The boy was always someone who surrounded himself with a heterogeneous atmosphere that set him apart from people, making it difficult to approach him carelessly. But that didn’t mean the boy was alienated from the world and others. Rather, it was as if the boy himself was another world in itself, so he couldn’t blend with others and with our world. The boy, as a boy, had his back turned to us.
Because of that, whenever the twins tried to approach the boy, they were constantly ignored. Even when they deliberately made sounds and noises to draw his attention, the boy would only stare blankly out the window. In the end, Cha Jeoh, his feelings hurt, even hid all the books the boy frequently read, but even that brought no particular response.
Still, they thought it didn’t matter, that it was fine. Just sitting quietly and examining and appreciating the boy’s appearance, gestures, gaze, and facial muscles one by one was not a bad daily routine.
The one-sided love, grand only in name, was actually just the twins’ misguided choice of words since they knew nothing, so it wasn’t all that desperate.
Autumn passed, winter passed, spring came, and a new school year’s semester began. Unfortunately, they didn’t end up in the same class. Still, the boy continued to come to the library every break time. No, in fact, not being in the same class wasn’t all that unfortunate or regrettable either.
If they’d been ordinary people, they would have thought of it as just momentary curiosity or interest and forgotten about it—it wasn’t all that desperate.
They did think of that boy amidst the monsters suddenly appearing and turning the world upside down. But that was all. If he was alive, it would be good to see him once more; if he was dead, it couldn’t be helped, so that was that.
In this satisfying world where they no longer had to force themselves to mingle with others and keep pace, their attention to the boy had diminished—it wasn’t all that desperate.
Then, when they met the boy again as if by fate, they seemed quite flustered. When they belatedly came to their senses, the twins had already brought the boy to their space. And strangely, unlike the past days, the boy was looking straight at the twins.
Clearly, it hadn’t been desperate at all.
—
Cha Jeoh, who had been refreshingly cutting down the monsters that had crawled down to the first floor, stopped swinging his sword and whipped his head around. Soon his eyes widened greatly toward the athletic field beyond the window.
‘…Kim Hayoung?’
He hadn’t seen wrong.
‘Why is Kim Hayoung out in the athletic field?’
Kim Hayoung had definitely been waiting for the twins in the third-floor art room, and Cha Woodan had said he would go get him. So Kim Hayoung should have been coming down the stairs right now, held in Cha Woodan’s arms or on his back.
Of course, he knew that Kim Hayoung wasn’t attacked by monsters—he’d heard about his ability before. But the world was full of people who were more vicious, malicious, and cruel than monsters. So they couldn’t just leave Kim Hayoung like that.
Cha Jeoh dealt with the monster following him in one blow and increased his pace. Going to Kim Hayoung was much more important than immediately clearing the first floor to make it a safe zone.
Cha Jeoh, who had quickly exited the main building, stepped on the athletic field’s sand and headed toward him.
Kim Hayoung was standing blankly in the center of the not-so-wide athletic field, staring somewhere into the air. No, since his eyes were closed, it would be more accurate to say he had turned his head in that direction.
“Hayoung-ah.”
He raised his voice and called him. But for some reason, Kim Hayoung didn’t even pretend to hear.
“…Hayoung-ah, Kim Hayoung?”
He called him again, but there was still no response. Cha Jeoh, growing needlessly anxious, hastened his steps and approached him.
It was the moment when Cha Jeoh, having reached right next to Kim Hayoung, was about to open his mouth once more to pronounce that name. Kim Hayoung, who had been standing blankly all along, suddenly began to walk. Even with his eyes closed, it was an unhesitating movement, as if he could see everything clearly. Perhaps it was like an empty doll mechanically moving to find a registered destination.
That couldn’t be. Kim Hayoung was just excessively indifferent, but he couldn’t be called empty. He held the world within himself, so he was fuller than anyone, and therefore there seemed to be no room for anything else to squeeze in.
But right now…
There was no time for rational thought. Cha Jeoh reached out his hand abruptly and grasped Kim Hayoung’s, the boy’s, dry wrist. But foolishly, he couldn’t quite put any real strength into it.
