Chapter Text
...Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata
et velata
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris...
Burning feelings tore thin living tissues from within, flowed through veins, flooding the heart valves with their frankness. Such pain always made people feel alive - that is why others were so eager to inflict it on those they loved. To share a piece of feelings, to raise happiness in the skies, and then watch a person slowly drowning in the need for more. Pain forcibly shoved the feeling of love into their hands. But human fingers were clenched into fists tightly - no one wanted to accept such a terrible gift, deciding that it was not worth it. Their fingers were broken off, demonstrating pale palms unstained by feelings, and it still ended up with it, pain, whether they wanted it or not.
And finally - pain with its inconstancy, its passive reminder of itself, forced a person to go through unthinkable metamorphoses, to look in the mirror - a clear expanse of water - and scream at the reflection distorted by love: "What happened to you?!"
And what happened to you, Jongwoo?
The winter night was beautifully located outside the window, fluffy snow weightlessly followed the gusts of wind, and bright decorations inside other houses created coziness and a post-New Year mood.
Jongwoo loved winter before, before he moved to Seoul to a rented room in a dorm, before he had to wrap himself in three layers of clothes just to stop his fingers from shaking and hit the right letters on the keyboard, like a pianist on the keys. He finished writing a chapter of the novel on a rhetorical question, not knowing how to slowly develop the consequences of the main character's choice so that it would not look far-fetched, too far-fetched.
Instead of a majestic explosion of personal feelings eventually turning into a solemn apotheosis, the end of a hard-won story, the end of the main character's life cycle - inside there was only emptiness, a hole instead of a missing piece of the puzzle. Pain without omnipresent love.
Right now, Jongwoo was clutching the ringing phone with his frozen hands until his knuckles turned white. The beeps of some number of calls cut through the silence of the small room, accompanied by his hoarse breathing.
“Jungman, pick up the phone, damn it!” Jongwoo's fingers loudly tapped out a rhythm on the screen; he nervously bit his plump lower lip while waiting for an answer. Suddenly, the phone went silent, Jongwoo rejoiced - finally the call was accepted, but his fragile hopes were dashed the next second by a notification from the answering machine:
"Hello, it's me - Yoon Jungman. I'm a little busy right now and can't answer your call. Please leave me a message after the beep."
His brother's overly cheerful voice was interrupted and the characteristic sound of the beginning of a recording sounded. Jongwoo swallowed and pressed his lips to the speaker.
“Jungman, hi, sorry for calling so late, it's Jongwoo. You sent me a bit of an ambiguous message last night and stopped answering, I wanted to check if everything was okay or if I should come over? Please call me back as soon as you can, I'm worried about you and mom. Good night to you,” nervousness wrapped Jongwoo in a nasty web, a bad feeling notifying that something was blatantly wrong. And the boy himself was far from stable when he jumped up from a cheap wooden chair and with surprising force turned it over on the floor.
“How fucking annoying!” A loud screeching noise interrupted the answering machine's response about the end of the recording, and Jongwoo continued to vent his panicked experiences on an innocent object. He kicked the flimsy back of the chair and it flew off somewhere to the other corner of the room. He reached for it, clutched the wood tightly in his hands and began to lash it furiously at the remaining parts of the furniture, not only the chair, but also the bed, the table, almost touching the recently repaired laptop.
Blind rage and hysteria overwhelmed Jongwoo with previously unseen force. He felt as if he was put on a Ferris wheel and spun at the speed of light. Jongwoo felt sick, it seemed that he was about to throw up, but he held back when he saw that the phone lighted up from an incoming call. He found it somewhere between the splinters of the chair and looking at them, he felt sad to the point of tears. He bought this chair with a gritting heart with his first salary from Jaeho's company when he first moved to Seoul, since the previous one that the room offered had rotten legs.
Jongwoo grabbed his phone again, hoping that his brother would call him back, but the screen showed the name of another contact - "Jieun ♡" - and he relaxed his shoulders, although not completely. The panic faded into the background a little when he picked up the phone.
"Oppa?" came uncertainly from the speaker along with some other extraneous noise. Jongwoo felt truly awkward, since the clock, when he had just started worrying about his brother, showed 2:45 in the morning, and now it was even more so 3:03.
"Jieun? Hello! Sorry for calling so late, I’m..." The guy paused to swallow the lump in his throat along with the unspoken words...
"Scared."
"The thing is, my brother and mom don't answer my calls, and he also wrote me a strange farewell message and after that stopped contacting me altogether. I think something might have happened to him and I'm really worried," Jongwoo quickly chattered about all the events, afraid that the girl would hang up without hearing anything intelligible. Jieun continued to remain silent, and this made the guy start winding himself up again.
The miraculous cure for panic that Jieun brought him with her call immediately evaporated completely as soon as he heard her answer:
“Oppa, I really don't want to say this... but don't you think that this is somehow connected to your brother's illness again?” The words were sometimes interrupted by an unusual noise from the speakers, what else could it be. Maybe something happened to her phone? Jieun took a breath and continued:
"Think about it, it's not the first time he's bothering you in the middle of the night because of his episode, and it's all because you let him. Your mother is with him in the same house, and she really takes care of him every day, so she can rest at such a late hour and that's why she doesn't answer, you need to understand her too."
To understand? He himself is perfectly aware of everything, but it doesn't kill the despair devouring his mind. This case is different. Definitely. Brother has never written to him with such determination. Jongwoo, as an unpublished writer, was able to thoroughly feel his words and they felt like... remorse. As if they were written by some religious fanatic who finally understood the meaning of existence.
"He has bipolar disorder and epilepsy; I can't just ignore it. Look, this may sound crazy, but I really feel like something is wrong right now. Please, Jieun, believe me,” in the last sentence, Jongwoo's voice trembled, the sounds broke, making him look even more pathetic in her eyes.
Along with this, something inside of him broke.
“It's already late, Jongwoo. Let's discuss this tomorrow? We have to get up for work early in the morning, you clearly need to rest, and then you can contact your family. I'm sure they're okay, and...” The girl sounded tired, even exhausted, but there was not a drop of sleepiness in her voice. She fell silent at the beginning of the sentence and did not dare to finish. Jongwoo noted that this was not the first time she tried to tell him something important, but so far without success.
Along with this, something broke into their already crippled relationship.
“Okay, maybe you're right. The morning is wiser than the evening,” Jongwoo laughed sadly. “By the way, are we meeting after work tomorrow?”
“...tomorrow? Did we plan to?” Jieun hesitated, which made Jongwoo's proposal even more dubious in his eyes.
“No, but... I just wanted to see you; we haven't spent time together in a long time? If you want, of course,” the boy finished even more hesitantly, sorting through the wooden chips on the floor like counting sticks - this had a calming effect on him.
“Mm, okay, I don't mind," the girl answered, and her voice sounded distant, as if she had moved the phone away from her face. “Okay, see you tomorrow. Good night, Oppa.”
“Good night to you, too.”
Jieun hung up, and Jongwoo decided to reread the correspondence with his younger brother again to dispel his premonition and get the opportunity to sleep a little before the workday.
"[2:30] Jungman:
Jongwoo, I think I finally understood something important - the reason why our family is doomed to eternal suffering. I'm sorry that I didn't notice what was already out of control right under my nose. I am also the culprit of the darkness within our family, but you still have hope for salvation. Mom is coming with me. Goodbye, we love you.
[2:46] You:
What is going on there? Did you fight with Mom again? What got into your head this time? You need to cool down and not do stupid things.
[2:52] You:
What do you mean, Jungman? Please answer me. I'm worried about you.
[2:56] You:
Answer my messages or calls! Should I come over???
