6 – Tit for Tat (1)

Chapter 1

Waves crashed. Every time the murky foam surged up to his feet and then retreated into the distance, the sound of pebbles rattling was loud. Just as the polished stones were covered by the waves once more, a chilly sea breeze blew in, sweeping away the cigarette ash piled upon the breakwater.

Seo Hae-young, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the calm sea—now past the swimming season—met the sunset sky, inhaled the bitter taste of the filter. The silence that remained like crumbs after a great commotion ruffled his hair and settled upon his broad shoulders.

He crushed out the smoldering cigarette and looked down at the palms of his hands.

Clean hands, covered in faint scars. The tips of his left hand held the calluses formed from the time spent gripping a string instrument, while the deep scars near the joints connecting the back of his hand to his fingers held the time spent in and out of the gym. There were also scars that remained as intangible sensations. The cool touch of water, the time spent slicing through someone’s body as if cutting through a current, the time spent gripping someone’s ankle and hair—it all remained intact. They were scars that would never fade.

The waves crashed again.

He closed his red-rimmed eyes and opened them. He had to find the starting point. He had to find the beginning of this relationship.

“Hey. You know… when we first met. Why did you hit me? I’m just curious.”

There was no other reason why he had burst into laughter when he heard that question once. It was partly because Hae-won, wearing a middle school uniform whose appearance was now a blur, had come to school overnight with a deep purple bruise and smiled foolishly without a shred of shame; it was also because that wasn’t their first meeting.

Do you think that was the first time?

He had wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut. He saved his words because it was amusing to see Hae-won acting so clingy—unlike his usual self—as if trying to divert attention away from the purple bruise. After teasing him for a long while, he ultimately gave no answer.

There are some memories that are better kept to oneself. Hae-won remembered the starting point as the wall of a vacant lot where a large shopping center now stood, but Seo Hae-young’s memory was different. He had to turn back the clock a bit further. To the time when they were thirteen.

The first day of the new semester. It was March, and winter had not yet fully departed. Everything was hazy—who he hung out with, what thoughts he lived by—but one scene remained vivid.

“Oh Sun-jae, Yoon Hae-young… Wow, we have two Hae-youngs in our class? Could you both raise your hands?”

An exaggerated voice echoed through the pleasant classroom, where sunlight streamed in evenly. The stale memory was blurred and murky. A teacher, whose name and face were now vague, called the roll for the first time; Seo Hae-young had briefly made eye contact when his name was called, and then turned his head away.

While he was counting the time, wondering when it would end as he looked out at the playground with its colorful tracks, he heard that voice. A voice that was slightly husky, a strange voice where a faint breath leaked out every time the tongue rolled, tickling the pit of his stomach.

“It’s Hae-won. Yoon Hae-won…”

“Ah, Hae-won. The teacher misread it.”

His eyes rolled over. The source of the strange voice was a corner seat one row over. A profile smiling ambiguously, as if embarrassed to have talked back to the teacher, wearing a uniform that didn’t fit. A peculiar resonance flowed from the throat of that boy, whose face still held baby fat. In a background painted with thick, smeared watercolors, only that spot was clear.

While the roll call continued, Seo Hae-young rested his chin on his hand and stared intently at the boy, who looked exceptionally shabby in the sparsely populated classroom. If he had turned his head just a little, their eyes would have met, but for some reason, Hae-won never looked back once. Whether he was oblivious or avoiding him on purpose. Seo Hae-young only withdrew his persistent gaze around the time the bell rang to end the class. Since he didn’t feel particularly disappointed, his faint interest evaporated quickly.

They could have just passed each other by. If the teacher hadn’t confused their names for an entire month, if Hae-won hadn’t insisted in that shrinking voice, “Not Hae-young, it’s Hae-won,” and deliberately called out someone else’s name, if he hadn’t peeked with curious eyes, if he hadn’t drawn attention by circling around without actually approaching. Eventually, Seo Hae-young became convinced that Hae-won was doing this on purpose. So, when he happened to spot a brown head while passing by the vacant lot, he approached him out of generosity.

“Your name is similar to mine… Yoon Hae-won, right?”

Yoon Hae-won had been the one to first poke at someone who was staying still. He called his name in that strange voice and stared intently with brown eyes that made one feel odd.

“So what?”

And then, when he played innocent and pretended not to know, it was only natural to be flustered. He immediately stretched out his leg and kicked the small body. The young Seo Hae-young felt a bit… slighted.

Regardless of the process, after that day, Yoon Hae-won was called ‘Seo Hae-young’s friend.’ Wouldn’t that be a better name than ‘Hae-young… ah, Hae-won’? He stared blankly at Hae-won, who was scribbling wrong formulas while munching on the chocolates piled along the line of their touching desks, and simply laughed. An unnamed friend who had their seat changed overnight grumbled, but it didn’t reach his ears. It was because he liked the name Yoon Hae-won better now.

The young Seo Hae-young took a friend who carried all sorts of bizarre rumors, wore a hand-me-down uniform, and occasionally sported bruises, and put him inside a fish tank. The docile and kind—or in other words, slightly stupid—Yoon Hae-won was a saltwater fish he had caught. Beautiful to look at, but difficult to raise.

So, Seo Hae-young created a small sea. He seeped in little by little so that the fish tank could be mistaken for the ocean. He let in only a few permitted people, ran the filter to strain out impurities, and added sea salt to match the salinity of the ocean to cycle the water.

So that he would worry about tuition but not about starving to death; so that he would work without rest, but the sneakers he wore would cost more than twice his monthly salary; so that he would have friends to greet, but no friends to lean his shoulder on.

Then, from some point, the high boundaries slowly crumbled. When he put his hand into the tank, Hae-won would flutter toward him and swim between his fingers. Without knowing he was being burned by the body heat brushing against him, he obediently ate the food he was given.

If told to change his way of speaking, he changed it. If told to wear these clothes, he wore them. If told to come, he came; if told to go, he went. He naturally held out his hand and smiled with an innocent face. Whenever a gaze that believed in him without a shred of doubt reached him, he felt a strange sense of intoxication. He think he was drunk on that intoxication.

Isn’t Yoon Hae-won pretty? Doesn’t Yoon Hae-won listen well? Yoon Hae-won, listen only to me. Yoon Hae-won can’t live without me.

He always wanted to brag. How docile Yoon Hae-won was, how handsome he was, and how dependent he was. He wanted to show him off and boast everywhere. He had no qualms about sharing that blind faith with others. He was arrogant. Since Hae-won would return to him with a single gesture anyway, sharing him for a while meant nothing.

It was funny how his expression changed from moment to moment whenever he mentioned he was seeing someone. It was funny how Hae-won would look bewildered when he ignored a bright greeting and walked past. It was funny how he would trot over without any pride when he suddenly told him to come after cutting off contact, and it was so funny he wanted to laugh out loud when Hae-won would cautiously ask if he had been busy, pretending not to notice. Holding and shaking another person’s lifeline was more satisfying than he had imagined, so the time spent with Yoon Hae-won was full of nothing but joy and excitement.

He could just play with him for a while and throw him away when he got bored, and he didn’t think about how Hae-won would live after that. Because Yoon Hae-won was a human who ‘could be treated that way.’ I’ll get bored next month, I’ll get bored next year, I’ll get bored after graduation… He dragged it out, not even realizing that ten years had passed, deeply immersed without ever getting tired of him. He was arrogant, and then, in an instant, he was robbed.

When a silent line—one that anyone could touch but no one should cross without permission—was invaded by an unexpected bastard, the emotion he felt at the vacant lot’s wall revived.

He was flustered… and he felt slighted.

That was the first time. The starting point that Yoon Hae-won does not know.

The waves, spreading like a net, swept away his thoughts. The sunset sinking beyond the horizon dyed the sky a murky purple. It was time to return today without a single gain. Seo Hae-young dusted off his hands, which had caught nothing, and walked away from the sea. He walked along the coastal road they had walked together every summer and got into the car parked on the shoulder, but he didn’t start the engine. He leaned his head against the steering wheel for a moment and closed his eyes. As the ripple patterns etched on his eyelids vanished, the memories of that day rushed in.

Summer, rainy season, villa, cliff, crying, screaming, falling, summer, rainy season, villa, cliff, crying, screaming, falling… The dizzying images repeated endlessly.

Whether awake or asleep, they repeated without a single moment’s rest, criticizing his clumsy strategy. The fish tank he had painstakingly built with his young heart shattered into pieces. The strategy he had established without a firm purpose collapsed beneath the cliff.

Two and a half months later, the search operation was suspended. Yoon Hae-won evaporated, leaving the memory of that day as an intangible scar.

* * *

Seo Hae-young did not remember the events of that day in detail. Whether he had calmly returned to the villa to call for rescue, whether he had stepped off the sheer cliff, or whether he had just stood there blankly, unable to do anything. When he came to his senses, the rainy season had stopped, and he was still at the villa. So, at first, he thought he had had a terrible dream.

Coming to his senses, Seo Hae-young blinked his somehow stiff eyes. He wanted to see Yoon Hae-won immediately. If he grumbled about having a strange dream while held in a warm embrace, Hae-won would stroke the back of his head. The touch would be awkward, and every time the stiff fingers touched his scalp, a strange itch would arise, making him want to be closer, wanting to enter a hot and damp place… and the rest was obvious. Feeling around the cold space beside him, Seo Hae-young stood up and wandered through the villa looking for the vanished Hae-won. No matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find him, so he searched the laundry room and stopped Tae-gyeom, whom he encountered as he was getting into a car.

“Where did Yoon Hae-won go?”

He asked while massaging his stiff nape, but there was no answer. Tae-gyeom, whose under-eyes were dark as if he hadn’t slept, scanned him with a displeased gaze and passed by without a word. Watching the back of the man walking out without knowing the reason, Seo Hae-young only then perceived the commotion around him.

Turning his head toward the open window, he saw people dressed in orange clothes lingering along the path leading to the forest. Just as he felt a sense of incongruity at a sight he had never seen in the years he had come and gone from this place, his gaze fell downward again. As his hands and feet, a mess of scratches and abrasions, entered his sight, he realized what these hands had let slip.

The reality he had briefly avoided poured out like a burst dam, sweeping away everything beneath his feet. The bright sunlight painting the wooden floor in the pattern of the window became stained with the wind and rain of the monsoon, and a pitiful crying sound lingered in his ears.

He didn’t collapse or shed tears. However, the moment he realized he couldn’t find Yoon Hae-won here, he felt an indescribable emotion. An emotion he had never felt before and thought he would never feel again rushed in instantly, scattering his reason.

After that, the two of them stayed at the villa for about a week, monitoring the situation. They shared the same space all day, but there was no conversation. They didn’t assign blame. They didn’t ask each other what they were thinking, but they were probably both replaying the same scene over and over. While waiting only for the words that he had been found, or that he was still breathing, things began to go wrong.

It was expected that the loud search operation would reach the ears of the villa’s caretaker. He had simply not anticipated the obstacles that a single phone call from the frantic caretaker would bring.

With just one phone call, the situation flowed in a bad direction. Tae-gyeom’s father, who already disapproved of Hae-won, went into a frenzy, and the blood-stained blanket found on this floor added fuel to the speculation. Looking at the state of the bedroom, which had become a shambles, it was understandable. Tae-gyeom’s father, who was second to none in being overbearing, blocked his ears and refused to hear any excuses. Unable to bear the sight of his only child being tainted by a suspicious accusation because of some orphan, he took extraordinary measures through the caretaker.

