#126
Through the silence came the sound of a slipper dropping. The man’s shoulders under the streetlight flinched. But he only raised his face slightly from where it had been resting on his knees, without turning to look at Lee Han-sol or saying anything. It was a dazed reaction. He seemed completely unaware that someone’s slipper had hit his shoulder or that Lee Han-sol was shouting at him.
That reaction made Lee Han-sol even angrier.
“Is this fucking bastard ignoring me?”
Even his stupid reaction was exactly like Ki Baek-woo. Ki Baek-woo, who barely breathed and moved as if he might sink into the ground. A man who resembled Ki Baek-woo like a doppelgänger. Looking at him, it was inevitable for Lee Han-sol to be reminded of Ki Baek-woo.
The man forcibly dragged out Ki Baek-woo’s tired face that Lee Han-sol had buried deep in his heart. Ki Baek-woo’s weak voice saying he couldn’t sleep because of nightmares began to echo between his ears and brain.
When Ki Baek-woo was trying his best to please Lee Han-sol. At that time, Ki Baek-woo skipped meals like a sick animal, and only put something in his mouth when Lee Han-sol acted kindly, as if giving charity, with his unpredictable moods. The bad complexion that couldn’t be hidden even by his handsome face. Ki Baek-woo, who became anxious, then nervous, then miserable and sad at each of Lee Han-sol’s small movements, circled in his mind.
Lee Han-sol thought such a Ki Baek-woo was ridiculous. He felt detestable and completely incomprehensible. This was because Lee Han-sol knew what kind of mindset made people act like Ki Baek-woo. Those were all things Lee Han-sol had already experienced.
Constantly bringing up past stories to the other person, as if staying alone in the past. Endlessly trying to remind them that they shared the same memories with the same emotions. Lee Han-sol remembered all too well what kind of vain hope he had fallen into when he was doing such things.
When cracks formed in his once-fortress-like beliefs, and knife-like doubts began to seep through those gaps, how shocked, confused, and startled he had been… and how much he had denied everything. Even while knowing he was being foolish, he stubbornly persisted, denying even that fact. He believed that if he kept calling out to Ki Baek-woo without leaving the past, he would eventually feel nostalgia and return to how things were before. That they could return to who they once were, perfect together… he stubbornly clung to this with all his might.
It was truly a futile and miserable thing. A sadness that felt like he would never stand again. That’s how Lee Han-sol had been. So, Ki Baek-woo constantly talking about the past only seemed ridiculous to him.
‘Why do you feel that way? You’re not designed to be that kind of being. You’ll end up going to Jung Yi-dam soon anyway.’
Only such thoughts circled his consciousness. Even as Ki Baek-woo’s meals decreased as if his heart was so blocked that he couldn’t push anything inside. Even as Ki Baek-woo’s insomnia continued, as if being crushed by anxiety made everything, even falling asleep, too burdensome for himself. Lee Han-sol was already sick and tired of measuring futile possibilities within a predetermined fate. So he didn’t think of anything else.
Ki Baek-woo often rambling as if wanting to appear good somehow. Constantly trying to do anything as if wanting to stay by his side, even as a means to an end. ‘He still gets erections for me. So there’s still some possibility.’ Acting like a cheap male prostitute, pressing his body against him at all hours as if reassuring himself that way.
Lee Han-sol knew exactly what feelings and emotions made Ki Baek-woo do such things, and he didn’t care. ‘You were made to never be sincere to me. So why are you doing these things? What do you know from just one time?’ With such a grudging heart, he felt worse as Ki Baek-woo’s actions increasingly resembled those of the fourteen, sixteen, eighteen dead Lee Han-sols. He knew better than anyone because he had experienced it. That’s why he didn’t sympathize. He tried not to. Just as Ki Baek-woo had turned away from the many Lee Han-sols who had acted that way, Lee Han-sol tried to turn away from Ki Baek-woo.
‘Don’t leave me alone, don’t go somewhere without me, don’t disappear like this…’ As if holding such pitiful wishes, Ki Baek-woo who followed Lee Han-sol when he went out. Ki Baek-woo who paced at the bus stop with a face like he was about to die, as if wanting to confirm that Lee Han-sol would still come back to him, no matter where or how long it took. And Ki Baek-woo who obediently listened, as if too exhausted to even have the strength to cling anymore.
What should I do? I don’t know. I don’t care how hard, frightening, or desperate it is for you. How much I liked you when I acted like you, how sincere I was—I vividly remember all of it, but there’s no way the current you feels the same as I did then. Because you weren’t made that way. So I won’t pity you at all.
Even if you soon give up everything like I did, lock yourself alone in this house, and wither away without following me, clinging, or trying to do anything anymore. Even if you eventually die while pathetically feeding on memories of me left in that house. I won’t sympathize.
