LLU 72

“Oon oppa!”

Amid the flowing music, it seemed like I heard my name, so I took out my earphones and turned around.

It wasn’t a mistake. Yeon-i, my same-major classmate, was running toward me while waving her hand. Every time her light footsteps bounced, the fallen leaves underneath made loud rustling, rustling sounds. As she came closer, the smell of autumn wind wafted from her.

“What kind of music are you listening to so loudly? I’ve been calling you several times already.”

“Sorry.”

I smiled faintly and put the earphones back into their case before slipping it into my pocket. Yeon-i playfully lifted and dropped the bag I was carrying on my back.

“Oppa, are you carrying bricks or something? This weight is no joke.”

Her hand, sliding down, naturally grabbed my arm. The moment her hand touched the miserably torn wound, strength entered my brow. The injury from a few days ago still hadn’t fully healed. Even though I was wearing a thick department jacket, it hurt enough to make cold sweat flow.

Fortunately, Yeon-i didn’t seem to notice my agitation. I subtly pulled my arm away and changed the subject.

“Exams are coming up soon. Where are all your books?”

“I’m planning to stop by my one-room later and grab them. Oppa, you haven’t had lunch yet, right? Let’s eat together.”

“How come you’re not eating with Joo-hyun today?”

“He said he’s eating with his club members today.”

I had just been planning to grab something simple at the school cafeteria and head straight to the library. I gladly welcomed this suddenly appeared lunch companion.

“What do you want to eat? I’ll pay.”

“No way. You paid last time and the time before that too. Today it’s on me. Ta-da.”

Before I could stop her, Yeon-i showed me two meal tickets she had already bought, sticking her tongue out playfully. I gave her an awkward smile.

“Thanks. I’ll eat well.”

“Yeees.”

While eating lunch, Yeon-i started chattering away nonstop. The main topics were stories about the professor for the class that Joo-hyun, she, and I were taking together, and badmouthing the team members we ended up grouped with for the team project in that subject. I kept smiling and listened to her stories with a relaxed mind the whole time.

After returning to school, Yeon-i and Joo-hyun were the first friends I made. Since our classes overlapped a lot, we naturally became close. Unless something came up, we ate together, and sometimes we did assignments together too.

Besides those two, I also started talking to a few other guys. We weren’t deeply close, but we were friendly enough to eat meals or drink together without any issues.

I liked this university life with almost no conflicts. To be precise, conflicts were impossible. Because I carefully behaved in a way that prevented me from getting too deeply involved in any relationships. I didn’t want to get caught up in any scandals, and I didn’t want to maintain deep ties with anyone.

University life went relatively smoothly overall. Although I had only taken exams for one semester so far, my grades were still satisfactory. Since I started two years later than others, I had to catch up hard, but the tough studying wasn’t boring at all—it was enjoyable. Compared to the days when I was tied up like a dog, just eating food uselessly and spreading my legs, this was nothing.

I returned to school in the spring when I was twenty-two. It was about a year after I ran away from Choi Junghan. The reason I returned was because I was convinced he wouldn’t come looking for me.

Choi Junghan was the kind of person who could find someone who ran away from him within a month—no, within a week. I ran away despite knowing that very well, simply as my effort to avoid becoming accustomed to him.

Even if he had come to catch me right away, I wouldn’t have been that surprised. And I would have run away from him again and again. Even if it looked like a foolish and futile effort. Repeatedly.

However, after that, Choi Junghan never came looking for me.

For a whole year, I didn’t even think about returning to school; I just lived while holding my breath. Since I was prepared to run away as many times as he came looking for me, I tried my best to leave no traces. I survived mainly on short-term part-time jobs, and I moved from one goshiwon to another.

But even as time passed, not only did he not come to catch me—there wasn’t even the slightest hint that he was looking for me. Still, for a while, I lived curled up quietly as if I didn’t exist in this world. I stayed that way until autumn passed and snow began to fall.

And only when the year finally changed did I become convinced.

Choi Junghan had forgotten me.

The emotion that had been as intense as the bright red blood pouring from his ankle had now turned into bubbles. It had been swept away in vain. As if it had never happened. As if he had never poured such passion into a tiny, insignificant being like me.

Or perhaps… maybe there wasn’t even any effort needed to forget in the first place. Watching him demand night after night that I teach him what love was, maybe I had been mistaken. That he loved me.

Perhaps I had labored in vain when I resolved to cause him pain or take revenge on someone who might not even know what love was to begin with. Maybe Choi Junghan had simply felt plain curiosity toward a type of human he had never seen before.

Either way, it was good for me. Because he didn’t come looking for me, I was able to live a normal daily life.

It was a connection that should never have been entangled from the start, a path we never should have crossed. The only thing that mattered to me was that I had escaped from it. Whatever Choi Junghan thought of me—whether it was a faded sincerity or a lie from the beginning—didn’t matter at all.

Since he was someone known to the public, finding out his recent news wasn’t difficult if I wanted to.

In fact, I occasionally came across news or internet articles about Choi Junghan. He was still capable and charming, steadily solidifying his position as a young executive. The kingdom I had once fearlessly tried to scratch and damage remained rock-solid, with not even a trace of such trivial interference to be found.

…Anyway, it was all in the past. With an emotionless face, I would turn my eyes away from news about him.

After returning to school, I kept myself busy. Switching from short-term part-time jobs to several tutoring gigs greatly improved my finances. I also used government-supported loans to finally rent a room. It was small and shabby, but it was my own nest.

Juggling studies and tutoring left me with no time to breathe. Strangely, that kind of life helped erase idle thoughts. When you keep moving nonstop from morning till night, no particular thoughts arise. Or rather, it was closer to desperately struggling without rest just to avoid thinking at all.

