#073
The weather had grown much colder. Snow fell and stopped, then fell and stopped again, layering gray snow on the dirty streets of Haeya-dong.
A large black sedan moved slowly over this snow. The market vendors didn’t complain about the big car blocking the road. Rather, they were smiling, pleased to see a big spender visiting after so long.
Yeon Tae-soo’s trunk was full for the first time in a while. He had spent the entire day going around the market, collecting various items.
Of course, ordering online would have been much more convenient, but he preferred to see and touch things while selecting them. After all, these items were going into the place where Yoo Seong-woo was staying.
He didn’t visit the safe house often. He was worried Yoo Seong-woo might feel uncomfortable around him.
‘But his eyes tell a different story.’
His eyes couldn’t hide his happiness whenever they met after a few days apart. It was evident in his reddened ears, averted gaze, trembling eyelashes, and tightly closed lips. That he was glad to see Yeon Tae-soo.
He had said his reason for leaving Haeya-dong wasn’t because of Yeon Tae-soo. He clearly stated it was his own problem. This meant it wasn’t because he had no feelings for Yeon Tae-soo or found him bothersome.
Even while thinking it was ridiculous to cling to this fact, he couldn’t help feeling relieved.
If he could just get him to open up a little more, he would tell him what that problem was. And then everything else would naturally fall into place.
Yeon Tae-soo, having set the car to automatic driving, called Yoo Seong-woo. He had bought him a tablet for easier communication. Fortunately, Yoo answered the call promptly.
“Seong-woo, I’m planning to come the day after tomorrow.”
– Ah, yes. That’s good.
“Do you need anything?”
– No, I’m fine. There’s still plenty of food…
“Eat it all. I’ll check the storage.”
– That’s a bit too much.
His low laughter tickled Yeon Tae-soo’s ears. Ah, it sounds so good. Yeon Tae-soo closed his eyes and savored Yoo Seong-woo’s brief laughter.
Yes, what could be wrong when someone so beautiful is so affectionate?
“See you the day after tomorrow, pretty one.”
Even after ending the call, Yoo Seong-woo’s laughter lingered in his ears.
Yeon Tae-soo didn’t want to lose him. He didn’t want to lose these senses that were just beginning to awaken.
Yoo Seong-woo’s existence had somehow become directly linked to his survival. If he disappeared, Yeon Tae-soo would become a corpse again. All the awakened senses would die, and he would return to a state of feeling nothing.
While driving the car manually and checking the rearview mirror, Yeon Tae-soo paused when he saw his reflection.
Though no one was looking, his face wasn’t expressionless. Instead of the usual shell-like blank face, a faint smile had appeared.
…Would it be okay to visit a day early? No, maybe even two days early…
With these thoughts, Yeon Tae-soo was already turning the car around.
***
Yoo Seong-woo collapsed as soon as he hung up the phone. He clenched his teeth to swallow a scream. His lip seemed to be bleeding.
His first thought was whether his burst lip would heal within two days, because Yeon Tae-soo would ask what happened if he saw it.
It was a terrible headache. It felt like a chainsaw was rampaging inside his head. In the midst of the unbearable pain, Yoo Seong-woo contemplated several times. Should he take the pill? Should he?
No. It’s just a headache, not a severe symptom like operational shutdown. He couldn’t use the precious medicine for this.
He barely got up from the bed. His legs wobbled several times before he finally reached the kitchen.
He filled a glass with water and took several headache pills from the cupboard, swallowing them all at once. This should be enough. He had to endure with this for now.
Even through the headache, smiling for Yeon Tae-soo was the right thing to do. He had done it for fear that his pain might somehow be heard through the phone. Fortunately, Yeon Tae-soo didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.
Yoo Seong-woo collapsed on the kitchen floor and just sprawled there. He clutched his head as the headache surged again. Popo rushed over, worriedly rolling its body from side to side.
“It’s okay… it’ll be okay.”
Though he was speaking to Popo, he was also speaking to himself.
He had deeply questioned why he wanted to live so badly. Each time, Yeon Tae-soo was the first to come to mind.
In a way, it made sense. No one had shown him as much active goodwill as Yeon Tae-soo. That was all there was to it.
And after that, his creator, his siblings who died before they could be born, Yoo-hyun, and the investors who had scribbled on his body came to mind.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. Perhaps he wanted to live out of defiance against them.
With that thought, he wanted to survive even more, as if to show them. For an incomplete, failed android, “survival” was the most passive but certain revenge against those who had created and violated him.
