JKA 51

So he thought that if someone could solve all of that for him, he wouldn’t want to die anymore. But that wasn’t the reality. He had wanted to die for a very trivial reason. A person could die for such a trivial reason. Just as Zeo said, humans were that kind of being. It was just that living was so hard that he could use everything happening around him as a reason to die.

“Wh, when I said I w, wanted to he, help you, that person got angry. Re, really angry.”

“…”

“Ba, back then, I d, didn’t understand, you know? Because th, thinking you want to he, help someone is a g, good thing, right? But he was just getting angry, angry. But now, I th, think I know why he w, was angry.”

Jiwoon thought that he must have wanted to say that the emotion of wanting to help someone is a good thing, but it shouldn’t take priority over taking care of oneself. In that moment, Zeo had worried about him. Sincerely.

“Y, you worry about me, too, right? That’s why you asked sunbae about the scenario… that thing, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I, I think it’s the same k, kind of thing. In the past, I, I would never have been able to do it. I would have th, thought, ‘How dare I he, help someone?’ I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you, either, and would have just kept r, running away.”

Of course, Jiwoon hadn’t abandoned the thought of wanting to help Hanbyeol. He was going to do his best to help him within the bounds of what he could do. He had now become a very precious friend to him, and one of the reasons he shouldn’t die. If nothing else, Jiwoon, too, knew well the sadness of losing someone.

He had now reached a point where he could think about such things. Zeo’s help had clearly been a big part of that.

“S, so I understand. If that person disappears… I, I think I’ll be r, really sa, sad. So I h, hope he doesn’t disappear, but…”

“…”

“Th, that’s something I, I want to think about l, later.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Hanbyeol smiled as if affirming Jiwoon’s words, but the more he listened, the more worried he became about Jiwoon all the same. It was because, separate from the fact that Jiwoon was becoming more positive, he just couldn’t overlook the fact that he had been changed by something that wasn’t human.

Above all, Jiwoon kept referring to the angel as ‘that person’. That kept bothering him. Such a being shouldn’t be by the side of an ordinary person. Whether it was a devil or an angel.

“I’m going to class, see you tomorrow.”

“O, okay!”

The conversation about angels and devils ended there. Hanbyeol thought that since Jiwoon had already come to perceive the angel as a person, there was no point in saying anything more, and Jiwoon was so preoccupied with what was happening to him right now that it was difficult to think about other things.

He had just barely realized and admitted the fact that he liked Zeo, so he had no spare moment to think of anything else. He did think, ‘What should I do from now on?’ but he couldn’t think about it as seriously as Hanbyeol did. To be honest, he was so preoccupied with how to face Zeo when he got home that he couldn’t see anything bigger than that.

It wasn’t a problem that could be solved by just killing time outside, nor was he in a position to stay out overnight. No, even if he were to stay out, it wasn’t a problem that would be solved by sleeping outside for a day and going back. In any case, he had to keep seeing Zeo. Because he didn’t want Zeo to disappear.

But he had no idea what to do after realizing he liked someone. It was also ridiculous how, after skipping over all problems in the pure domain and just jumping straight to rubbing bare skin together, he was now fretting over the simple act of facing him and having a conversation. But what could he do? That was the kind of person Myeong Jiwoon was.

‘It would be easier to just get stark naked and have sex.’

Did you eat? Did you sleep well last night? What kind of food do you like, and what are your hobbies? They weren’t in a relationship where he could ask such things, and Zeo wasn’t a being who would give a proper answer even if he did. He didn’t need to eat things like meals in the first place, and he didn’t sleep at night. He probably didn’t have anything like a hobby either. Jiwoon knew better than anyone what Zeo did at home when he wasn’t there. Cleaning, laundry, cooking. Zeo was always doing those things.

Asking him, ‘What did you do today, were you okay?’ on top of that was laughable. Beyond being laughable, it also seemed a bit like teasing. In the end, it was like an inspection, asking if he did a good job with the housework while he was gone, so it didn’t seem like it would be very pleasant to hear. Then what was he supposed to do, after they knew they liked each other?

Like that, after Hanbyeol left to attend his afternoon lecture, Jiwoon kept circling the campus like a revolving sushi bar. While trying his hardest not to think, ‘Should I just die?’, he thought about what Zeo might be doing now, and once again realized that he was a hopeless piece of trash.

‘All I can picture is him doing housework.’

It was a real disaster. No matter how much he retraced his memories, that was the only image that came to mind. The day he first appeared before him, he had cleaned the house that was no different from a junkyard, and after that, he cleaned the house again. It had been so messy that the floor was completely invisible, and the more he cleared away the trash, the more of a mire the floor beneath became.

