If Kyung-wook had no intention of ending this relationship, then the only option left was for Kang-woo to sever him with his own hands.
Otherwise, this vile relationship would continue on and on.
Not once in his life had it ever been on his side. Nothing had ever gone the way he wanted, yet he had lived as though that were only natural.
But for the first time, Kang-woo wanted to resist.
“I want to live alone.”
“What did you say?”
A cold question came back at him.
His breath caught in his throat. That sharp, frigid gaze tightened around his neck.
But now he had to speak. He had to honestly tell his father everything that had happened with Kyung-wook until now and firmly express his own will.
Kang-woo barely forced out his shrinking voice.
“Father, I can’t live with Kyung-wook—”
“Kim Kang-woo.”
“…….”
“Do you think this father of yours is giving you a choice?”
That frosty question came again, cold as if edged with ice. His shoulders flinched for a moment, but Kang-woo clenched his fists tight.
“Just this once, please listen to me. Baek Kyung-wook is to me—”
“Just shut up and do what your father says!”
His father slammed the table with a bang.
Startled by the loud crash, the housekeeper approached the dining room with hushed footsteps. But that was as far as she went. Unable to do anything, she could only fidget from a distance with an anxious expression.
“You may not be of any help in life, but at the very least you ought to properly do what your father tells you to—”
“No.”
The harsh rebuke flew at Kang-woo.
His father’s shout struck precisely in the deepest part of his heart. It felt as though his insides were breaking apart piece by piece.
At the same time, a hot emotion rose up inside him.
It was unfair.
With every single word his father said, it felt as though all the effort Kang-woo had made until now was being denied.
His tightly pressed lips trembled.
If his father’s words were true, then he had never once been of any help to him.
Then what, exactly, were all the things he had endured and put up with all this time supposed to amount to? All those countless hours he had spent swallowing down resentment and hurt by himself—what had they been for? And did his father truly not know? How hard he had struggled to endure everything on his own until now?
He had thought that if he just held out a little longer, the end would come into view, that he would finally be free of Baek Kyung-wook. And now he was being told to walk back into that hell with his own feet?
“Know that you’ll be moving in December and start preparing in advance. You won’t have that many things to take. I’ve been told all the furniture will be newly brought in anyway.”
The one-sided notification continued.
It seemed everything had already been arranged between them without so much as a single discussion with Kang-woo himself.
His short-trimmed nails dug into his skin. He could no longer sit there facing his father, who was making firm decisions as though he had no desire whatsoever to hear Kang-woo’s thoughts.
Kang-woo sprang to his feet and ran into his room on the second floor. His loud footsteps rang out.
“Kim Kang-woo! Where do you think you’re going in the middle of dinner!”
From downstairs, his father’s thunderous voice boomed out, calling for him.
“Oh dear, sir. Please calm down.”
He thought he vaguely heard the housekeeper’s voice after that, trying to soothe his furious father.
Kang-woo slammed the door shut with a bang and locked it.
He collapsed onto the floor beside the bed. He swallowed back the sigh that threatened to burst out. His breathing turned ragged, and his eyelids ached as though they were about to fall out.
A headache surged over him, and he clasped his head with both hands. His fingertips trembled faintly.
“Young master.”
How much time had passed?
He heard the housekeeper’s voice calling to him from outside the door. Kang-woo kept his mouth shut and said nothing.
“Please open the door for just a moment.”
Her voice came softly, as though trying to soothe him.
“Young master……..”
Even after hearing her call several more times, Kang-woo remained silent.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. He simply wanted to quietly swallow down these noisy emotions by himself.
Once he stubbornly set his mind on silence, the sound of pacing outside soon disappeared.
He straightened his crouched body and moved to sit in the desk chair. He felt like a defeated soldier who had lost the will to fight. His gaze turned to the desk.
With his fingertips, he traced the face of his mother smiling brightly inside the rectangular picture frame.
“…Why are you always smiling like that, Mom? What’s so good about it?”
The smile of the mother he had loved most seemed especially heartless today.
With resentment that had nowhere else to go, Kang-woo picked a pointless quarrel with her instead.
When he was little, back when his mother had still been by his side, if Kang-woo showed that he was sulking, she would do her best to cheer her young son back up.
But now that warm, affectionate mother who used to stay by his side was gone.
Knowing full well that no matter how much he complained, none of it could ever reach her, his nose stung for no reason. His chest felt tight.
Kang-woo rose from his seat and stared out through the wide-open window.
In the distance, he could see the Han River, dark black under the settled night.
He gazed at the still water.
He envied that silence. That calm, still quiet that covered everything beneath the surface.
A sigh spilled out of him.
Where in the world was the place I’m supposed to be?
He truly didn’t know.
No matter where he went, it was the same—there was nowhere to lean on. Whether it was school or home, Kang-woo had nowhere he could call a refuge. Even the one goal that had barely sustained him had fled far away, out of reach.
He had believed that once the college entrance exam was over, once he graduated high school, he would be able to escape. But Kyung-wook had clung to him and followed him all the way here.
Why was Baek Kyung-wook so desperate to torment him like this? Was his very existence really that irritating? Would the bullying only stop if he disappeared from this world entirely?
The more clearly he faced reality, the more suffocating it became.