Yoo Seong-woo remained curled up for a long time, and only when the medicine began to take effect did he finally move.
He opened the lower cabinet in the kitchen and checked the kitchen knife attached to the door.
Two days from now. He had preparations to make during that time. When Yeon Tae-soo came the day after tomorrow, he needed to make him believe that he was dead.
***
In the end, he turned the car around and came straight to the safe house. Yoo Seong-woo might scold him for coming early without notice. But he could handle any anger from him.
If he was going to be angry about him coming early, then he shouldn’t have laughed either. Yeon Tae-soo thought of the ridiculous excuse that it was Yoo’s fault for making his heart flutter by laughing into his ear as he parked the car near the safe house.
At least this place wasn’t on a mountain, so access was good. It was a renovated abandoned factory in an area that used to have many factories. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary abandoned factory. Opening the worn-out gate revealed unused machinery and half-broken ring barriers, but behind them, in what appeared to be a wall, there was a door.
When the wall was pushed in a specific way, the real safe house, furnished exactly like a home, was revealed.
Yeon Tae-soo entered with his hands full of packages.
“Seong-woo. I came early.”
As soon as he opened the door, goosebumps rose on the back of his neck. A bad feeling swept over his body.
No way, no way. It couldn’t be. He dropped what he was holding and entered the living room.
“…Seong-woo.”
And what met his nose was the strong scent of blood.
Yoo Seong-woo was standing in the kitchen. Holding a kitchen knife.
Seeing the blood pooled below him, all reason flew out the window.
“What are you doing!”
He rushed over with a shout. Without thinking, he first snatched the knife from Yoo Seong-woo’s hand. After throwing it far away where it couldn’t be reached, he examined the wound.
Seeing the long red line on the inside of his forearm, Yeon Tae-soo felt dizzy with fear. He hoped it wasn’t a serious injury. How much blood loss? Any infection? Medical information he had learned during his mercenary days rushed through his mind.
He was already applying pressure to stop the bleeding. Though his hands trembled and cold sweat broke out, his hands didn’t lose strength. Rather, his knuckles turned white from the force he was applying.
“…How did…”
Yeon Tae-soo’s voice trembled terribly. He was furious with himself for not arriving even sooner.
“How did you get hurt like this…”
An injury this large must be painful, yet Yoo Seong-woo wasn’t making a sound. Worried about this, Yeon Tae-soo raised his gaze from the wound he had been fixated on.
And then he froze. He almost lost strength in the hand stopping the bleeding.
Yoo Seong-woo was breathing heavily.
“Why… why do you… only find me at times like this.”
It was clear without asking that he was trying to hold back tears. The sight of his pale face with only the area around his eyes flushed red as he struggled tore at Yeon Tae-soo’s heart.
“Why, always only at times like this… making it impossible… to push you away…”
Finding it harder to endure, Yoo Seong-woo couldn’t continue and bit his lip. But he didn’t cry. Though he trembled, though his bitten lip turned white. As if showing tears was absolutely forbidden.
Yeon Tae-soo looked down at him while holding his breath, then reached out with his free hand to embrace his shoulder.
He didn’t ask anything. Why he was hurt, what he meant by “times like this.” Why he, a doctor, hadn’t treated himself and just stood there blankly until blood pooled on the floor.
As if he had deliberately stabbed himself.
He simply held him with one arm as tightly as he could.
Because it felt like he might disappear just like this. What if he vanished in an instant, like in the dream he had before?
When had it started? When he came to his senses, everything led back to Yoo Seong-woo. Like a star that returns due to gravity no matter how far it goes, he kept finding his way back to him.
He had tried to observe this emotion that began boiling inside him both when he lost and when he found Yoo Seong-woo, but he could no longer do so.
Could he name an emotion he had never experienced before? Yet no matter how much he thought about it, there was only one word to define this emotion.
The heart that had found him again like a satellite quietly settled and groaned. Listening to the breathing finding its own rhythm, Yeon Tae-soo applied more pressure to stop the bleeding. Yoo Seong-woo’s blood on his fingers began to dry stiffly.
As he finally defined this sticky, painful, and vulgar emotion, everything became clear.
I love you.
I love you so clearly that in this chaotic world, only that fact seems self-evident.
Yoo Seong-woo remained in his embrace for a long time. And Yeon Tae-soo vowed. That he would never lose this wondrous being again. That he wouldn’t allow it even if it meant burning his own soul.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