“Wh-where… where are you going?”
Cha Jeoh’s voice asking that question wavered without composure. His face, no less distorted, bit down on his lower lip fiercely.
Cha Jeoh’s animalistic instincts were flashing red signals and wildly blaring sirens.
That he couldn’t let go of the boy before his eyes, that he absolutely must not let him go. If he did let him go, this would become his last meeting with the boy.
It definitely hadn’t been desperate. Then when did it become desperate?
In truth, the twins had only put it in plausible terms—they didn’t actually know what desperation was. Desperately wanting something, desperately wishing for something—these were concepts that couldn’t exist in the twins’ lives.
“…Don’t go.”
Fancy eloquence, honest confession of emotions—even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. Because he hadn’t learned, he didn’t know. So Cha Jeoh could only plead desperately and painfully.
“Can’t… can’t you not go…?”
I’ll give up the greed of wanting to squeeze into your world without knowing my place, so just let me watch that world from the side.
***
“…Don’t go.”
That voice seemed familiar somehow.
“Can’t… can’t you not go…?”
No, that couldn’t be. Another person’s voice couldn’t feel familiar to me.
I still don’t remember anyone, anything. I wanted that myself, so I brought it upon myself, and so I ultimately left nothing in my memory.
“…Or, if you must go. Can’t you take us with you?”
Because our world is different from your world. It can’t mix, and it shouldn’t mix.
“Kim Hayoung… Hayoung-ah.”
“…….”
‘…Cha Jeoh?’
Only then did my hazy consciousness gradually become clear. My foggy mind cleared as if fog had lifted, and my body, which had been following only instinct without following reason, belatedly returned under its master’s control and flinched.
However, Cha Jeoh seemed to have completely misunderstood my flinching in a different direction. He added a little, just a very little bit of feeble strength to the grip that had been holding my wrist.
“Why, why won’t you say anything…….”
It wasn’t that I wouldn’t, but that I couldn’t, but Cha Jeoh didn’t seem to have any room right now to consider the conditions of my ability. But I also didn’t have any room to understand such a Cha Jeoh. It was because I couldn’t even grasp how this situation I’d suddenly encountered had come about.
I remembered noticing that the passage to the second floor had opened. After that, I’d been going back inside the art room to wait for the twins and Lee Gojun, then it seemed I’d suddenly changed direction and gone out into the corridor.
‘And then I came down to the first floor like that and went out to the athletic field.’
Even though my eyes were closed, I didn’t touch walls, stagger from bumping into things, or fall. I recalled myself walking confidently as if I could see the scene beyond my closed eyelids. I couldn’t remember at all why I’d done that, what purpose I’d come to the athletic field for, or where my final destination had been.
I had a strange sense of déjà vu.
‘This happened once before too.’
The incident where monsters had swarmed because I’d opened my eyes in the third-floor corridor, and because of that, the upper floor had been cut off from the lower floor.
Back then too, I’d opened my eyes in the middle of the corridor, led by an unknown impulse and instinct. I couldn’t say not a single bit of my will had gone into it, but I also couldn’t say it had been 100% my choice.
“Why, why won’t you say anything…….”
It’s not that I won’t, but that I can’t, I tell you.
Swallowing a silent sigh, I turned my head following his endless rambling. Then, leaving the hand holding my wrist as it was, what felt like his other hand approached and carefully changed the direction of my face.
“Not there… here.”
I obediently moved following the touch and nodded. Soon, reaching out and groping around, I tapped the shoulder of Cha Jeoh that I’d barely found.
“Wh-what… why. Telling me to fuck off? To go die?”
It was a reaction as if I’d pushed him instead of tapping his shoulder, even though I hadn’t. Thanks to that, my hand, which had retreated hesitantly, lost its purpose and wandered in the air.
“Don’t, don’t fuck with me. I can’t fuck off. I won’t fuck off….”
“Cha Jeoh.”
A relatively calm voice popped out and cut off the other noticeably trembling voice.
