Where am I…?
Geun-yeong shifted his eyes through the narrow slits. He was looking for the man he had last seen. But then,
“Geun-yeong, are you awake?”
Goosebumps spread across his body again. Startled by the intense sensation coursing through him, Geun-yeong’s eyes flew open, his stiff eyeballs turning to look at the man who had called him. When he saw him, he became terrified.
Even in his fear, he instinctively searched behind the man. There were no other faces. His wandering eyes returned to the man’s face. More goosebumps. Geun-yeong squeezed his eyes shut, then reopened them. With hands heavy as if wearing wet clothes, he tried to push himself up from the bed, but he was merely pushing against sheets that seemed oiled, his palms sliding ineffectively.
“Stay lying down. When you’re more recovered, let’s go back. Home.”
Home.
At that word, Geun-yeong stopped moving and dropped his body back down.
He knew the home the man spoke of wasn’t that home. Not the place where he thought there was nothing, but found everything he needed—extra blankets, pillows, washing machine, pots, burners—a place that somehow felt complete. He knew the home the man wanted to return to would be one that appeared perfectly filled but was actually empty inside.
It seemed his body, which felt heavy as if waterlogged, actually did have water inside. The water sloshing around inside began rising to his eyes. He tried to hold it back, but couldn’t. He tried repeatedly to suppress it but eventually, tears started flowing. He tightly closed his eyes until his face contorted, but it didn’t work. Geun-yeong used his remaining strength to barely lift his arm and cover his face, his eyes, his tears.
He wanted to go to that home. He missed the man who lived there.
The wind was cold. His wet shoulders ached. The man in short sleeves in the dead of winter, drawing stares, hunched over as he moved to find his car, which he vaguely remembered where he had parked.
Seeing his car parked crookedly, ignoring the parking lines, the man laughed emptily at himself as the driver, then climbed into the car with a suddenly vacant expression.
Regardless of his thoughts, his hands and feet moved automatically—starting the engine, shifting gears, stepping on the accelerator. Though he stared blankly ahead while turning the steering wheel, his mind was still back in the emergency room.
“Why are you still hanging around!”
“What do you want from us? What exactly do you want!”
“Why are you still standing there! Isn’t there security? Please call security!”
The man who had been shouting and pushing him away from the bed began throwing money in the middle of the emergency room. Asking if it was money he wanted. If he had kidnapped Geun-yeong for money.
People’s gazes converged on him. The stares should have been uncomfortable, but he barely felt them. Being pushed back by the man shoving his shoulders, he looked beyond the man’s head. He looked at the person lying on the bed. He couldn’t see clearly. Each reluctant step backward was regrettable. He had things to ask, so many questions, making it hard to leave.
He wanted to ask if it was really because of him. He wanted to ask if he had been arrogant. He wanted to ask if his judgment had been poor, and if that was why he was in pain like this.
And finally, he wanted to ask if he really needed that man’s obsession and violence, if that was the kind of illness he was suffering from. He wanted to ask if he—smart and capable as he was—couldn’t solve this alone, if the illness was really that difficult.
Security actually arrived. Since there wasn’t exactly a fight, they stood among the onlookers, assessing whether they needed to intervene.
He couldn’t keep standing there. Without getting any answers, he had to turn away. He had to be pushed out of the emergency room with nothing but his curiosity.
He couldn’t tell if the tightness and throbbing in his chest was due to the unanswered questions or the regret of not being able to see that face for a while.
Perhaps missing not seeing him for a while, he unconsciously recalled the last face he remembered. He thought of that face, rolling his eyes while holding lettuce wraps, checking others’ reactions. Then he remembered the eyes that had rolled back between eyelids before he could even notice, that face convulsing while staring into empty space. His mouth, which had almost smiled slightly, quickly dropped.
With a face heavy with loneliness and self-blame, the man drove down the night road, unusually dark today, toward an empty home.
The space where the car had left was empty. Naturally, since it was a place where not just anyone could park. As he parked, thoughts that had briefly drifted away began dropping one by one into his empty mind as he got out of the car.
Now he realized he remembered the face from their first meeting in the hospital room too. Looking quite foolish with hands clasped in front of his chest after dropping his notebook. He remembered the face that turned bright red after reciting children’s poetry while talking about jars and the 50-year-old seolleongtang restaurant. From the face with a reddened nose at the bus stop, pretending not to have cried as he got into the car, to the face looking astounded watching him retrieve the key from the emergency exit. He remembered the face flustered after making mistakes, and the determined face when giving confident answers.
And just a few hours ago, he remembered the face quickly nodding after darting glances around at Bong Tae-gu’s question about whether a man parking a car was sexy. Not knowing he was watching through the side mirror.
