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Unlike Juhan’s unexpectedly simple room, Yuni’s room, filled with all sorts of things, was so cramped that it was difficult for three people to move around at the same time. On top of that, an unstable energy drifted through the room, thanks to the unique, cluttered atmosphere created by someone who was about to leave.
Saying they could take anything they needed, Yuni had invited Juhan and Yeehyeon to her room first, before they started drinking in earnest. Most of the things filling the space were clothes and books.
While looking at the back of Juhan, who was engrossed in rummaging through a two-tiered clothing rack that was already half-empty as if it had been organized once before, picking out clothes to his taste, Yeehyeon tried to focus on Yuni’s story.
“They told me to do as I please. Asking when I ever needed their permission.”
Perched on the messy single bed, which was covered in books of various sizes, magazines, and printouts, Yuni continued her story, swallowing a sip of beer after a bitter smile.
“So?”
Juhan, who had been struggling to pull a knit sweater out of a box under the clothing rack, stopped and turned around. Unlike Juhan, who clicked his tongue as if in disbelief, Yuni merely shrugged once while meaninglessly flipping through a magazine within arm’s reach.
“I told them I didn’t come for their permission. That I was going to work abroad and wasn’t sure when I’d be back, but I felt I should at least tell them, so that’s why I came.”
She said she had met her family this afternoon. She’d had a few short phone calls with them after leaving home, but this was the first time they had actually met. Although he didn’t show it, Yeehyeon was quite surprised to hear that.
He knew that it had been at least four years since she had left home. He was surprised once by the fact that she hadn’t met her family at all during that time, and surprised again by her decision to seek them out herself, breaking the long silence.
Inertia works in human relationships, too; once a distance is created, it’s not easy to reverse that gap. But standing by and watching required no effort or resistance. That way was much easier. Even though she could have made any number of excuses to avoid it, she had chosen the harder path.
“I told you to just tell them over the phone.”
Yuni chuckled, looking down at Juhan’s back as he grumbled sullenly, thinking of the hurt she must have felt.
“Whatever my parents said, it’s not something you tell your parents over the phone.”
Even though she had been the one to keep calling them with news they weren’t curious about, or at the very least didn’t welcome, there must have been a reason she chose to face them in person this time. If her choices until now had been secondary concepts following her initial choice, this time was a turning point, a moment when her life was entering a new phase. It wasn’t just a matter of her place of residence changing from domestic to overseas.
Leaning her head back as if tired and kneading the back of her neck, Yuni muttered toward the ceiling.
“They told me to come back home, study for the college entrance exams again, and enroll in a teacher’s college. They’re still saying things like that. They have no intention of acknowledging anything I’ve achieved on my own after leaving home. They still… think that I’m just acting out of defiance or rebellion against them….”
Unable to finish her sentence, Yuni shook her head slightly and slapped the magazine she had been flipping through shut.
“I used to think it was at least for my own good. To get a stable job and settle down. By my parents’ standards, that’s a good life, so they were being firm because they wanted me to live well. But seeing them still say things like that, without trying to know the slightest thing about my current life or the future I dream of… I don’t know anymore.”
Faced with the frustration of Yuni, who had once again been rejected by the people from whom she most wanted acceptance for who she was, neither Yeehyeon nor Juhan could rashly offer words of comfort.
“Even if I struggle, even if it’s not stable, I’m happier this way… Why do they keep saying I’ll regret it later…. Even if we’re parent and child, connected by blood, even if we’re siblings born to and raised by the same parents, the conditions for happiness can be different, can’t they? Huh?”
Watching her from the side as she stretched her legs out to press them against Juhan’s back, seeking his agreement, Yeehyeon slightly turned his head at the pressure building inside him. And he mechanically swallowed the beer that had been tasteless from the start. It felt like the only thing his helpless self could do right now.
“Heck, the four of us in our family all have different tastes in food, so how could something as tricky as the conditions for happiness be the same?”
The exhaustion in Yuni’s voice as she said this was palpable. It wasn’t so much physical fatigue as it was a resignation, a clear-eyed realization that the time had come to cut the string of attachment she had been holding onto, however thinly, unable to let go completely.
She hadn’t gotten the result she wanted, but at least she hadn’t run away from the problem, nor had she made excuses to justify her escape. She had walked into a situation that was bound to be awkward and uncomfortable on her own.
The house where her family lived. Yeehyeon could naturally imagine how much she must have hesitated and paced in front of the door of that house, which should have been the most comfortable place in the world.
