LLU 79

I slowly opened my eyes. The air pooled inside the room felt quite chilly.

Even though I woke up at the same time every day, the sensation I felt each time I opened my eyes changed just a little bit. Things like the temperature enveloping my body, the humidity, the colors, and so on. Time was rushing at full speed toward the winter that didn’t have much left.

Rubbing my eyes, I got up from my spot. I went straight to the bathroom, washed my face, and brushed my teeth. After wiping my face, my hand paused midway while hanging the towel back up. It was because I spotted a small camera attached to the wall.

Was there originally a camera in this spot, or was there not?

After staring at it for a moment, I expressionlessly pressed my thumb and middle finger together and flicked it with a sharp tap. The existence of the camera that was probably watching every detail of my private life now held no more presence to me than a fruit fly—neither more nor less.

Perhaps because I washed my face with cold water, my mind felt especially clear. With a consciousness clearer than ever before, I walked back into the room, took out the first-aid kit, unwrapped the bandage around my arm, and took out the ointment to smoothly apply it to the inner side of my forearm.

The inner arm, which had been a complete mess until a week ago, was now steadily forming scabs. After carefully inspecting each wound one by one, I wrapped the bandage again. I swallowed the antibiotic pills I had prepared in advance and drank some water.

After mechanically finishing the treatment, I immediately stood up and put on a thin long-sleeve shirt. I took out a couple of frozen pieces of bread and made toast. Without any jam or milk, I forced down the crispy plain toast by chewing hard.

After simply getting ready for school, I left the house. Even though the real exam period hadn’t started yet, there was only one reason I headed to school at this hour: I didn’t want to stay long in this house covered with countless eyes belonging to Choi Junghan.

I had learned during the camera incident that even while I was away, Choi Junghan could freely come and go in my house, but that was beyond my ability to control. I could have pretended to leave and called the police, but I now knew that every attempt to counter Choi Junghan was futile. It was the result he had painstakingly taught me over several years.

So I gave up on Choi Junghan’s side and had to control my own actions. If he decided he wanted something, there was no way I could stop him anyway. The only thing I could do was escape to places his eyes couldn’t reach.

The school library was an excellent shelter. Even when it wasn’t exam period, if I wanted to, there was an endless amount of studying I could do. Spending time preparing for language studies or one certification exam after another let me forget useless idle thoughts. It was beneficial in many ways.

I walked with slow steps through the late-autumn morning. The cool air clung to my cheeks. The footsteps heading toward school were lonely and upright. The head that had always been thickly shrouded in murky fog was now as clear as the cold dawn air.

Once dawn passed and morning came, I blended into society without difficulty. I met friends, chatted and laughed, ate lunch together, attended lectures. I met with group project teammates and worked on assignments for a couple of hours.

I ate a simple dinner of triangle kimbap and cup ramen, then went to the house of the student I tutored. I struggled for an hour teaching the student who always left one or two homework sheets undone every day. After taking the bus and getting off in front of my house, as I trudged along, the thick darkness that had settled heavily in the alley soon enveloped me.

I entered the house, took off my clothes in front of the camera, showered, and brushed my teeth. Thinking of Choi Junghan who would be watching every detail of me, I lay down on the bed.

And.

I fell asleep without self-harming.

It had already been a week. Without any blue-and-red nights blooming.

After weeks of barely sleeping at all, astonishingly, I was getting deep sleep every night. I was sucked into pitch-black sleep like a vast universe and slept deeply like a dead person. Then, at the time I needed to wake up, I would wake with a clear mind.

I could no longer deny that this had been the case ever since the day I met Choi Junghan.

“Get some sleep, Oon-ah. You’ve been through so much hardship.”

The man’s sly yet sweet voice as he said that and closed my eyes.

“When you wake up, everything will have returned to its proper place.”

It was like hypnosis. At those words, I fell into sleep like a petal dropping. And then I slept madly, truly madly. Completely stopping the act of pouring curses at him desperately while drenched in wine.

The next day after that incident, when I opened my eyes, Choi Junghan was not beside me.

I rose with a clarity of mind so sharp it felt alien. Familiar ceiling, familiar bed. Without needing to doubt, it was inside Choi Junghan’s bedroom. And not just that. Even the clothes I was wearing were ones Choi Junghan had bought for me in the past.

Is this a dream?

That was inevitably the first thought that came to mind. The one year I had escaped from Choi Junghan felt hazy like a lie. So distant and faint that it felt like an illusion created by a single night’s dream.

Could it be that everything about running away from Choi Junghan had never actually happened? Could I have simply dreamed such a long dream alone and then woken up?

Feeding him drugs at the movie theater, running away from him and moving from place to place, meeting my mother and us… Could all of it perhaps have been a cruel prank of a dream from God?

However, for that to be the case……

My arm throbbed with a dull ache. The lingering pain and the bandage wrapped in a way that was not my own were visible. The fierce traces of self-harm fully proved the desperate year I had endured. And the only person who would tend to them in this way was Choi Junghan.

Everything was too distinct for it to be a dream.

I tried to recall last night’s memories. Immediately, the thick smell of wine came back to life. When we tangled together and rolled around violently, the wine bottle on the table had fallen over, and Choi Junghan and I had practically doused ourselves completely in the liquid inside the bottle—except for the one glass of wine I had poured over his head.

He… kissed me. Like a beast that had been starving for a long time lunging to tear into flesh, he kissed me persistently and voraciously.

I bit his lips hard enough to tear the flesh into tatters, but Choi Junghan paid it no mind. Deeper, even deeper. As if he would feed me every drop of blood rising from the wounds, he persistently lunged.

