By Zephyria The notification was a company chat from the Team leader. The gist of the lengthy chat was that there was something important to discuss tomorrow, so I should come to the office instead of working from home.
I left a reply saying I understood and adjusted my schedule on the company’s HR information page. I thought I wouldn’t have to go to the office for a while, but a sudden emergency call? It seemed my assumption that it was good news was wrong.
I tapped the mouse pad anxiously.
“…What’s going on?”
I racked my brain to see if I had mishandled anything. There were no new tasks I had taken on yet, and all the work I had been assigned was finished, so there shouldn’t be anything to criticize.
She was a very good person, but I was still viewing her through the lens of my previous nightmare.
Distrust of people filled my heart.
Even if the company was full of good people, living and working with them wasn’t easy. For me, being around a lot of people wasn’t welcome. That was completely separate from loving this place.
I remembered the first day I came to work at the company.
As I walked in wearing a suit, unfamiliar foreigners whispered among themselves. At that time, my ears weren’t fully open yet, so all the languages sounded like accusations. That couldn’t have been the case.
Even if everyone hated me, I couldn’t give up this precious job that connected me to Gyeoul.
It was a barely-there connection. Whether it was a trick of the gods or a destiny ordained by them, I was prepared to accept it willingly.
I clenched my fingertips and barely mustered the courage.
〈Excuse me, can I ask where my seat is?〉
I chose the most taciturn person among them to ask. The man with shaggy hair pointed to the seat next to him and pulled out the chair. An empty desk with nothing on it caught my eye.
My bewilderment seemed to have been conveyed to him. He glanced at me but didn’t say anything. He could have told me that there wasn’t an assigned seat, but looking back, it was a really mean thing to do.
My face turned blue.
Is it workplace bullying again? What should I do if it happens at the new company too? Was it my fault after all? It was as if I had been laid off, there were no belongings on my desk.
Already caught up in the thought that things had gone wrong from the very first step, I didn’t notice that everyone else had laptops instead of computers on their desks. My vision was narrowed.
〈The HR person will be here soon. They went out on business and are rushing back.〉
The shaggy-haired coworker next to me spat out the words, as if my standing there bothered him. I sensed a hint of embarrassment, but considering his attitude until just now, it seemed like a delusion, so I was ambivalent. It seemed like a more correct judgment to think that he hated me.
Even so, I had to change now.
Even if it was workplace ostracism, or even discrimination, I had to overcome it myself somehow. Contrary to my firm determination, my mouth froze when I thought they hated me. The medicine I had swallowed as if chewing it up was of no use.
I steadied my quickening breath and slowly asked him. I held on tightly to my fading mind.
〈Is it usually…… empty here?〉
I never thought my conversational skills were bad, but when I actually opened my mouth, my vocabulary level was terrible. He thought about my sentence for a long time, then twitched his lips and smiled.
He seemed to be trying to smooth out his expression to hide his laughter, but he didn’t hide it at all. An unexpectedly kind voice followed.
〈Our company doesn’t have assigned seats, so the person in charge will give you a laptop to use. My name is Victor, and I’m in charge of development like you.〉
Victor introduced himself and extended his right hand as if asking for a handshake. I didn’t know what aspect made him lower his guard, but I politely supported his right hand with my left hand, as I would in Korea, and took his hand.
A cheerful laugh continued for a long time. My face reddened with shame, and I lowered my head, hoping this time would end quickly.
It was a past memory that I could now bring up like a reminiscence, but at the time, it was really dizzying.
Victor later told me that he had been making fun of me because a tall, cold-looking person was doing such absurd things, which made him feel quite amused and friendly. For a while, I followed Victor, whom I had become acquainted with by chance, around like a chick.
If this incident had simply ended with trial and error, I would have thought of it as a common adaptation to a foreign country…
While organizing files related to the project and submitting approvals, I suddenly thought of something. The disappointing thing about finishing this project was that I hadn’t built a proper rapport with the employees of the partner company. I had hoped to find someone who could leak information about ‘Winter’.
Strictly speaking, Michael was also an employee of the partner company and was close enough to travel with Gyeoul, but he was excluded.