It was an obsession and a vow. Lee Han-sol was doing well as he had thought. But then Jung Yi-dam appeared, and Lee Han-sol…
When Choi Tae-hyuk brought up Ki Baek-woo, saying he was acting like someone desperate to die, Lee Han-sol immediately understood what state Ki Baek-woo was in. He’d be looking like a past Lee Han-sol. As if he would die naturally from weakness even without committing suicide… he would be in such a miserable state. I know well how he feels. What miserable thoughts he’s having.
I won’t sympathize.
I’ve already felt this too. It’s not just something unfair and unreasonable that only he experiences. So I, I won’t think about Ki Baek-woo’s feelings at all.
‘Damn, and here I am thinking about it again.’
Lee Han-sol gritted his teeth, glaring intensely at the area under the streetlight. He hates how the presence of Ki Baek-woo filling his mind continues so vividly and persistently, contrary to his will. Again. Despite thinking so much about not thinking about him, so defenselessly…
Anger welled up. It’s all because of that bastard. Lee Han-sol thought he must kill him. This happened because some bug-like stalker unnecessarily looked like Ki Baek-woo. When he’s not even Ki Baek-woo. Ki Baek-woo couldn’t possibly be here. Lee Han-sol had taken every possible measure to ensure Ki Baek-woo could never find him. Having done that much, he wouldn’t look for him. Why does he think that? Because that’s what Lee Han-sol did when he gave up everything.
The twenty-third, twenty-fourth Lee Han-sol did nothing. Wherever Ki Baek-woo went, whoever he met, however he forgot Lee Han-sol. He had no energy to care about such things. By that time, his heart, tossed about in various ways, had worn down so much it didn’t even feel alive. The only good thing was that Ki Baek-woo inside his heart also wore away with his wearing heart, gradually grinding off. At that time, when he didn’t even have the energy to lift a finger.
A Ki Baek-woo acting like Lee Han-sol from that time wouldn’t be here. Unless his heart is more persistent than mine… or he wants me more than I wanted him… That’s impossible, so Ki Baek-woo couldn’t be here. But why do you make me think of Ki Baek-woo? This makes it seem like I’m expecting something. Like I’m doing something so fucking pointless.
But what… am I expecting? What on earth?
How many times do I have to say that’s not it! Just leave me alone…!
Lee Han-sol’s mood became irreversibly terrible. Completely messed up. An irritation close to indignation welled up. With somewhat hasty hands, he tied Ppomi’s leash to a no-parking post standing nearby.
“Ppomi, you stay here for a moment.”
Big brother will finish quickly and come back, so be good.
Heh heh, sniff! Ppomi wagged her tail, spraying snot, not knowing anything. Lee Han-sol strode toward the shabby figure sitting blankly.
“You fucking bastard are really dead.”
He cursed while hurriedly putting on the fallen slipper nearby. Then he aimed a soccer kick at the arm of the man who was crouched down with his eye level low. A loud thud! sound came from between Lee Han-sol’s foot, which flew like kicking a soccer ball, and the man’s forearm.
Woof! Ppomi, tied up behind, barked watching the scene. Lee Han-sol arbitrarily thought, ‘Even Ppomi is cheering for the punishment of this gloomy stalker bastard.’
“You dog-like, hey, who are you following around? What fucking unfortunate human is suffering because they got tangled up with a bastard like you? Who the fuck gave you permission to lust after my neighbor?”
All the people in this area are under my care, you know? Are you so eager to die?
Lee Han-sol one-sidedly shouted at the man who was weakly pushed to the side and unsteadily gathering himself.
“I’ll give you 3 seconds from now. Call your mom and leave a last greeting saying you’re fucking grateful she raised even a bastard idiot like you as her child. Because today is the day your head and body get separated.”
If you want to blame someone while getting beaten to death, blame that bastard Ki Baek-woo. Lee Han-sol, who mentally ranted, counted out loud super quickly. “One two three.” Just as he was preparing to deliver a low drop kick.
“…Hyung?”
Lee Han-sol froze in his awkward, gallant stance. He stared directly at the man looking at him with dazed eyes.
“Is this a dream…”
“…You.”
“Is it really you, hyung…?”
The man carelessly slapped his own cheek with his hand that had been scraped on the ground. “Am I seeing things again…?” he asks in a sunken, cracked voice. Looking down at the man’s pale, emaciated face, with only one cheek red from his own slap, Lee Han-sol had the exact same thought as what the man had just said.
Is this a dream. Or not, is it real… And soon, very slowly, he asked.
“…Why are you here?”
Ki Baek-woo. His low, deep voice called the familiar name. It was the name of the man sitting there like a fool.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
