The selfish judge who only cared about his own advancement. The media obsessed with ratings. Though he couldn’t forgive any of them, there was someone else who absolutely could not and should not be forgiven.
The devil-like bastard who had pulled off a monumental fraud, committed unacceptable abuse, and was now trying to frame it as a mental illness. That bastard was absolutely unforgivable.
Kyung Jiho, stopped at a traffic light, cursed while banging on the steering wheel with a “bang! bang!” sound.
“Damn it! Shit! Fucking bastard!”
The man who was shouting all kinds of harsh curses toward the man he wanted to strangle if he were in front of him, soon thought of the guy he had left at home. And he recalled several of the guy’s behaviors.
His pale face after sleeping until noon without eating breakfast, his panicked face when he forgot to inject insulin, his satisfied face after checking his blood sugar and finding it good, his face crunching cucumbers, his diligent face as he sat counting the pieces of meat he had eaten.
No. It wasn’t true. It absolutely wasn’t true. The guy was definitely not a meticulous liar. He was just a pitiful guy trying his best to survive. It was like insisting that a mouse-sized chestnut, obviously a mouse, was a fox wearing a mouse disguise.
Munchausen my ass. Just throw around whatever you want, you bastards.
What they were claiming was illogical and not worth considering. But the problem was the ones who were pretending to buy into those absurd claims, those impossible arguments, and those who were talking about them as if they were credible.
The prosecutor, upon hearing that pressure from the presiding judge who had received a request from the former High Court Chief Justice was suspected, said with what seemed like a resigned face:
‘Then, bring someone higher than the presiding judge. Bring someone at the vice-ministerial level or higher, then I’ll help you win.’
“Damn it…”
In the end, they set a date for the second trial after diagnosing Ji Geun-yeong’s mental condition.
However, the guy’s current mental state was unstable. It seemed like if they did a mental illness differential diagnosis now, it would actually show that he had a mental illness.
After stopping at another traffic light, the man collapsed his upper body and buried his forehead against the steering wheel. Though there was a loud sound as he hit it hard enough to shake the car, the man who had buried his forehead didn’t move.
Kyung Jiho’s condition was also not normal at the moment. Both mentally and physically. During the day, he went around as if obsessed with Ji Seokhun’s case. After the unsatisfactory first trial, he followed court officials around, stirring up dust.
And at night, in the midst of all this, shit, a drug case involving a third-generation chaebol heir had broken out, so he had to stake out clubs where related rumors were circulating. It was already unbearable having to sit in a club in this situation, but it was truly an ordeal to suppress the urge to shoot all the clueless people approaching him wanting to have fun.
Then whenever he had even a little free time, he stopped by his home, opening the front door with an anxious heart, wondering if the worrisome guy was okay. Even in situations where he absolutely had no time, he forced himself to return home. He could have asked Bong Tae-gu, but he needed to see with his own eyes to be reassured. It might be better for his mental health not to see the guy wasting away day by day, but right now his own mental health wasn’t the issue.
While the man had his forehead buried against the steering wheel and was now thumping it, a “honk” sound of a horn was heard from behind.
“…”
He wanted to half-kill the guy who honked, as if his mind wasn’t already chaotic enough. He slowly raised his head and looked in the rearview mirror. To see what kind of person it was. But, beyond the car he wanted to half-kill, something else caught his eye. It was a large bookstore that he had passed by absentmindedly without noticing.
* * *
[Mr. Ji claims he advised the victim to study medicine to treat his condition, but there are opinions that this effectively enabled the victim to make more sophisticated lies. This is why the theory that the victim has Munchausen syndrome is gaining more credibility. Isn’t that right?]
[Yes, that can be considered correct.]
They were asking questions with predetermined answers. And the answers came without any twist.
[Amid the spreading public opinion questioning how a medical student could not know he didn’t have diabetes, medical students themselves are saying that there’s a big difference between undergraduate coursework and actual clinical practice, suggesting that it’s possible to commit fraud with professional knowledge. Professor, what do you think? Do you believe victim Ji has Munchausen syndrome?]
[Munchausen syndrome is among the mental illnesses that are difficult to diagnose. While Ji still has to undergo mental illness differentiation, I believe that listening to the testimonies of those around him rather than the diagnostic results is the path toward the right judgment-]
The expert invited to the news to express his opinion once again couldn’t finish his words. That was because the man who entered the house turned off the TV.
“I told you not to watch this.”
“You’re back?”
