#067
“Are you feeling better? I was worried when you suddenly collapsed.”
“Worried?”
The Kim Tae-pung concert must have already ended. Although there was another concert tomorrow, it was obvious that it would be difficult to go again with the shocked Ok-ja.
Once again, Jung Hwi-kyung had failed. Whenever he felt he couldn’t succeed no matter how hard he tried, the despair he had managed to push away reared its head.
“Why didn’t you tell me? That your great-grandmother was a bosal.”
“It may sound like an excuse, but I didn’t know the details either. I hadn’t seen her since I was seven.”
“You’re not in cahoots with them, are you?”
“What?”
“I’m asking if you and your grandmother are working together to trap me in this hell.”
“…”
“Otherwise… just when I thought I could do something, to do this to me…”
The despair that had ebbed away like the tide came rushing back like a flood, its depths even greater. Hwi-kyung didn’t raise his voice. He just asked, almost pleadingly, in a voice that sounded like someone on the verge of death.
“Are you really on my side?”
As if asking whether the hope Gyo-ha had given him was just a means to break him down.
“…I am on your side.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I have no reason to torment you.”
“Haha…”
Hwi-kyung raised his hand to cover his face. He made a laughing sound, but his shoulders trembled. Gyo-ha’s heart sank every time he saw Hwi-kyung become this vulnerable.
“I feel like I’m dying from the pain right now.”
“…”
“I couldn’t do anything in the end. This cycle is ruined too. Will the next one be any different? I can’t even die… Will there ever be an end? Do I have to keep living like this? Repeating endlessly?”
“Calm down.”
“How can I calm down…”
“…”
“There’s no end, I tell you. When will I be able to die?”
Gyo-ha embraced Hwi-kyung’s trembling shoulders. His great-grandmother’s words about Hwi-kyung not being in his right mind were accurate. Hwi-kyung looked several times more unstable than usual.
Lee Gyo-ha could never understand how Jung Hwi-kyung was feeling right now, even if he died and came back to life. Because Gyo-ha was not Hwi-kyung.
But the reverse was also true. No matter how hard he tried, Hwi-kyung could never understand the emotions Gyo-ha felt. Why he held him so tightly, how he could be so strong every time…
“If you’re on my side, can you help me die?”
It was more like a plea. If he was the grandson of the Buddhist grandmother, could he end this? If it was difficult to end the regression, couldn’t he at least kill him? Hwi-kyung asked as if grasping at straws.
“Can you possibly kill me? Can you make there be an end?”
“No.”
“…”
“I can’t do that. Because I’m going to live with you.”
“Why…”
“You’re going to keep living from now on. A little happier and healthier.”
But Lee Gyo-ha casually cut that lifeline.
The words that followed sounded like a prophecy. Hwi-kyung thought Gyo-ha was like a mythical prophet who only uttered unbelievable oracles. Everything he said was absurd, but Hwi-kyung always wanted to believe his words.
“Everything will be alright.”
“…”
“Really. I swear.”
Hwi-kyung’s tense body went limp in Gyo-ha’s arms. Hwi-kyung was thin for his height. He seemed even lighter, perhaps due to the blood loss.
Would you like to regress?
Gyo-ha looked at the system window on behalf of Hwi-kyung, who had buried his face in Gyo-ha’s shoulder. The system window with only ‘Y’ finally came into view.
It was concerning that the system window, which had forced regression up until the thirteenth cycle, was now persistently recommending regression. There was something unsettling about it, as if the appropriate conditions for forced regression hadn’t accumulated sufficiently.
The fourteenth cycle was a failed cycle. Even without borrowing Hwi-kyung’s perspective, it was objectively clear. The full-time housekeeper strategy was half a failure considering the tax audit, and BK International was in constant turmoil due to internal restructuring because of Lee Sung-ha and Park Bong-joon.
Yet, forced regression hadn’t occurred. Gyo-ha was lost in thought as he stroked Hwi-kyung’s back. The system window trying to send Hwi-kyung to the next cycle, and his great-grandmother’s words to prevent him from going to the next one.
Jung Hwi-kyung feeling inexplicable fear upon encountering his great-grandmother. Hwi-kyung, unlike himself, never doubted the system window.
‘So what do you think the system window is, Gyo-ha?’
‘Uh… some kind of divine entity?’
The conversation he had with Hwi-kyung last weekend came to mind like a bolt of lightning. He had answered without much thought, but looking back, it was strange that Gyo-ha could ‘see’ the system window just like Hwi-kyung.
“Right, even gods are ghosts in a way…”
“…What?”
“It’s nothing. Just stay as you are.”
“…”
“Your body is cold.”
Lee Gyo-ha is someone who ‘sees well’ due to inheriting a strong bloodline from his maternal side. If it wasn’t that he could see the main regressor’s system window because he was a sub-regressor, but rather that he could see it because he was someone capable of seeing such things?
Questions followed one after another. Gyo-ha tried to piece together what his great-grandmother had said. Hwi-kyung’s mother had come to his great-grandmother asking her to save her son, and his great-grandmother had granted that request. Something toxic was attached to Hwi-kyung, and his great-grandmother had tried to save Hwi-kyung, not torment him.
