Hidden Vice 10

Winter nights come early.

It was only nine o’clock, but outside the window was already pitch-black, with the lights of buildings and cars illuminating the world in place of the sun.

I rose from the bed and took a coat from the closet to put it on. Dragging my slippers with a shuffling sound, I opened the hospital room door, and security guards who looked like bodyguards gazed at me with tense eyes.

Yes, I did cause quite a scene a while ago. I can fully understand why these men are looking at me with those strange eyes. I magnanimously understood them and confidently walked out to stand in front of a guard.

“Lend me some money.”

As I abruptly held out my hand and spoke, the guard’s eyes filled with bewilderment. No matter how you look at me like that, I have no money, so what can I do? I urged him by shaking my outstretched hand up and down, asking him to quickly give me money. After thinking for a moment, the guard reluctantly took out his wallet from his pocket.

“I’m not asking for a lot, just five thousand won.”

“May I ask why you need the money?”

“I want to buy some cigarettes. If you have cigarettes, you can give me those instead of money.”

The guard hesitated, staring at my face. He was clearly experiencing a serious internal conflict about whether it was okay to give me money to buy cigarettes.

“Never mind. This face looks too young. I don’t have any ID, so it would be awkward if they asked for identification. Just buy the cigarettes for me instead. There are two of you, so one of you can quickly go and come back.”

“…”

“What? Don’t like running errands? Then let’s just go together. You’re going to follow me wherever I go anyway, right? Let’s go buy cigarettes and smoke one together. It must be boring for you to just stand here. Let’s get along and have a smoke each. Hmm?”

“I do have cigarettes, but…”

“Really? That’s great. Then let’s go. Hurry up.”

Ignoring the guard’s wavering pupils, I strode forward with long steps. The guards followed behind me, flustered, as I pressed the elevator button.

“You must be tired guarding the room all day. I’m sorry about before. You heard, right? My mind was a bit unstable. I’ll be fine now.”

“…Ah, yes.”

“I said I’m fine. Relax.”

Though I cracked a joke with a friendly manner, the atmosphere remained stiff. It was as if they had selected guards with no social skills—they were incredibly rigid and refused to engage in conversation with me.

“How long are you supposed to guard the room? Is being a security guard your regular job? Are you from a private security company? Doesn’t it get boring standing around all day like this? Say something. I’m the only one chattering away here. My mouth will grow mold at this rate.”

Despite my efforts to engage, they kept their mouths shut. They seemed to view me as someone trying to lower their guard to create an opportunity to escape. With the limits of talking to myself reached, I too was eventually forced into silence.

I took the elevator down to the first floor and left the hospital building. The hospital, which was usually bustling with patients and guardians, was quiet at night, and except for the funeral home building, there were few people around.

“Want to smoke together?”

“We’re fine, thank you.”

Is there a rule not to talk to or smoke with the person they’re protecting? Thinking they were being extremely strict, I snatched a cigarette from the guard almost forcefully and walked into the smoking area.

“If you’re not going to smoke, stay over there. Don’t stick too close to me while I’m smoking. I need some time to myself too. I won’t run away, so stop obsessing over me.”

It wasn’t like I was asking them to stand a hundred meters away; I was just asking them to stand a few steps back, outside the smoking area. They surveyed the smoking area as if trying to identify possible escape routes, then positioned themselves at the entrance like sentinels guarding the smoking area.

They’re really suffocating me.

I sat on the bench and took out a cigarette. After lighting it and taking a familiar drag, a harsh cough erupted as if I were smoking for the first time.

Didn’t Cha Sukyung smoke? My body violently rejected the nicotine. Only after coughing several times, as if about to vomit, did I become somewhat accustomed to it. After a few trials and errors, I deeply inhaled the smoke and exhaled it.

Phew, as I let out a long stream of smoke, I finally felt a sense of calm and leisure. Indeed, cigarettes are the best when your chest feels tight.

I don’t know if it was because of the cigarettes I’d been smoking since I was sixteen, but I had developed lung cancer. By the time I found out, it was already too late, so I never considered quitting. I figured I might as well smoke as much as I wanted before dying anyway.

Though I don’t want to get cancer again now that I have a clean body, it’s not bad to have a smoke occasionally when feeling stressed. If I get cancer from this much, then this body must be fundamentally flawed.

I thought the kid was weak, but surprisingly, his lung capacity seemed good as the cigarette burned down to the filter in no time. I extinguished the butt and put another cigarette in my mouth.

As I lit the cigarette with my lighter, I noticed a dark figure a few steps away. The large mass was standing so still that I almost dropped my cigarette in surprise.

“Shit, you startled me.”

Once I became aware that someone was there, my eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, gradually captured the figure more clearly. It was a man with a large build. Black suit, black coat, black shoes. He was dressed entirely in black; if not for the lighter flame, I wouldn’t have noticed him.