Disappearance due to an accidental fall.

Under a unilateral notification to wrap things up with a plausible excuse, even Tae-gyeom’s wretched tantrums didn’t work. Due to the stubbornness of Seo Hae-young, who was in the same position, it was dragged out for two months, but nothing beyond that was permitted. Seo Hae-young’s family was equally averse to unnecessary scandals, so all that remained was a wait with a set deadline.

He hoped he would be found alive if possible, but unfortunately, there were no results at all for two months. The place where Hae-won fell was the upper reaches of a valley with deep water, where entry was prohibited. The rainy season, which lasted for three days, raised the water levels and delayed the rescue. Perhaps because of that, the search made no progress even after several weeks.

Whether he hit his head or drowned, if he were dead, at least a body should have appeared. At the very least, a t-shirt like a rag should have come out. However, despite searching thoroughly down to the lower reaches, nothing came out, as if he had evaporated, leaving everyone perplexed. There was only the vague speculation that he might have been swept down the stream and into the sea. Of course, if that speculation were correct, there was no possibility of him being alive. He vividly remembered sneering, “Why not just say he drifted all the way to Jeju Island?”

As the deadline approached, Go Tae-gyeom threw all sorts of tantrums at innocent people, demanding they find him immediately, but Seo Hae-young just sat still, rummaging through his cluttered mind.

It was different from the time when Hae-won had withdrawn a mere million won to betray him and wandered here and there. Back then, he was annoyed, but he was optimistic. If Hae-won lived miserably, he would just leave him alone enough to realize the reality and then pick him up. It was possible because he knew where he had gone and where he was. The option of Hae-won dying didn’t exist at all. Yoon Hae-won was not a human courageous enough to take his own life. The Yoon Hae-won he had created was like that.

But why? He had done everything Hae-won asked. Because he once said he wanted to live comfortably, he let him play around without working. Because he said he wanted to go home, he moved the house he lived in. Because he seemed confused about their relationship, he told him directly that they were dating and showered him with gifts. He gave him a comfortable, affluent, and happy life. He couldn’t understand Yoon Hae-won at all. From then on, Seo Hae-young looked down at his hands whenever he had a spare moment.

Hae-won, who had swum between his fingers, turned into fine sand and slipped away softly. When he opened his palms, there was no form, only a few rustling grains of sand. The unforgettable memories Yoon Hae-won had left him dug deep into his palms. The moment the formless, fragmentary pieces turned into a subtle sense of loss happened in the blink of an eye. Thus, two months passed.

After Hae-won’s disappearance, Seo Hae-young’s life didn’t change much. He ate well and slept well. He went back to school and continued his hollow studies, occupying the position he was meant to have. He had light conversations with people he knew and occasionally went out for drinks. Everything was as usual, but he suddenly found himself checking the spot beside him. As if searching for someone who should naturally be there, his gaze instinctively turned, even though the only time they had traveled together was during their school years.

Every time he saw the empty space, the same emotion from that day rushed in, and he looked at his palms. The unfamiliar sense of loss was like a decoration fixed in a crooked position, making him conflict between the desire to align it straight and the reality that he couldn’t. In the cycle of ignoring it because looking at it only made him feel worse, then turning back because it weighed on his heart, the roses that bloomed over the wall withered miserably.

The garden, where red petals piled up, was submerged in a gloomy silence because one person, who had never even come outside, had disappeared. After shaking off the smell of the sea he had picked up from the place he visited every weekend, Seo Hae-won opened the front door and stared blankly at the entrance where one slipper was missing, then checked his phone. The private investigator, whom Seo Ga-young had personally connected him with, telling him not to make a fuss, had not proven his worth for the money. From banks, telecommunications companies, to hospitals—everywhere that required identity verification—they were only spouting nonsense that no trace had been found yet.

Forgetting that it hadn’t even been a week since he’d assigned the task, Seo Hae-young chewed on a light curse and stepped inside the house he hadn’t visited for over two months. The interior, unchanged from the summer day he left for the villa, accelerated a foul sense of loss. He had stayed elsewhere for a while knowing it would be like this, but he had finally reached his limit. Dropping his few belongings on the floor, Seo Hae-young found it difficult to take a step forward. Yoon Hae-won was everywhere in the house.

The sofa where Yoon Hae-won had sat, the kitchen where Yoon Hae-won had made bland food, the stairs Yoon Hae-won had climbed up and down, the wooden floor where Yoon Hae-won had slumped down, saying it was cool, Yoon Hae-won, Yoon Hae-won…

Standing blankly for a moment, Seo Hae-young frowned and began to roam through the entire house. He searched every nook and cranny as if hunting for a rat, looking for places where Yoon Hae-won might be hiding. He lifted cushions one by one, checked under the dining table, and opened every single door. He searched every inch, just as he once had when trying to find outsiders Hae-won might have brought in. After climbing to the second floor and overturning a box so small he couldn’t even fit his body into it, Seo Hae-young belatedly realized he was doing something pathetic.

“Ah…”

He threw aside the empty box, spilling its miscellaneous contents everywhere, and let out a sigh that had now become a habit. Before he knew it, the study was a mess. The rooms that had turned into bedrooms and storage units were likely in a similar state. It was all Yoon Hae-won’s fault. When the image of Hae-won crawling on the floor to wipe up spilled coffee suddenly came to mind, he couldn’t bear to stay in the study any longer.

He strode out of the study and went down the stairs. Though better than the upper floor, Hae-won existed even in the interior that was far from tidy. Slumping alone on the sofa where he had once sat and watched a movie with Hae-won, Seo Hae-young rolled his eyes and threw a cushion, attempting a clumsy rationalization. There were times during the semester when he was away from Hae-won for long periods. There were even times he didn’t contact him before a particularly daunting exam. Just as he tried to think of this as a similar period, the unnecessary memory surfaced that he had never gone two months without seeing him.

The irritation that surged through his veins was expressed without a moment’s restraint. A sharp kick sent the table flying, and the glass shattered with a loud crack. Even then, his mood didn’t lift. He wanted to break everything, but because of Seo Hae-young’s habits, he had gotten rid of everything worth throwing, so he merely gnawed on his fingers.

Just as Hae-won had done, Seo Hae-young continued to mash the skin until blood appeared, then suddenly straightened up upon hearing an unfamiliar sound. He turned his head toward the bottom of the stairs. Beyond the firmly closed door, there was a scratching sound, but it was gone now.

Even though he tried to ignore it as a mistake, the door that had caught his eye sparked a “what if.” What if Hae-won had returned during the two months he was away? What if he had been taking care of his meals on his own, killing time, and pacing the entryway, waiting, not knowing when he would arrive? As the image of Hae-won speaking to him, cautiously testing the waters and asking why he was so late after playing a little prank, appeared before his eyes, strength returned to his dangling legs.

Standing up immediately and approaching the door, Seo Hae-young pushed the handle down. A cool breeze blew from the bottom of the stairs. It was a breeze that invited expectation. However, that budding hope vanished in a matter of seconds.

Stepping into Hae-won’s space, which was covered in a layer of pale dust, Seo Hae-young stood frozen for a long time, staring at the bars blocking the wide-open window. His fingers, dripping red blood along the bite marks, curled inward. His vain imagination felt pathetic, and the irritation heating his head dyed his vision a vivid yellow.

“Ah… fuck…”

This space had more things to break than the upper floor, but he didn’t want to touch a single thing here. Instead, he overturned the tiny place once more, as there was nothing to look around at. Yoon Hae-won was good at one thing: crawling somewhere and holding his breath.

Searching through the closets, under the sink, and even the bathroom, just as they had during their hide-and-seek days, Seo Hae-young finally checked under the bed. He knew he wouldn’t be there, but he felt like he needed to do this to finally get some rest. In truth, he had hoped a little, but the only thing holding its breath in the dust pit under the bed was not Yoon Hae-won, but a single, dull pair of scissors.

Sighing as he sat up, Seo Hae-young touched his forehead, which was hot with anger. Then, he leaned over once more. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the dark gap. Sure enough, there was something.

Standing up and lightly pushing the bed that was flush against the wall, he heard the sound of a piece of paper fluttering down. When he pushed the bed leg firmly to create a gap, the remaining papers trapped between the mattress and the wall rained down onto the floor. Slipping into the wide gap and perching on the mattress, Seo Hae-won picked up the first photo that caught his eye.

The moment he checked the photo, his smooth brow distorted uncontrollably. Over the youthful face holding a large bouquet of flowers, there was a hole, its edges charred black.

“This really…”

He couldn’t even manage a hollow laugh. He thought he had tucked it into his scheduler after the frame broke, but he hadn’t known Hae-won would snatch it and do something like this. And on the only photo he had. If he was going to burn something, he should have burned someone else’s face; he couldn’t understand why Hae-won would burn his own, but there was no one to be angry at. Setting aside the photo where only his own face remained intact, he noticed the papers scattered on the floor looked familiar.

Irritably brushing back his hair, Seo Hae-young picked up the folded pieces of paper one by one. As he unfolded a piece of paper with jagged edges as if it had been torn, a strange, smudged drawing was revealed. It looked like a drawing of a window, but the skill was very clumsy. Placing the flattened paper beside him, Seo Hae-young carefully unfolded the other papers.

‘The day Seo Hae-young comes.’ A page was filled with firmly written words, crooked lines, and checkmarks. He let out a short laugh seeing the marks checked roughly once or twice a week. Sorry, but there wasn’t a single day he hadn’t stopped by. Feeling a bit calmer, he placed it gently atop the drawing and opened the next paper.

[Hae-young isn’t coming. What if he doesn’t come like this?]

[Hae-young bought me a cake. He said it was my birthday. Christmas was always happy, but I don’t know about today.]

[Hae-young came. It hurts.]

Some had short sentences, and some were filled with nothing but curses. Seo Hae-young unfolded them one by one, reading every single letter slowly. As the notes filled with stories of himself piled up, his hands slowed down. He unfolded the last remaining piece of paper, which was messier than any other. There were several marks and lines scribbled over the words as they had been written down.

[Pale skin, tall, pretty dimples, long eyelashes, good voice, aegyo-sal, red lips, rich…]

The sentences following those were crossed out with thick black lines. It wasn’t to the point where they couldn’t be read. At the end, the paper was nearly torn from the pressure; touching the ripped part, he caught the words glimpsed between the black lines. For a long time, Seo Hae-young held the palm-sized piece of paper and read the same words over and over.

[Kind, asks for my opinion, lets things slide, nice, helps me, and… just everything.]

The sentences Hae-won had written to find a reason for being here, to revive the excitement that had kept him awake, reached Seo Hae-young four months later, their purpose unfulfilled. It was a small letter with a recipient but no sender.

The neatly folded bundle of papers went into the drawer where he kept important things. In the first drawer of the study desk, the one he reached first, the cleaned scissors, the bundle of papers, the photo of a bright smile charred black, and the rest were organized neatly. The bracelet on his wrist made a subtle dissonance as it scratched against the wood grain while he pushed the drawer closed.

