“Choi Wookyung-nim, please come in.”
Wookyung, who had been looking down at his tablet, heard his name being called and slowly turned off the screen. The attendant sitting next to him accepted the tablet from Wookyung’s hands with a respectful gesture.
He slowly raised his tall frame. The gazes of people waiting for their appointments turned toward him one by one. Wookyung’s considerable height and masculine face certainly gave off an intimidating atmosphere, but there was also something gloomy about him. His moderately tanned face was soaked with fatigue. Like a sponge that had absorbed dark gray water.
Wookyung’s footsteps headed slowly toward the examination room. With each step he took, neatly suppressed pheromones flowed out faintly. The concentration was such that the place he should be heading to seemed like it ought to be the endocrinology department that dealt with pheromone glands, not here.
Though the sound of his walking wasn’t loud, it still held people’s gazes. However, receiving others’ attention gave Wookyung no particular feeling. With an indifferent expression, above the door Wookyung entered was a sign that read ‘Neuropsychiatry Examination Room 1’.
“Hello, Choi Wookyung-nim.”
Inside the desk in the examination room sat a man who appeared to be around his age. On the desk was a triangular crystal nameplate that read ‘Neuropsychiatrist Kim Hyunjin’. With numerous books lined up on a massively built bookshelf behind him, the doctor sat upright. His hands clasped together and placed on the desk exuded leisure. With an affable impression and a hospitable smile on his lips, the young doctor spoke kindly.
“Please sit over here.”
Without answering, Wookyung nodded his head slightly and sat on the sofa placed in front of the doctor. Since consultations could be lengthy, a comfortable chair had been prepared, unlike the uncomfortable round chairs placed in other examination rooms.
“Looking at the examination form you filled out, it says you have insomnia.”
The young doctor asked kindly, flipping through the form he had received in advance. The doctor’s eyes paused for a moment on the words ‘Dominant Alpha’ checked in the phenotype section.
“…Yes.”
The doctor momentarily raised his head at the rough low tone that rumbled from Wookyung’s throat.
“Mm… it says you haven’t been able to sleep at all for the past two years.”
“Yes.”
“Was there… any particular incident around that time?”
Despite knowing this was a question doctors typically asked, an unrefined answer spilled from Wookyung’s mouth.
“Do I have to tell you about that too?”
A growling voice scratched the air inside the examination room. A brief silence flowed instantly. The doctor removed the glasses he’d been wearing and slowly set them down, raising the corners of his mouth.
“Of course, if you don’t wish to, you don’t have to tell me. Not yet, anyway.”
“I won’t have any reason to in the future either.”
The firm answer settled in the middle of the examination room like a rock.
“Just… prescribe me some medication. I only came because the medicine I’ve been taking doesn’t seem to work anymore, not because I need counseling.”
Wookyung’s tone and gestures as he ran one large hand over his eyes clearly showed his fatigue. The doctor was silent for a moment, then answered readily.
“Understood. As you wish. I’ll prescribe medication from a different class than what you’ve been using. Then let’s meet again in one week.”
“…Understood.”
“Lethargy or severe anxiety may appear as side effects. In that case, you must come to the hospital immediately.”
Wookyung nodded and slowly rose, leaving the examination room. While getting into the car side by side with Secretary Kim Minho who had been waiting, neither of them spoke.
Only after ten minutes of driving did Secretary Kim cautiously open his mouth.
“Executive Director.”
“Yeah.”
“…How was it?”
At Secretary Kim Minho’s question about the new hospital, Wookyung answered indifferently.
“Just the same as always.”
“Still, I heard it’s one of the most famous places for insomnia…”
There was concern in Secretary Kim’s words as he gripped the steering wheel and delicately turned a curve. Secretary Kim’s tone, in which even anxiety could be felt, belatedly registered in his ears. Secretary Kim must have carefully selected it in his own way. Wookyung took his eyes off the tablet he’d been staring at and smiled faintly.
“I know. Good work. It’s not the hospital’s fault.”
“…Yes.”
The conversation ended there. Secretary Kim was the person who had watched Wookyung suffer from insomnia most closely for about three years. The process of changing hospitals and medications over and over again as well. The medications would be pretty much the same everywhere, so he didn’t think this hospital would be much different, but he couldn’t help the expectations that hung like a thin thread each time.
