Chapter 95

It didn’t take long for me to calm down. However, it took quite a while for me to be able to lift my head. My condition was still not great, and my head was spinning, but thanks to the IV in my arm, I was slowly becoming aware of my surroundings.

In a different sense from before, I started to feel a little like I wanted to die.

“Hey, how long are you going to keep that up? Come on out.”

“Stop it…”

Gang Hwa-won shook the blanket I was under. I tried to resist, but I couldn’t stop Hwa-won from pulling the blanket away again.

“Wow, your face looks terrible.”

“Shut up.”

“Since you’re talking, I guess you’re feeling a bit better? Aren’t you completely fine now?”

“I’m still a patient.”

“Your outfit says otherwise.”

Hwa-won looked over my loose patient gown. I felt kind of dirty. Still, it was much better than showing the clothes I wore when I came here. Naturally, I had come here in a skirt just like yesterday.

When I showed my face, Hwa-won got up from the bed. I leaned back comfortably against the hospital bed, and the two of them stood by watching me.

Maybe they thought the situation had come to an end, as Muk Ha-neul opened her mouth.

“First of all, both of you are okay, right?”

“Can’t you see?”

Despite Hwa-won’s sarcasm, Muk Ha-neul looked relieved.

“That’s a relief. I was worried.”

“Muk Ha-neul.”

“Yes?”

But I wasn’t going to let it go that easily.

“You said you would protect me.”

“Ugh.”

“You said I could relax if I just trusted you.”

I knew it was childish whining. Both of them must have realized that it wasn’t something I would normally say. Yet, I had already shown my embarrassing side, and it was too late to hide it. I never would have whined like this in any other situation.

Sometimes I wanted to try being a bit petulant.

“I-I’m sorry. But I really didn’t expect it. How could I think that you’d suddenly pop out right when I made the call?”

“Idiot.”

“Huh?”

“Dummy.”

It felt awkward to be scolding Muk Ha-neul like a child, but what could I do? On the surface, I was acting like a child. It didn’t seem all that out of place.

“…You seem a bit better now.”

“I don’t know.”

Hwa-won made a comment about my tantrum.

“You’re acting like a child.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

They say a man is a child no matter how many years pass. Since I’m a man, I can just be a child. It wasn’t particularly strange logic. I spat out words without much thought.

“By the way, I actually didn’t hear the details. What’s wrong with you? I only heard it was a serious illness before you hung up.”

“The doctor will talk once he sees the condition, but he said I could be discharged tomorrow. It might take a bit longer because of that, though.”

“What do you mean by ‘that’?”

Hwa-won asked a silly question, and I opened my mouth without thinking, thinking this had all come to an end. It was almost a reflexive response.

“My period.”

“What?”

Only after saying it did I realize something was off. Hwa-won questioned me back, his expression one of shock. Muk Ha-neul beside him looked just as flabbergasted.

Only after seeing their expressions did I realize I had made a mistake.

I had never told Hwa-won that I was currently on my period.

Hwa-won had just come to visit after confirming that I was in pain. I had been lying in bed wearing a patient gown, so it wouldn’t have occurred to him that I might be on my period.

Naturally, even if Muk Ha-neul dragged Hwa-won into it like a fool, I wouldn’t have blabbed about being on my period. Seeing Hwa-won with a similar expression showed that Muk Ha-neul probably hadn’t conveyed it properly in the first place.

In the end, the conclusion was reached.

Guilty party: me.

Arrest.

“No. Hey, what are you doing?”

I pulled the blanket back up and hid. It was a rehash of the tragic scene I thought had ended. Still, I didn’t feel as miserable as before. Hwa-won sighed without shaking me, and I could hide comfortably and discreetly.

Maybe that’s why? For just today, I could accept this changed appearance just a little bit.

A little, really just a little.

No, very little.

Just a tiny bit.

~

Seol-guk, looking pitiful, rolled up in the blanket and fell asleep. Naturally, I couldn’t just leave him like that, so I stood up to pull Seol-guk out of the blanket.

“Wait a minute, what are you doing?”

“What do you mean, I need to let the kid breathe.”

“I’ll do it, so you can go away.”

“What does it matter who does it?”

Muk Ha-neul blocking me as she insisted on doing it herself was annoying. There weren’t many women bold enough to show their displeasure so obviously, so this was probably something she was used to.