Recalling the kiss with him, I took a deep breath. I slowly tried to advance the memory but became certain that we had not gone any further than that. It had been a full year since I last had sex, and if I had slept with him, I would have noticed immediately. My body could not possibly feel this normal otherwise.

…Then.

Now that I had met Choi Junghan again…, the possibility that he had restrained me once more could not be ruled out. I took a large breath with resolute determination.

Looking down at my free hands, I slowly pulled back the blanket. My ankles wrapped in soft indoor clothes came into view.

However, astonishingly, nothing was restraining me.

I put on the clothes placed by the bed—though they were ones Choi Junghan had bought, there was no other choice. The clothes I had originally worn were soaked through with wine—and until I left the house, nothing held me back either.

Is it really a dream? While riding the bus back home, I asked myself that again and again.

If it weren’t for these clothes, I might really have thought so. The fact that Choi Junghan had simply let me go, that the man who said everything would return to its place when I woke up had sent me away with no restraints at all—it was hard to believe.

Even with clear evidence right in front of my eyes, one more reason I kept suspecting it was a dream was that the night I spent with Choi Junghan last night had been excessively unreal.

Instead of the blue-and-red nights when I tormented only myself in secret, I had spent a night drenched unmistakably in Choi Junghan’s body heat, weight, blood, and saliva.

Moreover, the fact that he had not shown himself for a whole week also contributed to the unreality I was feeling now.

After that night, Choi Junghan neither contacted me nor attempted to approach me. Amid the ordinary daily routine that repeated every day, the intense afterimages from that day gradually faded like alcohol diluted in water.

The film’s coloring that had dyed the dark room entirely red, the scent of the strong wine that seemed intoxicating just from the smell, Choi Junghan’s body scent that was even thicker than that, and the hot blood flowing from his torn lips……

However, after only a few days, Choi Junghan appeared before me once again, becoming a real, existing reality to me all over again.

When I first spotted him in front of the school main gate, I froze right there on the spot.

“…….”

Literally, I doubted my own eyes. The sedan in front of me was far too familiar. I could only question it.

Is what I’m seeing right now really correct?

No way. It couldn’t be. Because there was no way Choi Junghan would be here. Just as I was about to shake my head and turn my gaze away, the driver’s side window slid down before I could even fall into confusion. The moment my eyes met Choi Junghan’s, I could only reveal the shock on my face as it was.

“Get in.”

Yet the Choi Junghan who beckoned me with a slight nod showed no emotion at all. For some reason, Choi Junghan was gripping the steering wheel himself without a driver.

At his leisurely face, I let out a dry, scoffing laugh. I tried to ignore him and walk past, but soon the car followed right behind me with a honk.

“Get lost.”

Gritting my teeth and spitting it right in his face, he lifted the corner of his mouth and smiled. The only human who could laugh so happily even after being cursed at was probably just Choi Junghan.

“Get in quickly.”

“Why the hell should I get in your car?”

“Because I have somewhere to go with you.”

“I have nowhere to go with you. So stop causing a scene in front of someone else’s school and get lost.”

He tilted his face slightly.

“Yeah, let’s not cause a scene, Oon-ah. Doing this in front of school will make things difficult for you too, you know.”

“I’m not some celebrity like you, so I don’t care.”

“Really?”

Choi Junghan giggled and laughed, looking exactly like a delinquent teenager plotting something nasty.

“But you’re the one who filmed a kiss scene with a celebrity like me. Doesn’t that make you a lead too?”

“…Shut up. And anyway, you already blocked all the articles.”

“New articles can be made anytime.”

Though the laughter had left his eyes, they remained leisurely. He once again jerked his chin toward the seat next to him.

“Get in. I’m just saying let’s have a meal together.”

Haa…. A sigh escaped me. Knowing far too well that Choi Junghan was a crazy bastard, I chose to get in his car instead of stubbornly resisting any longer.

Since he had come with his mind made up, there was no way I could shake him off quietly anyway, and for me too, whether cursing at Choi Junghan or slapping him, doing it when we were alone was better than in front of the school.

I deliberately sat in the back seat instead of the passenger seat. But he didn’t care and started the car. The scenery outside the window quickly receded. Only after we were finally out of familiar range did I open my mouth.

“Where are we going?”

“I said we’re going to eat.”

“So why the hell do I have to eat with you?”

“It’s lunchtime. After the lecture you had earlier today, you’ll have free periods the rest of the way.”

It was pathetic that a man who was a vice president of a large corporation could recite a mere college student’s schedule in detail, but I was no longer surprised.

I gave up and shut my mouth. Whatever happens, happens. Usually I at least grabbed something simple like eggs, bread, or milk for breakfast, but today I hadn’t even done that. Having lost even the will to fight from extreme hunger, I chose to surrender my body to this absurd flow for a little while instead of arguing with him.

The car stopped in front of some luxurious building. The hanok-style building without any sign looked like an ordinary residence at first glance. Seeing a suited employee bow politely and then valet-park the car, I finally realized this was the restaurant Choi Junghan had mentioned.

An employee dressed beautifully in hanbok came out and bowed toward Choi Junghan and me. After exchanging a few greeting words, she led the way to guide us.

The room we were guided to was elegantly structured. Various objets were appropriately placed, subtly supporting the overall refined Eastern image. It felt like a place far too meticulously prepared just to eat one meal.

“Sit.”

Choi Junghan naturally sat facing me. As soon as we were seated, the employees came in and began setting the food.

“Eat.”

Picking up an appetizer dish, he commanded in a flat voice. Looking quietly down at the bowl, I protested in a sunken voice.