The superior he served most closely was elegant and kind despite the insomnia that had tormented him for a long time. Though he was obsessively merciless when it came to work, contrary to his cold, tyrannical appearance, he was a caring man. That impression hadn’t changed during the few years they’d been together.
That’s why Secretary Kim now sincerely wished for his wellbeing. He hoped he could now shake off the damp and dark memories that covered his entire body like armor. Even though it wasn’t strictly part of his job duties, that was why he wandered around searching for all kinds of sleep clinics and insomnia-related hospitals.
“I’ll take you home.”
“Yeah.”
Seeing that there were no instructions to head to the company, he could tell his fatigue had accumulated to its limit. Secretary Kim silently drove the car to Wookyung’s residence.
He loosened his tie with hands covered in fatigue and ennui. He removed the vest he’d been wearing and hung it on the hanger. After taking off his shirt and pants, he headed to the bathroom.
As if to drive away the spirit of sleeplessness clinging to him like a demon, Wookyung turned on water hot enough to scald his body and stood blankly under it for a long while. His mind soon became hazy in the billowing steam. But the moment he opened the door and went outside, like the warmth that quickly rushed out the door, sleep would also flee. As if teasing him.
The doctor at the clinic he’d attended before had said so. Let go of the obsession that you must force yourself to sleep. That obsession can paradoxically chase sleep away. It was true.
‘…Fucking hell.’
Muttering curses, he put on his loungewear. With just that one motion, sleep had already fled. However, his body, which hadn’t slept properly for three days, drooped like water-soaked cotton. Completely exhausted, Wookyung lay down on the bed.
The late afternoon sunlight was languidly permeating through the window. He blinked vacantly, watching dust floating slowly in the air. Come to think of it, how long had it been since he’d been home at this hour?
His gaze naturally turned toward the nightstand beside the bed. He grasped the handle, now somewhat worn from being grabbed and opened too many times, and opened the first drawer. Into that drawer, which contained nothing except a single object, long, thick fingers invaded familiarly. He picked up a small, round object using his index finger and thumb.
The ring, receiving the pouring sunlight, emitted a white glow. Even though he’d been looking at it for three years now, always at the same angle, in the same posture, this ring always pierced his heart to the same degree.
Lest he lose it, he put it in his palm and clenched his hand tightly. Then, worried it might break, he loosened his grip a little. A helpless sigh leaked from his mouth. He found it laughable that he was being so anxious over just one fragment of a trace that boy had left behind. When the very one he’d wanted to protect wasn’t by his side.
Are you at peace now?
Having ended your bitter life at such a young age, are you at peace, having forgotten me?
It felt like a dull blade, neither sharp nor keen, was pressing into his heart with a heavy ache. If only a mercilessly cold piece of metal would cruelly pierce through the valves and muscles, could he breathe comfortably along with the blood seeping out of his ruptured heart?
But the blade that today too had only given him the same dull pain as usual gradually withdrew, conveying a silent message. Your share of suffering for today is over, so now go and live doing what you need to do. And be prepared to experience this same pain again when you open this drawer again after a short time has passed.
For those who survive, memory is that cruel. Perhaps because he’d only done bad things with his life, even the blessing of oblivion wasn’t permitted. Seeing how that boy’s face remained this vivid even as time passed.
Wookyung put the precious ring back in the drawer and covered his face with his palms. It seemed today too he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
*
After finishing his appointments, Hyunjin turned off the computer and organized his desk. He slowly removed his lab coat and hung it neatly on the wall, then lathered soap at the small sink attached to the room and meticulously washed his hands. He picked up the cologne placed in the corner of the desk and sprayed it behind his ears and near his chest. A scent like a bonfire with an appropriate mix of charcoal filled the examination room.
He opened the door and came out, exchanging smiling greetings with the nurses. The shirt and necktie he wore, the knit worn over them, and the cotton pants. The black long coat worn over that and his glasses—he believed they were enough to plant a neat image. Even the smile that made him look somewhat fragile when he smiled—Hyunjin knew the strengths his face and body possessed. A good person. That image was a great help to his profession as a doctor, so he was willing to make efforts to maintain it going forward.
He went to the parking lot, got in his car, and started the engine. The smell of the cologne he’d sprayed earlier quickly filled the cramped car. Hyunjin operated the car audio to play the playlist he always listened to. Soon after, along with the sound of tapping a wooden gong, Buddhist scriptures chanted in a steady tone played softly in the car.
[Mahāprajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra, Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva…]