Even so, I helplessly recalled things that had drifted away from me. Faces I could no longer see. My mother’s crying face the last time I saw her, or Kim Junwoo’s voice desperately calling my name.

Oddly, Roa’s face always came up along with them without fail. That tiny baby. The little life that had been held in Mother’s arms, breathing in little puffs.

And then, inevitably, I would recall what I myself had left behind.

Even though the time spent with Choi Junghan was so long, why is it always the last memory that comes to mind first?

At the movie theater, when I abandoned Choi Junghan, I looked at his face one last time. His neat and handsome face. The moment I saw his motionless, dead-person-like sleeping face and tears welled up uncontrollably still remains vivid in my chest.

But all of those things are merely the past. They literally passed by. The same flower never blooms twice in the place where one has fallen. The swift flow of time, busy bearing fruit, scolds me not to look back at what has already gone.

Then I take another step forward, as if pushed. Forward, forward.

However, as I expected from the beginning, countless obstacles existed in moving forward.

‘Just once.’

I had many sleepless nights, but among them were occasionally vicious ones that felt like they were堵ing even my breathing holes. On such dawns, without fail, I kneel before the pitch-black desire.

“…Ah.”

It was a sinister urge I usually kept tightly hidden because I didn’t want to face it. Every time I tried to persuade myself with the sweet yet dangerous words “just once,” I lost.

Bright red blood pours out between the torn tender flesh. My chest swells full with satisfaction, then slowly deflates while holding despair.

A tingling euphoria slowly rises like water. From the tips of my toes to my navel… then past my chest to my throat. The hands that had trembled like aspen leaves when I first did this kind of thing no longer shook at all.

Then, without fail, without fail, I return to that night.

The room dyed in the bluish light of dawn. His ankle shining pure white. The scene of blood in an unrealistically intense color splashing. And Choi Junghan’s voice calmly asking even as I cut him with the knife.

‘How can I love you?’

Choi Junghan, asking that, wasn’t smiling. The words he used to toss out like jokes, the slippery playfulness that used to linger in his eyes, were no longer visible.

Even if Choi Junghan has forgotten me now, or even if it wasn’t sincere from the beginning. At that moment, he was sincere. It was an illogical contradiction, but it really was that way.

“…Son of a bitch.”

I mutter curses in a trembling voice. The hand stopping the bleeding and treating the wound, which now flows quite a bit, has become familiar to the point of skill. After tending the wound and bandaging it until the bleeding completely stops, I crawl under the blanket and curl up.

I knew the reason I kept trying to hurt myself like this. Although I try to move forward in life, because there is no will to take root in the world, I keep staggering. Because there is no desire to become clear in the world somehow, I grow fainter and fainter. This is a problem that cannot be solved by willpower alone.

Like a ghost, my existence fades and fades. I hug my existence that blurs like smoke and don’t know what to do. It feels like I might disappear from the world without a trace like this. In fact, deep down, part of me even wishes for it, which makes it worse.

On days like this, I endlessly picture Choi Junghan, who once desired me so intensely. It’s definitely crazy thinking, but… I cannot get through this night without recalling a man who wanted me more than I wanted myself.

Without repeatedly recalling—as if savoring—that near-mad obsession that wanted me clearly and unwaveringly, I cannot endure it.

My hatred toward him, so thick that I bet everything without fear. Choi Junghan’s unyielding possessiveness toward such a me. And the obsession between him and me that stained the hallucinatory blue night bright red.

His lullaby that rang out peacefully after the storm-like frenzy passed.

“…….”

In my existence that was blurry like smoke, only that night remains vivid. The past memory that was both blue and bright red ironically anchors the current me to the world.

The vicious insomnia that tormented me all night and drove me mad retreats one step back only after hearing his song.

Only then do I finally fall into a death-like, comfortable sleep. The throbbing pain in my arm, the wrecked heart, the curses I kept chewing while endlessly calling his name—all of it blurs. In my ears, only the lullaby he once sang for me echoes softly.

“Iced Americano, three please.”

Thick beads of sweat were forming on the forehead of the part-time worker taking the order. The kiosk was broken, customers were pouring in. Even though it was autumn, I looked at her with pity as she worked while sweating profusely. Before I started tutoring part-time, I had done several similar part-time jobs myself, so it didn’t feel like someone else’s problem.

Yeon-i happily took the coffee from my hand.

“Oh, I’ll enjoy it. Thank you.”

“Is Joo-hyun running really late?”

“He said he’ll arrive in about five minutes.”

Yeon-i had suggested the three of us do assignments together for once, and since I happened to have free time before heading to tutoring, I readily agreed. Once Joo-hyun arrived, we planned to go to the study room we had already reserved.

Yeon-i and I plopped down on the parasol chairs set up in front of the café. I took a sip of the cold coffee. The gently brushing autumn scent at the tip of my nose felt really nice. The sky, without a single cloud, was high and beautifully blue.

Just then, a sound caught my ear and I turned my head. Beep, beep, beep, beep. A baby who had just started walking was toddling along with unsteady steps. The mother was also visible, arms spread wide on both sides, ready to catch the child if it fell at any moment.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the baby’s innocently smiling face. Listening to the baby’s adorable babbling voice making all sorts of sounds, I unconsciously smiled faintly. Along with the smile, something scraped inside my chest.

What does that child look like now? How much has it grown?

“…Oppa?”

At the sound of tap tap on the table, I snapped my gaze back.

“Huh? Oh.”

“What’s that. Why are you looking at the baby with such a pleased expression?”

“Did I?”

“You must really like babies, oppa.”

It felt awkward to deny it outright, so I just gave an ambiguous smile. Yeon-i, giggling, continued with a mischievous expression.