[3:00] You:
Jungman?"
And not a single message was viewed.
Jongwoo sank down on the floor, exhausted, his head raised to the ceiling. Staring aimlessly at the outlines of the round lamp, he involuntarily wondered why he had such misfortune. Why, after moving to Seoul, he was accompanied only by bad luck and an empty, lonely room. Jieun had told him many times since he moved in not to take everything to heart and not to bend over for others, because such people would not survive in Seoul - the locals and those who settled in would eat them alive and not choke.
But the truth is that he had not met Jieun even once in almost two weeks since his move. The girl was constantly busy at work and canceled their dates more confidently than she made appointments.
How could he stay strong when the feeling of loneliness was creeping deeper and deeper inside him? And if before it could be calmed by gatherings with his family, dates with Jieun or even going out to bars with friends from his military days, now it was eating him up from the inside, forcing him to panic and press his back into bed. Jongwoo didn’t even notice how unpleasantly he scraped his fingers on the floor, running his nails over the unevenness of the wooden flooring, how tightly he squeezed his eyelids, being in the relatively anxious darkness. He didn’t notice until the moment when he heard a clear, rhythmic knock on the door of his room.
Instantly opening his eyes and tearing his palms off the floor, he stared intently at the door, as if trying to drive away the uninvited guest with just the power of thought. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the knock was repeated. Cursing everything in the world, Jongwoo with a tired sigh was finally able to get up from his seat and went to open it.
The unlubricated hinges creaked, and the door opened. A man was standing in the doorway. His tall figure towered ominously over Jongwoo. He was dressed in completely black clothes, a turtleneck and trousers covering everything below his head except for his palms and bare feet, which stood out in contrast to the darkness with a special pallor. At first, Jongwoo did not dare to raise his head and examine the guest's face, but soon changed his mind - he raised his eyes as soon as the man spoke:
“Your watch has stopped” the man's voice was low, probably with a hoarseness from waking up after sleeping. Or as happens with those who have talked for too long without stopping. Jongwoo felt guilty for the fact that he probably served as the main reason for his wakefulness at such a late hour.
“Ehm, excuse me...?” Jongwoo hesitated, not quite understanding why this was said. The discouragement must have been reflected on his face, because the man's expression became softer, a slight, simple smile appeared on his lips, and a cheerful curiosity flickered in his gaze from under his half-opened long eyelashes.
"It's already 3:33 a.m., and yours stopped at 3:04," the man innocently noted, turning his gaze from his wristwatch to the table clock in Jongwoo's room, reminiscent of a wheel in its shape and frame. Jongwoo followed the stranger's gaze and stared there in surprise - the dial really did show the said time. The boy blinked and for a split second it seemed to him that the four had changed back to three. He blinked again - everything was as it was before.
Jongwoo again felt the man's studying gaze on him - sliding, but not unpleasant. It was unusual, even awkward, to be so unceremoniously examined, as if trying to unravel the mystery inside.
"He's strange," the thought involuntarily slipped through the boy's head as he measured the man with an ambiguous look. Having finally examined the stranger's face, Jongwoo was struck by its contradictory features. Silky hair the color of a raven's wing absorbed all the passing light. Eyes black in the darkness of the night, framed by long eyelashes, looked at him with a look whose meaning was difficult to interpret. Jongwoo's attention was captured by the movement, and he stared at heart-shaped lips, now curved in a slight smile.
"Would you like to have a beer with me?" a low voice sounded through the fog and Jongwoo blinked in surprise, as if released from a trance.
"Uhm..?" complete confusion. “Please accept my sincere apologies if I caused you any inconvenience with my noise, it won't happen again, I promise,” Jongwoo answered sincerely, obvious fatigue still reflected on his face.
“It's okay, you didn't wake me up. So, what about my proposition?” The man's tone was fakely polite and soft, but Jongwoo was in no mood to exchange pleasantries with the new neighbor - worries about his family had exhausted him and taken all the strength from his body. And just as he was about to open his mouth to politely refuse, he was interrupted:
“I have a feeling that you need to relax. Let me keep you company for a while and we can completely avoid this awkward situation. I was not the first of the residents to knock on your door. It must have been fate that you opened the door for me, don't you think?” The man said with a note of amusement in his voice. A heavy gaze slid across Jongwoo's face, but it didn't cause the expected discomfort.
Was it true what the man said? Was he really so mired in his own thoughts and attempts to call at least someone that he didn't pay attention to the sounds from outside the room. Perhaps he was really lucky that he managed to open the door to this stranger, who knows how violent the reaction of other neighbors would have been. Jongwoo would rather go to hell and back without looking back than experience such shame for himself.
But in all the short time he lived here, Jongwoo never met a single resident of the dorm besides this... scary man.
Just a coincidence, he will definitely meet someone else. Definitely.
He will meet someone, right?
“Look... Excuse me, what is your name?” It suddenly became clear that they hadn't even introduced themselves to each other yet.
“Seo Moonjo. May I know your name?” The man's smile grew even wider; its outlines reflected the glare of Jongwoo's eyes.
“My name is Yoon Jongwoo, nice to meet you,” followed by an awkward answer.
In confirmation of his words, he received an agreeable nod from Moonjo, as if he had just confirmed some guess, and a strange, too trusting tilt of the head. During this time, the black eyes never took their gaze off him. In front of the man waiting for an answer, Jongwoo felt like an ill-mannered vegetarian at a cannibal feast. The guilt for causing the inconvenience was still scratching at his insides, so he gave in and quickly changed the subject.
“Should we go to a convenience store or...” Moonjo didn't let Jongwoo finish, as if he was deeply offended by such a suggestion. However, his voice remained viscous and soft, clearly flattered by Jongwoo's quick agreement.
"Luck has definitely smiled at us today, I just happen to have a few cans in the fridge," Moonjo said enthusiastically and added: “Give me a minute, I'll go get them from the kitchen.”
Jongwoo categorically disagreed with his conclusion - his entire day looked like something cursed by bad luck. Although he had to admit that he didn't resent Moonjo's company, he didn't feel any obvious affection for her either. Luckily, it wasn't someone more aggressively inclined, and thank goodness for that, he was able to handle the forced short-term company.
"Okay," Jongwoo answered quietly, watching the man silently retreat.
"Shibal," popped into his thoughts as soon as he had digested what he had just agreed to. He had to get up for work in less than four hours, and Jongwoo had naively taken the offer of a drink.
He grabbed the phone lying on the floor and began to panic and think about how to get out of this situation. It was not too late to change his mind: blame it on fatigue and a busy day, which would not be an exaggeration. And just as he gathered his strength to go out to the kitchen to Moonjo and politely explain himself, his periphery grabbed onto the remains of a chair. The thought of the crash with which he had thrown it around the room was enough for the guilt to begin to gnaw at him from within with even greater gusto. Jongwoo hated it when people made his life more difficult and inconvenient. He was already having a hard time after moving. That's why the image of him doing this to an innocent person depressed him. Especially when Moonjo pretended not to care. He wondered if he could appreciate the chaos that Jongwoo's room was in before he noticed the clock.
Quickly shoving the boards deeper under his bed, and on his phone, opening the chat with the contact "Jaeho (Prick)", Jongwoo wrote with a resigned sigh:
"[3:37] You:
I'll be 3 hours late today. I need to go and send a package to my family before work, something happened there. I'll work and stay overtime."
Standing in the middle of the room with a phone in his hand, Jongwoo didn't notice how Moonjo had snuck up on him from behind. The man decided to touch his shoulder with the edge of the can, attracting his attention, which made the boy flinch in surprise.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Is everything okay?” Regret appeared on the man's face, which looked very strange, unnatural on him.
