Edgeway 4

Flashback: The Stalker

I once saw a homosexual sex scene, and from that moment, I began to despise them. I thought my hatred was normal.

That was how the world worked.

Men were supposed to be with women, and women with men. That was natural.

Based on that standard, I considered people like homosexuals or lesbians to be at least first-degree mentally disabled or unnecessary elements of society.

Then, I got a stalker.

At first, the stalking was gentle and seemingly harmless.

After finishing a practice match for the department basketball team, I returned to my reserved seat in the library.

A latte with a note written in pretty handwriting—“Aren’t you tired? Eat well.”—was touching and even seemed cute.

Of course, that was under the assumption that it might be from a potential girlfriend.

The small, cute gestures gradually took on a criminal tone. When did it start? Thinking back, it must have been around the time I dismissed it as nothing.

Out of habit, I stopped by the convenience store near my place before heading home to buy a pack of cigarettes. But my wallet wasn’t in my pocket.

I rummaged through my bag, but I couldn’t find it. Then I remembered—I had left it on the bench in the gym after playing basketball.

I had withdrawn a lot of money to register for a TOEIC class, and now it was gone. I called a classmate who lived in the dorm and asked him to check the gym for my wallet, but he couldn’t find it. I wasn’t surprised. If I were him, I wouldn’t have left a wallet with at least 200,000 won in it lying around either.

When I got home, I found an unopened pack of cigarettes on top of the shoe rack. I tilted my head, confused. Had I bought them? I thought I had, and soon forgot about it.

The next day, I left home early for my morning class.

I picked up the cigarette pack I had left by the door, took out a lighter from the shoe rack drawer, and put it in my pocket. I lit a cigarette and left the house, making sure the door locked automatically. As I turned around, I saw a black wallet lying on the floor of the hallway. For some reason, my gaze lingered on it. Then I walked past it and went down the stairs.

But something felt off. I stopped, dropped the cigarette from my mouth, and ran back up the stairs two at a time.

It was my black Montblanc half-wallet. I opened it and saw my ID in the most visible slot. I quickly checked the money inside.

The wallet was thick. The money for the TOEIC class was still there.

“Who is it? Wow, amazing.”

After confirming the money, the words that came out of my mouth were not suspicion, but gratitude for the person who had returned my wallet. Who could have picked it up and known where I lived?

At that moment, gratitude outweighed suspicion, so I just tucked the wallet away, relieved.

I had earned that money through part-time jobs while being careful not to burden my aunt. Losing it would have been devastating. I had even considered taking a leave of absence, but I managed to save up again without asking my aunt for help.

That night, I received a chilling text message: “Don’t leave your wallet lying around anywhere.” Since I usually ignored messages unless they were from KakaoTalk, I only saw it much later, buried among hundreds of others.

But even if I had seen it earlier, nothing would have changed.

The stalking began to seep into my life like a drizzle soaking clothes without me noticing.

I only realized I was being stalked months later.

I tried to excuse myself by saying I had been busy.

Of course, I wasn’t a diligent student.

I didn’t study hard, but I regularly participated in amateur basketball tournaments and local qualifiers with my university team. We were fairly dedicated, even without a proper coach.

“Hey, that’s kinda creepy. It’s stalking, isn’t it?”

A teammate bounced the basketball and replied casually as he shot.

I raised my eyebrows in shock.

“Is it that serious?”

“Is this something you can just brush off? Shouldn’t you report it to the police?”

“How embarrassing would it be to go to the police for something like this? I’d be lucky if they just teased me for being scared despite my size.”

With my muscular build from basketball and working out, if I went to the police and said I was being stalked, would they even take me seriously? Maybe if I were shorter. I was 185 cm tall, the tallest on the team. In fact, the only reason I was a starter was because of my height. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have let a non-physical education major like me play.

I only realized I was being stalked because of the stalker’s absurd behavior. I hadn’t bought new shampoo, conditioner, or body wash in months.

Normally, I’d go through them in about three weeks, but I hadn’t replaced them in months. When I finally ran out and bought new ones, I picked up the old bottles—supposedly empty—and shook them.

They were full. I had to put the new ones away.

That wasn’t the only strange thing. The floor was always spotless, even though I wasn’t particularly clean. My department jacket, which I hadn’t washed all summer, smelled fresh with fabric softener. My sneakers, which I had carelessly stuffed in the shoe rack, were clean and neatly placed.

I hadn’t noticed these small details because they were things I usually overlooked.

“You should report it to the police. What if some crazy person is doing your chores like a housewife? They don’t touch anything obvious, just what you forget.”

“Must be a woman.”

“Why do you think it’s a woman?”

“Because they clean and do laundry.”

“So only women clean and do laundry? That’s why you don’t have a girlfriend. And it’s definitely not a woman.”

If it had been a woman, as Jin-wook thought, would that have been better?

The stalker was a man. The moment I realized, he seemed to sense it too and began revealing himself.

He started sending me messages on KakaoTalk.

<Who?>

From that message onward, he continued to contact me.

Of course, I didn’t immediately think, “Ah, this guy is definitely a man,” when I first received the message. I had been flirting with a teaching assistant a few days before, and things had been going well. We had drunk together and shared a sticky French kiss. The mood was good as I walked her to my place.

But I hadn’t checked my house properly.

Even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Who checks their bed for semen the moment they walk in?

She lay down and touched the transparent semen on her back.

Her expression darkened as she sat up and stared at me. It seemed like she thought it was mine, but I couldn’t deny it—it was semen from my house, after all.

There was so much of it. She was horrified and ran away before I could stop her. The flirting I had worked on for months ended just like that.

And I realized for sure that my stalker was not a woman.

It was shocking. I had unconsciously assumed it was a woman, so the realization hit harder. That day, the stalker’s messages were flooded with “kkkkkkkkkk.” The fear was chilling. I blocked him and cursed him out.

But he kept contacting me with new IDs.

There was no way to stop him. Every time I blocked him, he somehow knew and messaged me from a new account. When I blocked those too, he directly unlocked my phone and sent himself a message.

Don’t block me.

Pretending to refuse is better.

I’m starting to get bored, you know.

I was so distracted by basketball that I didn’t notice him sneaking into the gym right under my nose, unblocking himself on my phone, and disappearing. It was like losing him right in front of me—I was stunned. I immediately asked the manager noona if she’d seen anyone mess with my phone, but strangely, even though there were so many people around, no one had seen anyone touch it right next to me.