#162
Lee Han-sol struggled to deduce Ki Baek-woo’s psychology by wracking his unresponsive brain.
When the hell did this crazy bastard start thinking such bizarre thoughts? And while thinking that way, he really kept clinging saying he’d be fine as a second or whatever, my mistress… did he really roll around in the gates as he pleased? Even now not sleeping and watching me, is it because he’s afraid I’ll abandon him and go off to my main wife?
Reaching such a conclusion, Lee Han-sol thought this must be what it means to have a fire burning in your stomach. If that hadn’t been Ki Baek-woo, he would have already driven an elbow pound into that mouth spouting nonsense. Lee Han-sol was horrified at himself for desperately holding back his trembling fists because the opponent was Ki Baek-woo, even while being this furious. So he screamed.
“What the hell kind of bullshit is that!”
“I really only need hyung, no, I just need to be allowed to stay beside hyung, so… you can tell me the truth. I… can accept everything.”
“Tell you what truth, you crazy bastard! Do you really see nothing because I’m being patient with you? What now? Second?”
“Not second… even third… would be okay…”
“This really is seeing only what you want to see, you’re the one who cheated so why are you making a fuss grabbing innocent people? Why the hell did you think such things, and where did you even see Choi Tae-hyun?”
Ki Baek-woo didn’t stop sobbing and bit his lips tightly, to the point where Lee Han-sol wondered if he might soon dry up and die like a mummy since he wasn’t eating properly while shedding tears like that. It was absurd how he was crying pathetically yet being stubborn about not wanting to talk about Choi Tae-hyun with his own mouth, so Lee Han-sol laughed, “Ha.” Ki Baek-woo strained the veins in his neck and forced himself to speak, as if each word was torment.
“I missed hyung so I secretly went… and saw everything.”
“Saw what!”
“That bastard… that person putting his clothes on hyung and wrapping a scarf around you…”
But hyung didn’t refuse. You hated my clothes so much, but you accepted that person’s without any problem. You looked at him affectionately. Even though I can’t see hyung even when I miss you, even though I have to be satisfied with secretly watching, that bastard has hyung right in front of him and touches you as he pleases. Even though I now need permission just to hold hyung’s hand, what is that bastard… hyung, hyung was mine first…
Ki Baek-woo, who had said second or third would be fine, suddenly changed his attitude once he started talking and began wildly criticizing Choi Tae-hyun.
“When hyung came here, the clothes you were wearing then were that bastard’s too. The shoes were also that bastard’s, right. But how can I be okay with it? Hyung can go to that bastard anytime. I can’t do without hyung… but hyung now…”
I hate the system, what is that thing taking hyung away from me, how did I endure this far. I want to get rid of everything…
Perhaps conscious of Lee Han-sol’s words not to move, Ki Baek-woo fretted while lying still. He kept muttering that he wanted to kill the system and that bastard, everything. “I want to kill them, I just wish they’d all die… I wish only hyung and I would remain, I wish everything else would disappear…” Such Ki Baek-woo looked slightly out of his mind. It was a heart-wrenching sight at first glance, but Lee Han-sol only felt uncomfortable.
To think that everything he was saying while wrapped in blankets like kimbap with a tear-soaked face was complete nonsense from one to ten. Lee Han-sol was so dumbfounded he didn’t even know what attitude he should show right now. You crazy bastard, I don’t want to hear such unreasonable words so shut your mouth right now! That was all he could think of. He clicked his tongue in annoyance, “Tsk.”
Then Ki Baek-woo’s face suddenly stiffened rigidly.
‘I knew this would happen, if we got even a little distant it felt like someone would immediately interfere, I already knew, that’s why I tried not to leave for even a moment, I’ve been doing well until now… those bastards ruined everything…’ Ki Baek-woo, who had been going on like that for a while, suddenly became quiet. The tears that had been pouring out also stopped abruptly as if it were a lie. As if someone had pressed the pause button because the movie playing was too incomprehensible.