* * *

Despite hearing nothing of Hae-won, Seo Hae-young was still doing well. He occasionally tore up the house, ignored incoming calls, and skipped meals, but there were no major problems. Even as he gnawed his fingertips until they were soaked in blood, he believed there was nothing wrong with him. He didn’t burst into tears every time he saw an object that reminded him of Yoon Hae-won, nor did he postpone his duties, so he told himself he was fine, living while momentarily forgetting the time that passed without any harvest. Yet, he found himself standing before a mirror he would usually pass by, staring blankly into it.

Leaning on the sink, Seo Hae-young bent his waist and gazed at his face reflected in the clean mirror. While his skin would flush red under the stinging sunlight, it didn’t tan to a bronze. Since he hadn’t gone out much this summer, it was as pale as usual. When he pulled the corners of his mouth up, a deep dimple formed in the center of his cheek. It wasn’t particularly pretty. Yoon Hae-won’s eyelashes seemed longer, and the rest… it was just passable.

Feeling as if Hae-won’s gaze, which used to steal glances at him, was still piercing his cheek, he looked away from the mirror. As he turned on the cold water and washed his hands, the tip of his thumb stung and released a cloudy stream of blood. By pressing hard into the open flesh to draw blood, the non-existent gaze was withdrawn. Shaking off the strange feeling he’d had for a few days, Seo Hae-young wiped away the water and blood indifferently, then frowned.

What did Yoon Hae-won look like?

The sudden question began to occupy his mind. The face he had seen for over ten years was blurry. This shouldn’t be happening. Leaving the bathroom somewhat hastily, instead of looking for the phone he had shoved somewhere, Seo Hae-young approached the bookshelf in the corner of the bedroom. He pulled out all the graduation albums lined up on the bottom shelf and flipped through the thick covers, ignoring the dust on his hands.

The stiff pages flipped rapidly, and the faces of countless people passed by. Because he couldn’t remember half of them, he had to rummage through the thick album several times before he found the page with his own graduation photo. Generally, Yoon Hae-won should have been between two people, or if he were lucky, right next to him…

Seo Hae-young stared down at the page for a long time without blinking. Without closing the album, he set it aside and opened his middle school album. This time, he found it easily. And then, high school. The moment he encountered the same page, he realized he had been holding his breath. An anxious breath escaped him.

Every place where a photo of Hae-won, smiling with the corners of his mouth pulled high, should have been was completely slashed. The sharp tip of a knife had scraped so hard that the marks went through to the next page. The group photos were no different. Thinking it was strange, he checked the albums again and let out a joyless laugh.

“Wow, Yoon Hae-won…”

Everyone else was intact. Himself, Go Tae-gyeom, Joo Hyun-woo—everyone’s faces were fine, but only one person’s face had been scraped away. And quite grotesquely, without leaving a single strand of hair. He had no idea when or why such a thing had been done. The only thing he knew was that Hae-won had been firmly prepared to ruin someone’s mood like this.

As the album, where one person’s trace had vanished, fell to the floor and left a deep scratch on the wood, the doorbell rang loudly. The sound of someone pressing it dozens of times in a row, when once would have sufficed, wiped away his laughter. He hoped they would just leave, but the guest visible from the veranda was the type to climb over the wall if not let in.

“Come out.”

Seo Hae-young didn’t bother blocking Joo Hyun-woo, who pushed his shoulder roughly as he entered. Looking out at the garden where a cold wind blew, he saw a large suitcase lying alone by the wide-open gate. He didn’t know what the other had heard, but he could guess where he had come from.

“Hae-won! Yoon Hae-won!”

Stepping into the living room without even taking off his shoes, Joo Hyun-woo began to ransack the house, calling the name frantically. There was no need to stop him. At most, he would open doors or search the storage room filled with furniture, and he passed right by the door under the stairs without even noticing it. Seo Hae-young wasn’t in the mood to mock the pathetic sight or bicker.

Watching Hyun-woo run up to the second floor, Seo Hae-young sat on the sofa and felt under the cushion, finding his buzzing phone. A call from Joo Hyun-jeong had gone to voicemail and was ringing again. As soon as he answered after a long time, an urgent question poured out, skipping greetings.

Did Hyun-woo go to your house?

Glancing up at the noisy second floor, he replied nonchalantly.

“Yeah. Take him away.”

Which house?

“The one in front of the school.”

A long sigh echoed from the other end. After the call ended with an “I see,” he immediately searched through his photo gallery. The last photo in the gallery stopped four months ago. Moving his thumb, where the bleeding had stopped, he scrolled back.

“Yoon Hae-won, Yoon Hae-won, Yoon Hae-won…”

There must be at least one proper photo. Not a shaky video, but a photo frozen in time, preferably one where he was smiling.

Muttering softly, he scrolled up the screen, but the saved photos soon came to a cold end. He wondered why there were so many photos of walls or blankets; it was a time as devoid of substance as Yoon Hae-won’s whereabouts. When he thought he found one, it was a heavily blurred photo, and when he found another, it was out of focus. Just as he was scrolling down again to at least watch a video, he heard footsteps stomping down the stairs.

“Fuck, where did you hide him? What did you do to Hae-won!”

Joo Hyun-woo, who had strode up to the sofa, screamed and grabbed him by the collar. Tears shimmered in his bloodshot eyes. Finding it incredibly tedious that he had just shown up and acted this way, Seo Hae-young replied in an irritated tone.

“What…”

“You hid him, didn’t you? You told everyone he died and smuggled him away, didn’t you!”

A sigh escaped him involuntarily. Even if he had tried to bury it, it seemed he couldn’t stop the rumors from spreading. As he simply stared at Joo Hyun-woo, who was voicing a plan he had once contemplated, the other began to shake him by the collar and scream at the top of his lungs.

“I heard you lived with him! Then why would he suddenly commit suicide! There must be a reason why Hae-won ended up like that!”

His vision swayed, making him dizzy, so he slowly closed and opened his eyes. A reason to commit suicide. That was a question Seo Hae-young himself had yet to solve. Hae-won had done strange things occasionally, but he thought it was just a ploy for attention. He hadn’t known that the self-harm, which seemed insufficient to be a direct hint, would lead down that path, so he hadn’t made any preparations.

“You killed him, you piece of shit. You killed him, right?”

Hyun-woo gnashed his teeth and glared with bloodshot eyes at Seo Hae-young, who was lost in other thoughts. By the time the news that would ruin his reasonably stable daily life had crossed the ocean, it was far too late. He had made a huge scene about returning and was groggy as if drunk from lack of sleep, but the moment he saw Seo Hae-young’s still polished face, uncontrollable rage overshadowed the fatigue of the long flight. Tears, which hadn’t fallen even after hearing the news, began to drip.

“And yet you… you fuck, how can you be so fine?”

Seo Hae-young frowned at the sight of Hyun-woo suddenly crying. As if he had discovered something filthy, he shook off the hand gripping his collar and looked down.

“You look tired… go home.”

Just as he was showing with his whole body how annoying this was, about to search for a video of Hae-won to remember his tone and behavior, a fist flew without warning. Knocked back onto the sofa by the sudden blow, Seo Hae-young’s expression clearly showed his disbelief. Rather than pain, he was appalled. He had no intention of leaving quietly, and he was already in a foul mood.

“Does it not bother you that Hae-won ended up like that? Are you crazy? Are you even fucking human!”

When Hyun-woo grabbed his collar again and raised his fist, Seo Hae-young quickly sat up, pushed the other’s shoulder to knock him to the floor, and gripped his neck with one hand. Instantly reversing the upper hand, he threw a punch of his own. Even though he struck him hard enough for his knuckles to sting, he felt no sense of relief.

“You killed him. You, you fucking… brat…”

Hyun-woo stubbornly parted his lips, stained a vivid red with blood, and spat out words one by one, as if muttering. His efforts to deflect the shock by blaming others only served to grate on Seo Hae-young’s frayed nerves. In the blink of an eye, a pale hand, scarred and worn, shot forward. Pressing his knee down on the struggling Hyun-woo’s thigh, Seo Hae-young gripped his throat with both hands. From between lips with downturned corners, a heavily cracked voice leaked out.

“You fucker. Yoon Hae-won isn’t dead. Why are you killing someone who’s perfectly alive…!”

“Gah…!”

The skin and pulse against his touch were different from Yoon Hae-won’s. There was not a shred of the strange satisfaction that comes from clutching a windpipe, nor the euphoria he felt while watching a face flush deep red. The skin and body heat of another person felt nauseatingly unpleasant, almost unbearable, yet he did not loosen his grip. His mind was filled only with the sense of obligation to shut the mouth of a man who asserted things without knowing anything.

Hearing that they treated Yoon Hae-won as if he were truly dead didn’t sit well with him. As long as no corpse appeared, he was considered alive. He believed—he was certain—that he simply didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. On nights when doubt crept into that certainty, he would read the carefully organized notes over and over. Rather than understanding the content, he traced the scribbled handwriting and repeated the same words.

“Yoon Hae-won is alive. He’s not dead. He didn’t kick the bucket.”

The mutterings, akin to whispers, were words he spoke to his own doubting self. The fingers strangling the neck turned stark white. Without even realizing what he was doing, he applied pressure, and then more. Just as the choking noises and struggling began to subside, his shoulder was shoved violently.

“Seo Hae-young, what are you—! Hyun-woo!”

As the strength drained from the hand gripping the vein-popping neck, the sound of coughing and hacking cleared his dulled ears. The fingers, which had exerted endless force, felt tingly.

“I told you… to fix your habit of using your hands.”

When his vanished reason finally returned, Joo Hyun-jeong was standing there, looking down at him with eyes steeped in contempt. As a ringed hand brushed across his face, the contempt vanished, replaced by a mask of fatigue. Soon, a voice burst out, carrying a faint sense of remorse. A reprimand, tangled with suppressed sobbing, followed slowly.

“Did you do this to Hae-won too? Hae-won followed you so much, and to a kid who had nothing… did you do that?”

Stepping back, Seo Hae-young neither denied nor affirmed it. At that, Hyun-jeong turned his head away sharply, as if he couldn’t stand to be in this place for another second. The image of him gently advising Hae-young as if he were a child was gone. The relationship, which had been maintained with a precarious creak, seemed to end here. Hyun-jeong, who had chosen family even while knowing he shouldn’t have when Hae-won needed help, turned away with steps stained by indelible self-reproach. As soon as he regained his senses, Hyun-jeong grabbed the scruff of Hyun-woo’s neck—who was frantically protesting that he couldn’t leave—and led him out of the living room, leaving one final word behind.

Leaning his head against the sofa, Seo Hae-young remained sprawled like a dead man, blinking his eyes even after hearing the front door close. The monologue, which he would normally have forgotten the moment he heard it, cluttered his messy mind once more. Only then did the cheek that had been struck by a fist begin to throb with pain. Brushing his cheek, Seo Hae-young stood up as if possessed and picked up his car keys. All the way to the family home, Hyun-jeong’s words circled him like a round song. Even as he searched the chilly, empty house for a photo of Yoon Hae-won, the noise did not cease.

“That’s why Hae-won made that choice.”

Everyone said it was his fault. Yoon Hae-won, Joo Hyun-jeong, and even Seo Ga-young, who expressed her annoyance in an emotionless tone, saying, ‘You should have been nicer to him.’ At this point, even if he couldn’t understand it, he had to acknowledge it. If even that was difficult, he had to at least mimic it. And if that too was impossible, he would have to cut off his hands and feet the moment he found him. If he made it so the boy couldn’t wash or eat on his own, he could create a new fishbowl. The chilling imagination spurred his sluggish movements.