“It matters. You’re a woman right now, you know.”

“And so what?”

“It’s really important.”

I couldn’t understand her words. Seol-guk was just Seol-guk. He wasn’t a snow-covered land, nor was he some character in a story. He wasn’t a man right now, and certainly not a woman either.

“Furthermore, don’t you think there’s something ethically and morally wrong with this scene? A grown man touching a young girl?”

“Shut up.”

Despite my words, I ended up taking a step back reluctantly. I didn’t sympathize with Muk Ha-neul’s words, but I was worried that I might cause a ruckus and wake Seol-guk.

A young girl.

The term ‘young girl’ was nonsense, but the fact of being young wasn’t entirely incorrect.

While it’s said that no matter how grown up, a man is still a child, a boy must eventually become a man.

He had to take on the name of adulthood.

Seol-guk was not one of them.

Seol-guk had not escaped his boyhood. He wasn’t even a boy, for Seol-guk’s time was still stuck in that cold single-room.

It was an exceedingly clear story.

At times, I felt as if I were still back to when I witnessed my mother having intercourse with another man in my childhood.

Seol-guk had gone through experiences even harsher than this, and it was clear that the frozen time had yet to thaw.

I didn’t pity him for that. If I had pitied Seol-guk, we wouldn’t have become friends in the first place.

We were just talking about each other’s trauma like this.

Right?

Yeah.

So, we just knew each other, and didn’t pity one another. The moment the emotion of pity is included, that relationship ceases to be friendship.

I could feel inferiority, jealousy, annoyance, anger, gratitude, and joy.

But not pity. That could never happen.

So I don’t say to Seol-guk, “You must become an adult, boy.” I just chose to drink together beside him, pretending to be an adult.

Not being able to become an adult isn’t wrong. I was merely living with the indulgence of being a child for a while longer.

So with just a little, leaving a trace of tears and sleeping with a peaceful face, a slightly flushed red face, it didn’t seem so out of place for Seol-guk.

“What are you staring at like a pervert?”

“The biggest regret of my life is when I tried to get at you in your freshman year. If I’d known you were such a sly girl, I wouldn’t have bothered at all. Do you always put on a facade in front of Seol-guk?”

“It’s a woman’s weapon.”

Despite everything, it wasn’t as if my relationship with Muk Ha-neul was as bad as it sounded. In college, we weren’t very close. And even now, it wasn’t exactly the same, but at least we weren’t in this kind of relationship back then.

We became close only after returning to my father’s house, after meeting at that strange party with my father. Naturally, our words weren’t gentle during that time, but at least we maintained some form of etiquette.

However, given that we had Seol-guk in common, we eventually ended up talking a bit, and that was my mistake.

Seol-guk had clearly had feelings for Muk Ha-neul before. For him, that was a definite sign. Of course, unrefined feelings are no different from a primary school boy bullying a girl he likes, but whatever the case, Muk Ha-neul liked Seol-guk too, so their relationship was somewhat decent.

However, ever since Seol-guk has become like this, it became unknown. Seol-guk and Muk Ha-neul still seemed to have feelings for one another, but now there was no way to prove it.

So I tried to say something to help a bit, but I never thought she would turn out to be a snake.

I’d sensed that she was unusual during college, but it was clear that Muk Ha-neul was not normal.

“You speak as if you’re the sane one.”

“I’m perfectly fine. I’m good-looking, have a lot of money, sociable, and I write well.”

“Senior, your writing is terrible.”

“You’re not denying the other things, are you?”

“If you had said my character was good, I would have denied it.”

Muk Ha-neul let out a deep sigh.

“I don’t understand why you haven’t been MeToo’d yet. You’ve been caught cheating several times after all.”

“I’m not an idiot like you, so I can satisfy everyone. It hasn’t always ended well, but if I soothe them later, they forgive me. And I’ve only done the three-timing once.”

“I thought about it a bit, but how about I MeToo you? No one would suspect it, and it seems to have a high success rate. It would also be good for the public interest.”

“Do you want to cut off negotiations with me?”

“No, no, that way we’d end the negotiations ourselves. Are you stupid, senior?”

While Seol-guk showed a bit of restraint when awake, he immediately revealed his true colors when with me. He showed quite a bit of aggression towards me, and I didn’t really have a reason to return it.

