SWAP 109

The tips of your four tightly interlaced fingers trembled violently.

The tremor spread like a small ripple, gradually expanding until your entire body shook as if you had just witnessed a scene from a terrifying horror movie. I felt unbearably pitiful and sorry for that. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t utter a word. I was worried because you looked a bit thinner than the last time I saw you.

How did you get here?

Actually, how did you know that I didn’t just want to hear your voice, but wanted to see your face, too?

There was a mountain of things I wanted to ask, but only a fishy metallic taste lingered in my throat, which had been constricted to its limit and then released. Seeing me repeatedly parting my lips, Saheon lowered his head as if telling me not to speak. Our foreheads rubbed together, and he embraced me so strongly that my barely recovered breath was stifled again.

The shoulder where you buried your face felt hot and damp the whole time.

Perhaps because you had rushed here so frantically, I could hear the sound of a pulse thumping inside your wet neck. At that vibration, which asserted that you were fully alive, tears suddenly spilled out.

It’s strange. Clearly, I had been fine until just a moment ago. I had even felt a sense of relief, thinking I could finally be at peace. But the moment I was trapped in those familiar arms, Seoul realized. The truth was that he had been terrified all along. He had been so unendurably scared that he wanted to run away forever.

As I begin to cry, you start apologizing for faults you didn’t even commit.

I knew what those incoherent words meant, so the tears kept pouring out. After crying like that for a long while, my consciousness flickered out at some point. A mind and body already exhausted beyond their limits had recognized someone they could truly feel safe with.

“Lee Seoul.”

“Oh my. Hey, Seoul! Are you awake? Hmm?”

“Seoul-ah…!”

When I opened my eyes again, it was a hospital.

Along with a hand still held tight, people crowded around noisily. It was Seo Suran, Saheon’s older sister, and his mother, Yoo Mijeong. Leaving aside Seoul, who couldn’t properly grasp the situation, they wept in his stead.

They asked why he had such scary thoughts, hugging him and constantly patting him here and there. They said something felt strange because he hadn’t appeared at the funeral. They said they had worried a lot because they couldn’t get in touch… Even amidst those countless stories being exchanged, Saheon said nothing. He remained silent, merely staring intently at me.

Then, Seoul suddenly noticed.

The boy’s left hand, wrapped round and round in bandages.

Because his airway was damaged and words wouldn’t come out easily, he only moved his lips; seeing this, Seo Suran, who had been restless the whole time, began to speak. Only after hearing the words that poured out like a confession could Seoul understand the sequence of events.

“An accident happened on his graduation day, Seoul. He rolled down the stairs and hurt his head a bit… but after collapsing in the emergency room, he couldn’t regain consciousness the whole time… I wanted to tell you, but he told me absolutely not to tell you he was hurt. He said it’s an important time for you and not to make you worry for no reason…”

It was Seo Suran who had rushed to the emergency room first after hearing the sudden news that a knife attack had occurred at the graduation ceremony. How much had she screamed after seeing the state of her younger brother sitting on the bed, covered in blood? Even when she pressed him about what happened, the only response she got was absurd.

Don’t tell Lee Seoul. He’ll really faint if he sees this. The face he made while talking to his sister, while applying pressure to his deeply cut and mangled left hand, was savage. He liked it so much because he was filming that… Even though he was the one with the cracked head, every word he uttered was about Lee Seoul; when a half-exhausted Seo Suran nodded and said she understood, that was when it happened.

Saheon, as if he had finished his task, collapsed right then and there and didn’t wake up for weeks.

Even though he was in a state where he should have collapsed long ago, this crazy bastard had held on with grit just to say that one sentence.

It was staggering, but Seo Suran agreed to some extent. She had also heard the news that he had been cast in Director Hwang Seodeok’s project. It was obvious that if she told him Saheon had collapsed, Seoul would drop everything and come running. Thinking it was only natural since they had been inseparable since childhood, she kept quiet to Seoul about Saheon’s situation.

Since they said it wasn’t life-threatening, she thought she could just make up a reasonable excuse later. Instead, she focused all her energy on crushing the opponent who dared to put the precious youngest of the Seo family in this state. She was shaken when she belatedly heard the news of Seoul’s mother’s passing. She debated whether it was right to tell Seoul about Saheon’s condition when he was already having a hard time, but she never imagined things would turn out like this and felt guilty.

Since he said he had resumed filming, she thought he was okay.

