F75

School had become a place he could no longer attend. Because Seong Junhee had once taught there and had been highly regarded by students, the backlash was even worse.

Siwoo’s thoughts during this period were very simple. He was glad it wasn’t Yeonho going through all this. He was glad Yeonho had taken a leave of absence.

When he saw a campus poster condemning Kim Yeonho, son of a construction company CEO and student of architecture, calling out his shamelessness, Siwoo decided he had to leave the school before Yeonho came back. Once again, what worried him most was Yeonho having to see this.

If he disappeared from campus, then when Yeonho returned in both body and mind, there would be less to trouble him. The name Kim Yeonho, which had once clung to Yeonho with deep emotional attachment, had now been soiled. It had become the name of a useless college student who got drunk and killed a promising young man.

Back when he’d set his ID beside Yeonho’s, it had felt like fate, like they were meant to love each other from the very beginning. It had felt good. He had wanted to protect that name at all costs. But now, he had no choice but to let it go.

Later, when he met Yeonho again, he hoped that Yeonho would sometimes still call him Yeonho. Because during the time they were together, he had been Yeonho too. That much wouldn’t change.

He didn’t care what anyone else thought. As long as Joo Yeonho knew, that was enough. As long as Ju Yeonho knew that Kim Yeonho was not a murderer.

He changed his name to Kim Siwoo, which had originally been used only within the family, and left to study in the United States. Even after boarding the plane, just a background character who had briefly stepped into Joo Yeonho’s life, he couldn’t stop worrying about him.

Was he doing okay? Was he in pain? These thoughts made him chuckle bitterly. By now, Yeonho was probably busy missing Seong Junhee, the true protagonist of his life, and wouldn’t be thinking about Siwoo at all.

How had their relationship turned into such a one-sided love? They had once seemed so inseparable, loving each other like they couldn’t breathe without the other. But once one person let go, it had turned into something completely unbalanced so easily. An intense, endless one-sided love with no escape, and no desire to escape.

If he let go, it would all be over. And yet, even as he fell to pieces, he didn’t want to let go. No, if it meant they could stay connected, he wouldn’t mind falling apart even more. The only problem was that Yeonho no longer loved the mess that was him.

Yeonho had once said it made him happy that Siwoo was such a wreck, but when he really did fall apart, Yeonho left. What had once been an endearing trait when they were in love had become something unbearable once the love was gone.

While being treated like an animal by his uncle in the U.S., there were moments when dangerous urges rose inside him. But Siwoo didn’t cut himself. He simply lowered the knife in his hand. He fought back, just enough to resist the emotional and physical violence being thrown at him.

Out in the world, he acted brighter, more confident than ever. Ironically, when he stopped acting like a sinner and became bold and shameless, people’s treatment of him began to change. Siwoo, who had never liked people much to begin with, came to despise them even more.

He made a promise to himself. Until the day he returned to Yeonho, he would never harm himself again. He would get stronger, in both mind and body. He would no longer be someone Yeonho couldn’t handle.

***

While hospitalized, he had been so sedated with medication and injections that he hadn’t realized. That Joo Yeonho had become someone who could no longer fall asleep normally.

Yeonho would pass out from exhaustion and fall asleep for a short while, only to snap awake moments later, feeling like a snake was slithering up his body. Once he woke, he could never fall back asleep. He had a nameless fear that a snake would crawl into his room and up over him at any moment.

When he returned to school after his leave of absence, the other students acted like nothing had ever happened. No one mentioned the accident. No one brought up the name Kim Yeonho, the perpetrator from the architecture department, in front of him.

Yeonho had already heard from his second brother that the student had dropped out before he returned. He had thought they might cross paths at least once. He had even prepared what he would say if the guy came to apologize. He had planned to be cold, merciless.

But it never happened. And when he realized they would never meet again, he felt a tightness in his chest. Had he secretly been hoping to see him?

After returning, he lived alone in the apartment his eldest brother had helped him get when he started college. After class, he searched the school’s online forums for the criticism that had flooded in during his absence, all directed at the perpetrator.

He thought maybe, since he hadn’t been able to curse him directly, reading others do it would bring some satisfaction. But his expectations were completely wrong.

A single post read:

“Hope he gets shot in the States lol. No names mentioned.”

And just like that, tears began to fall from Yeonho’s eyes. He was pouring emotions into the exact place he shouldn’t have. He should have been angry at the man who had killed his brother and fled the country, but instead, it hurt to see people talking about him like that. It hurt so badly it felt like his heart was splitting.

“Ugh… uhh…”

Once he started crying, he couldn’t stop. He sobbed loudly, like a child. His eyes and nose swelled, and he cried until he had a fever. Joo Yeonho, who had barely held back laughter at his brother’s funeral, now wept uncontrollably over the criticism aimed at the man who had killed his family. No normal person should feel this way.

He was so disgusted with himself that he closed the forum immediately. He never wanted to think about that person again. He didn’t want to feel this irrational, emotional pity for a criminal.