Even when he lived in the same house, it hadn’t been easy for him to say a single word to his father. He had rationalized his avoidance with the excuse that it was useless since he wouldn’t get a reply anyway. Compared to the agony of speaking to his father and receiving silence in return, avoidance was a very easy thing.
But Yuni hadn’t turned back at the door, even though she had anticipated the reaction she would get. She did what she had to do and said what she had to say. What happened after that was not her responsibility.
Yuni, who had been silently tilting her beer bottle, quickly pulled her lips away from it as if she had just remembered something.
“Ah, our family does have something in common, though.”
“……”
“This stubbornness that makes Mom and Dad throw up their hands, asking who on earth I take after—I probably inherited it straight from them, don’t you think?”
She even managed a smile as she said it. It was a smile meant to block out her complicated emotions, but having decided not to expect any more understanding from her parents, she also looked relieved in a way. She had finally confirmed that there was no room left for lingering attachment. Before moving on to the next course of her life, she was clearly separating the things she would leave behind from the things she would cherish.
Everyone was moving forward somewhere, using their own choices as fuel. The lingering attachments to be left behind, the things to be cut off, the direction to move forward in, even the mistakes and regrets—it seemed as if everyone was choosing them for themselves.
Yeehyeon felt like he was the only coward who had never crashed into anything.
Was this retribution? The price for not trying to uncover the problem, dig into it, and find a breakthrough… for relying on a ‘cowardly peace’ by backing away, taking the long way around, and staying silent as if he didn’t know? The fact that even his body, the most tangibly recognizable part of himself, had been changed by another?
To stop his thoughts from flowing in an overly sentimental, self-deprecating direction, Yeehyeon drank more beer. This wasn’t the right situation to be thinking about anything.
Getting up from the bed, Yuni placed the empty beer bottle on the sink and took a new one from the fridge. She then nudged the shoulder of Yeehyeon, who was standing blankly, leaning against the sink.
“Why are you so quiet today?”
“……”
It wasn’t a question he could answer. My head is even more of a mess than your room right now. I feel like an ant crushed by a problem so big I can’t even take it all in at once, unable to even scream. He couldn’t say it.
Even if he had the guts to confess, he wouldn’t even know where or how to begin the story. It was impossible to explain to someone else a problem he himself had yet to properly recognize.
Meeting Yuni’s worried, upturned face, Yeehyeon bit his lower lip hard. Reaching out, Yuni lightly ruffled the back of his hair and gave a faint smile.
“What, are you sad that we’re parting ways?”
Juhan shot up from his seat, his eyes shining, and gripped Yeehyeon’s shoulders firmly.
“Seo Yeehyeon, then you talk to the CEO. Tell him let’s not go to New York.”
And he got a light smack on the back of the head from Yuni.
“Ah, why’d you hit me?”
“Yeehyeon, you know he’s just spouting nonsense, so don’t mind him.”
Watching the two of them bicker over trivial things, just like always, just as they had always been, Yeehyeon tried his best to focus on this last time the three of them could spend together.
The problem… that his body was being changed into an Omega by Liu… felt like someone else’s story, as far removed from reality as an internet gossip article. Even if he couldn’t feel its reality, the shock still dealt a blow to his body and mind. As the shell that encased his insides trembled, everything was dislodged, falling, breaking, and mixing together, but despite it all, he couldn’t feel the reality that this was happening to his own body.
So, for now, he wanted to shove a problem he couldn’t do anything about somewhere and focus on the situation before him. Wasn’t ignoring and covering things up his specialty, after all? Even if his and Liu’s trip to New York was canceled, Yuni would still leave for Paris. Yeehyeon didn’t want to treat his farewell with her carelessly.
“This bastard, his mind is completely somewhere else.”
He tried to form something resembling a smile for Juhan, who was waving a hand in front of his face… but it was no use. At the very moment he needed it most, his specialty failed to work.
Whether it felt real or not, now that he knew his body was changing into a completely unfamiliar entity, it was impossible to listen to Yuni talk about her plans for life in Paris and sincerely join in her celebration.
Yeehyeon scrubbed his face with his palms several times.
“What, what is it?”
Yuni asked, carefully pulling his wrist down. As he met her worried face, Yeehyeon felt an impulse to confess this shock to someone, anyone. It felt as if only by releasing the shock onto another being and dispersing its impact could he prevent his own body and mind from rupturing.
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