After a brief silence, Ki Baek-woo smiled awkwardly as if the channel had changed.
“But, but I’m really okay.”
Suddenly saying he’s okay, what was this about now? Lee Han-sol’s eyebrows twitched at the contextless flow. After going on about not caring whether he was second or third, then suddenly saying he wanted to kill the system and everything, spouting nonsense about knowing since childhood that if he looked away even a little someone would interfere so he was desperate, now he suddenly said he was okay. Lee Han-sol furrowed his brow, unable to follow Ki Baek-woo’s rapidly changing topics.
Ki Baek-woo, interpreting that reaction somehow, began denying everything he had said earlier in a flustered tone.
“Hyung, I’m not angry. I’m really okay. I’m not being presumptuous and greedy, and I’m not saying don’t meet that bastard, no, that person. It’s not, it’s not like that, so you don’t need to feel burdened.”
“Hey, I don’t understand any of this right now?”
“Uh, just… just talking about old times. Since it’s been a while since we’ve been together like this, I just mentioned how it was back then. I don’t care what kind of relationship we have. What’s important is being beside hyung, so… I’m absolutely not throwing a tantrum, everything’s okay…”
Ki Baek-woo’s face saying such things didn’t look okay at all. His eyes, soaked as if defeated, wandered around the same spot. He watched Lee Han-sol’s expression with a pale face. He forced a smile. He seemed to be doing his best to appeal that he wasn’t a troublesome person. Not knowing that his stiff lips were trembling unsightly.
“No, okay and whatever… Ki Baek-woo, I really don’t understand right now? So roughly what you’ve been babbling about until now…”
Lee Han-sol tried his best to work his brain that had become almost like stone from living carelessly. He stumbled to interpret Ki Baek-woo’s words. That it’s okay to be a mistress but he wants to kill everyone… Sheesh, what kind of nonsensical bullshit is this? Instead of going back and forth, if you’re going to read the mood then just read the mood, if you’re going to be jealous then… Lee Han-sol, who was thinking to himself, suddenly tilted his head.
‘If you’re going to be jealous, just be jealous…’
He felt a familiar déjà vu.
“So, Ki Baek-woo, you right now…”
“……”
“Were you actually jealous in the midst of all that?”
Ki Baek-woo flinched as if startled.
“I ran all the way there because I couldn’t stand the sight of you… and you were doing that even while chasing after me and secretly peeping?”
“No, no. I wasn’t jealous… I know well that I’m not in a position to do that… I just, hyung…”
It felt like hyung was being taken away from me… If I had remembered everything earlier, if we hadn’t fallen apart that badly… hyung wouldn’t have had reason to meet that bastard, no, that person… It’s not jealousy, it’s just that while I didn’t know, that bastard took hyung… I wasn’t even in my right mind, and in that brief moment that bastard cowardly took hyung…
Ki Baek-woo trailed off as if he didn’t have confidence to handle what he had said. He licked his lower lip with a dejected look. He seemed anxious. His true feelings locked inside and the lies he wanted to show outside were chaotically tangled, to the point where he couldn’t even distinguish them himself. It was a pitifully immature attitude. Lee Han-sol felt faint sadness and enormous emptiness.
What is this, fuck…
The dejected soliloquy sank soundlessly.
How is this like some cheap rural drama?
It’s stupid, Lee Han-sol thinks. Both Ki Baek-woo and himself are stupid. How can it be so pointless? What have we been doing all this time? A fresh emotion welled up in his heart. What on earth have we really been doing all this time…
‘We haven’t changed at all like this.’
Lee Han-sol liked Ki Baek-woo and was disgusted with himself for it. Now he wanted to be happy so he somehow faced his heart directly, but that was a very difficult thing. They say humans are animals that learn. But if he couldn’t change at all until now, if his heart that revolved around Ki Baek-woo was still alive without losing its original form.
That means I’m not even human.
Such thoughts insulted him. Because of that, he was in constant conflict.
