MERRY 5

“Are you going to use those for decoration? It does look better to have some plausible-looking books on the shelf, I guess.”

“Mind your own business. Just eat and get out.”

“Why?”

“I want to be alone.”

“I don’t want to be alone. It’s better for you to be with someone else rather than moping around staring at an empty room. Body heat is a good thing.”

Liam had been in a strangely subdued state since his roommate left over the weekend. It didn’t seem like his feelings were hurt or that he was drained, but he was avoiding parties and nightlife in favor of private contemplation.

“Did you come here to have sex with me? No, you didn’t. So how are we supposed to feel ‘body heat’?”

“You can’t feel it? I’m warming up the air right now.”

I raised both arms and waved them like coral swaying in a current. At the sight of my rather ridiculous gesture, Liam raised one corner of his mouth slightly, only to let it drop almost immediately.

“You really are a madman.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“Want some stew? I made a lot.”

“I’ll have some. If I complain, I feel like you’ll kick me out on the spot.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

To be honest, I hadn’t expected much since he said he made it himself, but the lamb stew was delicious, and eating it with pieces of baguette made it quite a hearty meal.

“Did you learn how to cook? Maybe running a restaurant would suit you better than a club.”

“Food always tastes best when someone else makes it.”

Liam tore a piece of baguette apart with his hands, looking indifferent. He picked at his food as if he had no appetite.

“Then should I make you something?”

“Forget it. Do you even know how to make anything?”

“Fried potato macaroni chicken grilled onion medley.”

“Slapping random names together doesn’t make it a dish.”

“The name might be bad, but it tastes good.”

That was a lie. I tried cooking it for myself exactly once, and it was disgusting. Yuck.

“Forget it. Eat your fried potato macaroni chicken grilled onion medley by yourself. At your house, not mine.”

It was a blatant fact that I had come here because it was close to the exhibition hall and because I wanted to spite my stalker. However, it was also a fact that I genuinely wanted to comfort my dejected friend, so I pondered the reason Liam had ended up like this and made my own guess.

“Do you happen to have a stalker?”

“What?”

“I’m asking if you’ve got a stalker following you around. Is that why you aren’t going out to have fun? If that was the only change, I might not have noticed, but you even went and bought books. That’s a bit extreme for a change of pace. Is it because a stalker with an interest in reading is chasing you?”

“What kind of nonsense is that? If you’re just going to talk rubbish, go home.”

“No, I was just…”

“If you’re still in this house by ten, I’m going to kick you out.”

I had put serious thought into it, but since my guess was off the mark, I only got scolded for my trouble. Suitably cowed, I stuffed my mouth with a baguette soaked in stew and just smiled with my eyes.

“Save that for someone who might actually fall for your pretty face. That’s definitely not me.”

Liam gave me a cold shoulder but served me another bowl of stew. He was probably just trying to get rid of the massive amount of stew quickly, but I decided to view it as an act of kindness. It would be better for my mental health that way. In the meantime, thinking I should give back since I’d received, I exercised some goodwill.

“It’s okay. I haven’t been going to parties or clubs lately either. Sometimes life is just like that. Life doesn’t flow according to plan. Rules you worked hard to make are bound to be broken, and you can lose your way even if you run while looking straight ahead. I belong to myself, but I can’t do whatever I want with my heart.”

Twenty-three. It’s a young age to be discussing the meaning of life, but if it serves to comfort someone, even a bit of pretension should be acceptable. This time, my encouragement seemed to work; instead of snapping back or looking annoyed, Liam nodded readily. He didn’t, however, withdraw his demand that I leave the house before the night grew too deep.

After dinner, I spent some time lounging on the sofa. Liam grabbed his books and started heading up to the loft, then came back down. As if he’d decided I would stay put unless he watched me, he placed a stool next to the sofa and sat down.

“If you give someone such a blatant hint, a normal person would reluctantly leave. But I’m not normal. I’m special.”

“I honestly don’t understand your claim of not wanting to be alone. A person like you doesn’t seem like the type to ever be bored by himself.”

Liam clicked his tongue and opened his book. I considered spoiling how the protagonist ends up, but it was a classic whose plot even people who haven’t read it generally know, so such spite would be wasted. Liam had likely started reading it to savor the prose and the flow while already knowing the content.

I read the blurbs on the book cover and then looked up. Liam’s blond hair reminded me of my stalker.

During the summer when I was close with Ethan Reed, countless impulses had risen within me; one of them was the urge to stroke his beautiful hair all day long.

I had imagined having him lie with his head in my lap while I touched his hair. I wanted to feel the shape of his skull with my fingertips, engrave the texture of his hair like a fingerprint, and touch the warmth of his scalp.

When I actually got to touch his hair—when I combed through it with my fingers—it had been more thrilling than I could have imagined. It’s a cliché to say the greenery was lush, but it was exactly that: a summer of lush greenery.

I had reached out, saying I would brush off a leaf, and Ethan had lowered his head slightly, leaning toward me. It was true that a leaf had landed in his hair, but it had already blown away before my hand even touched him. Of all things, why did the wind have to blow on such a hot day?

I think I was possessed by something then. Or maybe I had heatstroke. That must be why I didn’t stop. Even though the leaf I was supposed to remove was gone, I put my hand in Ethan’s hair. While looking at his pale, almost white skin revealed inside the collar of his sky-blue shirt, his long neck, and the front of his collarbone.

‘Did it fall off?’

‘Huh?’

‘The leaf.’

‘Oh, n-not yet.’

I had stuttered like an idiot back then. It was because the stimulation I felt through my eyes and hands was so intense that it was overwhelming. Ethan was excessively beautiful, and his hair was so incredibly soft. I wonder if he knows that my heels lifted off the ground, just like the fantasy of a first kiss you’d find in some movie or book.

‘Somerset.’

It was only after I had run my hand through his hair at least three or four times and toyed with it that Ethan looked up. He just called my name. Without any other words, wearing a faint smile. My face reflected in his emerald eyes was probably handsome as usual, but it must have looked a bit stupid too.

I don’t know what Ethan thought as he watched me run away without even saying goodbye. The conclusion to that day was me losing sleep over thoughts of Ethan.

Chewing over that experience, which was as vivid and strange as if it had happened yesterday, I suddenly looked at the window with the curtains drawn.

Should I go to Ethan’s car parked outside and ask? If he still remembers that day, and what kind of conclusion he reached. What kind of night did he spend that led him to call me the next day and say he just wanted to hear my voice? Unless Ethan tells me himself, the answer might remain a blank space forever.

Having more or less organized my thoughts, I grabbed my coat and stood up. After forcing Liam to drag himself to the front door to see me off, I gripped the doorknob, let it go, and asked.

“Liam. What would you do if you had a stalker?”

“I told you. I’d kick them out.”

“You said you’d do that to me. Don’t worry, I’m leaving now so I won’t get kicked.”

“Right now, there’s no one more like a stalker to me than you.”

“Not me, a real stalker. Someone who follows you wherever you go. At first, they seem to do it quietly like a shadow, but then they get bolder and start talking to you, asking what you want for dinner, and smiling beautifully… a stalker who smiles so, so beautifully that it makes things difficult for you.”

Liam, who had seemed to be listening with soulless eyes as he usually did at parties, suddenly pulled himself close and thrust his face right in front of mine.

“How beautiful? Like this?”

He smiled, baring his straight teeth. He was handsome, but he looked like a mischievous villain.

“I’ve never thought of you as beautiful, so I can’t relate.”