TTDOTO 8.3

Jae-an opened his swollen eyes with difficulty and stared blankly at the ceiling. His memory was fragmented, stuttering. As he tried to recall yesterday’s events, he muttered a small curse and rubbed his cheek. Had he really clung to him saying not to abandon him…? A wave of self-disgust washed over him at the thought of mumbling nonsense while drunk.

Rolling only his eyes, he checked the clock. The sun was already high in the sky. He’d wasted the entire morning because of the hangover. Unlike other alcohol, wine was like rat poison to him.

Thinking he’d clear his head while washing, he grasped the sheets and slowly sat up. But dizziness immediately struck, his head spinning, and he tumbled back onto the bed.

He pulled the blanket around himself and curled up like a caterpillar. There was a time when he’d spring up immediately upon waking, tidying the sheets first. Somewhere along the way, he’d become lazy like a different person.

In the past, he would have thought it pathetic. But now it didn’t feel so bad. Spending long stretches of time drunk was a decent way to kill time. He wanted time to pass quickly so he’d get sick and old and die.

While lying on his side like a corpse, only blinking, his eyes met those of a woman coming out after cleaning the dressing room. Startled, Jae-an missed his chance to look away.

“You’re awake?”

A person he’d never exchanged a single word with suddenly spoke to him. His expression tensed and his body stiffened, causing the woman to panic and quickly deliver her message.

“The CEO made gomtang¹ and left it for you. He said to heat it up when you wake. Would you like it now?”

“Ah, yes….”

“Then please come out slowly.”

The bedroom door closed. Jae-an pressed hard on his racing heart. He saw the cleaning staff almost every week, yet he still felt awkward and hesitant around them.

Part of it was that he’d forgotten how to interact with people, but it was also objectively shameful.

It was these people who gathered up sheets soaked in semen, gel, and sometimes urine, washed them, and folded them back as if they were new. At least Seo Jae-rim didn’t use condoms—if he did, Jae-an wouldn’t have endured seeing trash cans full of used condoms for them to empty. The shame would have been unbearable.

After rinsing lightly with cold water, Jae-an walked straight to the dining room. The woman had laid out gomtang, a small portion of rice, and neat side dishes.

“Since you don’t eat much, I put only half a bowl of rice. Let me know if you need more. Enjoy your meal.”

He wanted to thank her, but his mouth felt parched, so he just bowed his head down and then lifted it. He picked up a spoon and sipped the soup. His queasy stomach began to settle thanks to the cool broth.

The taste was fine, but every time the cleaning staff passed nearby, Jae-an flinched. He lowered his head and hunched his shoulders, worried the bruises on his neck would show.

The reason he kept shrinking inward was obvious—they must think he was a strange person.

As far as they could see, Jae-an only spent all day clutching a tablet on the sofa or sleeping. Whenever they crossed paths, he wouldn’t make eye contact, and if they got close, he’d quickly stand and avoid them. It was obvious they thought Seo Jae-rim had picked up some defective thing from somewhere and was using him as a sex toy.

As self-loathing thoughts piled up, his appetite vanished, and the perfectly good gomtang suddenly tasted bitter. Jae-an left the food as it was and locked himself in his room. Not wanting to know how time passed, he drew the curtains and pulled the blanket over his head.

Holding his breath waiting for the cleaners to leave, Jae-an finally emerged to the living room after five in the afternoon. His eyebrows shot up as he reached for the tablet where he’d left it charging.

“Oh.”

A single cigarette sat on the tablet pad. Wondering if Seo Jae-rim had taken his desperate clinging yesterday as cute, it seemed like he’d left it as a reward before heading to work. Jae-an had fled to his room mid-meal, so he’d only just discovered this precious gift.

Grabbing the cigarette, he immediately walked out to the terrace. Following Seo Jae-rim’s method, he found the remote, turned on the ventilation system, and lit the cigarette with the lighter beside the ashtray.

Smoking while gazing at the garden spread beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass. At the end of summer, the sun was setting, caught in clouds, and the garden tinted in crimson was peaceful. The cigarette tasted good and his mood lifted. Jae-an waved his feet gently back and forth.

The leaves at the top of the tree, receiving considerable sunlight, had changed color early. With a hazy gaze on the occasionally rustling leaves, the moment Jae-an took a deep drag, a creaking sound came from somewhere. Reflexively, he turned his head toward the sound. Either he’d misheard or there was nothing there, so Jae-an focused back on the cigarette’s taste.

As he exhaled smoke through his lips, Jae-an lifted his head again. Another strange sound had come.

“What…?”

He reflexively rubbed his ears. Looking out, spreading his gaze around, he saw no dark silhouette. But the sound kept coming—intermittently, yet distinctly.

