#086
Born as the third son of the BK Group, Lee Gyo-ha lacked nothing from childhood. People were always kind to him, and even without any plan, he could easily obtain everything.
However, the paradox came from abundance. Despite being extremely wealthy both materially and emotionally, a subtle void was never filled. It’s a story that would invite criticism if others heard it, calling it the complaints of the well-fed, but because Gyo-ha could easily obtain anything, nothing was special to him.
Yet, Gyo-ha didn’t flaunt his shortcomings. He was kind to everyone, regardless of who they were. If everyone was just passing through his life anyway, being nice yielded better results than being unkind.
It was fine if things went well, but if not, that was okay too. If it wasn’t a lasting relationship, there was no need to get to know someone deeply. Don’t stop those who come, and don’t hold back those who go. This was how Gyo-ha dealt with others.
Even a Buddha who had reached nirvana would probably be more attached to relationships than him. He wouldn’t even remember the face of a lover he had dated for months after breaking up, and he never truly hated anyone he had fought with due to incompatibility.
It was the same with his ex-lovers. Those who had dated Gyo-ha unanimously described him as a good person, but none of them liked him for long. Unless they were fools, it was hard not to realize that Gyo-ha treated them as ‘anyone’ or ‘everyone’.
It was inevitable. Gyo-ha had no concept of ‘special’. Even when relationships developed into romantic ones, Gyo-ha’s attitude didn’t change. In a world where bad boys who were only kind to their partners thrived, the consistency of a good man became tiresome.
‘It feels like I’m the only one loving you.’
‘Since you lack nothing, I guess you don’t need me either.’
‘You keep making me anxious. Because you don’t want anything from me…’
The breakup lines he heard were always similar. Gyo-ha repeatedly experienced people who had confessed to him with excited faces saying goodbye with tired expressions. The breakups didn’t lead to a sense of loss. He knew from the beginning that it would end like this.
Living alone isn’t bad either. Isn’t it okay not to meet people? How many people in the world experience fateful love anyway… Just as Gyo-ha was setting his future goal as an open-minded elderly bachelor, the forced regression that pushed him into graduate school more than ten times began.
Repeating the integrated master’s and doctoral course in graduate school not only built up the intelligence and culture Gyo-ha had lacked, but also provided opportunities to observe people.
Unlike Jung Hwi-kyung, who met new people every time he changed companies, Gyo-ha had to keep seeing the same people. His range of activities, limited to graduate school and the modeling agency, could expand or contract, but unless he deliberately broke out, it never changed.
Although unintended, the observation of those around him due to forced regression was repeated countless times. After dozens of observations, Gyo-ha realized that he was more indifferent to people than he thought. It was difficult for him to passionately like or hate someone. While it was easy to treat someone moderately well or keep a distance, it was impossible to be wholehearted.
Reporting a friend as a drug offender out of concern, backstabbing someone you got along with for personal gain. Loving someone to the point of disrupting daily life, crying over a breakup to the point of becoming truly ill.
Gyo-ha could understand all these sensations intellectually, but he thought he could never experience the same as them. He clearly had emotional tendencies, but it was difficult for those emotions to develop beyond human kindness. After all, everyone was just a passing existence to him. He too had to be a passing existence for everyone.
However, life can’t always be like a calm sea. The wave called Hwi-kyung crashed recklessly into Gyo-ha’s life, which had never seen a ripple. Gyo-ha was truly bewildered. What’s this, the sand castle I’ve been building until now has collapsed in an instant….
No matter how patiently he rebuilt it several times, Hwi-kyung unpredictably demolished what Gyo-ha had built up. What was even more astonishing was that he himself was equally destroyed. When Gyo-ha finally discovered Hwi-kyung in the thirteenth iteration, Hwi-kyung begged to be killed with a pale, exhausted face.
The biggest wave that had invaded Gyo-ha’s life cried, saying he just wanted to disappear. Every time he embraced the crying Hwi-kyung, Gyo-ha’s chest also became wet with his tears.
To think that the person who had ruined his peaceful life and bestowed upon him a regression close to a curse was so weak and ordinary.
It was then that Gyo-ha understood people who break themselves down and sacrifice for others. There were beings that couldn’t be let go of even knowing that getting deeply entangled would bring no good. People you have to hold onto even when you think, ‘If it weren’t for this person, I wouldn’t be living like this.’ For Gyo-ha, that was Hwi-kyung.
“What will you do if the regression ends? If a situation comes where you don’t go back to the beginning even if you don’t get a job.”