Jongwoo was in no condition to understand other people's emotions. All he wanted was to quickly finish off the beer, say goodbye to the imposed company and fall into a restless sleep so that in the morning he could send some of his savings and treats to his mother and brother.
“Everything is fine. I just didn't expect any overnight guests, as such. We can settle down on the bed if that suits you. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to buy a chair yet,” Jongwoo lied extremely politely, trying not to show his displeasure that someone would be sitting on his bed. After moving, he began to treat his personal belongings too carefully, trying not to let anyone near them (especially the computer!). Whether it was because he owned so little and it was so insignificant, or it was something else, he didn't know.
However, Moonjo surprised him, as if reading his thoughts, and answered:
“I would prefer to settle on the floor, to be honest. Since they turned on the heating, I'm constantly tormented by the heat. As if the room was not 23 degrees, but at least a thousand.”
Jongwoo's face softened with inexplicable gratitude for understanding. Okay, maybe the time would not pass so terribly.
They settled down on the floor, which was noticeably cold, Jongwoo did not show that he, dressed in thin white pajamas, was shivering, only because he did not want to move to bed.
"What do you do for a living?" Jongwoo decided to start with the safest questions to somehow brighten the atmosphere. He awkwardly took a sip of beer, which Moonjo had previously opened and handed to him. The sip was larger than it should have been done out of decency but guided by the fact that the faster he drinks it, the sooner it will end, Jongwoo did not care about any norms.
"By profession I am a dentist, but for three years now I have been teaching abroad - I gather people who want to listen to my work, my creativity. I just recently returned from India," a measured and polished answer. Moonjo shrugged, looking uninterested in his own story. Suddenly, Jongwoo had a sneaking suspicion that the man would have responded more interestedly to stories about Jongwoo's life. The thought was absurdly stupid and groundless.
"For a person who is constantly under the scorching subequatorial sun, you are somehow suspiciously not tanned," a joking comment unconsciously escaped Jongwoo's lips and only later did he realize what he had said when he heard Moonjo's light laughter. The sound seemed pleasant to him, and Jongwoo again did not notice how he smiled slightly in response, although his smile was slightly crooked.
"I prefer to wear more closed clothes as you can see; it gives an imaginary sense of safety from the sun. And also, unlike my colleagues, I don’t neglect wearing a hat and generously use SPF cream whenever possible,” Moonjo took a sip from his can after him. “UV is a tricky thing.”
“That’s for sure,” Jongwoo turned his unfocused gaze to the can in his hands. His eyes now needed more time to focus. This state came much faster than expected, but Jongwoo wrote it off to the fact that if you drink alcohol on an empty stomach like he did, then these are quite expected consequences.
“What made you come back to Korea now, and to a place that’s not particularly...” the boy slumped his shoulders, as if the decor of his room spoke for itself. Although it was, the mustiness of this dorm clearly did not suit a successful dentist with a big heart and a well-trained oratorical voice.
“When you see how poor people can live and not lose heart, but find beauty in simplicity, you involuntarily begin to rethink your own values and priorities in life. Is it so important to surround yourself with empty luxury, when the only thing people look at you for is material wealth and a prestigious appearance?” Moonjo said with surprising seriousness.
Jongwoo caught himself thinking that his reflection sounded intriguing, as if, by giving the man a little time, he would receive complex structures of thoughts, assumptions and life experience.
“Do you think that money devastates a person? What about those to whom it can grant salvation,” Jongwoo noted with a determined desire to defend his personal beliefs. Images of his brother popped into his head, who constantly needed money for treatment. After each payment they could hardly make ends meet.
The beer can in his hands was half empty, no wonder his tongue was loosened. The drink definitely had a greater effect on him because of his empty stomach. Jongwoo decided to drink more slowly.
“It is not money that devastates a person, but other people and himself - in the pursuit of earning more and more, he does not notice at all how the goal of this material farce loses its value, becoming just a passing purchase.”
“You are generalizing,” uncontrollable anger began to rise from the depths. Jongwoo tried to calm himself, but the harshness of his tone should have definitely given him away. What was happening to him today, was it because of constant stress? “What about the people who work hard for their loved ones? Is the desire to give them a better life the same "material farce" for you?!”
Moonjo was silent for a few seconds, seriously considering the answer. His searching gaze did not leave Jongwoo's face, and he felt how the unpleasant tension was returning.
Jongwoo wanted to resist and close himself off from the distant dialogue, but his attention was captured by the change in expression on Moonjo's face. Tender regret - that's how he would describe it in his book, which in reality seemed so inappropriate, but no less real. The boy opened his mouth, but the words did not fly off his tongue - he was caught off guard.
"I think they are special," Moonjo said discouragingly directly, carefully watching the other's reaction.
“Why?” Jongwoo's fingers tightened on the tin. He listened greedily to man's revelation. The mood was too shaky and beyond his control.
“It's hard to find a person in the world capable of absolute sacrifice for the sake of a loved one,” bitterness slipped into his voice, as if Moonjo was deeply saddened by this fact.
“Most often, people who find themselves in such a situation, after many years of work for the benefit of another, subconsciously regret the time and effort spent on an unloved work, the huge sums of money spent that could have been spent on something they had long dreamed of. They may not show it intentionally, but they unconsciously begin to show aggression towards the other person, feel hostility or a desire to be as far away as possible so as not to see the reason for their miserable life. Luck almost never accompanies such people.”
“And these... "special" people? Why don't they regret it?” Now the creative side of Jongwoo was really curious to hear the answer, to consider the thought from a different angle, to absorb knowledge that could be used in the novel. The anger almost disappeared, leaving behind only a slight dissatisfaction.
“Why...” Moonjo stopped in the middle of the sentence, the previously wandering thoughtful gaze stopped right on Jongwoo's eyes.
Jongwoo could swear that he saw sparks igniting in man’s eyes, the beginnings of an unbridled flame. His imagination must have just been running wild.
“All because for them, the only dream, the reason to continue, worth living, is this person - their other half.” Moonjo's words seemed to flare up inside him, leaving a painful echo. Jongwoo felt that he had touched something too personal, almost forbidden, and it was mesmerizing. The forbidden fruit is always the most desirable and sweet.
The spell needed to be dispelled, Moonjo's gaze was pulling Jongwoo deeper into the open darkness, closing around his feet like quicksand. The strange smile on his face in contrast intensified the feeling that the trap was about to slam shut over his head.
Jongwoo hurried to dispel the spell.
“Um... So, what is the reason for your visit to Seoul?” Jongwoo hesitated, finally feeling uncomfortable under such a long, intense gaze.
“Hmm," Moonjo spent several long seconds thinking, the smile was replaced by a thoughtful pursing of his lips, but his eyes were still fixed on Jongwoo with their sharp peaks. “An unplanned trip, I dare say. I had to urgently accept a very persistent invitation to the annual conference at Seoul University.”
“Did you study at Seoul University?” Surprise burst out in the form of a question, which Jongwoo couldn't keep behind his teeth.
“Studied? No...” Satisfaction distorted Moonjo's sharp features, transforming them with a play of shadows, making them dangerous. “I taught "philosophy of medicine" a few years ago. I'll be leading the conference.”
The statement hit Jongwoo on the head like a hammer; his brown eyes widened in disbelief. Moonjo watched the changing emotions on the boy's face, not so secretly amused.
“You look young, as if for a professor," Jongwoo drawled, still not fully trusting the new information. Light sarcasm burst out of him before he had time to stop himself: “I bet the audience was bursting at the seams every time from the number of people wanting to listen to the philosophical sermons of an attractive young professor who came straight from the cover of a dorama.”
