The wind that happened to blow was unseasonably cool for early summer, making Park Dongju cross his arms and hunch his body. However, Sim Seowoo’s face as he looked back at the empty staircase remained endlessly calm.
In fact, the appearance of that person Seowoo had seen was objectively somewhat strange. The skin of the man lying flat on the stairs was not just pale but bluish, his clothes were like rags, and when the junior walked up, he even smiled with his mouth corners torn wide open. It also seemed like he had reached out his hand to grab the junior’s leg.
However, Sim Seowoo recalling that sight was extremely composed and rather answered Park Dongju’s words in a tone that said it was only natural.
“Well, if they were about to get stepped on, they probably moved…”
“No, there was no one there in the first place!”
“Didn’t you come out later than me?”
At the implication that Dongju wouldn’t have seen below the stairs since he was behind, Park Dongju became confused. Since Seowoo was talking so calmly, it really seemed like someone had been lying on the stairs.
He wanted to ask the juniors from earlier, but they would probably agree if Sim Seowoo said he saw someone on the stairs. They’d say something like they couldn’t check below because they were only looking at their senior. They already seemed thoroughly captivated by Sim Seowoo…
“I hope that person is lying on a bench now. Stairs are narrow and hurt your back.”
In reality, he’s this spacey like he’s missing a screw!
It was difficult to follow Sim Seowoo’s thinking as he casually accepted the existence that had been lying on the stairs in broad daylight, not a dark night. No, since it was bright, of course it wouldn’t be a ghost?
But…
Suddenly Park Dongju remembered something from a few days ago and carefully opened his mouth. He asked in a calm tone, conveying that he absolutely had no intention of making the other person seem weird.
“Hey. Do you by any chance see strange things, you know… like ghosts?”
“Isn’t it rude to condemn them as a ghost when they were just lying on the stairs?”
However, making his consideration meaningless, Sim Seowoo countered with a look that said why are you suddenly killing someone. Park Dongju felt wronged and exclaimed,
“No, you said last time too that someone was lying on a tree branch in front of the cafeteria. But a few hours later, that branch you pointed at had broken…!”
It was a very tall tree, but Sim Seowoo had randomly pointed at the top saying someone was lying there taking a nap. He even said that as early summer set in and the weather warmed up, there seemed to be more people seeking romance.
But at that time, no matter how much Park Dongju looked in that direction, he couldn’t find any human figure at all, and later when he heard the news that the branch had broken, he got chills. So he spoke quite seriously about it, but Sim Seowoo just blinked vacantly and answered with a face that said he didn’t know what the problem was.
“A person was lying there, so the branch must have been strained…”
“…I find your ability to accept things not just amazing but awe-inspiring.”
Park Dongju nodded as if resigned. He thought Seowoo would be at least a little confused or scared, thinking ‘Could that have been a ghost?’ after retracing the memory, but not at all. Somehow it was a composure that would brush it off as no big deal even if it really had been a ghost.
Sim Seowoo had always been like this.
He’d been calm since his freshman year of university and reacted composedly to anything. His neat appearance and characteristic quiet atmosphere also captured people’s gazes, so those behaviors gained favor too.
Back then, they admired how mature he already was at twenty years old, but in reality, he was someone who had infinite acceptance of “that can happen” for everything in the world. Rather than simply saying he had high understanding, it would be appropriate to say he had reached the境地 of enlightenment and detachment.
He’d been watching Sim Seowoo for about 5 years now, but still couldn’t understand his inner thoughts. Park Dongju shook his head and changed the subject.
“Anyway, vacation is coming soon—are you going traveling alone again? Overseas maybe?”
Every vacation, Sim Seowoo would suddenly take off somewhere alone. He spent all the money he earned working hard at part-time jobs during the semester on travel, and his destinations varied. It was behavior as if possessed by wanderlust.
“Well, I don’t have any plans set up yet…”
“What, you’re not searching for the ‘outside’ anymore? Since this is your last vacation before graduation, you should film the finale of your ‘Searching for the Outside’ series.”
Park Dongju giggled. This was exactly why he was always curious about Sim Seowoo’s whereabouts during vacations.
“I still sometimes remember and laugh about it. When I asked you in freshman year what you’d do during vacation and got the answer ‘I’m going to go outside,’ I was bewildered. When I asked what kind of outside, you said you were searching for it yourself, so I thought it was really strange, but later I realized you meant going abroad.”
