“Seonwoo has a small mouth.”
However, the Vice Director said something unexpected. He slowly unclasped his hands and then fidgeted with his left fingers. It was an empty ring finger without even a ring mark.
“Not eating even when I put food on your rice, that’s exactly like Seonmin.”
“……”
“Smiling like that when you’re angry too.”
And he smiled. Not a fabricated smile like looking down on Seonwoo or pretending to be a good person like before, but a truly ordinary smile.
At the same time, Seonwoo’s mouth corners plummeted to the floor. What hadn’t entered his field of vision until just before became visible. It was the side dishes the Vice Director had piled up. Fish, spinach, lotus root stew. They were all side dishes Mom liked.
Instantly, goosebumps rose as if a chilling energy spread from the top of his head to his spine. His body rejected it like an allergic reaction. The Vice Director was observing Seonwoo before his eyes down to the bone.
The Vice Director had always been like this since the first day he saw Seonwoo. However, he’d never revealed it as blatantly as today.
Seonwoo no longer needed venting anger or anything. His only thought was wanting to remove the cause of this unpleasantness from his sight. He didn’t want to be here anymore. His thoughts stopped briefly from the strong impulse.
When he came to his senses, the place had changed as if he’d teleported. Seonwoo belatedly recognized his surroundings. This was the second-floor room.
Did he say he’d get up first? Or did he jump up and escape from that place? Like a portion of his memory had been excised, it didn’t come to mind at all.
However, without even time to fall into thought, the wide-open closet caught his gaze. Only then did Seonwoo realize he’d left Taejeong behind in that place.
The closet was a mess. Looking at the clothes fallen on the floor and the violently pulled-open drawers, it seemed like he could picture what route Taejeong took to search through the closet.
He wasn’t surprised. Rather, it was so exactly as expected that he felt completely deflated. Then he felt the cool paper texture touching between his palms.
He belatedly released the strength from his hands, but the end of the paper was already crumpled up. Even though he didn’t know with what mindset he came to the room, he hadn’t let go of it from his hand.
“……”
Seonwoo carefully put down the death certificate with Dad’s name written on it on the floor. And he pressed firmly with both palms to remove the wrinkles.
However, no matter how hard he tried, the once-crumpled paper didn’t return to its original form. Nevertheless, Seonwoo repeated the meaningless motion.
Leaving the bed and desk alone, he sat down ambiguously on the floor and moved his hands. It looked like he was stubbornly clinging to it because there was nothing else he could do otherwise.
Had even an hour passed since entering this house? Seonwoo ignored the heart that was already clamoring to return to the studio.
Just like how he’d treated the students who picked fights with him as invisible people. The fact that Taejeong, who had been seated at that dining table before him, was still left alone with the Vice Director even at this moment. He decided to pretend not to know everything.
ლ
In the end, Seonwoo suffered all dawn clinging to the toilet. It was a natural result since he overate stimulating foods and even received stress.
When he lay down, his stomach turned over, so he repeated leaning against the bathroom wall dozing off and vomiting again. Even after throwing up everything he’d barely brought in his stomach from the studio, his stomach didn’t improve. Thinking he’d collapse like this, he came to his senses by drinking tap water from the sink.
When he became able to move his body, he went down to the first floor. When he entered the kitchen, the food was left as it was. Seonwoo didn’t even look at the dining table as the nausea that had barely improved seemed to rise again.
Thanks to figuring out the drawer location once, he quickly found digestive medicine. But something felt empty. Seonwoo didn’t miss that sense of incongruity and looked around. The entire box of painkillers that had definitely been around here had disappeared.
He had eaten four painkillers that day, but there were definitely extras left. Since only one day had passed, there was no way he’d mistaken it. Seonwoo frowned slightly. Setting aside the whereabouts of the medicine, it meant he had to endure the subtle headache he felt right now without medicine.
If his stomach improved quickly and he could at least sleep, it would be okay. Seonwoo put aside his regret and only swallowed the digestive medicine. While wandering back and forth in the kitchen like that, the inside of the house was as quiet as a mouse.
The second floor was the same in not feeling any presence. Seonwoo headed to the bathroom again while rubbing his upper abdomen. Even though he’d rinsed with water several times, his mouth felt uncomfortable, so he planned to brush his teeth.
However, today, which had been unusually long, was uncooperative until the end. The toothbrush that had definitely been put back in its place was nowhere to be found. But Seonwoo, exhausted in both body and mind, didn’t think deeply. If the toothbrush disappeared, he just needed to take out a new one.
It would have been different if it was an item he was attached to, but it was just a consumable. It was a strange situation where items were disappearing one after another, but it didn’t catch Seonwoo’s interest at all.
Seonwoo had a tendency to simplify his thoughts excessively when he was in this house. It might be a defense mechanism to minimize stress. It was also due to his personality of not giving attention to subjects he judged to have no value.
Moreover, since there was never a peaceful day, he had no leisure to worry calmly either. The only thought in Seonwoo’s mind as he lay curled up in the corner of the bed was hoping that his still faintly queasy stomach would quickly settle down.
He slept somewhat fitfully. Perhaps because he’d emptied his stomach cleanly, the medicine’s effects circulated quickly. When he felt a bit more livable, other things entered his eyes. It was the wardrobe that had become a mess.
The sight of clothes mixed up haphazardly and in disarray seemed to represent his own state. But unlike the wardrobe, it wasn’t Taejeong’s fault that Seonwoo’s insides were torn up.
“……”
Seonwoo, lying motionless, blinked his eyes quietly. At the studio, he could sleep comfortably at ease without great effort, but now there was no sign of his eyes closing.
It couldn’t be helped. The environment was different from then and now, and his physical condition was also different. But there was no way Seonwoo didn’t know that all of those were merely excuses.
Seonwoo coolly admitted it. Leaving Taejeong behind was still weighing on his mind.
That said, he didn’t have even a speck of intention to apologize to Taejeong. In the first place, creating that situation wasn’t his fault, and it would have been strange to wake Taejeong up and escape together. Doing nothing at that place was the best option.
But even after time passed and his stomach improved, it bothered him enough that he couldn’t fall asleep. Seonwoo thought alone as if making excuses to someone.
ლ
The opportunity to resolve his uncomfortable feelings didn’t come. After that day, Taejeong disappeared again. The sneakers that looked two sizes bigger than Seonwoo’s could no longer be seen either.
What had bothered him enough to lose sleep also naturally subsided since it was out of sight. It was the kind of feeling that would become as if it never happened after not seeing it for a few days.
The one day spent stuck together with Taejeong was just an exception; since the accident, it had been natural for Seonwoo to be alone. It had been that way in the hospital too, and he planned for it to be that way going forward.
However, the day he came back from filing the death report was quite gloomy. He hated that the house with no one made his heart feel twice as empty, and if he went to his father’s studio, he felt like he’d do something pathetic even in his own opinion.
Having nowhere to go, Seonwoo, who had been wandering outside, arrived at the hospital. Since it was a time when visits weren’t possible, he couldn’t go inside. Seonwoo sat in the waiting seats prepared outside the ward.
Would his heart have been a bit more comfortable if he’d felt comforted by the presence of his mother existing in the same space? But such a dramatic emotional change didn’t occur. Rather, it felt like he’d perceived reality with one layer peeled away.