After the accident, Joo Yeonho became someone who couldn’t be explained with reason or logic. His face was distorted beyond recognition. His memory had holes. His emotions didn’t make sense anymore. The bright personality he once had had faded into something shadowy. Nothing was fun, and there was a constant emptiness in his chest.

Every night, under the blankets, he blinked in the darkness and murmured to himself.

“Each day is so long…”

My life is too long. It’s dull and pointless. I wish it would all end tonight with my eyes closed.

***

Because his personality had changed so drastically, he almost never spent time with classmates after lectures. He often wandered aimlessly, and when he finally came to his senses, he would find himself standing in front of an apartment building completely unrelated to his own.

Today again, Yeonho found himself standing in front of that apartment without realizing it. Since he kept ending up there anyway, he decided to stop resisting and just follow where his body led. When his fingers moved, he entered the building entrance code. The door opened. In the elevator, he let his fingers decide the floor.

When he stepped off, he turned instinctively toward the door on the left. He raised his hand to the keypad and unconsciously entered the passcode. 20180616.

Would the door open? If it did, would someone from his lost memories come walking out? But soon the keypad beeped with an error. Yeonho didn’t leave right away. He stood there for a moment longer.

A voice came from the intercom.

“Who is it?”

It was an unfamiliar man’s voice. Had this person been a lover? Probably not. If there had been any connection between them, he wouldn’t have asked who it was after seeing Yeonho’s face on the video screen. He would have opened the door without a word.

Yeonho politely apologized.

“I’m sorry. I must have gotten the wrong floor.”

Then he left quietly.

He wandered off in a daze and ended up in a residential neighborhood. He wandered aimlessly between high-fenced houses with private gardens and tight security. He stopped in front of one home, staring blankly at the wall. A nameplate on the gate read, in elegant gold lettering, [Kim Joongseok, Woo Siyeon].

He felt like he was supposed to find someone here. Like he had to. But he didn’t know who or why. He cried like a child who had let go of their parents’ hand and gotten lost. Crying in the street as an adult was embarrassing, so he hid his face with both hands.

Even when he took the sleeping pills as prescribed by the hospital, they did nothing. His second brother, who had returned from studying abroad and was now caring for him, began bringing extra pills privately.

The longer he stayed awake, the harder it became to function. He knew it wasn’t right, but when the spare pills were right in front of him, he couldn’t resist. Just this once, he thought, and took more than the allowed dosage.

That night, Yeonho fell asleep for the first time in a while, and in that short sleep, he had a blissful dream.

A sweet scent, a strong body, but soft skin and gentle hands. That person appeared. Siwoo, the one Yeonho had been longing for. He ran toward him and threw himself into his arms.

“Hyung, why aren’t you by my side? I’m struggling so much. When are you coming back? Should I go to you? Where are you? Where should I go to find you? I’ve always been in the same place.”

Siwoo didn’t say anything. He just held him. So Yeonho clung to him even tighter and pleaded.

“I can’t live without you anymore. I ended up like this after all. We’re the same now. So you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I wanted you to fall apart, but now I’m the one who did. How does it feel? Satisfying?”

He reached up and traced Siwoo’s beautiful face with trembling fingers. The familiar sensation made him cry and smile at the same time.

“I tried to find a reason to live… but I couldn’t. Except for one. The hope that one day you’d come back to me. That’s the only reason I have to keep breathing…”

Still, Siwoo said nothing. Afraid he might disappear, Yeonho wrapped his arms around him and held him tight.

“When we meet again, I won’t let you go.”

Even with Yeonho’s promise, Siwoo gently pulled away and turned his back. Yeonho tried to follow, but his feet were rooted to the ground. It felt like his heart was about to burst, like he couldn’t breathe, as he watched the person he loved turn away as if he no longer cared.

“I’ll fall apart even more while I wait. Then maybe you’ll hold me again. You won’t be able to ignore me if I’m pathetic enough.”

He whispered over and over as Siwoo’s figure faded away. I love you, I love you…

When the dream ended and Yeonho woke up, he had forgotten everything. Who had appeared, what they’d done or said. The scent, the touch, all of it vanished. None of it had been real. His face was wet with tears, but all he could remember was that, for a moment, he had felt happy.

So Yeonho reached for the spare sleeping pills again. Just to feel a happiness he couldn’t find while awake.

***

Time passed three times slower without Yeonho. Only after graduating college and returning to Korea did time begin to move normally again for Siwoo.

“I’m heading to Gangwon province in a couple days. I’m going to shoot for my graduation exhibit. Yeah, I’ll use our resort as the lodging. I’ll come back to Seoul before my hospital day. I have to pick up my meds. Me? I’m drinking alone right now. Why are you coming here? Don’t come. Bye.”

Siwoo lifted a cold glass, beads of moisture clinging to its surface, and drank deeply as he listened to the familiar voice from the table behind him.