19
After receiving treatment, Lee A-gonwas improving, but Park Hae-jun was still thinking at the level of Lee A-gon when Lee A-gon first met him. Park Hae-jun needed to adjust his thinking to match the changed Lee A-gon.
About three hours later, when Park Hae-jun opened the door, Lee A-gonwas collapsed in front of it with a flushed red face.
“Lee A-gon.”
At Park Hae-jun’s call, Lee A-gon’s shoulders curled forward. He recognized this voice. It was the voice Park Hae-jun used just before getting angry with him.
Park Hae-jun looked down at Lee A-gon blankly and asked, “Where are the drugs?”
“…”
“Tell me honestly. You still have more drugs, don’t you?”
Lee a-gon didn’t answer. But he couldn’t hide the confusion that appeared on his face. Why are you bringing this up again? This is already over. That’s what Lee A-gon seemed to be thinking.
‘This cunning bastard.’ Park Hae-jun hardened his expression.
“You understand what I’m saying, right?”
“…”
“You know what I’m talking about now, don’t you?”
“…”
“Answer me. Where are the drugs?”
Lee A-gon’s face gradually contorted. He was now visibly fidgeting. Park Hae-jun stared at him with quiet but fierce eyes.
“N…no.” Lee A-gon, who had been watching cautiously, got up awkwardly and mumbled, “N…no…ne.”
Park Hae-jun crossed his arms and watched as Lee A-gon struggled to speak. It wasn’t easy, as Lee A-gon’s lips moved this way and that, making inarticulate sounds. Park Hae-jun clenched his fist and waited. For the first time since that night, Lee A-gonwas trying to speak.
“N…o. Drug n…o.”
“…”
“No…ne. No, no drug.”
Finally, Lee A-gonsucceeded in uttering something meaningful. He contorted his entire face as he painfully spat out the words.
“Drug, none. None. Sor…ry.”
“Ha,” Park Hae-jun let out a derisive laugh and pushed Lee A-gon away.
After all that effort, what he said was just a lie.
“Ah!”
Lee A-gon tried to grab Park Hae-jun’s collar. Park Hae-jun struck away even that hand fiercely.
His hyung hitting his hand. Lee A-gon’s eyes widened. Park Hae-jun had hit him. This was the first time. Lee A-gon looked at Park Hae-jun with trembling eyes, as if he couldn’t believe it.
Regardless, Park Hae-jun locked the door.
Bang bang, there was the sound of knocking on the door behind him. That sound didn’t stop even after several hours.
When he opened the door in the evening, Lee A-gonwas crouched in front of it. His eyes were brimming with sadness. Lee A-gon, who had been squatting in a pitiful posture, tried to stand up but sat back down. His legs seemed to be numb. He clutched his feet with his hands and groaned for a while.
Seeing this rather pitiful sight, Park Hae-jun almost unconsciously reached out his hand. Lee A-gon was physically weak. He had been crouched in front of the door almost all day, so he might develop a fever again tonight. Nevertheless, Park Hae-jun couldn’t back down. If he gave in now, the guy would never open up about the drugs.
Park Hae-jun ignored him and passed by. Lee A-gon followed, limping behind Park Hae-jun, who was indifferently going down the stairs, groaning.
The dining table was still as chaotic as it had been left in the morning. Cold food was spilled on the floor, and spoons and forks were dropped. Park Hae-jun pretended not to notice and took out dinner from the refrigerator to heat it. Dinner was risotto.
When Park Hae-jun sat down, Lee A-gonalso cautiously sat in a chair. Park Hae-jun took a generous spoonful of his portion of risotto and put it in his mouth. Lee A-gon just looked at Park Hae-jun eating with an anxious face.
When Park Hae-jun was somewhat full, he casually pushed the plate with Lee A-gon’s portion toward him. And he continued his meal without caring whether Lee A-gon ate or not.
Holding the spoon, Lee A-gonalternately looked at Park Hae-jun and the risotto. Park Hae-jun pretended not to care, but he kept glancing at what the guy was doing.
After a moment, Lee A-gon picked up the spoon and scooped a little risotto with the tip. He looked at Park Hae-jun with an anxious face and slowly put the spoon in his mouth. His mouth moved, chewing, and then gulp, his Adam’s apple moved.
Park Hae-jun relaxed his shoulders and exhaled gently.
Sensing that Park Hae-jun’ s mood had slightly improved, even without him saying anything directly, Lee A-gontook another spoonful. Soon after, another spoonful, and another, he swallowed one after another.
Instantly, the bowl was empty. Lee A-gon, who had only eaten after Park Hae-jun coaxed and pleaded with him before, had completely emptied a bowl of his own volition. And he looked at Park Hae-jun with an expression like a dog that had misbehaved while its owner was out.
Park Hae-jun covered his mouth with his palm and slightly lowered his head. He felt like laughing. After a while, having composed his expression, Park Hae-jun resumed eating with a solemn face. Meanwhile, Lee A-goncontinued to wait with that pitiful dog-like face.
