Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Everything flowed naturally even without being conscious of it. The thoughts in Seonwoo’s mind also slowly disappeared like that.
- Witness
He could feel the change of seasons in the air entering through his nose and mouth.
Now, even in the morning and evening, cold air wasn’t detected. His breathing gradually became labored. Each time his feet moved, his calm hair swayed.
Seonwoo swept his palm across the beads of sweat forming on his forehead and pushed back his bangs. Before he knew it, he’d gone around the park once and returned to the starting point. He’d only jogged lightly so as not to strain his head, but his back was damp.
When he stopped for a moment to catch his breath, his breathing had already calmed down, but his head was slightly dizzy. Seonwoo didn’t get greedy and ended his exercise.
Seonwoo headed to a sink on one side of the park. Clean water flowed down over the foam dressing. Through the translucent dressing, he could see the bumpy protruding skin along the wound area. The sutures had completely dissolved and now no trace could be found.
“Whew……”
Seonwoo, who had finished even washing his face, caught his breath. Sunlight poured over his face. When he closed his mouth, some flesh had attached to his cheeks that had been hollowed enough to see faint lines, and his pale face had regained color and looked healthy.
A month had passed since the day he met Taejeong in the hotel lobby. During that time, it wasn’t only Seonwoo’s health that had changed.
Not long ago, his mom had been moved from the ICU to a general ward. Various wires were still attached all over, but the range of bandages wrapped around her head had decreased, and at a glance, it seemed she had gotten past the emergency situation.
However, she had never regained consciousness even for a moment. When Seonwoo heard they were moving her to a general ward, he had searched about the recovery of comatose patients.
Cases where consciousness wasn’t regained even after several months had passed since the accident had a low possibility of recovery. The only things written were that if a patient woke up after that period passed, it was close to a miracle.
But that was only unreliable information written on the internet. Seonwoo decided to accept only the facts right in front of his eyes. Such as the fact that thanks to moving to a general ward, the time he could spend with his mom had increased.
The time he could visit per day was still limited, but it was enough for Seonwoo. He repeated daily the tasks of trimming her grown fingernails and toenails and wiping her hands and feet with a towel soaked in warm water.
In his spare time, he lay on the cot or did tutoring homework. And around sunset, he had to return home. Seonwoo wanted to stay 24 hours if possible, but the hospital didn’t allow it.
Although he didn’t recognize it himself, by repeating visits every day, Seonwoo was becoming exhausted both mentally and physically.
Then, naturally as water flows, he came to receive psychological counseling. It was when his hand injury had mostly healed and outpatient treatment had ended. It started with the recommendation of the attending physician who knew Seonwoo’s situation.
They said it wasn’t uncommon among guardians of severely ill patients. The location was gathered together on the side where the psychiatry department was.
Seonwoo faithfully attended without missing the counseling day that came once a week. It was on the way to see his mom anyway, and above all, he had no aversion because the counselor didn’t bother him annoyingly.
At the first counseling session, the counselor asked. When he learned that his father had passed away and his mother was unconscious, had he cried?
[Wouldn’t I have cried?]
Seonwoo had almost no memory of right after regaining consciousness. He didn’t remember at all being explained about the return of belongings by the detective, so there was no way he could know what his emotions were at that moment.
[How about now? When you think of your parents while talking with me, do you feel like crying?]
Seonwoo thought carefully and shook his head. He had no intention of forcing himself to hold back tears, but he didn’t feel like crying either. Rather than recalling things related to that, he wanted to do things he could do right away.
Then the counselor said it was avoidance stemming from a defense mechanism. After that, they had time where the counselor explained in a roundabout way that Seonwoo’s reaction wasn’t normal.
The words that it wasn’t normal weren’t shocking. This situation wasn’t the first. Growing up, Seonwoo had often thought that he was subtly out of sync with the friends around him.
That became the cause of conflicts, but they were problems that only occurred until elementary school, and after he started wearing a uniform, thanks to acting tactfully, he got along well with all his classmates. However, he didn’t have a single friend until now with whom he had shared deep emotional exchanges. Including these facts, Seonwoo had a lot to talk about in each counseling session.
The trigger for starting exercise was also the counselor’s recommendation. It was better than wandering around aimlessly killing time. As his stamina gradually recovered, his meal portions also increased, and he was able to escape the state where anyone could see he looked weak like a patient.
On the other hand, even after a month, his tutoring showed minimal progress. Seonwoo went without playing tricks, faithfully did his homework, and was never late to class. Despite that, the results fell short of expectations.
Of course, that was from Junyeong’s standards. Seonwoo thought it was sufficient enough when he saw a score similar to the best grade he received in high school.
[From what I see, I think it’s because you lack desperation.]
As if seeing through such thoughts, Junyeong hit the core. But he didn’t increase the homework or unreasonably rush through the curriculum. As Junyeong said, others couldn’t raise desperation that didn’t exist.
Instead of forcibly stimulating Seonwoo, Junyeong suggested thinking of realistic measures and narrowed down the universities to apply to. There were various candidates from reach to safety schools.
[It’s still April. Isn’t it early?]
[You’d think so, right? But if you take two mock exams, it’s over.]
Even looking at the list organized in a simple table, to Seonwoo’s eyes they all just looked the same. If he safely made it to November and took the college entrance exam, he planned to submit applications however Junyeong told him to afterward.
Seonwoo had lived diligently for the past month. Nothing had worsened in any aspect. Including the fact that Taejeong hadn’t shown even a single strand of hair, just as Seonwoo had wanted.
After that day, Taejeong hadn’t returned home. Since a long time had passed, it was no longer just wandering outside but clearly running away from home. But no one wondered about Taejeong’s well-being.
Even the housekeeper who treated Seonwoo kindly was like that. It seemed she might bring up a story about Taejeong to Seonwoo at least once, but she didn’t. Seonwoo even felt an inexplicable sense of defiance at everyone acting as if Taejeong’s existence had never been there in the first place, as if they had made a promise.
So on some days, he felt the impulse to contact the hotel, wondering if Taejeong had picked up the luggage left with the front desk. But because he realized he himself was no different from them, the swelling impulse soon became a deflated balloon and disappeared without resolution.
The only fact by which he could know that the housekeeper recognized Taejeong’s absence was the wide-open door. The door that had always been firmly locked seemed to have lost its function along with the room owner’s absence. The housekeeper kept the door open at any time to make cleaning easier.
One important fact was that Taejeong’s room was visible every time he passed through the hallway. As he kept his gaze on the room interior that was clearly visible, it seemed like Taejeong would pop out and slam the door with such force it might fly off, asking what he was peeping at.
Because of such useless imaginings, Seonwoo had to stop as if stuck in buffering every time he went down the stairs or to the bathroom. At first, he thought about closing the door, but instead Seonwoo faced Taejeong’s room directly every time he passed in front of it. It took a full month until he no longer stopped abruptly in the middle of the hallway.
ლ
Was this the feeling of putting down one heavy burden? Seonwoo felt like the sensitivity that had been soaring without knowing limits had decreased a lot.
So even when he received contact from the Vice Director to meet at home on the weekend, he only sighed once and his steps going back weren’t heavy. When the contact came, Seonwoo was in the middle of returning home after just finishing exercise. When he conveyed that fact, the Vice Director answered that it wasn’t urgent business so to come slowly.
