# Chapter 17
Clutching his smartphone tightly, Mugyeong unconsciously muttered a single phrase.
“All of a sudden…”
Mugyeong didn’t know exactly why he’d said “all of a sudden.” Since he was alone in the hospital room, there was no one to hear him. It wasn’t as if he habitually talked to himself, either.
Haeseung had been discharged a week ago. The week without Haeseung had passed slowly. Especially during the time spent alone in the hospital room, it felt as if time had stopped forever. Since his discharge, Haeseung hadn’t visited once. It felt like being abandoned all of a sudden. That was it. Mugyeong finally realized why he had unconsciously uttered the phrase “all of a sudden.”
His blocked feelings were relieved, but on the other hand, he shuddered at the thought of whether he was born into this world just to have such pathetic thoughts, so he decided to count the trees outside the window instead. By the time he’d counted about twenty trees, he felt a chill at how unfamiliar his own listlessness seemed. Mugyeong wheeled around the hospital room meaninglessly, and in the midst of making a circuit, he checked his smartphone to see if a text message had arrived, but of course there was nothing. This time, he decided to make two circuits on a slightly different course and pushed the wheelchair’s wheels.
It was then that a crashing sound came from outside the door. Following it came a short, heavy groan, the sound of a nurse rushing over, and a voice asking in alarm, “Are you okay?” in that order. Mugyeong welcomed the commotion outside more than anything. He quickly moved toward the door and slid it wide open.
“Lee Haeseung!”
The floor around Haeseung, who had fallen down, was covered with tangerines. Helped up by the nurse, Haeseung looked down at the scattered tangerines with an embarrassed face. The nurse handed Haeseung his crutches and began picking up the tangerines and putting them in a plastic bag.
“I’ll pick them up.”
Haeseung tried to stop the nurse from collecting the tangerines.
“How are you going to pick them up with that leg? It’s fine, just go in quickly.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mugyeong wanted to help pick up the tangerines too, but he still wasn’t able to bend down to pick things up from the floor. In the end, both of them could do nothing but silently watch until the last tangerine was placed in the plastic bag.
As soon as Haeseung entered the room, he must have been thirsty because he opened the refrigerator door and took out a drink to consume.
“Why did you buy something so heavy? That’s why you fell.”
Mugyeong said while peeling and eating a bruised tangerine, not taking his eyes off Haeseung.
“I didn’t fall because it was heavy, I fell because I lost my balance for a moment.”
“You lost your balance because it was heavy?”
“No, but are you having some kind of good news?”
“Why?”
“You’ve been grinning since earlier.”
Mugyeong hadn’t even realized he was smiling. Come to think of it, he also had the illusion that the lethargy and boredom that had tormented him so severely for the past week had temporarily retreated. Mugyeong spoke in an excited voice.
“The tangerine is delicious. You should have called before coming.”
“I didn’t come to see you, I came for a medical appointment. I can’t stay long. I need to get an X-ray too.”
Haeseung was saying he had only come to the hospital for outpatient treatment. Mugyeong’s expression, which had been full of smiles, darkened rapidly. Would it be such a big deal to say you came to see me? Haeseung must know that Mugyeong had been waiting for him to visit all week. Mugyeong felt irritated by Haeseung’s seemingly stubborn defensiveness.
“The tangerine is too sour. The taste is ambiguous. I also had an X-ray this morning.”
“What? You just said it was delicious. You, are your bones healing well?”
“They say they’re healing smoothly. Did you come by taxi?”
Haeseung nodded, peeled another tangerine, and exclaimed with round eyes:
“It’s not sour at all!”
“Well, they can’t all taste the same.”
Silence fell after Mugyeong’s words. Mugyeong became anxious that Haeseung might leave out of boredom, so he hurriedly broke the silence.
“You know what? I was so bored that I studied the principles of wheelchair propulsion, and it turns out it’s surprisingly interesting.”
Haeseung made an incredulous face. Mugyeong, undeterred, gave a long and detailed explanation about the patterns of shoulder joints and elbow joints during the propulsion phase of a wheelchair. Of course, Haeseung looked like he couldn’t understand even half of it. Mugyeong knew too. He knew his story was as useless as answering “how many grains of rice did I eat today?”
“Boring, right? Should I stop?”
“No, go on. It gets more interesting the more I listen.”
Mugyeong continued his story, and Haeseung pretended to nod along while half-listening, until finally he yawned very obviously and deliberately.
“Sleepy?”
“Yeah. I dozed off for a moment and dreamed that you were explaining the principles of wheelchair propulsion.”
“That wasn’t a dream. Have you had lunch?”
“Yes.”