There was a long silence. Jongwoo mentally slapped himself for the fact that the barb resembling an unsolicited compliment flew off his lips surprisingly easily. It was hard to determine whether it was a consequence of the comfortable environment, rapid intoxication, or a tired brain that had stopped filtering any speech.
“I see," devils danced in Moonjo's gaze. Jongwoo did not dare to fully understand what else was in the still pool of his black eyes. The appearance of a mocking toothy smile was enough to understand that his comment did not offend the man in any way, but on the contrary - amused him. “With a high degree of probability, some of my students were really less interested in the very essence of the philosophy of medicine than in... other aspects of conducting lectures, you are right about that. Can you blame them for this?”
Moonjo's voice was filled with strange, burning intonations, and Jongwoo found himself thinking that the constant cold of the room no longer bothered him. Instead, Jongwoo felt like a sheet of metal heating up under the scorching sun.
“The philosophy of medicine, and philosophy itself in general, seems to be comprehensive enough for fruitful discussions and reflection. To be honest, if such a chance fell into my hands, I would definitely use it to my maximum benefit," Jongwoo was sincere in his confession, as well as in his desire to evade a direct answer. He fiddled with an empty beer can in his hands, realizing that the time and excuse for their conversation was over. Fatigue made itself known again, responding with body aches. The dizziness noticeably increased.
Along with the approaching end of their discussion, Jongwoo began to have restless thoughts. This whole situation seemed strange to him, as if it was artificially made. He felt like a doll that was put in its dollhouse and forced to adapt to the games of a small child. But Moonjo looked so relaxed and appropriate here that it seemed as if he had played these games before.
The strange comparisons were definitely another consequence of intoxication.
A predatory gleam slipped into Moonjo's eyes again, making Jongwoo feel uneasy, as if he was constantly watched and studied. When the man spoke, Jongwoo felt a nervous shiver running down his spine.
"And if I tell you that today you've definitely been lucky, Jongwoo?" he said confidently, without a trace of doubt.
"What do you mean?" His voice trembled, betraying his excitement.
"I have several invitations to that very conference that will take place in two days. I have no one to invite, since all my acquaintances will already be there... And no one wants an invitation to go to waste, right?” Moonjo's words had an unimaginable effect on his brain, mixing up his thoughts inside, revealing hidden desires.
Only doubts remained beyond their control.
Seeing that Jongwoo wanted to object, Moonjo deftly deflected the flow of refusal.
“I have a feeling that in my presentation you will be able to find what you have been looking for for a long time, but unsuccessfully. Life is a cycle of well-timed opportunities that you so wanted to use to the maximum. Just think about it, okay? The conference is on Saturday, give yourself some time," Moonjo's expression could be described as understanding, but the feelings of superiority and condescension that often accompanied any remark from the same Jaeho were not noticed in him.
Jongwoo intuitively felt that the invitation to the conference was not just a broad gesture from Moonjo. There was something personal, even intimate in it. Whatever it was, it did not make his task any easier.
“Okay, I'll think about it," Jongwoo reluctantly agreed.
“That's great. Fortunately, it worked out well," Moonjo nodded with satisfaction.
"Be more careful not to get caught in someone's wheel of fortune." Jongwoo quietly muttered under his breath, and if Moonjo hadn't been listening attentively to his every word, he wouldn't have heard it.
"Is it really Stanisłav Lec, I suppose? What a surprising choice. May I ask why you chose this particular quote?"
Jongwoo blinked, looking at him in amazement. None of his acquaintances were interested in the concept of literature as a means of spiritual enrichment of the individual, let alone European authors who were not world-famous, but no less influential in their words.
The fact that Moonjo knew Stanisłav Lec did something strange to Jongwoo's body, as if he was being read like an open book right now, as if someone had opened the collection "Myśli nieuczesane" and was choosing body parts one by one that they wanted to study in more detail.
"A peculiar response to your fixed need to mention such concepts as luck and fate," Jongwoo easily parried.
In response to this remark, Moonjo's gaze grew heavier, and it fixed on Jongwoo even more intensely than before. Hungry.
Now Jongwoo, against his will, was staring unblinkingly at Moonjo in response. Intrigue was evident in the fluttering of his fluffy eyelashes. With subtle hints, trying to probe the ground beneath their conversation, Jongwoo tried to find other points of contact that interested him.
"How do you know about Stanisłav Lec? I doubt that it is possible to find a medical manual in his works. The only thing that comes to mind is a recommendation to wash your hands more often.”
There was an atmosphere of cordiality in the air, and not a trace remained of the former tension flowing through the muscles. The only thing that did not allow Jongwoo to completely relax was the intensity of the glances that Moonjo constantly gave him. The laughter in response to a stupid joke freed Jongwoo from the remnants of paranoia and stiffness. It seemed that this man was the first who truly took him seriously and endowed Jongwoo's creative soul with worthy attention and respect.
“Do you think I sat day and night and wrote down every author who even mentioned luck in passing?” The playfulness with which these words were said did not repel Jongwoo, as it would have been if they had been said at the beginning of their conversation. He felt an inexplicable attraction to Moonjo's words, smoothly enveloping him from head to toe, like the slow flow of a waterfall in the wild.
“The story of my acquaintance with this author is rather boring. His collection ended up in my hands by chance."
"At least fortune had tried.”
“Definitely," again a satisfied half-smile played on Moonjo's lips from the joke. There was something else in it, hidden from recognition, as if Moonjo put a subtext in each of his words. “What about you? A rather atypical choice of literature for a Korean, I repeat.”
There was no better moment to mention his novel than this. He could tell how he spent a long time collecting materials and burying himself in books and online articles in search of information that could be useful for writing. One day, the search ended with a three-hour documentary about the culture of different European nations.
Moonjo seemed genuinely interested in any information that Jongwoo allowed himself to share with him, listening to every detail. He would be lying if he said that it did not make him feel spiritually desired.
Jongwoo had already opened his mouth to share his interests, to talk about writing and how he found inspiration in the unique descriptions of motives and in the ideology of mentally unstable serial killers...
The words stuck in his throat, not wanting to come out. Accompanied by an unpleasant hissing in his head, completely different situations from the past flashed in the background:
Here his mother looked at him with an uncomprehending and wary look, while as a teenager Jongwoo told her about the symbolism of one of the Lovecraft's book. It was worth delving a little deeper into the description of the chaos and torment, in an attempt to get her to be amazed by the fate that had befallen the main character, he received only concern and a stern request not to read any more horror stories at night.
Jungman constantly put on headphones with his lousy rap, as soon as Jongwoo, in his excitement, hastily began to retell the intricate plot of "Red Dragon" or any other book about Hannibal Lecter, from thinking about which something in his chest was strongly compressed.
Father... Jongwoo preferred not to think about him at all.
Jaeho simply told Jongwoo that the power of interest in literature is better directed at solving really important adult problems that he cannot solve for him.
Dissatisfaction was clearly visible on Jieun's face every time Jongwoo dropped out of her story about a new workday, hovering in the clouds of thoughts about a new plot branch in his novel and how it would cyclically affect the beginning of the story. Out of politeness, she asked what he was thinking and writing about, and Jongwoo was happy to share, or rather, was overwhelmed with delight at the mere thought of being listened to. Although expectations were always dashed against the wall of indifference from Jieun, especially when she ignored the questioningly posed ideas, as if begging for her assessment, and quickly tried to turn the conversation back to the problems that bothered her and her stories. Jongwoo was not upset, continuing to smile routinely.
They were not even able to remember what he was talking about before he was shamelessly interrupted. All the unwillingness of people to at least try to hear and, most importantly, to listen to his answer, personal story or experiences, did not sadden Jongwoo at all.