Now he didn’t want to do anything anymore. College, whatever else—it had all become meaningless. He just wanted to leave, all at once, for somewhere no one knew him.
In Kang-woo’s vacant eyes, a sudden flash of resolve crossed in an instant.
Soon, he quietly began to move. He opened the closet, took out a large travel bag, and busily started packing.
And then, late at night, after everyone had fallen asleep.
With a large backpack and a carry-on suitcase packed, Kang-woo left the house.
It was a day when the air was heavy with moisture. The autumn wind fluttered the hem of his clothes.
Suppressing the sound of his footsteps, he quickly slipped past the iron front gate.
That day, with 30 days left until the college entrance exam, Kang-woo ran away from home for the first time in his life.
***
He caught a taxi near the house and named the first neighborhood that came to mind.
Perhaps the driver was the sort of man devoted to his work, because once he confirmed the destination, he quietly focused only on driving. Kang-woo also kept his mouth shut, taking in the glittering nighttime scenery.
Outside the window, the bright lights of the bustling city flashed past.
After about twenty minutes, they arrived.
Kang-woo got out of the taxi and started walking aimlessly. The wheels of his suitcase rolled loudly.
Feeling the eyes of passersby glancing at him, his pace quickened on its own.
He had no actual plan. He simply kept putting one foot in front of the other wherever his feet took him. He passed a street lined with bars and slipped into one crowded alley after another.
Only after reaching a quieter road did he feel his mind ease a little.
After wandering the streets for a long while without any real destination, Kang-woo finally grew tired and sat down in front of a dark building.
By his sense of it, more than an hour had already passed.
Having been outside for so long, his body temperature had dropped, and his hands were cold. Even if it wasn’t winter yet, the dawn air in October was quite chilly. Just last week, the weather had still felt like summer, but it had abruptly changed. With Siberian winds blowing in, temperatures that had been over 20 degrees Celsius had suddenly dropped below 10.
Kang-woo shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his thin jumper.
“Ah, let’s go for round three now!”
“Follow me this way. I know a really great place. Hwahahaha!”
The loud shouts of drunk people echoed faintly through the alley.
Kang-woo drew his feet closer together and hugged both knees even tighter.
He had come out of the house, but now he didn’t know where he was supposed to go. After that small fight with his father, the only thing filling his head had been the thought that he needed to leave for somewhere, anywhere.
As he stayed crouched for dozens of minutes in front of the shuttered building, staggering people passed by him often enough.
Each time, Kang-woo lowered his head even further.
He knew he couldn’t keep crouching out here on the street without a plan and that he needed to find at least some suitable place to lie down, but his body refused to follow what his mind knew.
All he had on him were two bags filled with clothes and the 200,000 won in cash he had withdrawn from his check card.
Even then, he had already spent around 20,000 won taking a taxi here. That left him with about 180,000 won. How long could he possibly survive on that?
Just in case, he had left his phone at home.
Kang-woo knew his father’s temperament well enough. The moment he found out Kang-woo had left the house, he would undoubtedly have someone track his phone location first thing.
“Hey, student.”
After he had been curled up like a hedgehog for quite a while, someone suddenly spoke to him.
Kang-woo lifted his head from where it had been buried over his knees.
A middle-aged man with a face flushed bright red, as if thoroughly drunk, had walked up and was now standing in front of him. Reeking heavily of alcohol, the man muttered something under his breath.
Because Kang-woo had been so half out of it, he couldn’t properly understand what the man was saying.
“…Pardon?”
When he asked back, the man grinned, showing yellow teeth.
“Student, I asked if you’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Uh, well……..”
It was a suspicious question no matter how anyone looked at it. When Kang-woo hesitated and couldn’t answer, the man continued.
“If you’ve got nowhere to go, want to come in over there with me?”
Kang-woo turned his head in the direction the man’s blunt fingertips pointed.
Beyond the alley, he could see a model signboard flashing with colorful lights.
A cold sensation slid down his spine. Instinctively, he sensed danger.
Kang-woo hurriedly scrambled to his feet.
“No. I’m fine.”
He shook his head, taking a step back, but the man came closer too, stumbling as he walked.
“No, don’t do that. It’s cold out, so let’s go in together. It’s warm in there.”
“I’m really fine. I’m sorry. Goodbye.”
After spitting out the words quickly, he snatched up his bags and moved his legs. The wheels of his suitcase rattled urgently over the cement ground.
Kang-woo did not stop his pace, which was almost a run.
His heart pounded like mad. He was afraid the man might follow behind him.
“Ah……?”
Tap, patter.
As though things weren’t bad enough, just as he hurried away from the drunk man, rain began to pour down. It was a sudden rain that hadn’t even been in the forecast.
How could he be this unlucky?
There was nowhere nearby that seemed suitable to shelter from the rain, so his steps became even more frantic. Before he knew it, he was soaked from head to toe, looking like a drowned rat.
“Hah, hah……..”
At last, he found somewhere to take shelter.
Kang-woo stepped inside a building and caught his breath. He looked up at the pitch-black sky pouring down fierce rain. The fishy smell of water wrapped around the whole city.
A chill seeped into him, and his body curled in on itself even more. With trembling hands, he rubbed his arms to try to warm himself.