After spending suffocating days in the flow of tedious time over the past few days, Mugyeong found even trivial conversations immensely enjoyable. Mugyeong looked at Haeseung with shining eyes, and Haeseung clearly appeared uncomfortable with such attention. Haeseung peeled one more tangerine. His intention to avoid Mugyeong’s gaze was plainly detectable. Soon, Haeseung’s expression gradually changed to indifference, like that of an adolescent boy trapped in his own world, frequently lost in fantasy. While Mugyeong deeply loved that face of Haeseung’s, he was always tormented by the intense possessiveness that inevitably rose within him. Oblivious to Mugyeong’s burning, hot, and urgent gaze, Haeseung merely blinked his eyes in the lazy afternoon sunlight coming through the window.
Belatedly feeling the stare, Haeseung slowly turned to look at Mugyeong. Fighting the urge to completely and nakedly reveal his desire, Mugyeong deliberately softened his gaze and asked:
“What did you eat?”
“Just seaweed soup.”
Although he tried to change his expression, Haeseung seemed to have discovered fragments of desire that Mugyeong hadn’t managed to conceal. Haeseung pretended to be flustered and rose to his feet, with eyes containing a slight reproach that the distance between them had grown another span because of Mugyeong’s gaze.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yeah. I need to get an X-ray too.”
“Come back after.”
“We’ll see.”
It was a flat tone that made it impossible to insist that he come back. Mugyeong knew that Haeseung wouldn’t return, and Haeseung probably knew it too. Mugyeong watched Haeseung’s back as he left the room, like a mirage that couldn’t be grasped. Just then, Haeseung suddenly stopped, turned to Mugyeong, and said:
“Oh, I forgot I had something to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“…It’s important.”
Haeseung returned and sat in the chair, raising his eyes to silently look at Mugyeong. Perplexity and sadness seemed to cross Haeseung’s eyes. When Haeseung said he had forgotten to say something and came back, his manner was very unnatural. If it was such an important matter, Haeseung wouldn’t have forgotten it. Perhaps it was a difficult story to tell, so he couldn’t easily bring it up and was about to leave, but finally mustered the courage. Mugyeong unconsciously swallowed and quietly participated in the silence that had descended upon the hospital room.
“Kang Mugyeong.”
“…”
After a long while, Haeseung opened his heavy mouth. There are things one naturally comes to know when the time is right, and Mugyeong vaguely realized that now was that ‘time.’ Seeing Haeseung’s expression grow increasingly cold as time passed, Mugyeong felt a preview of what it would be like to be abandoned. Yes, there was no way Haeseung would leave things between them in an ambiguous state forever.
For a moment, Mugyeong pondered. He wondered if he should evade the situation like a sly snake as he had been doing so far and stop Haeseung from speaking, but then thought that maybe he should listen silently to Haeseung’s rejection just once. Mugyeong was confident he could steadfastly remain by Haeseung’s side no matter how harsh Haeseung’s words might be. It would be better not to hear it, but rather than being anxious like holding a time bomb that could explode at any moment, he thought that if he heard it clearly and developed calluses, the wound would become dull.
Mugyeong looked straight at the solemn-looking Haeseung. Now that he was about to hear it, his heart was pounding fiercely.
Mugyeong calmed his irregularly pulsating heart with a very small deep breath. Now it was time to endure whatever Haeseung had to say. He could simply listen to it as if it were a language from a third world that Mugyeong could never interpret, let it go in one ear and out the other.
“You know, I’ve been thinking for a long time about how to reject you nicely, but I just can’t come up with anything.”
“…”
“It seems there’s no way to reject someone nicely. So I have no choice but to reject you harshly.”
“…”
“If you don’t want to stay friends with me, don’t think about seeing my face again.”
Mugyeong was at a loss. No matter how he heard it, Haeseung’s words sounded like Korean, not a language from a third world. Haeseung struck Mugyeong by using correct and precise Korean.
“Why are you suddenly like this? It’s not like we’ve been lovers all this time. Right?”
“I’m not talking about something so obvious.”
Though he tried to maintain a cold expression, there was no cruel or harsh energy in Haeseung’s voice. Haeseung seemed to feel this current situation, where he had to say harsh words to Mugyeong, almost like a disaster. Mugyeong found that quite regrettable, but at the same time advantageous.
“I know. I understand what you’re saying well enough. But could you consider my position just a little?”
“Asking to be friends again is the maximum consideration.”
“That’s not consideration, it’s torture.”
At the word “torture,” Haeseung bit his lower lip and lowered his eyes. Mugyeong steeled himself. It was time to present a compromise that existed between “consideration” and “torture.” After contemplation, Mugyeong prepared a compromise. Of course, he weighted it more to his advantage.
“Lee Haeseung.”
“…”
“I’ll give up.”
“Really?”
“But it might be difficult on an empty stomach.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