It was just like when he strangled Joo Hyun-woo. Seo Hae-young immersed himself in the act without knowing what he was doing. He let out a deep sigh as he pushed away the chair that Hae-won used to spin around meaninglessly while sitting deep in it, and he cursed as he overturned the box where Hae-won often kept cigarettes. He pulled every single book out of the shelf where Hae-won had tucked away comic books to check the inside, then buried his face in both hands.

‘You don’t know what you did wrong. Not a single bit. Not at all, right?’

A rainy season descended upon the dry study. A torrential rain fell.

‘I wish you could feel even a fraction of what I went through. I wish you wanted to die. But I wish you couldn’t even die, and just lived through that pain every single day. Please, please, I wish that for you.’

A pain that felt like it was shredding his brain hit him, and he leaned on the desk to catch his breath. That day, which he had forgotten so distantly, unfolded like a film. The study where he first had a relationship with Yoon Hae-won became a mess of books with torn spines and ripped paper. Not a single photo of Yoon Hae-won appeared.

* * *

It wasn’t until the following dawn that Seo Hae-young returned to the house where Joo Hyun-woo had caused a scene. Passing through the garden, he closed the front gate that was still open. Seeing that only the suitcase that had been propping the door open had vanished, he couldn’t shake the thought that the siblings were taking turns screwing each other over.

Rummaging through his head as the headache subsided, he stepped inside, and the bright sensor light illuminated the empty entryway. As he dragged his slippers toward the living room with a clouded gaze, wondering if he should sleep at Yoon Hae-won’s house today…

“You’re back?”

A familiar voice from the front caught his ankle. His lowered head froze stiffly before slowly lifting.

In the living room, where the dim dawn light lay like mist, a figure lying long on the sofa stretched out a hand and waved as if greeting him. It was, as expected, a familiar greeting. The rigid muscles of his face couldn’t manage even a slight expression. Then, a voice followed—calm, yet subtly tickling his chest.

“Change your passcode. It’s dangerous.”

His extended legs took large strides. With every step he drew closer, the blurred figure became clear.

The long legs, the pale hair scattered across the cushion, and the straight line of the bridge of the nose falling from the forehead—it was the image he had been searching for frantically until just a moment ago. While he scanned every inch from a single strand of hair to the tips of the toes, the lips, stripped of their playful smile, moved again.

“Are you busy? Should I go?”

Eyes that looked as if fine sand had been scattered in them slowly rose to meet his gaze. Seo Hae-young, who had been silently looking down, slowly shook his head.

It was a hazy dawn. He didn’t feel tired even after staying up all night, and the morning broke exceptionally late. As the bluish dawn light caught the edge of the cracked table, the surroundings became a bit more silent. Seo Hae-young spent the dawn talking beside Hae-won, who chattered in a low voice.

“There used to be a cafe in front of the school. It closed down. I saw it while waiting for the bus.”

“Did the bus come quickly?”

“There’s one every ten minutes. It comes fast.”

A hollow laugh escaped him. He knew that the bus from the family home to this place had a fairly long interval and that the route was so twisted it took an hour to arrive. Yoon Hae-won always said he caught the bus immediately, but he also knew well that it wasn’t true. The conversation continuing in a familiar pattern wasn’t so bad.

Hae-won, who had been rambling about trivial things that happened on the bus as if changing the subject, suddenly fell silent. His legs, folded round to make room, moved slightly and tapped his thigh. While he looked down at his thigh, which felt as if nothing were there, as if covered in dust, the voice that had paused resumed.

“You always studied. Aren’t you doing it today?”

“I don’t want to.”

When he answered while looking down at his scarred thumb, Hae-won gave a short laugh and let his head, which had been leaning obliquely against the backrest, slide back down. The gaze staring blankly while resting his head on the cushion pricked his cheek. It was a sensation that followed him every time he faced a mirror.

“Hey. If you become a professor, you’ll have to study every single day. You’re in trouble now.”

“You should do it for me… as a teaching assistant.”

When he replied calmly, a clear laugh burst out after a brief time lag. In the face that smiled and frowned as if hearing a joke, the deep-seated depression was nowhere to be seen. There were no bruises, and the eye area, which was always raw and red, was gone.

“I can’t go to the same university as you…”

Hae-won, who did not avoid his eyes even when their gazes locked for a long time, felt both strange and familiar. He wanted to wipe away the smile blooming at the ends of those gently drooping eyes, yet he also wanted to leave it just as it was. Sighing and being the first to avert his eyes, Seo Hae-young opened his mouth while checking the window where sunlight was beginning to enter.

“I bet you can.”

“I bet I can’t-.”

The playful answer, just enough not to offend, echoed like a faint reverberation. Seo Hae-young narrowed his eyes as he looked at the long calves swaying slightly from side to side.

“You can if you do it while getting beaten.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hae-won chuckled and abruptly sat up from his sprawled position, dropping his legs below the sofa. Seo Hae-young, who had his head buried in the plush backrest, rolled his eyes to follow the natural movement.

“Well, if I can go, that’d be great for me. Oh, what about food? Did you eat?”

A sound like air leaking escaped his lips. Hae-won, appearing as a twenty-four-year-old, using the speech of a sixteen-year-old, and wearing the smile of a twenty-year-old, flicked his hand.

For the two of them, the kitchen was a testing ground. For Hae-won, who had nothing in the world go his way, it was a space where he gained a meager justification to stay by Seo Hae-young’s side through a small sense of achievement. For Seo Hae-young, who was fickle from time to time but had no intention of stopping, it was a space to test the habits and obedience ingrained in Hae-won’s body.

On a winter morning just as the dawn receded, the two temporarily buried the implicit rules that had persisted for a long time. Conversations exchanged without sharp tones or learned fear covered the moments that could have been tedious, and while there was nothing to laugh out loud about, it was a time that wasn’t jagged.

Seo Hae-young followed the words and actions of Hae-won, who trotted behind him pointing at things. He picked the ingredients he was told to pick and cooked as instructed. Since he couldn’t put in the ingredients he wanted, it was no easy task. To the point that it took a full hour just to make a simple breakfast.

“Ah, don’t put that in. Don’t put weird things in.”

“I think it’ll be okay.”

“Let’s not put it in…”

Looking at Hae-won, who shook his head with a subtle smile, with a grumpy expression, Seo Hae-young put the spice jar back in its place. Glancing at Hae-won, who let out a deep sigh of relief, he turned toward the table where breakfast was roughly completed.

Hae-won sat opposite him as usual. However, there were no utensils or bowls in that spot. Resting his arms on the empty table and leaning his chin on his hand, Hae-won continued to talk incessantly throughout the meal. Where he met whom, what someone said, how the weather was, and how he felt… trivial stories he had heard long ago flowed into his ears in a jumbled mess. Seo Hae-young occasionally answered and occasionally remained silent, eating at a pace as if counting every single grain of rice.

“So I only gave back a thousand won in change… aren’t you eating this?”

Seo Hae-young glanced at Hae-won, who raised an eyebrow as if asking back, and then lowered his eyes. His gaze landed on a plate containing fish that was unsightly charred on the outside. It was a fish that never failed to appear in the meals Hae-won prepared. Something about how the smell wouldn’t leave if he grilled it at his own house.

As he moved his chopsticks to tap the crisply burnt tail, Hae-won, who had been chattering the whole time, said nothing and quietly stared at the tips of the chopsticks. The plump fish looked reasonably appetizing if one ignored the blackened burnt spots here and there, but the chopsticks did not move for a while.

Seo Hae-young lifted his lowered eyes and met Hae-won’s gaze. It was the kind gaze that had always touched his cheek. Lowering the hand that had been supporting his chin, Hae-won parted his lips, which had no scabs, and spoke in a small voice.

I know I can’t do it for you.

The voice, which had been heard clearly, became tinged with a crackling noise, like a spinning record. The chopsticks, which had been pressing the tail without movement, finally moved. The tips of the chopsticks split the belly as naturally as flowing water and tore away a piece of snow-white flesh. The pieces piling up in a corner of the plate were always cleaner than the pieces Hae-won had painstakingly filleted, and the chopstick work that removed even the bones was flawless. Hae-won simply smiled silently while looking at the plate where the flesh was neatly piled.

The morning sunlight covered the table where the unemptied plate and untouched fish flesh remained like floating debris. The conversation exchanged on vague topics drifted through the chilly hallway and seeped into the living room. In the voice contained in the conversation that touched the edge of the broken glass table, there was only one.

* * *

As Hae-won had worried, time flowed without issue. While dust piled up in the closed villa, the perpetrators lived their daily lives and shamelessly walked the paths Hae-won would never step on. It didn’t take long to resolve a few minor problems, and guilt and longing faded as time passed.

Tae-gyeom was unable to do anything for a while, immersed in the shock brought by the scene he had witnessed firsthand, but he had no time to be absent-minded. Much of that was thanks to his mother, who had summoned him as soon as she heard the news and slapped him across the face. His mother, who raged to the point that his father had to stop her, saying that the villa they had painstakingly designed and built was about to become an eyesore that couldn’t even be sold, spoke the familiar words.

“I told you not to hang out with a kid like that!”

Tae-gyeom, who had been letting go of his hopes one by one, couldn’t say a word to his mother, who asserted that Hae-won was dead. No matter how much he scraped together the depleted hope, there was no room for denial. After that, he cleared out the studio apartment where he lived alone, moved to a house near his mother’s company, and began his scheduled internship. On days when he suddenly thought of Hae-won, he drank, but not to the extent that it interfered with his commute. His smoking increased slightly, but he planned to reduce it starting next year for his health. He changed his phone and organized his contacts. It took a long time before he deleted Hae-won’s contact, knowing there was no one to answer even if he called.

Hyun-woo, as he came to it later, was more persistent than Tae-gyeom. After three days of lying sick and refusing food and water, he kicked off his bed and frequently visited Seo Hae-young. He knocked on the gate with a belief bordering on a conspiracy theory, claiming that Seo Hae-young must have deceived everyone and hidden Hae-won somewhere. Because he didn’t hesitate to shout and make a scene if Seo Hae-young didn’t open the door, the police even visited once. Incidents occurred that could have potentially caused problems with his employment visa, and as always, Hyun-jeong took charge of the cleanup.

“Do you think we’re not at fault?”

On the day Hyun-jeong brought out the guilt he had swallowed inside, Hyun-woo cried a lot, regretting his wrong choices. While Seo Hae-young, who had been watching the quiet gate for several days, lowered his phone after closing the call screen and smiled facing Hae-won, Hyun-woo was looking down at the city landscape being buried in clouds. After arriving at an airport that smelled different from Korea, he lived a daily life with a few things missing. He learned odd jobs at the hotel run by his uncle, and after work, he met friends. It was a repetition of days where he felt fine while chatting away at his regular pub, but would stare blankly at the surfboard leaning against the wall upon returning home. The day after Hae-won’s birthday and a warm Christmas passed, Hyun-woo threw away the surfboard.

