His gaze dropped to somewhere around my shoulder, and with one of the hands he’d had shoved in his pants pockets, he slowly stroked his chin. He had a complicated look on his face. And it wasn’t the reaction I’d expected.
“I’m telling you this because you seem anxious about not remembering, but you didn’t lose consciousness. You were showing symptoms of hyperventilation, so I took care of it. I helped support you, but you walked to the bedroom on your own. There was no… unseemly behavior like you seem to be worried about.”
He was reassuring me that there had been no unseemly behavior, but his face, with his gaze still cast somewhere around my shoulder, was rigid with a kind of anxiety or suspicion.
A sudden chill ran through me, and I rubbed my arm with the hand that had been braced against the wall.
“I’m sorry…. For being such a burden….”
His gaze traveled up from my shoulder to my face.
“I don’t consider someone who’s unwell to be a burden. I told Yuni and Juhan that you seemed to have suddenly fallen ill, so I had you rest inside. I’ve already told them.”
As I mumbled my thanks and nodded, his expression lightened a little.
“There’s some egg porridge. Eat a little and get some more sleep.”
He started to turn toward the kitchen, and I hurriedly stopped him.
“No, it’s all right. I’m fine now. I’ll be going.”
When he turned back, it was more than just a frown this time. His eyes grew fierce. He looked as if I had hurt him somehow. Turning completely to face me again, he stood his ground, arms crossed tightly as he looked down at me.
“Seo Yeehyeon, you don’t remember what you were like, do you?”
“……”
“You know in your head that even if it feels like you’re dying, you don’t die from hyperventilation. But no matter how well you know that, watching someone who’s suffering as if they’re about to die, desperately clinging to you… frankly, it’s not a pleasant experience. If you really hate being a burden to me, then just rest here today so I can be at ease.”
You suddenly developed a fever and felt unwell, so I had you lie down for a bit, but you’re sleeping soundly without waking. So I’ll just have you sleep here tonight. —He added that he had told Director Shim the same thing. It seemed he knew exactly what I was worried about.
Just by having brought Phantom to where it was today and running it so successfully, he was a remarkable, socially successful person, but I was sorry to admit that I had never felt the ten-year age gap between us as vividly as I did in this moment.
Judging by his expression and tone, he seemed to have firmly decided not to let me leave today. Refusing a kindness wasn’t always the most polite option.
He looked down at me for a moment from under his furrowed eyelids, then sighed as if regretting his forceful tone and came closer. He placed both hands on my shoulders, bent down, and looked closely into my face. He must have showered while I was asleep; his hair, still faintly damp, was settled calmly on his head.
“The priority right now is to get yourself better. Don’t think about anything, and don’t worry about a thing. Like you’re just flicking a switch in your brain off. You can do that, right?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by flicking a switch in my brain off, but his calm gaze and tone made me nod. “Good.” He gave a faint smile, squeezed my shoulders firmly, then let go and stepped away.
“I know you don’t have an appetite, but eat a little. For your own sake.”
He turned his back again and said as he walked ahead. For your own sake. Chewing over those impressive words, I moved my still-stiff legs and followed him.
Crossing the living room I hadn’t been able to set a single foot in and rounding the corner, I found the kitchen. He sat me down at the dining table, then heated up the porridge that was already prepared and transferred it to a bowl.
I shook my head when he asked if I wanted to eat in my room, and with a slightly reluctant, worried look, he placed the tray in front of me. It was a cute… colorful egg porridge with finely chopped carrots and zucchini. A small dish of stir-fried anchovies with almonds and another with salt also filled the tray alongside the porridge bowl.
Had he made this himself while I was asleep? Chopping the zucchini and carrots? Delivery systems were so good these days that he could have ordered it, but this wasn’t the situation to ask if he’d made it himself.
I picked up my spoon with the bowl of porridge in front of me. The inside of my mouth was numb as if anesthetized, and I could barely taste anything, but the porridge went down smoothly.
His gaze as he sat in the adjacent seat around the corner, watching me eat, would have normally felt burdensome, but right now, I was grateful for it. I had to admit that I was in a weakened state.
“Whether it’s mentally or physically, when you’re having a hard time, it’s best to try to maintain your usual patterns as much as possible. If you skip meals because you have no appetite, the gloomy guys inside us find their chance to step up. It’s important to put food in your body like you normally would, even if it’s just a little, to prove to those guys that we haven’t given up on ourselves yet.”
