether I was conveying my meaning properly to him, but I had already spoken.
Woosang didn’t respond to my story and just waited for me to continue. But having barely managed to express what I had kept inside, I had nothing more to say.
In a life where everything had been connected uncertainly, simply expressing such thoughts in words was a great courage for me.
I had always thought of hiding where others’ gazes couldn’t reach, and tried to run away. Yet now I wanted to mix with others and learn something. I wasn’t sure if it would be possible. But if Woosang stayed by my side, I wanted to try.
What might be insignificant to him required enormous courage from me, and I feared he might dismiss it as unimportant.
“Is it funny?”
“No.”
He countered with a more serious expression than before. At that resolute word, my heart seemed to shrink tightly.
“…Will you stay by my side even if I fail at learning something and become nothing?”
“…”
“I’m not confident.”
“It’s okay to fail. As long as you don’t stop there.”
As long as you don’t stop there. I couldn’t answer easily. But not wanting to disappoint him, I nodded.
His blinking eyes came into view. If normally his thoughts were visible to me through his eyes, now I couldn’t see any of his thoughts at all.
“Come closer.”
Though I was already at a sufficiently close distance, he motioned to me. After hesitating, I leaned my upper body toward him.
He pulled at my crumpled shirt and lightly kissed me. Then, without letting go, he slowly examined my face from a close distance.
I thought about straightening up out of embarrassment, but I didn’t want to. I still wanted to feel that he desired me.
“Do you know what I’m trying to say?”
“That…”
I know. I knew perfectly well what he was trying to say to me. The words I always wanted to tell him, and the words we occasionally burst out with when we couldn’t contain our emotions.
The inside of my mouth tingled. But swallowing my words once again was all I could do.
After exhaling hot breaths for a long while, he let go of my clothes. I moved away again and examined his face.
His face, which looked much more emotional than before, lingered in my heart.
“If we go to Canada, you might have to let go of everything you’ve created in Paris, no, in Europe. Is that still okay?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
His determined tone and expression. All these unwavering elements spoke of his heart.
“I’ve built up many things over time, and they won’t collapse all at once. Just like how Teo has changed now.”
He was confident as he spoke about my transformation.
I was curious how my changed self appeared in his eyes. Yet, the stuffiness that didn’t completely disappear emerged again.
“What if there’s no place for Woosang when I finish what I want to do and return here? If I, if I ruin everything…”
“Then we’ll build it again. We have plenty of time ahead.”
I stood stiff for a while with emotions about to burst.
The words “build it again” felt like they were tearing up the inside of my stomach. I nodded slightly and agreed with his words. With just one word from him, it felt like I could stand again even if everything collapsed in the future.
My eyes grew hot and my head warmed up.
“Someday, when Teo has finished everything you want to do and everything is stable, then definitely come back to Paris.”
With his injured hand, he slowly rubbed my thumb.
“Because Paris is our hometown.”
Hometown. I savored that word.
I was born in an unnamed forest in Canada, and he was born and spent a long time in a completely different place.
Nevertheless, his words didn’t seem absurd. The place that formed our relationship and gave us room to breathe. I missed it terribly.
Though I still don’t know well what’s in Paris or what places are there, such things weren’t important.
The place that gives us intense nostalgia isn’t where we were born, but Paris. So that city was undoubtedly our hometown in terms of our relationship.
“The scenery we see when we come back will be different again.”
“…Yes. It definitely will be.”
I thought I would never have a safe haven where I could relax for life, because my nationality, name, and everything about me was fake and fabricated.
But not anymore. I had everything now. Eternal things that wouldn’t disappear. Precious things that penetrated deeply into me.
My mind began to tangle with countless thoughts. Yet what I absolutely had to do to protect all of this came clearly to mind.
Before emotions erupted, I carefully removed his hand. Then I spoke to him as gently as possible.
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Alright.”
He answered without a hint of suspicion in his voice.
At this moment, I too harbored no negative emotions. I couldn’t count how long it had been since I felt this unburdened.
I left the hospital room, closed the door, and walked down the corridor. The sky, completely dark with the sun fully set, was visible through the windows.
The hospital interior was as quiet as if everyone was asleep, and only the occasional sound of footsteps seemed to indicate that someone was breathing here.
My heart remained infinitely calm even in a place lurking with anxiety.
I stepped outside the hospital and felt the cool breeze. In the past, even this passing wind hurt like a knife cut, but now I was grateful to be able to feel this gentle wind.
The hospital was located in an area with few people, and only a few scattered buildings that looked like companies were visible nearby.
Through the rustling sound of shaking leaves, I heard faint footsteps.
I turned my body in that direction and watched the approaching person.
Hund’s face, walking leisurely down the street as if it were natural, looked more haggard than ever before. I couldn’t recall if that was his usual face or if his emotions were just upset now.
Perhaps it was all so blurry because Hund was now a person who had no influence on me whatsoever.
“Are you going to kill me?”
I asked quietly to him as he approached from a distance.
But as if he hadn’t heard, Hund continued approaching me at a steady pace. Despite this, no anxiety took root within me.
“I know you can’t kill me.”
“Me?”
He stopped in place. His deeply distorted expression, emitting a filthy heat, did not disappear.
Neither the sharp blade in his hand nor his fierce expression nor anything else could shake me.
Ridiculously, I truly felt no emotion at all.
“Uncle wanted me to find a way to live.”
I heard the sound of swallowing breath. I couldn’t distinguish whether it came from him or was made by me.
I continued speaking without stopping.
“I have something I want to say.”