While everyone lived their busy lives and forgot the midsummer rainy season, Seo Hae-young was also spending similar time. Once his business was done, whether it was a weekday or weekend, he didn’t take a single step out of the house with the gate locked, but he considered himself perfectly fine. He was immersed in the certainty that there were no problems, that things were the same as they had been, and that they would not change in the future.

Holding a brown envelope containing the answer sheets, Seo Hae-young stepped into the silent hallway, checked the room number, and opened the wide door. The anxiety cast over the wrinkled face of the professor standing at the podium at the very front of the tiered lecture hall vanished. In the classroom where the distribution of exam papers had ended, only the sound of pens scratching against paper lingered, and the sound of footsteps descending the stairs echoed faintly. When he handed the envelope to the professor, the professor whispered a thank you and pointed with his eyes toward a teaching assistant with a cast on their leg.

“Ji-hye is away… I can’t send them. Anyway, thank you.”

Seo Hae-young, who had been staring at his wristwatch to check how much his errands had delayed his return, greeted with a light nod of his head. Since he had already grabbed his bag, he could have left immediately, but for some reason, the walk home felt inexplicably long. Just then, the answer sheets were distributed according to the number of students, and the white papers were passed back to the rear rows. As Seo Hae-young was about to leave the classroom after exchanging a nod with a teaching assistant he knew, he suddenly came to a halt. When he turned his head back toward the spot he had just passed, his smooth brow furrowed sharply.

In the middle row of the classroom, where undergraduates with their crowns of heads showing were busily copying answers, a lone person had lifted his head and slightly extended an arm with an expressionless face. Staring intently at the hand waving gently, Seo Hae-young could not bring himself to smile.

‘Hi.’

The face mouthing a greeting was familiar. He had met him last night, and again this morning, but this was a person who should not have appeared here. The teaching assistant supervising from the corner of the classroom did not stop the student who was distracted. It was more accurate to say there was no need to.

‘Hi—.’

Even after closing his eyes tight and opening them again, Hae-won, who continued to speak through lip movements alone, did not disappear. Rather, the faintly established figure became clearer, and the smile hanging on his lips only deepened. Letting out a short sigh, Seo Hae-young climbed the stairs without responding. A ticklish gaze teased the nape of his neck as if urging him to look back just once, but he did not look back until the end.

Whether he was striding across the campus filled with the scent of spring, being stopped by a Hubae he had met at a drinking party, or on the way home passing the row of detached houses, he could not shake the sensation that someone was watching him.

As soon as Seo Hae-young returned home, he dropped his bag and covered his eyes with one hand. As the stifled breath burst out, the tingling headache subsided. Letting out a long sigh to steady his ragged breathing, he looked down at the entryway. The slippers Hae-won had last worn were still missing. However, it wasn’t as if Yoon Hae-won wasn’t there. As he dropped his hand and entered the living room, a brown head that had been slightly hidden by the back of the sofa popped up.

“You’re back?”

As the affectionate question seeped into his ears, the tension in his shoulders melted away. However, his expression remained subtle. Hanging his outerwear—which was thinner than it had been a month ago—on one side of the sofa, Seo Hae-young sat down beside Hae-won, who slightly made room for him, and spoke.

“Why do you keep appearing?”

“Because you missed me.”

Answering without hesitation, Hae-won chuckled and hugged his knees. Seo Hae-young scanned the body that looked small for his height simply because his long legs were folded, and then plucked a single cherry blossom petal clinging to the collar. The fluttering pink petal failed to reach Hae-won’s instep and rolled across the sofa.

“You missed me, didn’t you?”

As the question with a rising intonation reached him, a groggy sensation washed over him despite having slept enough.

From a certain day onward, Yoon Hae-won began to appear abruptly. Mostly at home. He would show his face about once every two weeks, then once a week, every four days, every two days, every day… as time passed, the frequency increased. When he drank, he appeared more vividly and stayed longer. Because of that, he had lived on alcohol for a while, and now he could see him even without drinking. He knew it was wrong, but he felt no particular desire to fix it. When Hae-won appeared, he stopped biting his fingernails for a while, and the surging irritation subsided, so there was no need to go out of his way to make him disappear.

“Just so-so.”

Brushing the petal off with the back of his hand and letting it fall to the floor, Seo Hae-young brushed off Hae-won’s words, dragging out the end of his sentence. It was natural to feel a void when one had been attached to someone for so long. Because of that, he was simply seeing things a bit and hearing delusions.

“I don’t think that’s the case.”

Hae-won, with the corners of his mouth drooping, muttered as if to himself and flopped backward. Then, as they had in the past, they spent their time together in the same space. Hae-won, resting one calf on his knee, dangled his legs and fiddled with something, while Seo Hae-young checked his phone and handled the accumulated messages. Of course, there were few replies sent. While he looked with irritated eyes at a message from an investigator who had failed to find any useful news today, a low voice popped.

Hey.

Turning his head, Seo Hae-young met the eyes of Hae-won, who had started to speak. Hae-won, who had stopped dangling his legs slowly, remained silent for a long while before throwing out an abrupt question.

“Did you like me?”

The question was ambiguous. Did it mean whether he liked the friend he had been with since childhood, or further, whether he had wanted to do various things while pressing their bodies together. As Seo Hae-young just stared back, unable to find a suitable answer, Hae-won also only gave an ambiguous smile. The meaning of the question was likely the latter. Turning his gaze away, Seo Hae-young placed his phone on the table and spoke.

“I’m not sure.”

If he was talking about the past… he hadn’t particularly thought about it in that direction. Though he might have done so unconsciously. Stroking the nape of his neck with a cold hand, Seo Hae-young stood up and entered the kitchen. While he was filling the pot with water to brew some tea, Hae-won, who had followed him, hovered around and spoke.

“You hated it when Joo Hyun-woo stayed over at my house. You hated it when I made other friends… and you only contacted me when you were bored.”

Seo Hae-young did not answer. The probing tone was grating. If it were the original Hae-won, he would have shut his mouth and read the room the moment Seo Hae-young showed he didn’t want to talk, but this thing clinging to his side did not. Even while taking a teacup from the cupboard and waiting for the water to boil, the persistent questions continued.

“Then why were you angry when I slept with Go Tae-gyeom? Because you’d never even thought about something like that? You didn’t know men could do that?”

Steam billowed from the long spout as the water bubbled. Since he didn’t intend to go as far as using a tea pot, Seo Hae-young tore open a tea bag wrapper and muttered quietly.

“Shut your mouth.”

But the fake in the shape of Hae-won did not shut his mouth gracefully.

“The first time we did it… you thought it would be disgusting, but it wasn’t, right? That’s why you didn’t look at my face. It should have been disgusting, but it wasn’t.”

A teacup that Hae-won had once spent a long time admiring, calling it pretty, flew through the air. As soon as it hit the wall, the fragile cup shattered and fell to the floor, and the button he had pressed clicked back up. Lifting the pot of boiling water, Seo Hae-young reached out to take a new cup and paused.

“If it hurts, you’ll look. You did that before, too.”

Hae-won, who had drawn close, gently grabbed his forearm. Nothing was felt, but a force heavier than anything else led his arm somewhere.

Seo Hae-young looked down at the hand resting on the counter and then lifted his head. A person holding a kettle was reflected in the large glass window. The only person reflected in the dark window was himself, and though he hadn’t uttered a word, a familiar voice echoed in his ears.

Pour it.

Taking his eyes off the window, Seo Hae-young looked at Hae-won standing straight beside him. Hae-won, appearing as he did at twenty-four, continuously breathed out small whispers.

Pour it. Hurry. You’ll look if I’m in pain.

A hand with many invisible scars rose toward the center of the cold counter as if possessed. Seo Hae-young laughed vacantly. It was a laugh that burst out because he couldn’t tell if the thing clinging to him was Yoon Hae-won or his own imagination. The moment he met the eyes of Hae-won, who began to laugh along, the kettle, from which heat could be felt vividly, tilted diagonally. The hot water sloshing in the spout poured over the back of his hand, and a steaming stream of water covered the pale skin.

* * *

When the soft skin of the back of a hand that someone had loved was hideously peeled away, cherry blossom petals falling in the breeze scattered in all directions. The person who had once loved everything about Seo Hae-young lightly gripped the cherry blossom that had fallen into a pitifully thin hand. On a warm spring day, a breath that could not be cut off flowed carefully between parted lips.

The imperfect light emitted by a flickering bulb touched a rounded back. Disheveled brown hair was scattered across two knees. The night wind digging into the shabby top still felt chilly. As he lifted his chin while touching a malleolus that had once been crushed and clumsily mended, a cherry blossom petal carried by the night wind landed on the bridge of his nose and slid off weakly.

Hae-won, who gripped the fallen petal in his palm, tried to open a fist that could not apply force beyond a certain level. After staring at the petal resting in his faintly trembling hand for a long time, he let it drift away.

On a spring night that coincided with the moment boiling water left an indelible scar on the back of Seo Hae-young’s hand, Yoon Hae-won was alive. He couldn’t say he was ‘well,’ but he was certainly breathing.

* * *

When full-bloom cherry blossoms return to buds, melted snow returns to clouds, and fallen leaves hang again on withered branches, it goes back to the rainy season that he thought would end everything. It was a summer when thunderous shouts echoed through a blackened cliff.

“Yoon Hae-won—!”

Hae-won, who was taking the torrential rain with his entire body, sensed death amidst the feeling of buoyancy as the ground vanished beneath his feet and his body floated. The time during which he could observe Seo Hae-young from a step away from reality was brief.

Simultaneously with his vision flipping, the swollen valley water swallowed his wretched body. The fierce current dragged his thin body down to the pebble-strewn bottom and then floated him back to the surface. Ice-cold water relentlessly rushed into his mouth and nose, choking his windpipe, and drifting branches and rocks firmly embedded in the ground tore his tender skin and snapped his joints. Sharp fragments mixed in the muddy water, where not an inch could be discerned, gouged out pieces of flesh from his bruise-filled forearm. The blood spreading from the wounds was swept down, further down, along with his rag-like body.

Contrary to the wish to end it like this, the inherent physiological desire struggled for survival. Instinctively, he pushed his head out to find a place to breathe, and his twisted limbs flailed, pushing against the fierce current. But the more he did, the more his legs sank, and his exhausted head vomited dizziness.

The string holding onto his fading consciousness was thinning. Facing a terror that swept away even idle thoughts, Hae-won recalled one trivial scene.

A vast swimming pool that happened to be empty that day. The back of a person who was shaking off wet hair, with calves dipped in a pool where the sunlight breaking on the surface gave a dazzling shimmer. The familiar scent wafting from the thick towel draped over the arm. When he approached, making his presence known, the broad shoulders straightened and the gaze turned back.

The more painful the present became, the more the past was beautified, making it inevitable to cling and obsess. When stitching together happy memories, he felt no pain. That was why Hae-won thought of Seo Hae-young until the very, very end. He thought of Seo Hae-won, who smiled with curved eyes, while sinking endlessly.

After recalling and recalling, when finally the pitch-black darkness arrived, he wanted to sink to the very bottom, to a place where no one could find him. But as always, the world always turned in the exact opposite direction of Hae-won’s wishes.

Raindrops falling along the leaves seeped between pale blue lips. After coughing several times as if his lungs were tearing, Hae-won half-opened his eyelids after a considerable amount of time had passed. He blinked to adjust his blurred focus, but everything around him seemed completely dark. Seized by a tinnitus that drowned out the sound of rain, even in his functioning ear, Hae-won lay in the same position for a while.