Ki Baek-woo who still couldn’t sleep. Poor Ki Baek-woo who wasn’t getting better at all. Weak Ki Baek-woo who couldn’t escape anxiety even with Lee Han-sol in front of him. Lee Han-sol worried about him while simultaneously feeling humiliated. Self-hatred grew like a monster from the sense of degradation.
Pathetic and miserable. Idiot. Fool. Stupid bastard. Why am I the only one so miserable? Why am I the only one in this state?
Ki Baek-woo said his heart was the same as the beginning. That he wanted Lee Han-sol exactly as he was before the system operated, he said in a voice wet with grief. It was nice to hear. Enough to hope it was an untainted, perfect truth. But unlike his heart that sweetly melted, Lee Han-sol didn’t believe those words. Their hearts had been in confusion for too long.
The long time when the more they liked each other the more they hated, and the more they hated the more they pretended not to care at all. The many days when they couldn’t be themselves. There’s no heart that won’t change after passing through such tediously scattered time. Even if it’s true that Ki Baek-woo loves him, it would never be the clean heart from the most peaceful time Lee Han-sol remembers.
So why only me…
Pathetic inferiority complex stood firm like a curb blocking Lee Han-sol’s feet. It was the last misfortune he had to trample and overcome, and at the same time his safety line. Lee Han-sol stubbornly thought he would absolutely never cross this line. Only as much as Ki Baek-woo hadn’t changed. Just that much, he should open his heart, he thought over and over that only then could he preserve at least his last pride.
‘But why…’
Lee Han-sol speaks in a voice that seems to have given up and sunk deep.
“Ki Baek-woo, you’re really persistent… How can a human not change like this…”
He turns away from the small comfort he felt while saying those words. He weakly crushed his pronunciation to avoid revealing his relief.
“If something like this happened, wouldn’t it be normal to change even a little? How on earth are you…”
“No, hyung. It’s not like that. I wasn’t trying to be annoying, I’m really okay with hyung meeting that bastard, that person. I really just need to be able to stay beside hyung…”
“Wipe your tears before talking. You used to be jealous of all sorts of things in the past too. Getting jealous of a phone, sometimes getting jealous of clothes… Honestly, I thought that wasn’t normal back then either, but I turned a blind eye thinking it was probably a joke. But even so… do you want to do this even in this situation? At this point, it’s a disease, you.”
“That… that…”
Lee Han-sol thinks this situation is exactly like a cheap rural drama. He and Ki Baek-woo are alike like mirrors. They can’t do without each other, they’re dangerously confused, and they were broken by the system. Yet they haven’t changed at all. Despite being completely ruined, they remain exactly as they were before the system broke them. Pathetically stubborn. Ridiculously identical.
How can such fools exist? Humans are animals of adaptation and learning. Then Ki Baek-woo, we’re both disqualified as humans.
Lee Han-sol felt everything was pointless and sighed long.
He finally feels a bit of reality now. Only after seeing the familiar appearance of Ki Baek-woo remaining in his memory… While forcing Ki Baek-woo to have faith, he himself couldn’t trust Ki Baek-woo either. Ki Baek-woo consistently said the same thing. That what changed was fake, and his real self was stopped like a specimen. Lee Han-sol didn’t listen to that.
Ki Baek-woo who kept whispering in an anxious voice that everything in this moment felt like a dream that would soon break, so he couldn’t let his guard down.
In fact, Lee Han-sol might have been thinking the same way. Ki Baek-woo, and the hospital room where Ki Baek-woo was lying. And himself being there together. Everything felt like a dream he once sought to escape reality, so it didn’t seem real at all. The fact that he now felt an unusually strong sense of reality showed that. Lee Han-sol sits down heavily on the edge of the bed with deflated movements.
“Scary, it’s scary. How can you be so gloomy even when everything’s over,”
“It’s not over.”
Ki Baek-woo, who had been stammering and intimidated, suddenly interrupted decisively. After trying so hard to somehow stay lying still, he even urgently sat up. The blanket fell to the floor all crumpled.
“It’s not over, hyung. We’re together right now.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