“Well, I’ve never thought about it.”
The two were lying side by side on the bed. As if their hasty kiss had been an illusion, there was no sexual atmosphere between them. Rather, their conversation continued, inappropriately matter-of-fact for the situation.
What they liked and disliked, why they wanted to be a model, or if not that, what their best memory was… Such conversations slowly continued. Even Hwi-kyung, who at first tried to change the subject saying it wasn’t the situation for such talk, gradually responded calmly to Gyo-ha’s questions.
With only two iterations of acquaintance, Gyo-ha learned for the first time that Hwi-kyung preferred sky blue to black. It was also the first time he heard that he now felt dizzy just seeing the word ‘black’.
Hwi-kyung too was hearing about Gyo-ha’s modeling activities for the first time. When asked why he wanted to be a model, Gyo-ha sheepishly admitted that at the time, it seemed easy. They couldn’t help but laugh at his words that it turned out to be not at all easy once he actually tried it.
The conversation topics flowed from life in America and effective cancer prevention methods to what they would do if they defeated the system window and the regression ended. It wasn’t something to talk about with the system window blinking with wide-open eyes, but Gyo-ha was curious about the future Hwi-kyung envisioned.
“I think I only thought about dying when I got old and retired.”
“Why do you always talk about dying?”
“That’s how it was then. I don’t think that way now.”
“Then what will you do from now on? Want to live traveling somewhere with me?”
“…”
“I think it would be good to go to America when it’s all over.”
The conversation flowed as if everything had been resolved when nothing had been solved. Hwi-kyung found Gyo-ha’s lack of concern quite strange.
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Gyo-ha must be able to see that too. But he looked only at Hwi-kyung as if the system window didn’t matter at all. Thanks to this, Hwi-kyung also had to think about the ‘future’ he hadn’t deeply considered before.
During the period when he thought retirement was the only way to end the regression, he only thought about dying as soon as the regression ended. He thought he could die once the regression was over. By the time Hwi-kyung reached that age, his grandmother would have already passed away, and he didn’t think he would have any lingering attachments to his life alone.
But now he didn’t want to do that. He just wanted to live a normal, long life. Lying next to Gyo-ha, spouting nonsense as if it were future plans and wasting the day felt like quite a productive thing to do.
“We’ll travel here and there. Grandmother can also receive treatment in America.”
“If we go to America, we can’t go to Kim Tae-pung’s concert.”
“Ah, that’s right.”
“Let’s go after seeing all the concerts.”
“I should join the entertainment company a bit earlier.”
“Are you going to be an Executive Director again?”
“Should I enter as a manager or team leader?”
“You’ll never say you’ll enter as a regular employee, will you?”
“The chairman’s son entering as a regular employee would be more of a nuisance.”
Hwi-kyung laughed out loud without realizing it. It felt like a past life when he had thought about strangling that parachute Executive Director to death (though it was really something like a past life).
“If I say I’m taking a break from graduate school and enter saying I want to learn from the bottom up, I think even father would understand.”
“Don’t you have any thoughts of continuing modeling?”
“Not right now.”
How many people could talk so casually about the future in a situation like this? Talking with Gyo-ha made it feel like all problems would be solved soon.
“Can I hold your hand?”
“If my hand can be held normally.”
“It seems I can hold it normally, at least. We just kissed too.”
“Why indeed…”
“I think I’m past the point of hearing ‘What’s the big deal about the Executive Director?'”
“…You still remembered that?”
“I might lack intelligence, but I have a good memory.”
“Oh come on.”
“I even won the lottery. Strangely, among all the things I forgot, I remembered the lottery numbers you told me to memorize.”
“You really are a strange person.”
“I’ll give you all the prize money.”
Gyo-ha gripped Hwi-kyung’s hand tightly. The more he did so, the faster the system window blinked. It seemed desperate to separate the two somehow.
Even though he was held so tightly that blood couldn’t circulate, not a single groan came from Hwi-kyung. Gyo-ha turned his head to examine Hwi-kyung’s face. Hwi-kyung had his eyes lowered.
“Just keep that…”
A faint smile, hard to notice unless looked at closely, appeared on Hwi-kyung’s face.
“Use it when you go to America with me.”
The situation remained the same, and nothing was easily improving. But Gyo-ha liked Hwi-kyung’s words. With me, together… Such expressions lingered long in his ears.
How could he not fulfill his wish when he promised such a reward? The wish that a human begs of another human was naturally accepted without any awareness, just like at the time of a vow.