“Give some warning next time. I almost had a heart attack.”

“…”

It wasn’t meant to be confrontational—I was just acknowledging him as someone sharing the same space, but the man casually ignored it.

Everyone who comes in and out of this hospital seems devoid of humanity. It made me sad to realize that the psychiatrist was the only person who properly responded to what I said.

“Want a smoke?”

I didn’t give up and addressed the man again. Though I’m neither overly generous by nature nor particularly sociable, I suddenly wanted to talk with this man I’d never met before.

I suddenly realized that I wanted to have a conversation with someone who was a complete stranger to Cha Sukyung. Since the accident, everyone I’d met thought of me as Cha Sukyung.

Even while thinking I should live as Cha Sukyung, I was secretly afraid that my existence as Min Jaehee would disappear. I needed someone to talk to as just myself, not as Cha Sukyung.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

His low voice was a soft baritone. It was like a perfect melody without any sharp or grating notes.

With a voice like that, he could make a fortune selling tapes of lullabies or fairy tales. Even if he got fired from his job or his business failed, he’d never have to worry about going hungry.

Though I was gradually getting used to it, I still disliked Cha Sukyung’s thin, youthful voice. That made me envy the man’s voice even more.

“Don’t be shy, have a smoke. It’s not even my cigarette anyway.”

I approached him, slipped a cigarette between his fingers, and even held up the lighter for him. In the circular light centered around the flame, the man’s face was revealed.

My first thought was “flawless.” It was a face with perfect proportions and perfect symmetry, without a single angular or distorted area.

His double-lidded eyes beneath thick eyebrows gave a strong impression without being excessive, and the nostrils at the end of his straight, unbent nose ridge were identical on both sides as if machine-stamped. The corners of his tightly closed lips curled up slightly, making him appear to be smiling even when expressionless, and the slightly hollow cheeks below his cheekbones and the sharp line of his jaw spoke of his stubborn personality.

He was a man whose face said so much. Well, with a face like that, he had the right to speak with his face instead of his voice. If it had been a choice, I would have taken this man’s body instead of Cha Sukyung’s.

“Then I won’t refuse.”

The man put the cigarette in his mouth and, as if embracing my hand that was holding the lighter, tilted his head slightly. Shadows played on his downcast eyelashes, creating a dance of shadows that was both bizarre and beautiful. I found myself staring, entranced.

“Are you hospitalized here?”

The man asked me in a slow tone after taking a drag and exhaling.

“Yes, well. I had an accident a few days ago.”

“Accidents are always the problem, aren’t they?”

“Before the accident, I was here because of an illness.”

Of course, it wasn’t this hospital then, and the terminal illness had already disappeared along with my dead body.

“What about you? Are you here for a funeral?”

I asked, looking the man up and down in his all-black attire, and he shook his head while taking a deep drag of his cigarette.

“Do you know what’s up there on the upper floors?”

With his cigarette wedged between his index and middle fingers, the man raised his hand and pointed to the upper part of the hospital.

“…The rooftop? Is there an outdoor party venue or something?”

“I don’t know that far. Below the rooftop, there are VIP rooms. They’re controlled under strict security. My mother is there.”

If your mother is hospitalized in a VIP room… that means an incredibly wealthy family. Either lots of money, a good profession, or both. Anyway, the world is so unfair. Does he need to have everything to himself—the voice, the handsome face, and the background?

“She must be quite ill. I hope she recovers soon.”

“I don’t know how ill she is. I’ve never met her. …You’d think she’d be living well after abandoning her husband and child. But apparently not.”

The man spoke in a sharp voice, flicking his half-smoked cigarette toward the ashtray.

In that moment, I felt as if an invisible force had struck me. As if a giant hand had grabbed my body tightly, preventing me from moving, and a large hammer had smashed my head—I couldn’t regain my senses.

My body felt so heavy and lethargic that I couldn’t move a finger, and cold sweat ran down my back, soaking my hospital gown. My vision alternated between darkness and flashes of light, like a chaotic mix of black holes and auroras, and my lower abdomen felt compressed as if I might urinate at any moment, with a tingling sensation in my groin.

Did Cha Sukyung have some chronic illness I didn’t know about? Experiencing this sensation for the first time in my life, I bent my waist, curled up, and let out a low groan. I was about to be rushed to the emergency room after coming out to smoke right in front of the hospital.

As my fingertips twitched spasmodically, the man beside me got up from his seat.

The force that had been painfully pressing down on me disappeared as if it had been a lie. I straightened my hunched shoulders and reflexively looked around, unable to understand what had just happened.

Two scenarios came to mind: first, that Cha Sukyung had some kind of illness, and second, that I had experienced sleep paralysis with my eyes open.

What a strange experience to have.

The energy was drained from me in an instant, and as I slumped my body and caught my breath, the man took a step closer and created a gentle smile on his face.

“Your emotions got intense. Were you very surprised?”