Even as he crushed the finished cigarette into the ashtray, his eyes remained fixed beyond the window. The sound was like metal scraping somewhere, like an animal’s death groan, or like a beast’s cry.

Crack.

Without hesitation, Jae-an’s hand came up and smacked his own cheek. He didn’t want to suffer from both hallucinations and strange sounds.

A stinging pain bloomed across his face. But Jae-an didn’t care and struck two more times in succession. The hit area burned. Rubbing the throbbing spot, he listened to the sound again.

“Oh, again….”

But it was definitely there. This wasn’t hallucination. The sound seemed to be coming from the garden, entering through the window, but obscured by trees, grass, and stones, he could see nothing.

To prove the sound wasn’t a hallucination, he desperately wanted to find its source.

Jae-an, who had pressed his forehead so close to the glass he was nearly crushed against it, searched for any vantage point with a better view outside. The terrace’s floor-to-ceiling glass doors didn’t open and close. The only place connecting to the outside was a small window near the ceiling.

He dragged a stool-shaped chair from the living room and stacked books from the study, one by one, on top of it.

Once he’d reached a decent height, he stepped on the wobbly stack of books and stretched out his hand. Fortunately, the window wasn’t locked, and it began to open slightly as he pushed with his fingers.

As he opened it wide, the sound became clearer. Finally, conviction took hold. Jae-an hung from the window frame, hooking his legs over the sill, and squeezed his body through. His palms began to sweat. Although it was the same first floor, there was considerable height difference from the garden. One misstep could mean injury.

Jae-an felt his way down with his toes, carefully stepping through the pillar gaps. The moment his feet touched grass, he walked toward the sound.

His dirty feet had reached a flowerbed. The sound’s source was just beyond the wall.

But the sound that had come through so clearly moments ago was now faint. Jae-an knelt and began digging into the soft earth of the flowerbed wall.

Just a little more. Just a little.

A fist-sized hole was soon opened. While frantically scrabbling through it, suddenly a sharp pain shot through his scalp as if it were being torn out, and his body was dragged backward.

“Ah, ah…!! Jae-rim!”

It was Seo Jae-rim holding his hair. Without releasing the strands he’d grabbed, he lifted Jae-an up by force like a weed being uprooted. Seo Jae-rim studied the panting Jae-an from below with a cool gaze.

“What are you doing?”

The loungewear was covered in dirt, and his face, flushed from exertion, was speckled with soil. Given that white showed everything, choosing only soft white loungewear made it look all the more of a mess.

The cold gaze examining his disheveled state landed on his cheek, marked with red handprints.

“Who hit your cheek?”

“I, I did it myself….”

Jae-an became more anxious under the icy stare. Did he think he was trying to escape? Desperate not to be misunderstood, his words wouldn’t come out properly and his tongue tangled.

“It’s just that… I… you gave me that cigarette earlier. And when I was smoking, I heard a sound, so at first I thought I misheard it….”

“Never mind that. How did you get out?”

“Through, through the window. Using a chair, I climbed over….”

“You climbed out that high with just a chair?”

“Adding some, some books on top….”

“If I don’t break your other leg too, you won’t speak straight, will you?”

“No, the sound, I heard it, I wasn’t trying to go out. Ah ah….”

The hand pulling his hair tightened its grip. With the threat of breaking his other leg, fear bloomed across Jae-an’s pupils. Unable to explain properly, stumbling over his words, he even resorted to gestures, pointing frantically past the hole again and again.

“No, no. There was a sound, coming from there…. I thought I was going crazy…. Sorry. But the sound was really….”

Faced with Jae-an’s desperate gestures, Seo Jae-rim finally tilted his head. The old, blocked drainage hole that Jae-an had been digging at while lying on the dirt ground—Seo Jae-rim released his hair and walked closer to it. The flimsy stick had nearly punctured the garden wall, evidence of how hard Jae-an had dug.

“You’re small and cute, that’s true. But you’re not getting out through a hole this fucking small, are you?”

“No, no…. I wasn’t trying to get out. There was a sound outside, and I just wanted to see what it was….”

“I knew you were crazy, but are you really this fucking stupid? What was there, for fuck’s sake.”

Jae-an hated that Seo Jae-rim didn’t believe him. His resentment rose to the limit and, trembling with emotion, he clenched his fists and shouted.

“I’m not crazy…!!”

Suddenly raising his voice, his neck corded, Jae-an even stomped his feet.

“There was a sound!! There was definitely a strange sound coming from there!!”

“…….”

“I can’t get out, so I just wanted to check…!!”

Turning his head to look at the hole, Jae-an quickly lowered his voice. If he shouted now, the sound he’d heard might not reach Seo Jae-rim.

“It’s gotten much quieter now, but… you too, please, listen…!”