Dongju chuckled, saying he should have recognized back then that Seowoo was no ordinary person. At this old story after a long time, Sim Seowoo just rolled his eyes to the side.
Dongju seemed to think he’d been joking back then, but he had only spoken the truth.
‘Live outside.’
Because those words from the boy six years ago eerily circled in his head.
It even kept appearing in dreams, so he was curious about where exactly that ‘outside’ was. What place was the outside that the boy urged while suddenly hitting his eyes, and if there was an outside then there must be an ‘inside’ too, so what distinguished them, and so on.
Unable to figure it out at all, Sim Seowoo had recklessly headed outside. First, with money saved from part-time jobs and military service, he intuitively went outside the country—that is, abroad—and wandered here and there. He thought that if he did so, wouldn’t he find a place that strongly drew his heart at some point?
He visited countries full of ancient ruins, stopped by cities with splendid night views, and headed to island nations surrounded by beautiful seas. He visited many places and spent considerable time, but in the end couldn’t find an appropriate location.
He traveled around domestically too. He visited every famous city and even lived on Jeju Island for a month during vacation, but Sim Seowoo still suffered from the feeling that he hadn’t found the ‘outside.’ Whatever scenery he saw, he was indifferent and felt no particular emotion.
Rather, he only felt an emptiness as if he’d left something behind. The more he went outside, the bigger that hollowness grew.
“This time I’m just going to keep working part-time.”
Could it be that the ‘outside’ the boy spoke of doesn’t follow physical distinctions? Honestly, it seems strange to be so obsessed with the words of a boy whose face he doesn’t even know, but…
Sim Seowoo shook his head slightly. Since graduation was approaching anyway, it seemed difficult to pour more time into just traveling, so he should probably face reality now.
“I’ll need to start preparing for employment soon…”
“What, it feels really strange to hear you say that. You were the kind of guy who thinks about that stuff?”
“Yeah. My dream is to live ordinarily.”
At the calm answer, Park Dongju let out an empty laugh.
“Aren’t you already pretty far from ordinary?”
He looked Sim Seowoo up and down as if he’d heard something very pie-in-the-sky. It was a look pointing out not just his unique atmosphere but his absurd level of acceptance.
However, Sim Seowoo just tilted his head as if puzzled.
“Why? This is pretty smooth and ordinary though…”
At the look insisting that he was already living ordinarily enough, Park Dongju finally chuckled. He had no idea what Seowoo’s standard for ‘ordinary’ was, but soon just shrugged his shoulders.
“Sure, sure. Let’s go study like ordinary college students.”
“You’re just going to cram now anyway. Well, this also falls within the category of ordinary.”
“I wish you’d realize that harsh words like this aren’t ordinary…”
***
That night.
Even late into the night, the library was crowded with people. Since exam week had begun, it was full of those studying hard at the last minute and also those cramming.
Park Dongju went back before public transportation stopped running, but Sim Seowoo decided to stay longer at the library since he could just walk to his studio apartment. The rule he’d set was to use home only as a space for comfortable rest.
Seowoo, who had been studying until late, felt his body getting stiff and came outside the building to get some air. The library’s east gate connected to a tree-lined street, making it good for a moderate walk.
During the day there were many people coming and going, but the tree-lined street late at night was very quiet.
“My eyes hurt for a long time today…”
Walking slowly along the quiet street, Sim Seowoo pressed down on his eyelids. Though he felt eye pain every day he had that dream, it usually subsided after three or four hours, but today the pain didn’t decrease even late at night and rather got worse.
Was it because his eyes were strained from looking at books for so long? No, it was closer to the stuffiness of looking at the world through a dusty window. It was a strange sensation even though he could clearly see ahead.
Sim Seowoo let out a small sigh and put in the artificial tears he’d recently started using.
‘Hey. Do you by any chance see strange things, you know… like ghosts?’
Suddenly he remembered what Park Dongju had said today.
He’d asked quite seriously, but in fact, Sim Seowoo hadn’t thought at all about such ‘strange things’—that is, ghosts or spiritual somethings. He didn’t consider the people he saw to be illusions, but if they really were apparitions, rather than thinking he’d gained an amazing ability, he would cite just one reason.
Sim Seowoo had the most rational basis to explain the abnormal symptoms.
“Am I slowly going crazy now… Well, I held out for a long time…”