Because there was no strength in his entire body, Hae-won thought for a moment that he had died. However, the droplets of water popping on his ankle submerged in a cold puddle were vivid, and the sharp branch piercing his purple-swollen eyelid was also clear. What brought back his senses was the biting wind that followed. As soon as the cold wind brushed past the water-soaked t-shirt caked with muddy soil, a terrible chill covered his skin. Tiny goosebumps flared up to the fingernails that had been bent back and torn off.

“Gasp…!”

His solar plexus, caught on a thick tree stump, throbbed as if it had been beaten, and a searing groan flowed from his throat. Finding even coughing to be too much, Hae-won swallowed hard and kicked his trembling legs a few times before stepping on a slippery rock.

“Ugh…”

As soon as he touched the rough grain of the wood, a stinging pain rose from his sprained wrist, but there was no sense of reality. A groggy sensation heated his head, as if he had drunk his fill of alcohol and swallowed a handful of pills on top of that. As soon as he regained his balance, Hae-won tumbled backward, then staggered up and entered a pathless forest trail. Whether he fell, crawled, or stood up again, the path he walked did not feel real. Wet branches were stepped on softly under his soles and then crushed by his bleeding knees.

Hae-won moved his steps somewhere, though he had nowhere to go, not even knowing that the bright red, open flesh was painful. His bright eyes, half-closed behind his eyelids, projected the past, passing by the piles of stones and fallen trees blocking the way.

When they were still young, perhaps nineteen or twenty. Due to Hyun-woo’s stubbornness, they had once headed to a villa, choosing only trains and buses. The train was delayed, and they took the wrong bus, arriving at a random place, and by the time they were on their way back, the sun was already setting. They had essentially wasted an entire day. Tae-gyeom, who had been complaining loudly, had fallen into a nap after taking over the empty back seat of the bus, and Hyun-woo, who had been discouraged, had recovered and was chatting while peeling tangerines with some middle-aged woman.

Hae-won, who had received a tangerine but couldn’t join the conversation, sat in a seat one space away and watched the scenery flow by, seemingly fast yet slow. While looking out the window at a small fishing village instead of the long-awaited beach, Seo Hae-young, who had been lounging in the next seat with his legs stretched into the aisle, leaned his head on Hae-won’s shoulder without warning. Hae-won was probably a bit surprised. Though he didn’t show it.

As Seo Hae-young’s upper body tilted toward the window, their touching shoulders rubbed together and their forearms pressed close. The strong air conditioning wind blowing from the ceiling messed up his bangs, but for some reason, his cheeks flushed hot. While he was helplessly grabbing the collar of his t-shirt and flapping it, a hand slid smoothly into his shorts pocket. Startled, Hae-won glanced sideways.

All he could see were the long eyelashes and the sharp bridge of the nose. After checking the item Seo Hae-young had taken from the pocket, Hae-won curled the corners of his mouth with a reluctant expression. He could have just asked for it; while he loathed others touching him, he had no hesitation when he was the one touching. While he glanced over the window, feeling pathetic that his heart fluttered at such a meaningless action, Seo Hae-young, who had been silently fiddling with a grimy folder phone, suddenly lifted his hand. Something he hadn’t seen before was hanging from the phone strap.

“…What is this?”

“I bought it earlier.”

As the white hand shook the phone to the side, the small ornament hanging from the strap sparkled in the sunset. The fish-shaped plastic keychain was somewhat tacky and looked cheap, as expected of something sold at a tourist terminal. He couldn’t call it pretty even as a white lie, but that clumsiness felt cute in its own way.

“The paint is missing here.”

Receiving the phone back, Hae-won lowered his head, suppressing a leak of laughter. As he muttered while touching the spot where a white circle was visible, Seo Hae-young, who had now snatched away the tangerine he was holding, whispered lowly.

“Don’t take it off.”

After muttering words that were again of little meaning, Seo Hae-young peeled the tangerine skin and smiled broadly, meeting the eyes of the glancing Hae-won. It happened in an instant. While he was distracted by the curving eyes, a cleanly peeled tangerine segment was pushed into his mouth. The index finger, having cleanly achieved its goal, brushed his lips and pulled away. Around the time he was confused whether the freshness filling his mouth was making his molars ache or his chest ache, a sleep-drunk voice flowed from the back seat.

“I wondered who the hell would buy something like that, and it turns out a bastard like you bought it…”

“It’s cute.”

While Hae-won couldn’t respond because he was struggling to chew the fist-sized tangerine, Seo Hae-young answered in a nonchalant tone. Tae-gyeom, who roughly ruffled his messy hair, reached his arm through the gap between the seats and took the phone. Startled, Hae-won stood up on his knees in the seat and quickly gestured for him to give it back, but Tae-gyeom only teased him, dodging here and there.

“It’s so tacky. Does it cost like five hundred won?”

“Ten thousand.”

At Seo Hae-young’s single remark, the eyes of both Hae-won, who had stretched his upper body into the back seat, and Tae-gyeom, who held the phone high, widened simultaneously. While Hae-won, who thought it was worth a thousand won at best, coughed from choking, Tae-gyeom called out loudly to Hyun-woo, who was sitting around the middle of the bus.

“Wow, damn……. This bastard got totally ripped off. Hey, Joo Hyun-woo! How much do you think this is?”

“Urgh……! Hey, give it back. It’s not even yours….”

“Ah, fuck! Just stay still for a second. Hey, guess how much this was?”

Tae-gyeom, gripping the flailing hand tightly to stop the movement, shook the old phone back and forth. “What?” Hyun-woo asked as he crossed over to him, but as soon as he heard the price, he burst into laughter, slapping the seat. The quiet bus quickly became noisy, and they were immediately scolded by the bus driver. That summer, with the apology being Hyun-woo’s burden, the sunset light touching the back of their necks was perfectly warm.

After another half year, the keychain that had been clinging to the phone lost its place when the phone was replaced. He didn’t know what happened to the keychain that went into a drawer along with the outdated folder phone. Whether it was thrown away with the school uniforms, or whether it was holding its breath in a basement that didn’t even feel like a home.

Perhaps the memory of a midsummer day suddenly came to mind because the present was so different from the time he had struggled to swallow tangerines while stifling laughter, or perhaps it was because he saw something similar to the keychain Seo Hae-young had put on for him back then.

Leaving the raindrops fall in clusters along his eyelashes, Hae-won stared blankly at a keychain shaking violently in the wind and rain. A plastic fish attached to a door handle crudely made of a few pipes tapped against the thick canvas.

The tent, which hadn’t been demolished yet, blocked the rain, but it couldn’t block the wind. The wind, whistling through the gaps, made a sound like a ghost’s wail as it brushed against the canvas. Pushing through stacked platforms, haphazardly piled plastic tableware, and a stained parasol, Hae-won discovered some crumpled clothes.

The clothes, which looked like they had been worn briefly while working, were suitable for use as rags, but Hae-won, whose skin had turned a bruised blue, was in no position to be picky. Even after clumsily throwing on a wrinkled button-down shirt and thin pants that left a handful of space at the waist, the cold did not subside. Lying on the platform in the furthest corner, Hae-won pulled over a couple of aprons stained with red smudges, covering himself like a blanket, and rested his heavy head. Inside his burning, hot mind, strange delusions began to bubble up.

The useless thought that maybe this was all a dream, a kind of gateway one passes through before dying. That escaping the valley was a dream, this tent was a dream, and everything was just a dream. When he looked around with such thoughts, everything shimmered as if dancing, and the twisted wounds bleeding through didn’t even hurt. He was just a little cold. His upper and lower teeth chattered, and his back naturally curled up, shrinking in size. His pupils, dilated as if drugged, were covered by eyelids through which blood vessels were visible.

Just as the wind grew fierce enough to blow the tent away, a fever began to boil in earnest. Hae-won’s consciousness blurred as if he had let go of a rope, then repeatedly returned, shaking his brain. He exhaled shallow breaths frequently, but he was not in his right mind. Then, a rough hand slapped his cheeks, which were drenched in warm tears.

“……Student! Student! Good grief……!”

As he slightly opened his bloodshot eyes, a blurred silhouette appeared. A man wearing a sleek raincoat pressed his hand to his forehead as if bewildered, then removed the aprons covering the body one by one. A flashlight lying on the platform shone directly onto his face.

“Student, where do you live? Are you lost?”

The voice, mixed with a thick dialect at every end, was quite loud, but it didn’t reach Hae-won’s ears. As he frowned at the blinding mass of light, the man, who had grabbed the limp shirt collar saying, ‘This isn’t my clothes,’ suddenly gasped. As soon as he discovered fresh blood seeping through the mud-caked t-shirt, he urgently shone the flashlight down to Hae-won’s toes. The light trembled as it stopped at the blackened bare feet and horribly damaged hands.

“Oh my, what happened. This is……!”

The man clumsily pulled out a phone that likely started with ‘016’. A constant mutter of “Oh my, oh my” flowed from his mouth. Looking at the small screen, the man entered three digits with his wrinkled hand, then looked around with a look of sudden realization and put the phone back.

“Good grief, sigh…….”

He paced around the five-pyeong tent, scratching his balding head, then approached the platform with a curse. The old man, who had come to check the tent due to wind and rain stronger than expected, groaned as he hoisted the corpse-like Hae-won onto his back. The heat transmitted through the raincoat urged him to hurry, so he didn’t even have the leisure to lock the gate.

The man, who struggled to open the door of a truck parked on the asphalt road, checked the passenger seat piled high with luggage and gave the Hae-won on his back a little heave. After tilting his head with a “Tsk,” he turned back after a short deliberation. Patting his stiff back, the man climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and turned on the headlights. The rattling truck descended the mountain at a speed that was neither fast nor slow.

On the night Hae-won was carried away in the back of an old Labo truck, the rain that fell incessantly, soaking his body wrapped in a waterproof tarp, meticulously erased Hae-won’s traces from the mountainside.

* * *

After circling a mountain from a deep valley, Hwang arrived at a small village far from the tourist spots. Unconcerned that it was far too early to visit someone’s house, he burst through the always-open main gate. He ran under the eaves and pounded on the shabby door, and before long, the sound of someone rustling awake came from inside.

The man, who opened the door without even having time to fix his short-cropped hair, stepped out into the yard without even opening an umbrella at Hwang’s urgent gesture. Following Hwang, who was fidgeting as if he had caused an accident, the truck parked in the alley appeared.

“Gi-tae, help me move him. Quickly.”

The man called Gi-tae shielded his eyes from the rain with his hand and looked silently at the black lump loaded in the back of the Labo. Hwang, who was pulling back the waterproof tarp, slapped Gi-tae’s back, asking what he was doing and why he wasn’t hurrying. Having no choice, Gi-tae lifted the corpse-like body and carried him under the eaves. After hearing the words to wait a moment, Gi-tae watched the back of Hwang as he rushed out the main gate, then turned around. The warmth touching his arms was hot.