“I’m sorry, Seoul. I didn’t know you were struggling that much…”

Seoul shook his head toward Seo Suran, who was on the verge of tears and apologizing with all her heart. He conveyed with his eyes that he would have done the same and that she was not at fault. It felt as if his mind, which had been pale and hazy as if covered in fog, was gradually clearing. So he hadn’t been ignoring me on purpose. That one fact brought a rush of relief.

Acknowledging that everything had been strange in hindsight, he pulled Saheon’s hand, which he had been holding. Are you okay? When he asked with his mouth, Saheon nodded slowly. Before long, in the hospital room where only the two of them remained, he asked about the graduation ceremony, but Saheon only added an explanation that he had simply lost his footing.

Liar.

Noticing that something else had happened, Seoul looked at the injured left hand; Saheon laid out a ridiculous excuse, saying he had just cut it while peeling fruit before that. Since he didn’t seem to have any intention of telling the truth, Seoul scribbled on his palm, asking how he knew to come.

“I just suddenly had a shitty feeling and my eyes snapped open.”

“…”

“So I barely managed to get discharged and come over, and your room is full of things you sent back. After I hung up the phone and checked my inbox, I… ha. Fuck…”

“…”

“Hey. Lee Seoul.”

“…”

“Don’t ever do that again, please…”

Blood had already seeped through the white bandages. Only then did Seoul realize that the wound, which had barely healed, had burst open. Recalling the scene of Saheon lifting him up and forcibly ripping out the hanger, he bit his lip and pulled the boy closer.

I’m sorry. When he whispered in a raspy voice, Saheon hugged him tightly. He closed his eyes at the peace that had finally arrived. Though scars remained, it felt as if everything had returned to its proper place. Not realizing that was his own delusion, the Seoul of that time felt relieved.

At dawn that day, Seoul woke up and faced Saheon, who was watching him in silence.

Startled, he pressed down on his racing heart and asked why he was doing that; Saheon simply covered Seoul’s eyes with his hand without much of a word. Is it because I slept too long? I foolishly believed him when he said he couldn’t sleep. Drowsiness rushed in at the soothing touch. Thinking casually that Saheon would surely be nodding off in the afternoon, Seoul fell asleep.

But you, the next day.

And the day after that.

You stayed awake through the dawn, unable to sleep.

It was after being discharged that I realized something was wrong. Seoul, who came to stay at Saheon’s house due to a collective opinion that he couldn’t be sent back to that house, soon noticed that Saheon refused to be away from him for even a moment.

If Seoul wasn’t anywhere within his sight, Saheon showed signs of extreme anxiety; if Seoul was even a little late coming out of the bathroom, he would knock on the door obsessively.

When I opened the door in surprise while washing up, you burst inside and asked while clearing away every razor blade and eyebrow trimmer on the sink.

“I’ll wait in front, so can’t you just leave the door open a little?”

“What?”

“I’m scared you might collapse or something.”

It was around then that I realized.

That the boy was monitoring me.

The moment I noticed that, beyond simple worry, he was pathologically anxious about my death, my heart collapsed helplessly. He didn’t believe the words that I wouldn’t do it again. Recognizing that this terrible situation had been ongoing since the hospital, Seoul, his face pale, asked:

“When was the last time you slept?”

There was no answer. But through that silence, Seoul learned that he hadn’t slept at all. Choosing to watch over me with eyes wide open for fear that I might hang myself again if he looked away for even a second, the boy took it upon himself to be my sentinel for a long time afterward.

I tried persuading him, I tried begging, and I tried getting angry, but it was no use. Saheon’s family members, who belatedly grasped the gravity of the situation, also stepped in, but it was meaningless. Problems arose in a body that hadn’t even fully recovered yet. Despite all pleas, the only time that boy slept was a measly two hours when someone else watched me in his stead. In the meantime, you even took a leave of absence from the university you had barely gotten into. It was horrific.

Finally, only after an incident occurred where Seoul, unable to endure it, cried until he exhausted himself and fainted, did Saheon begin counseling and drug treatment.

Under the changing season, in a room where it was just the two of them, you said kindly:

“I’ll take my medicine properly. So you promise, too. Even if you die, I’m going to bring you back to life anyway. I’ll grab you by the hair at the threshold of the underworld and drag you back. You know that.”

“But.”

“If you still want to die, Lee Seoul.”

“Die with me.”

“Take me with you. Why do you keep trying to go alone and leave me behind? Is that all I am to you?”

It was miserable, but there was no other way, so I nodded my head.

Crying fat tears, I held your hand and said, fine, let’s do that. Let’s just die together. Then you smiled like a picture.

The world outside sizzles in the summer sun.

I had failed, and I had a premonition that we were going to break a little.