No.
No, instead it just fucking drove him crazy.
Every time, Jongwoo had to restrain his outbursts of anger towards anyone, blink away the red veil before his eyes to get rid of the protesting sense of subjective justice. With age came the ability to control unwanted outbursts of aggression, but in childhood he had not been able to avoid several difficult situations.
Acceptance of creative impulses was difficult to obtain even from his loved ones; if he told them about the moral component and philosophy of his novel, he would receive nothing but strange sticky condemnation. They did not want to be in his shoes. So, was there any point in sharing a revelation with a person he had met a few dozen minutes ago?
The look that flared up with enthusiasm quickly faded under the weight of annoying reminders from the past. Hidden rage boiled under his skin, the boy clutched the empty can in a death grip, which, bending, made a suffering grinding sound. In a colorless, flat voice, Jongwoo assured:
“I liked one quote on the Internet, and it so happened that I read a whole collection. Nothing interesting.”
Any softness reflected in the black, playing with shadows, eyes of Moonjo evaporated without a trace, as soon as he noticed the sudden change in Jongwoo's mood. The man looked frighteningly serious with that frowning crease between his eyebrows and pursed plump lips. His gaze slid once again over the empty expression of Jongwoo's face, and he saw some kind of explanation in it. Moonjo looked angry at his answer, and Jongwoo didn't want the man to look at him... like he was guilty of something.
Like he cared.
Jongwoo couldn't stand being under the weight of that look any longer. Deciding that their conversation had run its course, he stood up abruptly and threw the mangled can into the trash.
“Ahem, I think it's time for us to finish, besides, I need to go to sle-...”
He was interrupted by Moonjo's low call, which sounded unexpectedly stern, like a bolt from the blue:
“Jongwoo.”
“What?” an exhausted clarification.
Moonjo stood up after him, his tall figure towering over Jongwoo again, but this time it didn't cause any fear or subconscious sense of danger. Moonjo's image in his head loomed like red flames, but instead of being burned, Jongwoo felt warmth spreading throughout his body.
"How often have you felt that others reject you, as if your thoughts were too foreign to them?" Moonjo spoke quietly, feigned calm, while a storm raged in his pupil. Each word echoed anxiously in Jongwoo's head, making him shudder.
It felt like he was not just reading him like an open book but personally looking into his head and pulling out all the doubts to take apart and absorb.
The realization of the situation almost stunned Jongwoo.
Moonjo was not angry at him, he was angry at those people because of whom Jongwoo was now sure that he did not deserve to be understood by others.
“Always," Jongwoo squeezed out. The acceptance of his own uselessness hit his skull like a hammer, making him flinch. It would be better for him to remain in ignorance for the rest of his life than to encounter this so suddenly.
“Jongwoo," Moonjo called out to him, but he was barely listening to him anymore, drowning in destructive thoughts that, with drunken clouding, crawled even more persistently, even deeper.
For what did he even live and try to be something?
“Jongwoo...” A pale hand flashed before his eyes, but the boy did not pay attention, looking unfocused inside the matter itself.
Who needed such an awkward guy in Seoul? How long would his motivation be fueled by his relationship with Jieun, the desire to be more than just a poor boyfriend compared to her? Helping his family? Memories of childhood spent at home sometimes itched under the skin and more than once Jongwoo caught himself digging his nails into his arm in an attempt to either dull the pain or tear it even more.
All he wanted was for someone to listen and appreciate his thoughts, ideas and share their own in return. Jongwoo considered himself a devoted listener and did not skimp on comments when it was clear that the person was truly interested in his opinion.
But everyone around him was yapping, yapping, yapping, covering their ears with their hands. They saw him not as a person, but as a cup into which they could so conveniently pour out all their garbage problems and not worry about getting resistance.
A burning hand closed on his shoulder, so big and strong, squeezing tense muscles with force. Jongwoo did not pay attention to it, getting stuck in the depths of thoughts more and more. Swimming with the current, he saw before his eyes not Moonjo's predatory gaze, but the faces of his loved ones.
"We don't have money for new winter shoes, Jongwoo, don't be so spoiled and learn to take care of your things. Happiness favors modesty, understand that," his mother lamented in her calm but scolding voice.
The next day he came home from school after another fight, wet from head to toe. Then his angry mother made him glue the soaked soles back to them. Jongwoo humbly did as he was told...
After he angrily threw the poor shoes at the wall several times, breaking the fabric even more.
The seething touches on his body became more numerous. Two hands stroked his shoulders in a calming gesture. If the weakening Jongwoo had been fully present in reality, he would have seen more in this: an attempt to explore reactions to touch, to stain someone else's soul with his darkness.
If these movements had not put him into a state of trance even more powerfully.
"No, Jongwoo, I won't turn it down so you can go back to your stupid books. Now back off and close the door, I need to enjoy ChromaKid's new album in private, you won't understand what it's like to have excellent taste in music," Jungman said artificially when he complained about the volume of his new speaker.
And Jongwoo left, having slammed the door with explosive force.
Thin fingers, slightly damp from sweat, were on his neck, carefully running over his Adam's apple, leaving imprints on the delicate skin. The sense of self-preservation screamed that irreparable harm would be done now. Jongwoo wanted everything inside him to just shut down.
"You can't read so many books. I raised a man, not a snotty girl! Do you understand me?!" Screams and endless swearing. Previously, threats never turned into action.
Jongwoo wanted to set his father's office on fire with his own dying treasures - books.
He felt the weight of a whole palm on his neck; the heat of someone else's breath scorched his face. Jongwoo closed his eyes tightly, exhaling raggedly.
"Are you doing this again? When will you finally understand that you won't pick up a single girl like that, sitting in the library all the time like a damn nerd. And even a pretty face won't raise you in their eyes," Jaeho's condescension resonated with his pompous face.
And a year after graduating from university, Jongwoo went to serve in the army, from which Jaeho's parents got him out.
Suddenly, all the excess contact with the skin evaporated, like dew in forty-degree heat - without a trace. Jongwoo impatiently lifted his chin higher, unconsciously wanting to continue touching, providing more space, but the heat did not return.
"Life in Seoul is different from the provinces. It's harder to stay here and get ahead. I hope you'll understand how hard it is for me," Jieun chewed on, as if he were a five-year-old child.
And now Jongwoo was in Seoul. And everyone demanded that he has to understands, understands, understands them.
Can anyone at least try to understand him?!
The heat returned, but not in the form of touches.
“ Jagiya, let me understand. Piece by piece.”
Moonjo's gentle address, which sounded among the noise of thoughts, forcibly pulled him into reality, burned him with intimacy. His cheeks involuntarily turned red, which was impossible to ignore, as well as the request voiced by the man, almost a plea.
Jagiya...
From the excess of feelings, it seemed that he could throw up now. Moonjo only made things worse, stranger, more dangerous - with his desires, he balanced on the edge of social norms.
Jagiya, let me understand...
The sincerity of the words poured cold water over him and made him inhale. The anger was extinguished by a powerful stream and Jongwoo felt empty inside and exhausted. There was no strength left for any emotions.
It took him a while to realize the meaning of the request.
"Go away," Jongwoo said in a trembling voice, opening his wet eyes. On the verge of tears, it was too much for him to explain. It was simply too much. He had never felt so acutely before. "Just go away, Moonjo. Please.”
"No. I won't leave, I won't abandon you, like everyone else, because of my own selfishness," the firmly and unwaveringly spoken words sounded to Jongwoo more like:
"I won't let you go."
And it was scary. It caused rejection.
It covered up the previously unknown need to belong deep inside. It was forcibly calming.