After pushing aside the messy bedding with his feet and laying the drenched stranger on the floor, rainwater and blood slowly seeped out from under his back. Gi-tae glanced at the chest that was heaving breathlessly just by looking at it, then brought a towel. While wiping the drenched floor, he once wiped the mud-caked face of the stranger with a clean section. He peeled away a leaf stuck to the wet eyelashes and wiped the mud from the cheek that had a deep blue bruise. Leaving the stranger whose bare face was now roughly revealed, he went back to wiping the floor. Soon, the sound of arguing voices could be heard through the gap in the open door.

The elderly man, dragged out in the middle of the night wearing shabby sleeveless clothes, faced Hae-won, who had taken over Gi-tae’s room, and pushed up his glasses that had slid down to the bridge of his nose. A blunt tone flowed from his sagging mouth.

“Did you hit someone?”

Gi-tae, who had been thinking something similar since he checked the truck bed, didn’t chime in and quietly folded the blanket. At those words, Hwang, who was in the middle of taking off his raincoat, jumped in surprise and waved his hands in denial.

“Hit who! That, well. Looks like he rolled down a mountain. Just do something for now.”

“Then you should have reported it; why bring him here?”

“There’s a reason for that……. I’ll tell him to contact the authorities himself once he wakes up.”

The elderly man, glancing at the vaguely explaining Hwang with skeptical eyes, gripped his aching knee and stepped up onto the wooden porch. As he sighed deeply while rummaging through the pocket of the shirt he had thrown on, Hwang, who had taken off his rain-soaked boots and followed him into the room, muttered an excuse.

“I’m telling you it’s true. I just went to drive one stake, and he was just there…….”

The elderly man, who peeled back Hae-won’s eyelids—who was groaning in pain—and shone a penlight, clicked his tongue as if remembering something.

“You set up a tent again? I heard the city is making a fuss about cracking down on those.”

“That’s why I moved it to the corner……. And! If I don’t do that, what am I supposed to eat to live? I’m already starving to death.”

Hwang, who had been setting up shop at the lower end of the valley every vacation season to collect spot fees, shouted as if his conscience were pricked. Knowing that the money earned each year was not insignificant, the sight of him trembling over a small fine was ridiculous. The elderly man, who scolded him saying ‘there are plenty of ways to die,’ leaned over and muttered while examining the shin that showed red flesh.

“It would be better to go downtown……. If he’s seriously injured, there’s nothing I can do……. Hey, is the tunnel not blocked this year?”

“Ah, just do something. Medicine or an injection or something. Why is that so hard to do?”

“I’ll take a look first……. If it’s no good, he has to go.”

The elderly man, who had spent decades only prescribing medicine at a small clinic, pushed aside the nonsensical Hwang and looked up.

“Gi-tae, you… what is it. Don’t just stand there, get some water and towels…… and some scissors.”

Gi-tae, who had not only been woken from a deep sleep in the dead of night but had also lost his room, stood up silently without expressing his dissatisfaction. While he gathered the items the old man requested one by one and held them in his arms, the rain, which had thinned for a moment, grew heavy again, creating shallow whirlpools in the water-filled yard. It was difficult to go downtown now. After observing the pitch-black clouds, Gi-tae entered the room and turned up the boiler temperature a bit more.

* * *

The longest rainy season on record receded, and the wet ground emitted a cool energy.

When Seo Hae-young, who had gone up to Seoul, unconsciously turned the steering wheel and stopped the car in front of an old apartment complex, the person who had always opened the door with a bright smile woke up alone in a small room.

Eyes that had lost their spark stared blankly at one spot. Hae-won stared vacantly at a keychain swaying gently in the breeze coming through the gap in the door. It was that keychain again. The plastic fish, shaking beside a dusty frame, brushed against the yellowish wall.

Below it, he could see a mirror clouded with white because it hadn’t been cleaned in so long, a skin toner bottle with less than half remaining, and a low chest of drawers with worn edges; above his head was an old TV that looked as if it had been picked up from a junk shop. Even looking around again, it was still an unfamiliar place.

The stifling temperature that made sweat trickle and the pain that made him want to sever his limbs rather than endure it flickered in the depths of his memory, but it felt like something from a distant past. The memories after falling from the cliff remained sporadically, not enough to piece together.

As he blinked, wondering if it was a dream, the scent of grass wafted in through the door opened by a hand’s breadth. The breeze brushing against the soles of his feet, which had emerged from under the blanket, was vivid, as if reminding him of reality. Hae-won looked up at the fluorescent light stained black with grime and parted his dry, parched lips. A grating voice, sounding like metal scraping, leaked out, but no one looked in. He was alone. But he wasn’t happy.

Hae-won lay in the same position for a long time until the sun floating in the deep blue sky changed its position, then slowly raised his body. The pain that started from the wrist touching the linoleum floor instantly radiated up to his shoulder. It was a pain that would have made anyone scream, but Hae-won simply bit his lower lip. The only things that had increased while living with Seo Hae-young were his resilience to pain and his tears.

Though he had done nothing, his right hand trembled violently. He lowered it and used his relatively intact left hand to push aside the thin blanket, revealing first the loose trunk underwear, and then legs covered in bandages of various sizes. He gently peeled off the tape stuck to the scabbed skin and lifted the widest bandage. The marks where the torn flesh had been crudely sewn were hideous, but they didn’t look like they had been done by someone who knew nothing.

After sticking the bandage back in place, Hae-won shifted several times trying to get up, then gave up and dragged his hips toward the door. When he slightly pulled the creaking door inward, a narrow wooden porch appeared, and beyond that, a small yard and a low cement wall appeared in turn. A cool breeze blowing from one direction ruffled his hair.

It was certainly a place he had never been. It would be normal to feel afraid and confused, but he didn’t feel any particular emotion. Neither the despair that filled his lungs with every breath, nor the relief of having survived, nor the resentment toward Seo Hae-young, nor anything else was felt. The desire for death that had fiercely burned in his mind had also vanished. He was simply lethargic, as if sunk deep underwater. Why am I alive. Why couldn’t I die. He was simply curious about such things. He felt that even if Seo Hae-young walked through that door right now, he wouldn’t be surprised.

While Hae-won sat blankly, leaning his heavy head against the doorframe, the iron main gate opened outward with a creak. Making eye contact with a man carrying a large container, Hae-won straightened his hunched back. His solar plexus, where the bruise had not yet faded, tightened painfully, and a faint sense of caution mixed with his vacant gaze.

Gi-tae, who had been deprived of the master bedroom for a whole week, didn’t say anything even after making eye contact with Hae-won leaning against the door and continued walking. Following the man as he walked around the long, horizontal house, Hae-won carefully stepped over the high threshold and out onto the wooden porch.

“Ah…….”

Because he moved significantly, it hurt a bit more than the day he had rolled hard on the asphalt. His limbs all throbbed so much that he couldn’t pinpoint just one spot. After catching his breath for a moment, he peered below the porch and saw a pair of crookedly placed slippers. Lowering his legs, which felt stinging just by brushing against something, he slid his feet into the shoes and slowly stood up. As soon as he took a single step, his sprained ankle gave way. His center of gravity shifted sideways, and his two arms slowly flailed in the air.

“Ugh……!”

Hae-won fell noisily, and half-dried mud clung to his entire leg. His stretched-out t-shirt and trunk underwear also became covered in dirt. It was as if his body was broken; he simply couldn’t get up. One of the slippers he had put on had already flown far away. Barely managing to lift his upper body, Hae-won looked down at his trembling hands and tried to clench his fingers into a fist. The more force he applied, the worse the shaking became, and a stiff pain rose in his shoulder. As expected, it seemed impossible to emerge unscathed after falling from that height.

While he sat slumped a step away from the porch, repeatedly bending and straightening both hands with a hollow expression, a hand suddenly slid under his armpits. Before he knew it, Hae-won was lifted from the dusty yard and his backside was placed on the porch. When he looked up, a hand reached out abruptly. Hae-won frowned and slightly shrugged his shoulders. However, the rough hand that approached indifferently landed on his shoulder instead of striking his head. It didn’t subtly rub or grip tightly.

Every time the inconsiderate hand, which made a slapping sound, brushed off the dirt, his eyelids twitched and trembled. After brushing off the sand that clung to his thighs and shins, passing the forearm tightly wrapped in bandages, the hand detached from his ankle. Only after bringing the distant slipper back under the porch did Gi-tae clap his hands together to shake off the sand from his palms, then he walked past the cautious Hae-won and lifted a small tray table placed in front of the room.

“Eat before you go.”

A sandy voice, as coarse as his hands, dropped onto the crown of his head. The tinnitus had cleared, but Hae-won, touching his ears which felt somewhat dark, hesitated before pulling up his mud-stained legs.

Facing the tray table with white porridge sprinkled with sesame seeds, a small dish of soy sauce, and a small kimchi container, Hae-won glanced at Gi-tae, maintaining the habit of reading Seo Hae-young’s mood. The man, who had pushed the tray toward him after saying just one sentence, sat near the door, splitting garlic cloves and peeling them one by one from a basin full of them. He didn’t provide any particular explanation.

Hae-won, who was wary of strangers, couldn’t easily open his mouth. The blood-soaked face of the General Manager, who appeared in his dreams, blocked his words. If he could at least force himself to eat, he might be able to overcome the silence, but he had no appetite. Moreover, the dead…….

Taking his eyes off Gi-tae, Hae-won stirred the cloudy porridge with a spoon. He checked if there were any ingredients that shouldn’t be there, but nothing particularly stood out. After some deliberation, as he scooped up a full spoonful, the lumps dripping from the edge of the spoon reminded him of something else. He didn’t want to put it in his mouth.

Gi-tae, who continued peeling garlic without giving a single glance to Hae-won, who sat before the meal as if performing a ritual, only raised his head when the sound of footsteps on the stone path was heard.

“Gi-tae, you there?”

Hwang, who had opened the main gate and entered, found Gi-tae poking his head out and waved his hand.

“The boat leaves the day after tomorrow, so……, oh!”

True to his impatient nature, Hwang was getting straight to the point as he crossed the yard, but he locked eyes with Hae-won, who was sitting blankly with his utensils in hand, and let out an “Oh!” while pointing a finger. Stepping onto the wooden porch after kicking off his sneakers—the heels of which were crumpled and folded—Hwang’s face beamed with joy.

“Student, you’re awake! If you hadn’t woken up today, I—what was it… I was going to call an ambulance. Do you feel alright?”

Hae-won, who had been doing nothing but stirring his porridge, set down his spoon and nodded absentmindedly. The dialect-tinged speech felt almost familiar, as if it were on the tip of his memory.

“Why on earth were you in there in the middle of the night! Give your home a call. Everyone’s talking nonsense, saying I hit you with my car or whatever, what a load of crap… Tsk. The tunnel was blocked, so there was no way to even get to a hospital.”

Hwang took a seat directly opposite the small dining table, pulled a phone out of his thin jacket pocket, and pressed it into Hae-won’s hand. He then poured out a torrent of words at a speed that was difficult to follow. Receiving the long-forgotten folder phone with both hands, Hae-won glanced at Hwang while fidgeting with the keypad with his thumb.

“The road is open now, so go home and visit a big hospital. Or… if you go from here for about… an hour or so, there’s a big hospital, so you could stop by there on your way.”

Hwang, who was sketching an imaginary map on the table as if he were about to draw a real one, noticed that Hae-won was hesitating rather than pressing any buttons and raised his grayish eyebrows.

“Why, what is it? You don’t remember?”

