By Zephyria My dazed mind slowly returned. A cozy and comfortable sensation warmly enveloped me. The scent of Yi-tae filled the air. As I turned to my side, I heard the sound of hair brushing against something.
So, it was a nice, fluffy blanket after all.
……Huh? How do I know that? My mind snapped awake. I opened my eyes to darkness. The moment I realized I was lying in a bed that wasn’t mine, I turned my head to look for Yi-tae. His shadow was nowhere to be found in the room.
I expected to fall asleep, but why am I lying in his bed? Did I push a sick person aside and climb in? I don’t have sleepwalking issues.
“Kwon Yi-tae.”
I called out to him. But no answer came back.
Outside the window, the sound of rain continued to pour. It seemed quite heavy, the sound of it hitting the window was loud.
I threw off the neatly covered blanket and got out of bed. Looking at the clock, it was almost 6 o’clock. I slept for three hours without waking up, even when Yi-tae moved me. I pressed hard on my eyes.
I completely forgot my duty. Not only did I steal a sick person’s bed, but I also didn’t even know where he was. Self-loathing filled my head like rising water.
I sighed deeply, opened the closed door, and stepped outside. Still, I couldn’t feel the presence of anyone else in the house except for myself. How could that be? Where would a sick guy go?
“Yi-tae?”
But even after searching every corner of the house, I couldn’t find any trace of him. A sense of bewilderment washed over me. He has a fever, and it’s raining outside, where is he wandering around?
The subtle sleepiness that remained completely disappeared. I looked for my phone, hoping he had left a message, but it always vanished when I needed it. After searching for a while, I finally found it in the kitchen, but there were no messages. No note on the refrigerator either…
Remembering his condition, I started to feel anxious. What if he collapses somewhere while wandering around? It’s raining and cold. Is my contact information registered as an emergency number? If he collapses, there will be no place to call.
I bit my lip and made a call. The ringing tone continued endlessly, but no matter how long I waited, no answer came. He wouldn’t have collapsed on the street, would he? Right now, I was the only one who could take care of him.
My hesitation was short-lived. I grabbed my coat, took an umbrella, and ran outside. Even if he said he was okay, it was better to see it with my own eyes. I left a text message while waiting for the elevator. Just in case we missed each other.
I knew it was an overreaction, but Yi-tae didn’t know the geography of this area very well. He mostly just went back and forth between work and home, and stayed home on his days off.
‘He should have woken me up if he needed anything. That’s why I came.’
Outside, a localized torrential downpour was shattering against the ground. Still, since it had been raining since before I fell asleep, he must have taken an umbrella with him. Worries continued to pile up. I felt like I had left a child by the water.
My shoes splashed as they stepped into puddles. Water seeped into my clothes, but I didn’t have time to think about the discomfort. The nearest supermarket was about a 20-minute walk away, so should I go there first?
My pace quickened. Just in case he went to work, I called Tony, but he said he wasn’t at the office.
‘Did he go to the hospital?’
I paused for a moment, but soon came to the conclusion that he wouldn’t have. Yi-tae didn’t go to the hospital even when he was sick. There was no way he would go to the hospital for a body ache and cold in an unfamiliar place. Unless it got worse in the meantime…
Then he would have woken me up.
My steps were hurried and the amount of rain falling was so heavy that it was difficult to block it with an umbrella. Even the wind was blowing harder than usual, and my face and shoulders were getting wet little by little. My legs had been damp for a long time.
I hated getting rained on haphazardly. I really hated the damp feeling, the loss of body heat, and the heavy, waterlogged clothes. But I was more worried about Yi-tae than anything else.
The ringing tone continued endlessly in my ears. There was nothing more foolish than calling someone who wasn’t answering, but I kept pressing the call button. My head was also turning busily. I was afraid he might be collapsed on the street or leaning against something.
I kept imagining the worst. I knew that he had taken medicine and his fever had subsided to some extent, so the situation wasn’t that serious, but worry was creeping into the gaps. You never knew what might happen.
I looked everywhere, but there was no sign of him. I didn’t have the confidence to find him in this vast city. My heart was sinking. I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know anything about Yi-tae, whom I had met again.