The condition of the guy who was greeting him with just his head raised while squatting and watching TV had been showing different patterns recently.
“Those people have a point. How could I not notice after getting into medical school? Am I an idiot?”
It wasn’t a good direction. The guy who had been silent and lethargic was now starting to observe his own situation as if it were someone else’s.
“It might be less embarrassing to be diagnosed with the syndrome those people are talking about.”
He snorted as if it were an amusing joke while saying something absurd, but Kyung Jiho couldn’t laugh along.
The guy who stopped his hollow laughter was now just staring at the black screen. He was looking at himself reflected in the screen with the same expression he had while watching the news earlier. It was an expression that asked, who is that stupid bastard?
Jiho sighed and sat down beside him.
The TV had been silent for a while. With one man who had little to say and another who had much to say but couldn’t easily speak, the living room was quiet. Somewhere, a dog was barking.
Thinking that nothing would be resolved by staying silent, and as if urged by the dog that seemed to be saying bark like others, make some noise, Jiho, after struggling and contemplating for a while, exhaled deeply enough to make his shoulders rise and reached out his hand. He picked up the paper bag that had been beside him all along. After placing it on his thigh and contemplating for not a short time, he extended it. The hand holding the paper bag was directed toward Geun-yeong, while his head and gaze were pointed toward the kitchen.
Geun-yeong looked at the brown bag extended in front of his chest. First of all, “Daedong Bookstore” was written on the outside. Thinking it might be a book, he took the bag with both hands. The moment he held it, he could tell it was indeed a book. With a hard and thin cover.
But what kind of book?
Since it was clearly offered to him, he didn’t ask if he could take it out. Rustle, he put his hand into the bag, grabbed the book, and pulled it out. And then, he stopped.
A white butterfly was flying over a grassy field that felt like the fuzz on a green sweater.
It was that book from back then.
It was a book created by a world-famous fairy tale author and illustrator together. Though it had undergone several reprintings over more than a decade and its format and size had changed, the cover remained the same.
The fact that Geun-yeong couldn’t find that famous book, a book anyone could easily get at a bookstore, wasn’t unique to him. In fact, whenever he had to go to a bookstore, he consciously avoided it. He couldn’t even go near it, let alone buy it.
“You said you’ve survived all this time because that bastard read you this book.”
Geun-yeong was still just looking at the book cover and didn’t nod. But, it was true. What was that memory anyway? He had clung to it and held on so stubbornly. It was foolish.
And even now, he still didn’t have the courage to open the book. He was afraid that it might be different from the content he knew, that it might have completely different words written in it.
Jiho, watching the guy who was just fidgeting with the book given to look at without actually opening it, said:
“As I said before, I don’t remember anything before the age of twelve. But I, at that time, that bastard… probably… wasn’t me.”
Jiho’s uncharacteristically dragging words carried regret. Besides not having memories, there was a slight regret in firmly denying it, so he didn’t say it definitely wasn’t him, but probably, it wasn’t.
No, it definitely wasn’t.
Based on what people who knew his pre-12-year-old memories well said, the probability of him having stayed in an orphanage was zero. There was no reason for him to have stayed in an orphanage. The neighborhood where he supposedly spent his childhood was also far from where Ji Geun-yeong had mentioned. There was no possibility for him to have been Ji Geun-yeong’s “that bastard back then.” So, in fact, Jiho had a complex about Ji Geun-yeong’s “that bastard back then.” He had an emotion that could also be called envy in another name.
Jiho, with a regretful heart, delivered words that had become even harder to say after simmering for so long:
“If it doesn’t have to be that bastard who reads the book…”
Jiho didn’t understand what he was saying. If the speaker himself couldn’t understand what he was saying, the listener probably wouldn’t either, but he said it anyway.
“In other words… if it doesn’t matter who it is…”
He tried to convey his faint, abstract feelings. He tried to verbalize his feelings, which in shape might be similar to a curled-up pink baby pig.
“…Keep on living from now on.”
But the sound that came out of his mouth was quite disappointing. He tried to put into words the feelings stirring in his heart and what he wanted to convey to the young man, but it came out all wrong.
It seemed like this wasn’t what he wanted to say—he knew for certain it wasn’t right—but he couldn’t figure out exactly what he did want to say. Kyung Jiho felt quite frustrated. He turned his head back toward the kitchen and unnecessarily rubbed the itchy back of his neck with his palm.
Geun-yeong, who had been looking only at the cover, asked while still keeping his eyes on it:
“Are you going to read the book to me?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