Meeting the gaze of the man who remained sharp despite his age, Hae-won bit his lip hard. Eleven digits that he couldn’t call, and shouldn’t call. That was the only number that came to mind. Parting his lips, which were swollen red from being chewed, Hae-won answered in a tiny, crawling voice.

“I… I have no one to call…”

“No one to call? Why? Call your home!”

“Because there’s no one there…”

At those words, Hwang looked bewildered. He had only spoken the truth, yet a corner of his heart pricked as if he had told a lie. Dropping his head low, Hae-won scratched at a dirt-stained bandage with his fingertip. It was a meaningless fidget. After rubbing his cheek as if crushing it in silence, Hwang tilted his chin up slightly.

“Hah, honestly… What about friends? No friends? Didn’t you come here to visit someone?”

Hwang scanned Hae-won from head to toe as the boy shook his head in silence once again, then tilted his head as if something were strange. Leaning forward, Hwang reached for the phone as if a good idea had occurred to him. His previously rapid-fire speech slowed down significantly, as if to help him understand.

“Uh, then maybe someone else reported it. Sometimes when people go missing…”

The moment Hwang’s hand touched the phone, the small table, caught by a knee, rattled with a loud noise. Gi-tae, who had been transferring white garlic cloves into another basin, glanced up.

“No. There isn’t. There’s no one. No one…”

Clutching the phone with both hands, Hae-won muttered the same words repeatedly, his face pale. With his mouth twisted, he let his gaze wander aimlessly, his hands trembling violently. Both Hwang’s bewildered expression and Gi-tae’s look—as if he were seeing something peculiar—felt foreign. They were so foreign that he felt utterly alone.

Before he knew it, Hae-won had backed away until his back hit the wall. He scratched the bandage harshly with his fingernails and then gasped, inhaling sharply. He quickly placed the phone back on the table and added an apology, but the chilling silence did not fade.

His lost gaze fell upon the cooling porridge. A sense of loss weighed down his entire body. Unable to bear it, Hae-won let out a small, soft sigh. Truly, now, there was truly nothing left. He felt as if he were about to cry.

* * *

After about ten minutes of staying tight-lipped while fidgeting with the bleeding bandage, Hwang put the phone back in his pocket and told Gi-tae he’d be back in a moment before heading out. Left alone with the cold porridge, Hae-won stared blankly at the closed door.

He had no intention of making them uncomfortable. The troubled and bewildered faces flickered over his eyelids. It was the expression people had worn when looking at him since some time ago. Pressing his aching eyelids with his palms, Hae-won let out a trembling breath as if he were heaving it up.

There was a world of difference between now and the time when he had a watch he could sell if necessary and a small amount of money he had scraped together. With a body that could barely walk, it was impossible for him to work; he was lucky if he could just stop trembling and crying. That was why he had hoped to die all at once, fearing that his terror would make him hesitate, and why he had hoped he would never wake up.

Since he had finally escaped from Seo Hae-young, he should have just died quietly on the spot. Why had he crawled out, desperately clinging to life out of some fear? He didn’t know the first thing about what to do now; why had he survived?

It was as if he were blind; he couldn’t see the way forward. Should he run away before they reported him, or should he endure until the end? Just as he was becoming overwhelmed, unable to steady his wavering heart, the paper-covered door creaked open.

Due to the low height of the door, Gi-tae entered the room while bending his waist, and no one followed behind him. Gi-tae, who pulled a dishcloth from the wall and wiped his hands, sat in the same spot and picked up a knife. The sound of garlic skins peeling away sliced through the silence.

There was no order to leave, nor any mention of reporting him. Hae-won, whose lips parted as if he wanted to ask something, dropped his head and picked up his spoon. He scooped a spoonful of the cold porridge and pushed it into his mouth. The sticky mucus clinging to his tongue and the roof of his mouth triggered a gag reflex, but he forced himself to empty the bowl and set down the utensils. White porridge that he couldn’t quite swallow remained pooled at the concave bottom. It was another period of time he had to endure. He had no confidence.

Hae-won deliberately ignored his sense of shame and did not leave the room. He clung to his spot as if he would be kicked out the moment he stepped onto the porch. The fear that was vividly etched into his face and behavior gradually dulled after about a week.

Whenever he curled up on the warm floor, Gi-tae would suddenly appear and bring three meals a day on schedule. After about three days, Hae-won bowed his head and thanked him. After five days, he did the dishes himself, and by the tenth day, he began to venture outside and wander the yard. Watching Hae-won break into a sweat with every single step, Gi-tae pushed open the main gate and left without a word. Although they shared the same space and even slept in the same room, Hae-won still felt a distance between him and Gi-tae, so he whispered a small “Goodbye” to Gi-tae’s back.

Hwang, who scurried all over the neighborhood, and an elderly man who stopped by to check on his condition, shared various stories with him. The village, with the sea in front and steep mountains behind, was called Anbyeok-ri. He was told it was named such because it was located near mountains with rugged terrain.

After about two weeks, Hae-won had somehow become a member of the household at the top of Anbyeok-ri. No one had asked him to stay, and he had asked no one for permission, but he had settled in ambiguously. It might have been because rumors had spread throughout the small village that Hwang had hit someone while driving in the rain, or perhaps it was due to the misunderstanding that the person hit had suffered a severe head injury and seemed to have lost his mind. For Hae-won, it was simply a stroke of luck.

By the time he could walk, albeit slowly and with a limp, Hae-won stood leaning against the wall and looked down the sloping alley that carried the sea breeze. Low-roofed houses were huddled together along the narrow alley paved with gray cement. After hearing from Hwang that most residents had left for the town center or the city and only a few remained, the houses that didn’t send up smoke from cooking rice looked lonely.

Gi-tae, Hwang’s relative and the person Hae-won lived with, was the only young man who hadn’t left for the city. He occasionally went out on fishing boats or worked as a day laborer in town, and on days without work, he did odd jobs in the room or on the porch, but he showed no particular desire to save money. Since he was so taciturn, his inner thoughts remained unknown, but that was how it appeared on the surface. His relationship with Gi-tae remained as awkward as wearing clothes that didn’t fit. Gi-tae seemed entirely indifferent to the fact that someone had come in and taken up a corner of the room.

On the other hand, a few people, including the grandmother from the house with the blue gate and the lady who ran the supermarket, showed great interest in the outsider who had drifted into their midst. It was common for them to pinch and poke his face, remarking how “pretty” he was. Hae-won only avoided their gaze, showing his awkwardness, and never told them his name or age. After trying to pry into his circumstances for quite some time, they eventually began calling him “Dear.” It was a more intimate title than “student.”

Of course, not everyone in the village welcomed Hae-won. In fact, most of them looked at him with lukewarm or hostile eyes. In particular, Mr. Kim from the hardware store, who was around the same age as Hwang, treated Hae-won—who couldn’t drive, couldn’t swim, limped, was partially deaf in one ear, and barely spoke or stuttered—as a parasite or a criminal who had sneaked into their peaceful village.

Whenever he sat on the porch, Mr. Kim would often walk all the way up to the top of the alley just to click his tongue or glare at him with disapproval before leaving. Hae-won only bowed his head without replying. Clear hatred was more comfortable than ambiguous goodwill. Kindness that could turn into something else at any moment, even if it was genuine for now, was only uncomfortable.

Today, while looking out at the alley, Hae-won received another barrage of curses from Mr. Kim as he passed by. He crouched in front of the main gate and waited for the person to return.

It was only at dusk that the main gate, which was always left unlocked, swung open. Standing up unsteadily, Hae-won followed awkwardly behind Gi-tae, who had returned with some odd jobs. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw bundles of fresh spinach. Hae-won didn’t know how to address Gi-tae, who was ten years his senior, so he often trailed off. This remained the same even as the time they lived together approached two months.

As he hesitantly gripped the plastic frame, Gi-tae looked at him. Hae-won pulled the basket toward himself and avoided his gaze. It was a timid and weak gesture.

“Forget it.”

Gi-tae pulled the basket back with a coldness that felt almost cruel and walked away; Hae-won quickly followed. Since it was becoming exhausting to pretend to be a shameless human being, he intended to start earning his keep from today.

He didn’t dislike the daily routine of lying still, eating the food given to him, walking in the yard, and then going to bed. He didn’t have to force open a painful hole, nor did he need to scramble to please someone’s whims. However, a daily life where he didn’t have to do anything made him feel restless for some reason. It was comfortably uncomfortable. He didn’t know if trimming spinach would be enough to earn his keep, but he had to do something.

“I…”

It was a tiny voice. On days when Hwang or the elderly man didn’t visit, he remained silent all day, so the act of speaking felt difficult. Gi-tae stepped onto the porch and took off his shoes without saying a word.

It seemed his clumsy, slurred pronunciation hadn’t been conveyed properly. His shoulders slumped miserably. Letting out a low groan, Hae-won stood there blankly, unable to step onto the porch or move from his spot.

After washing his face in the bathroom, which was meticulously plastered with cement like the alleyway, Gi-tae looked at Hae-won, who was still standing in an uncomfortable posture, and then entered the room. When the man returned to the porch, he handed over a bulging plastic bag and gestured with his chin. He was pointing toward the back of the house.

“Feed those over there.”

Looking down at the plastic bag filled with feed that fit perfectly in his palm, Hae-won nodded a couple of times.

Walking around Gi-tae’s house, which had a low roof like the other houses, led to a backyard that was narrower than the front yard. The fence made of patched boards was about a hand-span higher than the wall surrounding the main gate, and in front of it was a fairly large chicken coop. There were four chickens living in this house: one rooster and three hens. They were the source of the fried eggs that appeared on the dining table every morning.

Carefully passing the rooster that crowed loudly every dawn, Hae-won took a handful of feed from the bag and scattered it on the ground. There was a feeder, but Gi-tae always fed them this way. He stepped backward, his eyes never leaving the chickens as they hurriedly gathered and pecked at the ground.

He sat tentatively on a creaking plastic chair and stretched out his numb legs. After throwing one more handful of feed, Hae-won opened his finely trembling hands wide.

The aftereffects of the rainy season were deeply embedded throughout his body. Half of the nails on the hand that occasionally lacked strength were broken or ripped out. It seemed they had been torn off while he was unconsciously trying to grip a branch or a rock. Though it was painful and unsightly, the nails were the least of it. He limped more than before, and he felt as if his once-healthy ear was gradually going deaf.

Hae-won blankly rubbed his left earlobe, which had grown cold in the autumn wind. The will that had flickered briefly died out with a hiss. His chest tightened. He felt gloomy. Just then, a plump hen brushed past his calf. Startled despite the softness, Hae-won awkwardly lifted his leg. Even though he had cleared the way, the hen didn’t pass by but instead rubbed its feathers against the leg still touching the ground.

“…Go away.”

When he nudged it away with his knee, the hen flapped its wings and seemed to run away, only to circle back through the backyard and cling to his leg again. It didn’t leave his side, pecking at the feed that had fallen near his feet. Suddenly, Hae-won remembered a cat that used to visit his house every winter.

Since the cat’s visits were from a distant past, considering its short lifespan, it might already be dead. The pretty cat, which occasionally acted cute and often got angry, reminded him of someone he didn’t want to recall. Clenching his trembling fists, Hae-won struck his own head, crushing the intrusive thoughts. Even then, the white hen continued to circle around his shin, where a long scar remained.