Then, in the distance, I saw a familiar figure. He was wearing a raincoat and holding plastic bags in both hands. Water droplets were dripping from his hat. I could tell who it was just by the way he walked. There was no way I couldn’t.
I felt like my anxiously beating heart was sinking.
‘What am I doing here?’
He’s an adult who’s old enough to take care of himself. Has the Yi-tae in my mind stopped at eighteen? What’s the reason I’ve been acting like I’ve gone back to that time?
Yi-tae noticed me and came closer at a slightly faster pace. If you looked closely, his body was losing its balance and staggering. Of course. To go grocery shopping in this rain. I let out a hollow laugh.
Suppressing my cold tone as much as possible, I asked him.
“Why aren’t you using an umbrella when you’re not feeling well?”
“I didn’t have enough hands…”
“Why?”
“I wanted to make tteokbokki, but I didn’t have the ingredients…”
The rain was drumming on the umbrella. Yi-tae’s love was too sacrificial. This wasn’t the tteokbokki I wanted to eat, even if it meant getting rained on like this. What was so important about it? What was so important about my words?
I tilted the umbrella forward. I was already as good as rained on. Water droplets poured over my hair. The dark gray sky was getting darker and darker. Yi-tae dropped the luggage in his hands on the ground as if throwing it away and tilted the umbrella back towards me.
“You’re all wet already.”
“Use the umbrella. It’s, it’s my fault.”
His voice, speaking urgently, trembled endlessly. He wiped the raindrops running down his cheeks with the back of his hand. The feeling of hitting rock bottom was digging deeper below. It could be more terrible than this.
I put strength into my hand and pushed the umbrella towards Yi-tae. The water collected at the end fell down. As expected, Yi-tae, who hadn’t recovered yet, couldn’t even withstand my strength.
“Yi-tae.”
“…….”
“Why do you go this far?”
“……I just, I just want to do anything for you.”
The plastic bag, tightly tied to prevent water from entering, sank deep into the puddle. His whole body was soaked in rainwater, there was no dry spot. Yi-tae still didn’t know what to do, but it seemed like this would make him even more miserable.
Because Yi-tae loves me that much.
There were times when that absolute love felt satisfying… Why is it so overwhelming now? It wasn’t that I hated it. That was the problem.
What is love?
Love is something that was once hot and slowly cools down. It’s only beautiful when it’s in full bloom, and when it falls, it’s more ugly than anything else. To be able to love someone again means that there are moments when you don’t love them. That process was extremely painful. So much so that I never wanted to experience it again.
I didn’t have the courage to start over with him.
The heated emotions were heading towards their peak. I wouldn’t have been this excited normally. But I couldn’t stand it anymore. As much as I was tormenting him, I was also being driven away little by little.
“Where does ‘just’ come from? If that’s the case, just confess.”
With his face flushed red from the fever, Yi-tae couldn’t look at me. The place where he was standing was covered by an umbrella and he was no longer getting rained on, but his already wet body couldn’t return to its original state. Nevertheless, he stubbornly prevented the rain from falling on Yi-tae.
Nothing will change even if you confess.
I still won’t be able to love you, and you will eventually give up love as your top priority when you hit that wall. This was a well-founded distrust.
Even so…….
“Why, don’t you love me enough to confess again?”
“It’s not that…….”
I knew it wasn’t true. He probably didn’t intend to deceive me either. I just wanted Yi-tae to do something, anything. Whether he crashed and broke, or withered and died. Even if his self-esteem was shattered and he couldn’t cherish himself anymore.
I wanted you to be as frustrated as I was. And I wanted you to grow that much more and face me on equal footing.
As Yi-tae’s longtime friend, lover, family member… There were countless names for relationships, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if we didn’t have those names.
“What kind of relationship do you want us to have?”
My heart was pounding. I felt like I was going back to the terrible past. Was I lonely back then because I wasn’t loved, or was I miserable because I was betrayed? It was probably both.
But the reason I gave you a chance back then was…….
Rainwater stung my eyes and I closed them. The tears that welled up were washed away by the rain.
Yi-tae was still silent. If he didn’t say anything, everything would end here. I didn’t want to do it anymore. Anything. Nothing.
“Say it, Yi-tae.”
Please.