Not only did I not have his contact information, but I could find out his email address if I wanted to, but I didn’t want Sirius to let Gyeoul know that it was me. As soon as I contacted Michael, Gyeoul would know that fact as well.
At least I expected the outgoing Dana to get along well with Gyeoul and quickly become friends, so I asked her to be in charge of contact…
If we happen to see each other again, I’ll forgive you then.
Do you know that the sentence you left behind after agonizing over it felt like a lifetime of salvation?
I chewed over the sentence that suddenly came to mind. I crumpled up the thought that stemmed from the desire to make coincidence seem like inevitability. I heard news about that kid, so what. Disgust instantly dominated my body.
I left the window open, put the laptop on the bed, and got up from my seat. I was thirsty. I stepped onto the cold floor without turning on the heater. I didn’t want to warm up the space where Gyeoul wasn’t. I didn’t know what this feeling was.
I had to be given the worst. I was a person who deserved to suffer and be tormented. Someone had to take revenge on behalf of Gyeoul. So I decided to take on that role.
If I didn’t do this, there were times when I would go crazy.
When I woke up in the early morning, I would find myself quietly placing a hammer on my wrist, or leaning my body while looking at the fast-moving road, inflicting self-harm. The cool sensation I faced when I opened my eyes had become familiar, and I was no longer afraid.
Rather, the dreams were more terrible…
The scene of me standing blankly in the space where you were crying, not even approaching, just looking at your back, was replayed about a hundred times.
After the video stopped and you scattered in an instant, I was trapped alone in a square box. I couldn’t go anywhere, I was tormented, banging my head on the floor, strangling my neck, and shouting your name. In the space where the sound disappeared, I could wake up from the dream if I killed myself somehow.
‘I don’t want to sleep.’
I moved my body slowly and crawled into the bed covers. Darkness began to fall, but I didn’t feel like turning on the light.
I picked up the laptop, which was the only thing bright, and opened the inbox, which was full of emails notifying me of failed deliveries. This was my own confessional. There was no one to listen, so it was clear that I would never be forgiven. Nevertheless, I revealed my unrequited feelings as they were.
The first time was a mistake.
Unable to bear the insomnia, I poured medicine into my mouth and took a sip of alcohol. I had been out of my mind for a long time, so it was no different from usual.
Whether it was because of the medicine or because I was drunk quickly, my thoughts were paralyzed because I hadn’t slept properly the day before.
Thinking of you was my daily life, and that day too, I was just thinking of you and chewing over the letters. Imagining the expression you would have made while writing them was my small hobby.
My vision gradually blurred. I thought I should turn it off now, so I tried to go back to the list, but I accidentally pressed the reply button. I stared at the changed screen for a while and moved my hand impulsively.
Gyeoul I’m sorry
I miss you so much. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I may have lost love, but I have never loved another person. I can explain everything. Really. I’m sorry. I told you not to contact me, but I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to see you.
I didn’t even recognize the letter full of typos and sent it as it was. After pouring out some of the emotions inside me, I was able to fall into a deep sleep. Like magic. I couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard I tried.
The next day, which I woke up in without remembering, there was an email in the inbox that I went into as a habit, saying that the delivery had failed. Recipient unknown. The unrequited feelings were left there like that.
‘You really deleted the account.’
It was a precious record where old memories were left. Gyeoul often laughed while looking back at the emails he wrote when he was young. And I took away one of your shares.
But once I relied on it, I couldn’t stop. If I could gather what you threw away and breathe for a moment.
Today, I wrote a letter as usual. It’s already been a month since I started doing this.
To xx.
Hello. Today, I remembered what happened in the summer. You went on and on about wanting to go to the sea. The Head of department had piled up work, and I even had to give up my vacation, but I didn’t want to let you know that. I wanted to look like an ordinary office worker to you. ……I think I didn’t want to be your flaw. I lied that I had an appointment as a matter of course, and you seemed to accept it. There was no way I would have poured time into other people when I didn’t even have time to spare for you.
I’m sorry, though it’s late. Actually, I wanted to go to the sea with you too.
I hoped that today’s nightmare would be a dream of going to the sea with Gyeoul.