After finishing his meal, Park Hae-jun silently looked at the food fallen on the floor. Only then, as if realizing something, Lee A-gon came down to the floor, picked up the bowls, and cleaned up the dirty food.
When Park Hae-jun stepped onto the second-floor stairs after washing the dishes, Lee A-gonfollowed. Believing that everything was now over, his following footsteps were uninhibited.
“Get out.”
When Park Hae-jun opened his room door, Lee A-gonnaturally tried to follow him in.
Pushing him away, Park Hae-jun said coldly, “If you want to come in, bring the drugs.”
“…”
“Can’t bring them? Then no.”
Bang, Park Hae-jun firmly closed the door. There was a sad sound of scratching at the door, but he didn’t let his heart soften.
Giving in here would lead nowhere. Having come this far, Park Hae-jun planned to firmly correct Lee A-gon’ s behavior.
Secretary Yang had said they had even used drug-sniffing dogs to search the house. That meant whether there were more drugs in the house or not, it wasn’t something he could find.
Now Park Hae-jun knew how cunning Lee A-gon was. He was convinced that Lee A-gon had more drugs. To prevent such a thing from happening again, he had to completely resolve the drug issue this time.
∞ ∞ ∞
Park Hae-jun watched a documentary about an ability user who survived alone for a long time without a facilitator.
The man was born in a country in the midst of civil war. He grew up amid the sounds of city bombings and reached adulthood under tents in refugee camps marked with the UN emblem.
Due to extreme stress, the man suffered from mental illness since childhood. His condition worsened daily until he reached the point of hearing voices and seeing hallucinations.
Suffering from the illness, the man closed the doors to his mind. Though he had eyes, he refused to see; though he had ears, he refused to hear.
Doctors from the First World classified him as disabled. The man’s appearance in the documentary garnered much attention and sympathy, thanks to which he was recognized as a refugee.
Incorporated into the First World, the man began receiving treatment. During this process, it was discovered that he possessed telekinetic abilities of a high grade.
Follow-up investigations were conducted. An ability user who had been neglected to such a severe degree had never been discovered before. The state immediately dispatched a facilitator. The facilitation process wasn’t easy because the man rejected all stimuli from the outside. Around that time, he was even refusing to consume food, requiring a tube to be inserted through his nose.
For the skin-to-skin facilitation, the facilitator needed to touch the man. The man resisted, but his body, which had long been self-abused, was extremely weak. He was forced to receive facilitation.
Once facilitation occurred, the man regained his emotions. His language returned and his ears opened. The camera captured the entire process of the wrinkled, elderly man awkwardly uttering his first words like a child learning to speak for the first time.
Haltingly… he asked the facilitator in a Third World language, “Did you save me?”
“Are you God?”
The documentary ends with the scene of the ability user and facilitator accepting each other. Later, claims circulated on the internet that the facilitator, who tried to leave the ability user, was murdered by him, but this was never confirmed.
Like the character in the documentary, Lee A-gonalso rejected others and refused food. He also had disabilities such as memory loss and language regression.
Fortunately, Lee A-gonwas gradually normalizing. Although his resonance rate was low, progress was visible thanks to the intensive facilitation efforts while living in the same house.
Park Hae-jun desperately hoped that Lee A-gon would quickly confess about the drugs. Three days into isolation, Park Hae-jun was just as anxious about not being able to provide facilitation. Around the second day, the focus in Lee A-gon’ s eyes had started to blur. This situation needed to end as soon as possible.
For that reason, Park Hae-jun was now sitting at the dining table with his pants and underwear removed.
Before leaving the room, he’d agonized about a hundred times while looking in the mirror whether this was right, but eventually concluded this was the only way.
As he sat on the chair, his genitals, barely covered by the shirt hem, hung between his legs. Lee A-gon, who had been in a daze since Park Hae-jun appeared in the kitchen, made a “hic” sound. It had been three days. After three whole days of not seeing Park Hae-jun’ s genitals, Lee A-gon’ s eyes were rolling.
“Let’s eat.”
Park Hae-jun said indifferently before taking his portion of food. Then he ate as if nothing were unusual. While he emptied his bowl, Lee A-goncouldn’t eat a single bite.
Having finished his meal, Park Hae-jun stood up from the chair with a reddened nape. The sound of the chair being pulled back was unusually long and clear. As he rose, the shadow of his glans flickered under the shirt that barely covered the upper part of his thighs.
Lee A-gon held his spoon with his mouth open. The white shirt, slightly large for Park Hae-jun, was precariously caught near the glans. It was agonizing because it seemed like the tip of the glans would be exposed if he just straightened his waist a little. The now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t was driving him crazy.
“Not eating?” Park Hae-jun asked abruptly.
Lee A-gon raised his gaze to Park Hae-jun’ s face with a stupid expression.
“Are you rebelling right now?”
Startled, Lee A-gonquickly shook his head.
‘See that?’ Park Hae-jun crossed his arms. ‘This bastard really does understand everything I’m saying.’