Moonjo stood further away than Jongwoo had expected. Doubts that all these hungry, possessive touches were just a figment of his shaky imagination were firmly entrenched in his head.
It just seemed that way.
Jongwoo felt a nasty lump of tears starting to form in his throat and decided to take the opportunity to speak while he was still able to spit out the words along with the poison.
"I said: get out of here! Sh-shibal!" He angrily pronounced each word; it came out more hysterical than he had intended. Jongwoo buried his hands in his hair, trying to close himself off from everything that was happening.
" Jagi , you can be honest with me. Completely, to the last word," Moonjo did not look hurt at all. In his serious gaze, glares of a fully burning flame, frightening involvement, raged. Not a single cutting word penetrated even a millimeter into this impeccable human suit. “Don't be afraid of your darkness, I will accept it as much as I admire your light.”
“You... You’re scaring me," Jongwoo said with a break in his voice, clearly on the edge. He took a step back, as if he wanted to run away from this piercing gaze. Tears threatened to roll down his still burning cheeks, making him more vulnerable and pathetic in the eyes of other man.
“Scaring you?” Moonjo's lips moved in a strange semblance of a smile, but it quickly drooped, as if it had never been there. “Maybe you're just afraid to open up to others? To show not only the light, but also the darkness lurking in the depths?”
“Stop talking like you know me!” A stinging rebuff. Jongwoo didn't know how much longer he could hold out before Moonjo's viscous, molasses-sweet words completely subjugated him to someone else's will. The man pressed all the right points to suppress the resistance, slowly dismantling all the barriers that had been erected, inexorably approaching the depths of Jongwoo's wounded soul.
"But I really want to get to know you. Your way of thinking left an indelible impression on me," a sincere confession, genuine delight.
Jongwoo was in no condition to wonder when the man had even managed to appreciate it fleetingly.
"I can't allow myself to leave you to be torn apart by the scum that are the only ones capable of treating you as inferior. Their indifference will destroy your soul, jagiya ."
These words - prayers to a broken heart - were enough for Jongwoo to finally give up.
Tears flowed like crystal rivers without stopping, burning his cheeks. Being the center of someone's attention - especially complete and unconditional attention - seemed torturous. But Jongwoo endured, did not look away, allowing himself to be contemplated in such a vulnerable state. Looking at Moonjo, he suddenly felt a strange relief. Maybe for the first time in a long time, Jongwoo really wanted to share a part of himself.
A thrill sparkled in Moonjo's eyes, echoes of respect on the verge of something that was already too much for them, for humane and social norms. In this illusion of safety, he wanted to dive headlong and never emerge to the surface, thereby avoiding a collision with reality.
"I'm writing a crime novel," Jongwoo croaked hoarsely, and the relief from the confession caused an uncontrollable desire to collapse on the floor. His legs barely held him upright.
Contrary to expectations, Moonjo did not look surprised by such a sudden statement, but on the contrary, lusting big. He listened to every word, every sigh of Jongwoo, as if everything he emitted was sacred life-giving water, and Moonjo was a thirsty sinner.
The man did not say a word in response, only nodded his head to continue. And in this gesture, there was more involvement and interest than in any verbal detailed question that Jongwoo had heard from others.
“This is a story about how fragile human beliefs can be and how far we really are from understanding everything that is happening around us. How driven a person is by his feelings and desires. People are trying to draw the main character into their normal world, to tie him up and doom him to eternal belonging to the common good, but they will not be able to realize their plans.”
Moonjo tilted his head to the side, smiling a strange, one-sided smile, his soft question filled with so much delight that it was as if all of Jongwoo's words were a majestic cantata for his ears:
“Who does this man belong to?”
“He does not...” Jongwoo stopped short. Thoughtfulness almost made him drop out of the conversation again, but Moonjo's presence grounded him, completely discouraging him from being distracted.
“Although... The meaning of his life is mathematics. Not in the sense of a science that he wanted to develop and supplement with new discoveries, but rather... as a religion that itself gave him insight and the opportunity to come closer to understanding life than others.”
Jongwoo dove into the details of the story, into the descriptions of who the main character is - a brilliant mathematician from a very poor family, who, by lucky chance, is noticed by one of the scientists during a business trip to another country. Deeply impressed by the young man's abilities, the Nobel laureate decides to realize his incredible potential at all costs and elevate the man's writings to the highest intellectual circles.
Omitting some details that were too distracting from the main message, Jongwoo added that the main character was so brilliant that no one could understand how he came up with his equations at all and why symbols that had no scientific connection turned out to be theoretical confirmation of many advanced theories of the time.
“The mathematician's life turned from deathly pale to public recognition and luxury. But he didn't care about it - the only thing he cared about was the opportunity to write down new insights after sleep in his tattered notebook and go to the opera.”
“To the opera? What is the reason for his admiration for classical music?" Moonjo's precise question stopped the flow of Jongwoo's speech, prompting the guy to develop his story in this direction.
“Music for him was akin to the gift of the gods, it was in this guise that all his insights came to him. His brain, during sleep, was amazingly able to process sound waves into numbers and symbols," Jongwoo said enchanted, his gesticulation got out of control - too active, hyperbolic - as if with its dynamism it was trying to attract someone else's attention, not to let him be distracted from the story.
But there was no need for this, Moonjo's attention from the very beginning belonged entirely to Jongwoo and nothing in the world could stop him from enjoying the scorching boy in front of him.
“Did I understand correctly that your novel is focused on things of a more metaphysical nature? How did it happen that the main character stained his hands in such a reprehensible and mundane matter as murder?”
Jongwoo was surprised that Moonjo correctly assumed the role and affiliation of the main character to the murder.
“The man renounces everything worldly, completely devotes himself to the worship of his religion. But the dualism of the character is that, with all his devotion only to mathematics, being chosen by it, he commits murders in the name of an ordinary woman.”
“He saw in her something more than an ordinary person, more valuable than all his faith,” no question - a statement from Moonjo.
“The woman was Japanese, an opera singer performing music of her own composition in the place where the man so often loved to come. Having fallen under the spell of her singing, every night the main character dreamed of her, and she responded to his prayers and came to him in his dreams. The woman's singing became a new commandment of his life, the found meaning of existence.” Jongwoo continued excitedly:
"The man's mind became so clouded over time that, pursuing every step of his love, he got rid of anyone who dared to even come close to comprehending the beauty inherent in it," Jongwoo frowned, clenched his hands into fists, experiencing the anger of his character inside himself.
“How did he kill?” The tone with which this question sounded from Moonjo's mouth was difficult to describe more acceptably than thirst. The man ran his tongue over his plump lips and Jongwoo mirrored the movement in fascination, without realizing it.
“He strangled his victims with his hands, wanting to feel how they fell silent and softened under the pressure of his grip," Jongwoo raised his palms to the level of Moonjo's neck, although the distance between them was maintained, his fingers bent, as if he himself would try to reproduce what was said right now.
Moonjo was captivated by the movements of his fingers.
“Forgive me for interrupting your thoughts, but don't you think that the silence of the victims will not satisfy him completely? Perhaps, on the contrary, he will listen to every wheeze and painful groan, the pleas of the victim, and the satisfaction will come from the very thought that he is taking away their ability to reproduce sounds, as a tribute to the admiration of the voice of his muse.”
What was said shook Jongwoo's balance so much that he did not immediately realize how Moonjo suddenly closed the distance between them. All the air was knocked out of his lungs - Moonjo's hands moved to his wrists; their grip was weightlessly gentle, but inexorable. Jongwoo could not understand whether this was more like a request or an order. He obeyed. He settled his fingers on hot, skin-covered muscles. It was frightening how correct and natural the living realization of one's own thoughts looked - especially when Jongwoo was the one reproducing the desires of the killer.
