The sound plugged into his ears was unbelievably bad and wicked words. It was terrible enough to mistake for auditory hallucinations.
They were words he shouldn’t believe, but strangely the surrounding air was strangely sharp and chilly. Though there was no reason for the air pressure to be low, his breathing quickened in an instant, goosebumps arose, and a chill slowly seeped in. All senses and intuition pointed in an unfavorable direction.
As if foretelling a frightening truth.
“…What kind of nonsense is that?”
Though he pretended composure, his voice trembled miserably. His pupils, shaking as if an earthquake had occurred, couldn’t settle in one place as they watched the figure before him.
“Just as I said. He left without leaving anything behind.”
At the absurd news, his quickened heart instantly heated his body. Haeseong, swallowing the pooling saliva, opened his mouth calmly.
“That ahjussi isn’t that kind of person. He left me behind because the situation is bad right now. Even if he went to America, the person who will contact me every day is Lee Euiju.”
“…”
“Team Leader doesn’t know well, right? How much that ahjussi cherishes me. He knows how much he needs me, so he’s not someone who would leave without leaving anything behind.”
Lee Euiju is kind. He was a person whose nature was warm, affectionate, and humane. The team leader probably doesn’t know well how much such a person cherishes him, which is why he could easily spit out such words.
Since it was a fact that only the person involved would know, it was understandable to be mistaken.
“Yeah, fuck.”
That doesn’t make sense.
Haeseong, who muttered quietly, got up from his seat. However, not only did his strength not properly enter, but his legs, which had unknowingly given out, made him sit down on the cold floor.
“Haeseong-ah!”
Surprised, Kim Jaeho reached out and grabbed Haeseong’s shoulder. But Haeseong was faster in swatting it away.
“Don’t touch me.”
Haeseong’s eyes glaring at where the hand had touched were cold and cool, no different from before. As if saying only one person in the world could touch him.
Haeseong, who had struggled to stand up supporting himself on the bed, slowly exited the room supporting himself against the wall. Kim Jaeho followed with a worried face, but for some reason the boy headed to the nearby dressing room. Beads of sweat formed on Haeseong’s forehead as he overexerted himself.
Arriving at the dressing room, Haeseong roughly opened the wardrobe door where Euiju’s clothes had been hanging.
“What are you trying to find?”
This was where Euiju, whose time staying at home had increased, kept his things. If anywhere, there was a high probability he had left something here without the company people knowing.
Haeseong rummaged through the wardrobe with rough hands. However, not only Euiju’s clothes but all the items he had brought were completely gone. Without needing to search, everything was completely empty.
“It’s useless. Euiju-ssi took everything. I’m telling you he really didn’t leave anything behind.”
Haeseong, biting his lips tightly, turned around as is. He began walking quickly to the kitchen with legs that had regained a bit of strength.
At that moment, Kim Jaeho, who had been following closely behind Haeseong, blocked his front.
“Move.”
“The director said so. Euiju-ssi was worried you’d follow him. That you’d give up everything you’ve built up until now. That you’d really give up everything and follow him.”
“…”
“Haeseong-ah. Euiju-ssi is just a person passing through your life. You have no right to hold onto that person, and you can’t follow him just because you can’t accept the facts.”
Haeseong ignored Kim Jaeho and passed him. He began looking around various places in the house, searching for traces Euiju had left.
However, far from leaving traces, nothing about Euiju remained. Euiju’s toothbrush that had been side by side with Haeseong’s toothbrush, the things he had bought for him to use comfortably because cooking tools were too expensive and heavy, his notebook where he had organized and written things they would watch together in the theater room, the massage lotion with the scent Euiju liked.
Nothing at all.
Haeseong, who ultimately couldn’t find anything, urgently returned to his room. He picked up his phone and called Euiju.
[The number you have dialed does not exist. Please check and dial again.]
The cold mechanical voice pierced his mind. An unpleasant feeling like bugs crawling from the back of his hands to the top of his feet surged up.
It felt like his breath kept getting blocked in his throat, unable to pass. His tightly constricting heart caused pain and made his vision grow distant.
As if the fuse was about to blow, behind Haeseong who was barely holding onto his consciousness, Kim Jaeho said something.
“That’s why you should have let him go. Because you acted so extremely, Euiju-ssi had no choice but to make this choice out of worry.”
Kim Jaeho, who had belatedly followed Haeseong, blamed Haeseong who was plunged in despair.
“Haeseong-ah. Can’t you just accept this comfortably instead of being like this? Just go back to the time before Euiju-ssi existed. You got along fine without Euiju-ssi before. There’s no need to obsess like this.”
At that voice mixed with pity while reproaching Haeseong, intense anger suddenly began to boil up in Haeseong’s empty pupils.
Haeseong, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, raised his head. His pupils, swept with all kinds of emotions, clearly turned toward Kim Jaeho.
“You’re trying to pull something on me right now.”
“…What?”
An ominous and sticky voice echoed in the room. As if the thought that suddenly occurred to him was turning into conviction, one corner of Haeseong’s mouth slowly rose.
“You’re deliberately not telling me, that’s right. Haha. Fuck. That’s it. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“…”
“My aunt must have been really fucking worried I’d really give up everything and follow that person. Right? Even if not right now, she can’t tie me down once time passes.”
“Haeseong-ah. That’s not it,”
“Team Leader. How much is my aunt giving you? Well, there’s no way that ahjussi would do that. Are you trying to make a person look foolish by attaching something that doesn’t make sense? Now that I see it, Team Leader, your quality is also fucking bad.”
“…”
“I almost really believed it. Fuck.”
Haeseong, who laughed pleasantly as if he’d found the answer, suddenly began to move busily.
“Lead the way. I need to go to my aunt.”