“No matter how much I think about it, you and Seol-guk together were the worst synergy. It felt like you both were rotting away together. Truly, a woman’s enemy.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“That’s an insult.”

It was a conversation resembling a curse; no, it was indeed a curse? In any case, as the conversation came to an end, we both stared blankly at the bed. Muk Ha-neul had tidied him up comfortably, and Seol-guk was sleeping peacefully.

“Hey.”

“Don’t call me. It gives me a negative vibe.”

“Did you know I’d come when you called from the lobby?”

Ignoring Muk Ha-neul’s nonsense, I brought up the question that had been bothering me.

I had suspected it from earlier. It was such a silly situation that, honestly, it didn’t make sense to me even after being caught. I couldn’t even understand why she had needed to call me in the first place, as it meant I wouldn’t have been able to find her anyway if she hadn’t.

“That was really a coincidence. And you should have thanked me for the call. I was worried you might waste time looking for me, so I thought about you.”

“You? Worried? About me?”

It was a lie that didn’t even make sense.

“To be honest, I just wanted to mock you, right? I thought it would be funny to see you running around looking for me.”

“Is it fun to play with people?”

“Well, the scene of you two shooting a third-rate youth movie earlier was a bit amusing. Don’t you think being a writer suits you better?”

“Try saying that in front of Seol-guk.”

“What do you mean? When did I say anything strange?”

“Tch.”

Knowing Seol-guk’s character, even if he realized Muk Ha-neul’s true nature, he wouldn’t want to cut ties with her. There was no need to force it, especially when things were going well. Still, honestly, I sometimes wanted to expose Muk Ha-neul’s annoying side.

…but I didn’t do that because she was still being helpful to Seol-guk.

“Is it true that you got your period?”

“I just found out today. I came to visit because you said you were in pain, and, um, you know, you looked like that. They said there was nothing seriously wrong after you went to the hospital yesterday. Somehow, your condition suddenly worsened today. Didn’t they do proper tests at that hospital?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Things just happened.”

“It feels a bit unpleasant.”

“Oh, I should have recorded this.”

“It’s not about Seol-guk, you crazy girl. I’m just saying this illness feels unpleasant.”

Still, a friend.

With words like that, I tried to validate Seol-guk.

However, it’s hard to say that all of my words came from a pure heart.

That certainly wasn’t my true feelings. That was merely my wish.

No matter how Seol-guk changed, I just wanted to remain as nothing more than friends.

However, Seol-guk was changing regardless. And he had no will of his own in that change.

The fact that change happens against one’s will and desires is a terrible, unsettling thing.

During our earlier conversation, Seol-guk definitely wasn’t in his previous state. It wasn’t that he looked like a woman.

It was as if he had lost his mask.

The mask of adulthood that Seol-guk had been wearing.

He looked like a child.

Cute, annoying, foolish, pathetic, and pitiful.

Was I giving him another chance to grow after he had failed to grow properly? If it could even be called a chance, it was too sinister and violent.

To someone who couldn’t grow, who wasn’t growing, who had given up on growing, forcing them to grow was awfully cruel.

I, the one bringing forth this story filled with deception, was the most ruthless.

Of course, I didn’t voice these thoughts to Muk Ha-neul. I just kept them to myself.

“What are you thinking about that feels unpleasant?”

“I was thinking about you.”

“Ugh.”

I guess I couldn’t curse after all. I tried to leave the hospital room, but Muk Ha-neul stopped me.

“Where are you going?”

“To smoke.”

I had told Seol-guk that I had quit, but how easy is quitting smoking? I had started again a while ago. Right now, I felt that if I didn’t hit a smoke, I wouldn’t be able to endure the situation.

But before I could fully open the hospital door, I heard a knock.

“Are you there?”

It was a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. I wondered if she was a nurse, so I opened the door while saying, “Yes?” and found a woman in a suit standing there. I had seen her once before. While we hadn’t introduced ourselves, we had exchanged glances as we passed by. Personally, I found her appealing.

The woman Seol-guk had mentioned, a National Intelligence Service employee, Ham Yejin.

For some reason, she seemed to be gazing more at something behind me than at me. When I turned around, Muk Ha-neul had a similar expression.

There was something oddly familiar about her.

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