“That's it," Moonjo sighed contentedly. Any reasonable thoughts evaporated from Jongwoo's head, while the only thing he could think about was the heat of the body opposite him and the death grip of someone else's hands on his wrists. “He would especially enjoy the slowing pulse of the victim, the meaning of which he would later write down in the same notebook.”
Instead of the fading rhythm of the heart under the pads of his fingers, Jongwoo felt a furious pounding, although he was not sure that it was not his own heartbeat. He, intoxicated by the sensations, did not even immediately find an answer to blatant liberty.
This was no longer just strange; all this was abnormal, even bordering on immorality.
Then why did the resistance and influence of these words fade as soon as Jongwoo squeezed the other man's neck harder, tearing a ragged sigh from Moonjo's lips? The look that Jongwoo received from this action was wild, devouring. The man slightly inclined his head, as if inviting him to continue. This movement made Jongwoo's heart pound even harder, because he did not know who he was more afraid of now - him or himself.
“Killing his victims, he lost everything: money, family, recognition of people, generally accepted humanity," the coldness of the words helped Jongwoo come to his senses a little, he sluggishly tried to take his hands away from the other's neck, but the wrists held tightly, not allowing him to move away.
“What did he gain, having lost everything?” Moonjo asked muffled, and the vibrations of his voice trembled along the skin of his palms.
“The meaning and love of his whole life," Jongwoo breathed out in the same tone, quietly and intimately, as if sharing his biggest secret. Moonjo swallowed with difficulty viscous saliva and the movement of his Adam's apple teasingly rode along the line of life on Jongwoo’s palm.
They froze in the moment, no one dared to break away from each other, it seemed that this would destroy the absolute understanding and acceptance that had formed between them now. Jongwoo thought that it must have been fate and luck that brought them together today. And he was grateful for it.
The silence washing over their bodies was tremulous and liberating, allowing them to bare their true emotions.
A sudden phone call shattered it into pieces.
Jongwoo instantly tensed up, unclenched his hands, only now fully realizing how scorching the heat of another skin was. He instantly broke the touch, putting in a lot of force to free himself from the shackles. He cast a suspicious glance at his phone, pursing his lips in displeasure. The standard ringtone seemed oppressive in the room's atmosphere.
It was clear that it was not someone he knew was calling, that was clear right away. One of Jongwoo's habits was to distribute ringtones depending on the person. He considered it terribly poetic - the ability to recognize the caller by the sound and meaning embedded in the melody.
Moonjo turned his gaze to the source of the sound - burning through, as if the object was a threat to the implementation of his secret motives. There was something dark in his image, as soon as Jongwoo was completely distracted from interacting with him. His figure, dressed in all black, stood out from the surroundings more clearly than it seemed under the influence of the moment.
Moonjo's large hands personally moved to his neck, tremblingly stroking the skin sensitive after his jagiya’s touches with spidery fingers.
Any signs of emotion were erased from the man's face: the shadows from the table lamp fell intricately over his features, further highlighting the pale emptiness of his face. In contrast, his dark lips flared up, so rich in color that they seemed to be smeared with venous blood. The only thing reflecting genuine emotions on his face were his eyes, flooded to the brim with ink.
Reaching for the phone, Jongwoo didn't notice the change in the other man's mood, too absorbed in the question of who had the idea to call at such a late hour.
The number was unfamiliar to him.
"Hi?" Jongwoo responded warily, holding the phone to his ear with a trembling hand.
The silence in the room was so absolute that even from a distance Moonjo could, with due effort, make out the words of the caller.
“Good evening, Yoon Jongwoo, right? My name is So Junghwa, I'm a police detective," the girl's voice sounded young, although it was saturated with fatigue. Jongwoo nervously tapped his foot on the floor, waiting for the reason for such a sudden call. Distracted from the conversation with Moonjo, Jongwoo felt anxiety gushed into his body like a hypotonic solution, diluting the concentration of any pleasant sensations received before.
“Did something happen?” Jongwoo cleared his throat, his throat suddenly became very dry, as if it had been run over with sandpaper.
“Yeah. Something did happen," the girl sounded guilty, almost depressed, which did not reduce the emerging tension in Jongwoo's shoulders.
“Mr. Yoon, I am truly sorry to tell you this news, our task force is working hard to determine the cause...”
“Don't keep me waiting!” Jongwoo suddenly flared up, unable to withstand the policewoman's incomprehensible suspiciousness.
Moonjo's mouth twitched for a second in a satisfied, toothy grin, which went unnoticed by anyone.
“I understand your impatience at such a late hour, but please listen to me," Junghwa's voice became much firmer.
“Yoon Jongwoo, I am bitterly informing you that your mother - Yoon Hye and brother Yoon Jungman... they died in an accident. A fire broke out in your house for reasons that have not yet been investigated and, unfortunately, none of your loved ones managed to escape. We are currently investigating this case and will be asking for your cooperation with the police soon. Please accept my condolences...”
The phone fell from Jongwoo's hands.
Nonsense.
This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't be happening. It was all a fabrication, a false alarm, whatever.
But that message from Jungman... Jongwoo felt that it wasn't just a thoughtless action, he felt that something bad was brewing.
Shibal... Shibal. Shibal!
The woman continued to call out to Jongwoo from the speaker of the phone, but soon stopped, without waiting for an answer, and dropped the call.
Jongwoo stood motionless for several minutes in a broken, uncomfortable pose: his hands were hanging in the air at an odd angle, his head was down, his neck was tense. It seemed to him that at such a moment the heart should hastily jump out of the chest, racing with emerging panic, but instead of a frantic pulse in the ears only emptiness was heard. The news pierced the eardrums like a sharp needle, and Jongwoo could not hear; could not realize the speed of his breathing, the pity of attempts to inhale air, while opening his mouth, like a fish on dry land. Inhalations so shallow did not bring the proper aeration to the body; the eyes in shock opened wide and remained tensely unblinking, that one could begin to worry about the bursting red capillaries in the whites.
Jongwoo began to choke.
The space began to spin around, sometimes decreasing, squeezing, and sometimes expanding. The lamp began to flicker in an epileptic seizure, and this reminded Jongwoo of his brother.
Jungman was dead.
His brother was dead.
He was gone.
The man with whom Jongwoo spent almost his entire life living in the same house, for whom he took part-time jobs and slept for two hours a day, before a shift or a class, whom Jongwoo pulled out of depressive states or saved from murderous acts during manic ones, whom Jongwoo saw and helped in the worst epileptic state - shaking on the floor and suffocating in his own saliva and foam.
The brother who stole kimchi from Jongwoo's plate as soon as he turned away. Jungman, who cried at night and regretted that because of him their family was in such deplorable poverty, and that if he did not exist, their life would have been better.
Jungman was dead. Jongwoo felt like his own life had crumbled into useless ashes at his feet.
His head felt too heavy, an obsessive pain appeared, as if his brain was swaying from side to side in his skull.
Jongwoo began to sway, and he grabbed his neck with one hand, helplessly tearing the skin, leaving hot red stripes. With his other hand, he grabbed the collar of his T-shirt, trying to tear it away from the compression of the air flow. There was a cracking sound of fabric - so loud that Jongwoo instantly forgot about how he had lost his hearing a second ago. The soft piece of clothing fell freely from his body, not interfering with his breathing in any way, but this did not help the air get into his lungs.
Now the fabric was ugly and stretched, and after all, his mother taught him to treat everything carefully.
Mom...