Jae-an walked to the garden wall and pressed his ear firmly against it. But as time passed, no sound came. Only the screech of car wheels on asphalt or the hum of a motorcycle engine. Seo Jae-rim let out a hollow laugh.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“No, it was definitely…. Let me, let me go check.”

Seo Jae-rim lightly brushed away Jae-an’s outstretched hand.

“How sneaky.”

“L-Let’s go together. Just to check once.”

He tried to pull Seo Jae-rim toward the gate again, grabbing his forearms with both hands and dragging him, but Seo Jae-rim naturally wouldn’t budge. After struggling a few times, Jae-an’s eyebrows drooped downward.

“P-Please.”

His large brown eyes searched for Seo Jae-rim’s reaction before his small voice hurried to add.

“I, I love you. Okay?”

At the words “I love you,” Seo Jae-rim’s brow furrowed.

“That sounds like a strange habit.”

Though he was being sarcastic, his tone had subtly softened. Seo Jae-rim moved forward and opened the gate. Jae-an hurried ahead.

Walking while checking the garden wall, Jae-an suddenly ran, then stopped abruptly in one spot. Approaching, Seo Jae-rim followed his gaze.

Shaggy fur came into view first. More precisely, white fur matted with blood. A dog lay collapsed on the roadside. Turning with a startled face, Jae-an spoke to Seo Jae-rim.

“What do we do…?”

“What do you mean, what do we do.”

“It, it seems alive.”

Though bleeding slightly, the stomach could be seen rising and falling. It had probably barked several times after first being hit. That sound must have been what he heard, and as time passed and its strength faded, it simply lay there like something dead.

“A veterinary hospital…. We have to go.”

“When you’re sick, you won’t go even if you have to die.”

“If it dies like this, what then.”

Seo Jae-rim sighed. He didn’t dislike dogs, but now he had no desire to care for anything. He’d already rushed straight home after seeing the location tracker show movement beyond the house boundary. Jae-an stared at Seo Jae-rim’s reluctant expression and suddenly muttered with bloodshot eyes.

“You can’t abandon something weak and hurting.”

“…….”

“If I become weaker and more hurt… will you abandon me then?”

Seeing the resentment overflowing in his pupils, Seo Jae-rim laughed a beat late.

“Sorry, but Hyung abandoned me first.”

“…….”

“I guess I was so merciless about it because I was strong and didn’t hurt.”

Seo Jae-rim gestured toward the dog.

“We’re taking this one to the hospital and keeping it if it recovers.”

“A, adoption to someone else who’s…”

Seo Jae-rim cut off Jae-an’s words with a firm voice.

“You shouldn’t pick something up without responsibility in the first place.”

“…….”

“You know. How you end up picking something up irresponsibly and not following through…. Look at what state you’re in.”

The sharp tone made Jae-an’s breathing catch. Staring at the white dog, Jae-an eventually squeezed his eyes shut.

He knew. He knew his own soft nature—easily drawn to anything pitiful and weak, struggling to see responsibility through to the end. But with this creature possibly still alive, he couldn’t turn away. He wasn’t sure he could raise it well, but he could at least feed it.

“If you, if you allow it, I’ll raise it, responsibly…”

“You won’t even eat your own meals properly. What are you going to raise.”

“I, I’ll eat.”

Seemingly not expecting that answer, Seo Jae-rim’s eyebrows rose slightly and his lips relaxed.

“The dog needs to be walked every day, you know?”

“…….”

“Will you be able to go outside? In this condition?”

Jae-an, who feared going outside, was growing increasingly pathetic and gaunt. Already lacking muscle from no exercise, and with his legs becoming skeletal since the ankle injury, he hadn’t noticed Seo Jae-rim’s gentle persuasion disguised as a condition. He just nodded immediately.

“Yeah. I’ll walk it. For exercise too….”

“Promise?”

“Yeah. So stop talking and let’s go to the hospital. If we don’t, it’ll really die.”

Finally, Seo Jae-rim bent his knees and picked up the dog with his hands. At the whimpering cry of pain, Jae-an bit his lip then released it.

“That was the sound.”

Jae-an suddenly spoke as Seo Jae-rim turned his head. So the sound he’d kept talking about was from this dog. It was impressive that he’d heard it.

“You have good ears.”

“That’s not it. I’m not disabled….”

Jae-an’s whole body was covered in dirt, red handprints running down from his cheek to his neck, his breathing oddly accelerated. Watching that precarious expression, Seo Jae-rim closed his eyes and smiled.

“I understand. Still, you shouldn’t have gone out on your own like that.”

“…Yeah.”

Seo Jae-rim handed the dog to Jae-an and headed to the driver’s seat. Jae-an, busy arranging and holding the dog, was distracted.