Everything was fragmented like a jigsaw puzzle. Even trying to find a few pieces and fit them together, Gyo-ha, who lacked aptitude for puzzle-solving, found it difficult to complete a single picture.
To begin with, Gyo-ha was terrible at problems that required this kind of thinking. Even if what was attached to Hwi-kyung was the system window, it was impossible to know exactly what it was.
Moreover, what was this ‘bet’ his great-grandmother had mentioned? Gyo-ha racked his brains as best he could while holding Hwi-kyung in his arms. It had been a long time since he had used his brain this much, not since his 9th cycle of graduating with a doctoral degree.
“Hwi-kyung.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s live together, shall we?”
No matter how much he pondered, a conclusion wasn’t easily reached. Even during his student days, when faced with a problem he didn’t know, Gyo-ha tended to just choose 3. For essay questions, he would write either -1, 0, 1, or 2 and go to sleep.
So this time too, he decided not to think too deeply. Looking at the situation, it seemed highly unlikely that forced regression would occur. It was a shame to waste the plans he had made for the fifteenth cycle, but perhaps the fourteenth cycle… this very moment might be an opportunity for Gyo-ha.
What if they end up moving to the fifteenth cycle? He decided to think about that if it happened.
“Let’s just live together.”
Now is the chance to delve into the weakened Jung Hwi-kyung. Gyo-ha quickly finished his cost-benefit analysis.
Whatever the ‘toxic thing’ attached to Hwi-kyung was, it would be enough to become even more toxic than that. Gyo-ha decided to think simply. While he was holding Hwi-kyung in his arms, Hwi-kyung’s vision was blocked and he couldn’t see the system window. So wouldn’t it be fine to hold him longer?
“…Okay.”
After a long deliberation, a positive response finally came from Hwi-kyung. Gyo-ha looked at the flickering system window on Hwi-kyung’s behalf.
Would you like to regress?
The system window flickered for a while, but when Gyo-ha didn’t avert his gaze, it faded away.
* * *
A few days later, Gyo-ha came early in the morning to pick up Hwi-kyung. He no longer needed to ring the doorbell at the entrance. Hwi-kyung had given him the door lock password.
Hwi-kyung’s door lock password was Ok-ja’s eight-digit birth date. Gyo-ha recited grandmother’s birthday as he flung open the front door.
Surprised by the unexpected intrusion, Hwi-kyung turned to look at Gyo-ha with a bewildered face, pausing mid-toothbrushing. It was barely past six in the morning, so it was certainly a sudden visit.
“I’ve come to pick you up.”
“What?”
“We agreed to live together, didn’t we?”
“No, not right away though?”
“Why not?”
“Why? Well… I need to tell the landlord first, at least.”
“I’ll just live in this villa.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Let’s go to my place right now.”
“I said, are you crazy?”
Hwi-kyung, who had just managed to rinse his mouth, pushed away Gyo-ha who had approached him. Being this driven was a drawback at this point. While it was true that Hwi-kyung had agreed to live together, this kind of intrusion without notice was unexpected.
He hadn’t even made moving plans yet, let alone told the landlord he was leaving. Hwi-kyung had been thinking of living with Gyo-ha in the fifteenth cycle.
Wasn’t the fourteenth cycle already ruined anyway? In Hwi-kyung’s judgment, forced regression was imminent. It was a bit strange that the system window was asking about regression so frequently it was annoying, but usually when forced regression was close, the regression recommendations became this frequent.
Of course, having only ‘Y’ as an option was quite outlandish. Thanks to his suspicious nature, Hwi-kyung didn’t press the ‘Y’ button even in his unstable mental state.
“I can’t leave you alone anymore. I feel like you might do something if left alone.”
“Look, usually it’s you who does something.”
“Yes. That’s why I decided to just go ahead with the move.”
Barging in at six in the morning and insisting on moving. Hwi-kyung slightly regretted giving Gyo-ha the entrance password.
“Let’s move right away.”
“I have to go to work today, what move…”
“Is work important to you right now, Hwi-kyung?”
“What else is important to an office worker?”
“I’ll tell Lee Sung-ha, so take the day off today.”
“I told you I don’t have any vacation days left!”
“I’ll make some for you.”
Jung Hwi-kyung was escorted away by Lee Gyo-ha. It was literally an escort.
“We agreed to live together.”
“Ah, I got it…”
“Let’s go.”
Usually, intelligent humans are easily swept up by stubborn types. It takes twice the effort to deal with someone who doesn’t communicate. In that sense, Hwi-kyung and Gyo-ha were a good match.
Gyo-ha started to think when he was with Hwi-kyung, and Hwi-kyung thought a little less as he was dragged around by Gyo-ha. In a way, it was a mutually complementary relationship.
While Hwi-kyung was busy packing enough luggage to stay at Gyo-ha’s officetel, the doorbell rang. Gyo-ha opened the front door on behalf of Hwi-kyung, who was preoccupied with packing. The neighbor, now quite familiar to Gyo-ha, was standing there with a grumpy face.