“…”
“What are you doing? Let’s go.”
Haeseong urged and gestured irritably with his chin.
Kim Jaeho was silent. His pupils moved slowly like someone hesitating about something. The place where he was standing was as quiet and calm as if it were in a remote location.
“Can’t you hear me?”
At that moment, he who had been standing silently began to move. He brought a box that had been placed on the table and held it out in front of Haeseong.
“Look. With your own eyes directly.”
Haeseong received it bewilderedly.
“What is this?”
“…”
Kim Jaeho couldn’t meet Haeseong’s eyes and just stared intently at the box. Noticing this, Haeseong opened the box lid with rough hands.
The square paper lid rolled on the floor. Inside, two dolls were neatly stacked.
“What is this?”
“Try to remember. You bought it yourself.”
Haeseong, picking up the doll with displeased eyes, checked it this way and that.
“What is this all of a sudden…”
Suddenly, a memory that flashed momentarily unfolded in Haeseong’s mind like a scene from a movie. His eyes grew larger and larger.
“Why is this here…”
Wasn’t this the doll that Haeseong had personally chosen and given as a gift to Euiju’s younger sibling in the past?
Without time to question, a familiar note placed inside the box came into view. That too was something Haeseong couldn’t not know. Because it was a letter he had personally written to give to Euiju.
“…”
Why was what he had put inside the watch case he had bought in advance to give as a birthday present here?
Haeseong, visibly flustered, threw away the box containing the doll. As he examined the note this way and that, he saw that something was written on its back.
“…!”
Haeseong’s chest began to heave rapidly like someone who had finished sprinting at full speed.
*I hope someone better than me appears before you. I’m sorry. Take care.*
Neat and tidy handwriting.
It was his tidy handwriting that could only be seen in Euiju’s scheduler.
“Euiju-ssi sent it to the company. The staff thought it was strange while inspecting it, so they set it aside separately. You would know the handwriting best of anyone.”
“…”
Haeseong’s hand holding the note trembled like an aspen tree. He narrowed his eyes as if falling into confusion, and tears could be seen rapidly filling his eyes. When blood vessels bulged on his forehead to the point it seemed they would burst, his tears finally fell to the floor.
Watching a person being consumed by sorrow and despair right before one’s eyes was no easy task.
“…Haeseong-ah.”
When his doctor friend said that pronouncing death to a patient’s guardian was extremely difficult, Kim Jaeho at the time had just said “I see.” But why, at this moment, did that friend’s feelings resonate so much?
The empty gaze, now devoid of any emotion, met Kim Jaeho’s again. The severely dried boy’s lips barely moved.
“…Ahjussi, abandoned me?”
His voice, full of moisture, came out trembling pitifully.
“That’s…”
He wanted to say no, but Kim Jaeho couldn’t bring himself to deny it.
Haeseong, who had slightly staggered as if his legs had lost strength again, backed away and sat down on the bed. The small note he had been holding in his hand fluttered and fell to the floor.
The only person who had been within the child’s boundaries had left those boundaries. The person who had completely entered the boundaries for the first time had ultimately abandoned the child and fled.
The despair Haeseong felt could not be compared to anything.
“In the end, you abandoned me. Me…”
Jin Haeseong’s surroundings seemed like a remote space as if even dust floating in the air didn’t exist. Had this child ever shown such a powerless and frightened appearance before him like this? The moment he faced the despairing gaze that passed fleetingly through the boy’s eyes, he felt a tingling in his calves and all his existing hair standing on end.
“Haeseong-ah. Euiju-ssi…”
Kim Jaeho couldn’t finish his words completely. In his own way, Lee Euiju’s position was too understandable to call it abandonment. According to the child’s personality, he would have continued contact, and then Lee Euiju wouldn’t have been able to focus entirely on his youngest sibling’s treatment. Because he would have persistently bothered him and even tried to follow him there.
“…Don’t think strange thoughts. We can just live our own lives. We just need to respect Euiju-ssi’s choice. Just, let’s think of it as going back to how it was before.”
“…”
Though he knew Haeseong was sensitive to others’ touch, Kim Jaeho didn’t want to care about such things just for this moment. He slowly approached Haeseong and patted his shoulder.
Haeseong’s completely empty pupils wandered through the air.
“I know it’ll be hard since you followed Euiju-ssi a lot. Whether you call friends over here to play or whatever you do, I won’t interfere for a while. So… pull yourself together and stay well.”
Kim Jaeho, who was about to leave after finishing those words, suddenly stopped his steps.
He suddenly recalled what Lee Euiju had said to him.
—I’m saying don’t leave him alone by himself just because he has a vicious temper and is originally like that, but at least Team Leader Kim should stay with him.
The moment Kim Jaeho turned back around, teardrops fell pitter-patter from Haeseong’s two eyes. Water droplets that formed rapidly and couldn’t bear their weight fell rapidly to the floor. Tears gushed and flowed ceaselessly.
“Haes…”
However, the call wasn’t completed.
—Honey… are you going out again at this hour?
He also had a child. He was currently neglecting the newborn child, unable to properly look after it due to recent incidents. He was a sinner to both his wife and child. He too didn’t have the capacity to care for someone right now.
“…Then I’ll be going. I rescheduled the meeting with Director Kim Seongwon. The reading will also open anew soon. I’ll contact you when it’s confirmed… and contact me if anything happens.”
Ultimately, Kim Jaeho also chose to turn away from Jin Haeseong’s pain. Because Kim Jaeho’s priority, like Lee Euiju, was family, not Jin Haeseong. Kim Jaeho, unable to bear looking at Haeseong, moved his steps and quickly exited the room.
In the end, Haeseong became alone again in this spacious house.
From childhood until now, as always.