From the mummified carcasses of bugs to delivery food containers with food scraps stuck to them, to scattered beer cans, they came out endlessly. Not to mention the mounds of clothes, and of course, there was dust, and later, things he couldn’t speak of came out. They were things like sex toys. No, they weren’t ‘like’ them; that’s exactly what they were.

He had shown him all sorts of disgraceful sights. Sights that normal humans don’t show. Of course, since he had lived like that, an angel must have come to him saying he shouldn’t live this way, but now that he had come to his senses a bit, he couldn’t help but be embarrassed. To be honest, it was to the point where he wondered how Zeo could say he would stay by his side after seeing all of that.

A trash-like angel, a human-like piece of trash. An angel who loved trash, a piece of trash who loved an angel. No matter how he put them together, it was a combination of words that didn’t fit at all. I mean, by their very existence, weren’t the two of them not supposed to be together? Around the time he was having such thoughts, Jiwoon’s phone buzzed. The caller was the angel, Lee Zeo.

*

“You think too much.”

Zeo took Jiwoon and arrived at a department store. He went into various brands, took out various clothes hanging in bunches on the hangers, and said this while holding them up against Jiwoon’s body. Jiwoon stood in a stiff posture and watched Zeo. It was because even though Zeo had been the one to scold him, asking why he was buying clothes when there were so many piled up at home, today he was acting as if no such thing had happened.

“Look, even now. You’re lost in thought, aren’t you?”

“Ah, no… I was just wondering, wh, what are these clothes for all of a sudden.”

“Because you’re dressed like this.”

Zeo said that and pointed to Jiwoon in the mirror. In response, Jiwoon turned his head as if to ask what he meant and faced himself in the mirror in front of the fitting room. The sight of him wearing a thin cotton t-shirt under a turtleneck that looked like something one would wear in winter was a bit ridiculous.

“The shirts you always wear are too worn out, too. I can’t really tell the sense of season… it would be nice if you had something like a thin short-sleeved shirt.”

“…”

“I’ve been thinking, how about we get rid of the clothes you don’t wear at home?”

This one is nice, Zeo said, holding out a short-sleeved shirt to Jiwoon. Jiwoon took the clothes with a dazed expression and blinked his eyes. Getting rid of them—that was something he hadn’t thought about.

“Th, that’s…”

“The house is small, are you going to keep them like that? Or, are you going to wear them a few times without washing them and then shove them away to be thrown out like before?”

“No… It’s not e, exactly like th, that.”

It was like that before Zeo came. He did wash the clothes he wore often, but for most of the clothes his parents sent, he would just wear them a few times until he got sick of them, and if they seemed to smell, he would shove them into a corner and wear something else. I wonder if his parents also bought and sent clothes when they found something they liked while wandering through a department store like this, or at a clothing store they passed by. While thinking it was unnecessary, instead of sending them back or telling them to stop, Jiwoon chose to just wear them a few times and then throw them away. Living like that, the periodic sending of clothes was no longer an unnecessary act. Though they probably didn’t send them for him to live like that.

“Sell them secondhand, or donate them. Just keep the clothes you want to wear.”

“S, selling them is a bit… it w, weighs on my mind.”

“But wearing them a few times and throwing them away is okay?”

“…Still.”

“Still, what.”

“…”

“Didn’t I tell you not to stop in the middle of a sentence?”

Only at Zeo’s urging did Jiwoon cautiously open his mouth.

“I d, don’t even know why they s, send them… and it seems like there might be something they w, want. But to do that without knowing anything.”

“They probably wanted that.”

“Pardon?”

Jiwoon asked back as if to say, what do you mean, and Zeo pushed him into the fitting room. Jiwoon, standing tall in the small fitting room holding only a single shirt, hesitated before finally taking off the clothes he was wearing and changing into the shirt Zeo had picked for him.

“There are too many clothes, please stop sending them.”

When he poked his head out after taking off the turtleneck, Zeo’s voice could be heard from outside the fitting room.

“Or, I don’t like this one, please exchange it for something else and send it.”

“…”

“Just give me the money and I’ll buy them myself.”

“…”

“They probably thought you’d do one of those three. You didn’t get that house all by yourself, right? Then they already know the house is small, do you think your parents wouldn’t know that the clothes would pile up if they sent them like that?”

Jiwoon put the short-sleeved t-shirt he had taken off back on. It was because he was embarrassed to hear about his parents from Zeo while looking at his bare, messy, red and blotchy body reflected in the fitting room mirror. However, Zeo, who had no way of knowing Jiwoon’s situation, stood in front of the fitting room and kept talking to him. Perhaps because this sight was conspicuous, everyone who passed by glanced at Zeo.