Mom was dead, she will no longer tell him affectionately how well he does, helping her around the house, combining school with work, as long as they have something to eat. She will not gently wash Jongwoo's hair, thereby saving water. He won't be able to run around the house after Jungman, who once again refused to brush his teeth due to laziness, and they couldn't afford extra cavities.
She wouldn't hug him as tightly as when Jongwoo first met her after the army. She wouldn't cook his favorite dish from miraculously obtained products, giving almost all of her portion to the boys, keeping the leftovers for herself, saying how she loved Jongwoo and Jungman and that they were the main men in her life, her meaning.
And now she left him.
Here. Alone. Scared and lonely.
His chest quickly fell and rose, compressed from the inside and squeezed out carbon dioxide, not receiving oxygen in exchange. Jongwoo's vision was rapidly darkening and he, without realizing it, began to fall forward.
If it weren't for the strong hands that grabbed his waist across his stomach, the consequences of hitting his head on the floor or worse, his temple on the corner of the table could have been disastrous. Jongwoo didn't care, being in someone else's strong grip, he felt like a bird with broken wings locked in a golden cage, restrained by chains. A rough attempt to break free was unsuccessful. A strangled mess of screams mixed with quiet whines flowed from the boy's throat, from which the stranger's hands on his body squeezed only tighter.
“Breathe, jagi, " a hot exhalation in his ear only thickened the darkness in Jongwoo's eyes. The boy's hand continued to rest on his neck; his nails ran over fresh wounds with even greater fury.
“Well, well, repeat after me: deep breath.”
Jongwoo felt Moonjo's chest rise with his back. The man's hand on his chest stroked the bare skin of his belly under the fabric of his T-shirt.
Moonjo did not urge him to breathe air on by himself; he literally drove him into his own breathing rhythm.
Jongwoo tried to do as he was told, but all that came out was a painful wheeze.
“It's okay, you're safe with me, jagi. Try to take another breath.”
Jongwoo's head was lifted, resting the back of his head on the other's shoulder. His eyes were still wide open, just like his pale lips. A thin line of saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth, but Moonjo did not show disgust.
The change in the position helped and Jongwoo, waking up, took a sharp breath, coughing from the air hitting the wall of his throat. The world gradually stopped spinning before his eyes, and his head unquestioningly followed the swaying. The hands that had been glued to his neck with his own blood appeared before his eyes with a tremor: shaking fingers, nails with dried blood under them aggravated the feeling of dirt, the skin near the plates was bleeding in places, but in the darkness it looked terribly like the beginnings of decay.
There was no nail on his right ring finger.
Jongwoo closed his eyes in fear, not wanting to give such pleasure in examining the mutilations to his frightening imagination.
Everything was fine with him, all the nails were in place, because he did not feel pain. But the brain, wound up by panic, could not stop drawing pictures in his mind, how a slimy black drop of something disgusting was rolling down the bleeding finger, washing the knuckle like a wedding ring and running further down the hand to the wrist. The phantom sensation of wetness was so real, so distracting, that Jongwoo was lost in the moment when the skin, which was numb in thought, began to be covered with terrible blisters as soon as the liquid reached the level of his wrist. The burning became more and more noticeable, and Jongwoo found it difficult to distinguish reality from the imagination of his sick mind.
He began to fall even deeper than he had fallen initially.
The gentle touch on his right hand felt eerily familiar to him. The burning sensation was gone, and if Jongwoo had the courage to open his eyes and look at his hands, he would have seen that there were no strange acidic liquids, blisters, or blood on them. Only someone else's soft fingers glided over his irritated skin.
"Open your eyes, jagiya, " a reverent whisper in his ear.
The cute, but such an inappropriate nickname had not yet caused a strange rejection inside Jongwoo, so he decided to ignore it.
Ignore the caress, but not the request.
Or the order.
Opening his eyes slightly, Jongwoo was faced with the realization of his own exhaustion. He felt so tired that the desire to move and get out of the strange vulnerable position did not arise. Moonjo held him completely in his arms; Jongwoo only sagged in a strong grip.
What's the point in resisting?
Moonjo will not let go, no matter how hard he’ll try.
And he won't leave, no matter how many times Jongwoo closes the door in front of his nose.
Jongwoo didn't feel a drop of his former strength, his desire to live.
What was it worth for him to fight and try to survive?
His mother and brother were dead.
Wouldn't it be easier for him too...
The grip on the boy's body became stronger, there was no free space left between their bodies, as if Moonjo was trying to merge with Jongwoo. To take his pain for himself and give him release. But instead of the expected calm and gratitude, Jongwoo felt like a prey, whom the shrike was trying to impale on its horns, leaving him to slowly bleed out.
“Stay with me," the words of others were reflected in Jongwoo's mind with amazing clarity. Scary, possessive.
As if Jongwoo already belonged to Moonjo.
"You're scaring me," Jongwoo repeated weakly, but this time there was more horror and awareness of his own deplorable situation in his answer. He really meant it.
Something deep inside Moonjo made his body tremble with animal terror.
A hidden Monster, dressed in a perfectly ironed human suit.
Jongwoo fleetingly thought about his mother, who could rescue him from the tenacious claws of this terrible person. Try to pull him out of the depths of his own worries, not let him drown at the bottom.
She's dead.
No one will save Jongwoo now.
No one will even care about his fate.
“ Jagiya ...” Moonjo's voice was so sensual that Jongwoo couldn't stand this torture any longer.
“At first, I thought you wanted to understand me," Jongwoo hoarsely squeezed out, hanging in someone else's arms, feeling nothing but hopeless melancholy and humility. “Then, it seemed to me that you were one of the few who would help me not to choke on my own thoughts, not to sink to the bottom under the yoke of distinguishable images. You won't stand aside indifferently, like everyone else, and just watch...”
Exhaustion began to take its toll, his eyelids became heavier and heavier, and Jongwoo realized that he was no longer feeling the weight of his own body, his head could fall into a state of deep sleep any minute.
“But who am I to you now?” Hot, testing. Moonjo was tempted to hear the answer.
“You... You are worse than anyone I've ever met.”
Moonjo was silent, so Jongwoo continued:
"Instead of standing on the shore, you intend to drown me after you make sure there is no one left to watch. It would have been better if you had never..."
Jongwoo's consciousness sank into oblivion. His body went limp in Moonjo's arms, making it difficult to hold him upright.
Moonjo carefully moved Jongwoo onto the bed, almost lovingly arranging his limbs into comfortable positions, carefully covering the boy with a blanket.
There was an inappropriately soft smile on the man's face, his eyebrows slightly raised, and his previously empty eyes once again filled with a burning thirst as his gaze fell once again on Jongwoo's relaxed, sleeping face.
"Such a pure and unclouded look. You see right through me, jagi," in a reverent gesture, Moonjo slowly brushed the falling bangs from Jongwoo's forehead, tucking the pliable hair behind his ear.
“But you didn't take into account one important thing: by drowning you, I will voluntarily go with you to the very bottom.” The revelation hung like a heavy fog in the air. Moonjo rose from his knees in front of Jongwoo's bed and casting a last sensual glance at the boy, turned around and scanned the floor with his eyes.
The jagi’s phone was found quickly, moving into Moonjo's pocket in a single, smooth motion. One hand tenaciously grabbed the cans, squeezing them in one position so that the metal would not utter a sound, thereby disturbing Jongwoo's sleep.
He decided not to remove the wooden splinters of the chair, which Moonjo had noticed at the very beginning, leaving this concern for himself for later.
Stepping back impassively to the desk lamp, the man pressed the switch, plunging the entire room into darkness. Closing the door behind him, the only sound Moonjo could hear from the next room was the rhythmic breathing of the sleeping Jongwoo.
Sleep well, jagiya.