The faint smile at the corner of his mouth disappeared without a trace, as if it had never been there. It was hard to believe that had been just a few hours ago.
He moved with practiced steps. Climbing the stairs, he reached out his arm in an almost automatic movement, pulling the key from where his hand went.
Why is this here?
Even after taking it out, he couldn’t remember how the key came to be there. Though he didn’t know the whole story, he nonetheless used that key to open the door.
The living room was cleaned up. Perhaps Tae-gu had stopped by on his way and tidied up. If so, he must have been the one who put the key in the emergency exit.
From the key to the living room. Everything was in its place. That made it even stranger. It felt oddly unreal, as if he might have been dreaming.
He passed through the living room that pretended nothing had happened and entered the bedroom. Without even considering what he was expecting, he simply moved as his hands guided him. When he opened the closet door, he saw a navy blue jumper hanging there that wasn’t his.
It was real.
What had just happened was something that had actually occurred. The accident stemming from his arrogance and ignorance wasn’t something that happened in his imagination.
Somehow his strength drained away. His hands fell from the closet doorknob as it closed, pushed by his weakening hands. After the closet door closed, something unexpectedly entered his widened field of vision. The bag the guy had brought was stuffed into the narrow space between the closet and the bed.
It hadn’t looked particularly large. From inside it came a “blood glucose meter box,” “comfortable clothes to sleep in at night,” and “spare underwear just in case.”
That bag that kept producing things. The bag the guy had packed neatly with necessary items and carried with him seemed to be asking where its owner was. Having nothing to say, he had to look away.
As he lowered his head to look away, he saw a crumpled bag labeled “Sesang Medical Supplies” rolled up. He stared at the bag for a moment, then sat down beside it.
It was nearly dawn.
The man, who knew well that one could stand up after this much time had passed even after recovering from hypoglycemic shock, said it was time to go back. That this was a symptom that improved with rest, and that rest didn’t necessarily have to be in this hospital.
Though still lethargic, Geun-yeong got up since the man was right.
Riding in the car where silence weighed heavily, making it difficult to breathe comfortably, Geun-yeong turned his head and looked out the window as they drove down the main road. He watched the dark river that seemed to be following him. For a brief moment once, he had thought this river was beautiful. But it had grown completely dark since then. That river probably was never beautiful. It was just a dark river all along, and he had momentarily been mistaken.
The persistently following dark river reminded him of the fear of death. Geun-yeong wrapped his chilled arms and turned his head down.
He had to return to a place he never wanted to return to. Getting out of the car wearing hospital slippers, Geun-yeong crossed the parking lot on trembling legs. He passed through the manicured garden and entered the building entrance used separately by each household. He entered the building after typing in the passcode. The man who always walked ahead was following behind now. He had been watching the whole time. That made every movement uncomfortable.
He left his slippers at the entrance and stepped into the living room. Then he stopped. He stood still, waiting for the next instruction. Desperately waiting for the words telling him to go up to the room and rest, he waited for the man to open his mouth.
“Take everything off and go to the bathroom. How many days have you been wearing those clothes? They look terrible.”
He wanted to say he needed rest, that he wanted to shower tomorrow. But he couldn’t say it.
Geun-yeong was afraid of dying. So he was also afraid of the man who held his life in his hands. After escaping from the man and then actually standing on the threshold of death, he became even more afraid of the man. This house and this man were as terrifying as a black river—the kind you could never escape once you fell in.
Unable to even think about talking back, Geun-yeong crossed the living room as instructed and stood in front of the bathroom. He undressed in front of the man, removing the clothes he had worn for the past three days. It felt like once he took off these clothes and put on different ones, Nurse Bong Tae-hee, Dr. Baek Moonjong, and Detective Kyung Jiho would no longer recognize him. It was regrettable. But there was no choice. He wanted to live right now. As he took off his shirt, pants, and underwear, he remembered the jacket, bag, and shoes he had left at Detective Kyung’s house one by one, and then they disappeared from his thoughts one by one.
This wasn’t his first time collapsing from hypoglycemia. He also knew that the weakness in his limbs and entire body would continue for about two more days. As he lifted his arms, which were difficult to move, to open the bathroom door, the man who had been scanning his naked body with eyes that seemed to be looking for something to blame said:
“Leave the door open.”
Instead of answering, he entered the bathroom. As instructed, he didn’t close the door.
It was a bathroom with plenty of empty space even with a shower booth and a large bathtub. It was too spacious. He felt a fear similar to that of a six-year-old left alone in the middle of a park.
He thought of the bathroom in that house. He remembered the cozy space where you could reach someone standing at the door with just one step and an outstretched arm, but the memory faded.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