It sounded convincing. Not letting your usual patterns collapse. Enduring by maintaining the same routine. It was a statement with more practical power than words like ‘cheer up’ or ‘time will heal all wounds.’
I paused and looked at him. His words weren’t just a formal attempt at consolation. He was clearly speaking from his own experience of enduring and overcoming a difficult situation.
When I nodded, he gave a silent smile. It was a smile that seemed to be praising me for doing a good job.
“Wh-where are you going?”
I must have sounded desperate. My gaze, looking up at him as he rose from his chair, was surely wavering unsteadily. But I had no room to worry about saving face right now.
“I’ll go get you a blanket.”
I followed his gaze to my hand and saw that my spoon was trembling.
“It’s okay. It’s not because I’m cold….”
A little while ago, I had put on a brave face, saying I was fine and would be leaving, but I didn’t want to be alone, not even for a moment. But I didn’t have the courage to say the words, to ask him not to leave because I didn’t want to be alone.
Hmm. He bit his lower lip for a moment with a troubled expression, then, instead of going to get a blanket, he took off the sweatshirt he was wearing and held it out to me.
“No, really… I’m not cold.”
When I tried to refuse it, he took matters into his own hands. The neckline of the sweatshirt was over my head in an instant.
“You are cold. You’re not well, and on top of that, it’s raining outside, so your body temperature has dropped. You just can’t feel it right now, Seo Yeehyeon. Listen to a healthy person for once.”
It would be awkward to take off the shirt that was already over my head and give it back. I put down my spoon and slipped my arms into the thick sweatshirt.
The shirt, which had fit him perfectly, was a little loose on me. It was inevitable, given our difference in height and build. Because he had been wearing it, the sweatshirt held his warmth. The reassurance a person’s warmth can provide is immense. Even from someone I felt so awkward with that I’d felt a slight fear of being alone with him.
He sat back down, smirking repeatedly with an expression that looked like he was trying to force back a laugh. Having someone smile beside you is as helpful as their body heat. If I had gone back to my room at Director Shim’s house, I might have been completely consumed by ‘the gloomy guys inside me’ he’d mentioned and dragged into the darkness. I had to admit it.
I ate about half the porridge and put my spoon down. He didn’t force me to eat more. I started to get up to at least clear the tray, but he stopped me.
“Want to wash your face?”
He asked, tapping his cheek with his index finger as he returned from putting the tray in the sink. Only then did I remember my face, which I hadn’t even washed my makeup off of.
“I’ll stay with you.”
I wanted to say he didn’t have to go that far, but in this state, this house without him was nothing but an unfamiliar space that made me more anxious. I folded up my pointless pride and nodded.
He led me to the room I had woken up in earlier. There was an en-suite bathroom inside. I didn’t know much about it, but it had a simple yet exotic atmosphere that reminded me of a resort in a southern country.
While I brushed my teeth and washed my face and feet, about three times slower than usual, he leaned against the frame of the open bathroom door. Knowing this, I still checked several times—through the mirror, and by turning my head—that he was there. Each time, he would give me a faint, reassuring smile.
Wiping my face with the fresh towel he handed me, I slowly headed back to the bedroom. The room was dimly lit with indirect lighting, just as it had been when I left.
I stood awkwardly in the empty space of the room, where the only large piece of furniture was the bed, fiddling with the towel in my hands. He approached and took the towel from me.
“Your bangs, they’re wet.”
And with a careful touch, he gently ruffled my bangs dry.
Through the way he treated Mr. Shushu, I knew that his blunt words and indifferent expression weren’t all there was to him, but I had never considered that his gentleness could be directed at me.
Because I was sick. Is that why he was being so nice?
It would be difficult to treat someone who had desperately clung to him while suffering as if they were dying with indifference. The man I knew wasn’t that cold-blooded.
“Sleep in this room. I can sleep in another room.”
“……”
I didn’t say anything, but I must have had a look on my face that said I didn’t want him to go. Was he deliberately teasing me, knowing this? The thought crossed my mind. My guess wasn’t entirely wrong, as I heard him chuckle softly from above my head.
“You seem like a different person when you’re sick.”
It’s not that I’m sick, exactly.
No, maybe I am sick. That’s right. I’m in a lot of pain, but I don’t even know where or how much it hurts, and I haven’t tried to find out.
He bent down, tilting his head slightly to meet my eyes.
“You don’t want me to go? You want me to get into bed and sleep with you?”
After saying that, he straightened up with a self-deprecating laugh before I could show any reaction. Watching his back as he walked past me to the bed, pulled back the covers, and adjusted the pillows to prepare the bed, I finally realized that what he had just said was a risqué sort of joke. It wasn’t because I was innocent; my perception of everything was just that slow right now.
“Lie down. I’ll stay on the sofa until you fall asleep.”
The words ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry,’ even said once or twice, weren’t enough for all the trouble I had caused him today. In my current abnormal state, it seemed that listening to him was the way to be the least bit of a bother.
“The sweatshirt, isn’t it stuffy? Want to take it off to sleep?”
I stopped on my way to the bed and looked down at the clothes I was wearing. I recalled the warmth and reassurance I had felt when this shirt was put on me. The inside of the covers had been plenty cozy when I woke up, but I didn’t want to take it off now. I shook my head. “Alright, then.” He simply relented.
I got onto the bed on my knees, settled in, and lay down. He covered me with the white, fluffy comforter that was full of air.
Looking up, I saw him looking down at me from an even greater height than when he was standing. He had an expression of someone who had so many questions but was struggling to swallow them. In the dim light, his eyes, which looked paler than usual, traced every corner of my face as if pressing down on them.
“Close your eyes.”
I closed my eyes at his words.
To him right now, I must look like a twenty-two-year-old coward who needs someone to follow her to the bathroom and stay by her side until she falls asleep. But it was, without a doubt, the truth.
“Sleep well.”
I felt him step back. I could sense the room growing a little darker behind my closed eyelids.
The sound of him sinking into the plush sofa. The faint sound of rain, and the occasional sound of the trees in the garden shaking their branches in the wind and rain. And in the darkness behind my closed eyes, ‘the gloomy guys inside us’ were beginning to stir again.
How did that painting end up in this house?
‘Suki Kim’ had expressed her desire to purchase the painting right after the contest results were announced. After discussing it with my parents, I had conveyed my wish to gift the painting to her, but she had insisted on buying it for what seemed like a considerable sum to my parents and me at the time.
Of course, a collector is free to do whatever they want with a painting they’ve purchased. The fact that the painting is here now doesn’t mean she treated it carelessly. No, even if she had, it wouldn’t tarnish the sense of connection I had felt from her critique back then.
That I wasn’t alone. That someone was receiving the signal I was sending.
“Mr. Kang.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
A hint of playfulness colored his voice, but it was low and soft.
“That painting… did you like it?”
“……”
Tears flowed again. My temples felt hot. But these were just mechanical tears. Fortunately, the room was dark and there was enough distance between us that he probably wouldn’t notice. I was about to turn over to the other side, pretending to toss and turn, when his voice, quiet but clearly vibrating through the darkness, reached me.
“Seo Yeehyeon.”
“……”
“Should I make you forget everything?”
I sensed him getting up from the sofa, and soon the other edge of the bed sank heavily. Just like when he had taken pictures in the garden that afternoon, his knees were settling on either side of my legs.
I slowly lifted my eyelids. He had come deep between my thighs. His gaze, looking down into my tear-dampened eyes, seemed slightly angry. I knew he wasn’t angry, but there was an emotion in his eyes that was difficult to pinpoint otherwise.
Did he like the painting? I tried to find the answer to my question in his eyes, but my consciousness was scattering because of the fingertips that touched my face.
The hand that had been stroking my jawline moved up my face and wiped the moisture from my temples. His light-colored irises looked even fainter in the darkness, like a ghost that would soon disappear. But the warmth from the hand wiping away my tears was that of a living person.
That hand traced down my cheek and lightly cupped my chin. His tear-wet thumb swept across my lower lip, then touched the membrane inside as if to flip it slightly.
I felt a heavy weight between my legs. His body pressed down on me as he covered me. His lips, now so close they were about to touch, carried the sweet remnant of strong liquor on his breath.
“So you can’t think of anything, so nothing matters anymore… I’ll make it happen.”
The lips that had whispered hotly seemed like they would kiss me, but they brushed past my cheek and moved deeper, taking my nape into his mouth.
I closed my eyes in that instant. It was as if I had lost my balance on a surfboard and been swept away by a giant wave of fragrance.
Leave a Reply