Scars
I stand in front of the mirror and examine my body. The scars that have formed over the long, jagged lines feel strangely foreign to me.
“Huu…”
I try to steel myself to wash my face, but as soon as I cup water in my hands, my gaze is drawn to the largest scar. I can’t look away from the wide mark that cuts straight across my wrist. I can already imagine how the countless people who will meet me for the first time will react to it. Not many will trust someone unstable enough to slash their own wrist. I picture the awkward expressions this scar will earn me from now on.
“…I had no choice.”
Yes. I had no choice. In that situation, there was no other solution. This scar pulled me out of hell.
…But now it’s trying to push me back in.
The sudden cold snap made it feel less like autumn and more like winter had arrived early. Many people were already wearing coats. I had on a long-sleeved shirt and a coat as well, so the scar on my right wrist wasn’t easily visible. At least, it shouldn’t have been. But I kept finding myself hyper-aware of that spot.
“Oppa!”
Jimin’s voice cut through my thoughts, forcing my attention back to her.
“Ah… what were we talking about again?”
“I told you I did well on the September mock exams! Are you so used to me doing well that it doesn’t even impress you anymore?”
Her slightly pouty face was laced with clear disappointment.
“No, you did great. That’s why I’m rewarding you with a date.”
“Then if I do well on the actual CSAT… does that mean we’ll start dating?”
“Nice try. Just meeting with a client like this is already an incredibly generous reward.”
Jimin rested her chin directly on the edge of the table and grumbled.
“I know, I was just joking…”
I could feel her pushing herself toward me again, but I couldn’t shove her away as harshly as I would with anyone else. After all, we were already meeting like this so often. I had become far too deeply involved in this girl’s life. The conversations she had with Professor Kim at home were surely about me, and she probably thought about me at school too. Guilt, longing, love, and pain were all tangled together in this relationship, and I couldn’t find any healthy resolution. The chain that already connected us couldn’t be severed. If I cut it, this girl would undoubtedly collapse.
I didn’t have the confidence to carry both the scars carved into my body and everything that had happened between us. Every time these overwhelming trials hit me, I was forced to confront my own powerlessness. The buttons had been fastened wrong from the very beginning, and now they were slowly tightening around my throat.
“Oppa.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t worry about your wrist. It’s not even visible anyway.”
Only then did I realize I had been unconsciously stroking my wrist.
“…Right. I’m not really worried about it.”
I placed my hands on the table and interlaced my fingers, making sure I couldn’t reach for my wrist again.
“Oppa.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to keep having sessions like this for the rest of our lives?”
Jimin asked me in an unusually serious tone.
“…If you make a lot of money, sure. We could do it forever.”
She met my eyes with a face just as serious as her words.
“What do you really think of me, oppa?”
“I don’t even know anymore.”
Jimin half-lay across the table and kept pressing.
“…Do you hate me?”
“No, I don’t hate you.”
“That’s not true. You have every reason to hate me.”
“Jimin, I really don’t hate you. Okay?”
“…Liar. The girl who stabbed you with a knife? Or should I say, the girl you tied up and raped?”
Those weren’t words that should be spoken in public. She had brought up the thing she had kept buried for so long.
“Jimin, lower your voice. And I already told you clearly—I don’t hate you.”
“…No, you do. You’re just trying really hard to ignore it.”
Jimin stirred the straw in her coffee in rapid circles.
“You’re sacrificing yourself for a crazy girl with no mother who might lose it again at any moment—the same girl who tormented you so badly.”
“Jimin, please stop saying things like that.”
“You’re the one who should stop lying. Tell me the truth right now.”
“From your perspective, there’s no difference between me and Jeong Soyeon.”
“But you say you don’t hate me? That’s bullsh—”
Jimin’s hand suddenly stopped moving.
“…It’s just because I’m a client, right?”
“Yeah. I only meet you because you’re a client…”
Jimin let out a hollow laugh and buried her face in her own arms.
“…Jimin, I know you’re psychologically unstable because the CSAT is coming up soon, but let’s stop talking about this now.”
She lifted her head and looked at me.
“Oppa, then… do you like me?”
I sensed a complex, difficult-to-read emotion from that young girl. Her intricate expression was so layered I couldn’t maintain eye contact and had to look away.
“…I don’t know.”
“If I’m just another client, you could keep a proper distance.”
“I suppose so.”
“Then why do you meet me whenever I ask?”
“…”
“…Oppa, do you feel sorry for me?”
She buried her face back into the crook of her arm. Every time she tried to read my heart, mine grew heavy with discomfort.
“…Is that why you meet me?”
Her voice echoed from within that small space created by her arms and head.
“…It seems that way.”
I laid my heart bare to Jimin. After all, she had done the same for me.
For a moment, no words passed between us. Then the girl slowly sat up, grabbed the drink in front of her, and took a long sip.
“It’s fine. I already knew that.”
She tried to sound indifferent.
“If I were you, I don’t think I could ever date someone as pathetic and mentally ill as me. Especially after already suffering so much because of them.”
It hurt to see her forcing herself to look cheerful.
“Jimin, let’s go eat now. Stop talking like that.”
I picked up my coat again and signaled for her to get up. She slipped a hoodie over her school uniform and stood up to follow me.
“I’ll clean up. You go out first.”
“Okay.”
Jimin clutched the strap of the bag against her chest tightly and walked outside. Every time I saw her from behind, pity welled up inside me. Did I pity her? Even though she had committed a terrible crime against me, did I still care for her? Why? Why couldn’t I get angry with her? And why couldn’t I forget my older sister even now?
It occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one who needed counseling. I should go see the director.
“Oppa, the food here is always so good.”
Jimin had ordered the exact same thing as last time and was picking at it listlessly.
“Yeah, it’s a good place.”
Despite saying it tasted good, she wasn’t really eating. I quietly wondered what thoughts were running through her head.
“You’re wondering what I’m thinking about, aren’t you?”
“…Yeah. When you sit there looking that depressed, anyone sitting across from you would wonder.”
“I want to date you, oppa.”
“I know.”
“But you always turn me down.”
“Because you’ve always been my client.”
Jimin dragged her hands down her face and let out a long groan.
“Huuu… Yeah, I know that too.”
Then, with a strange smile that mixed sorrow, depression, and self-mockery, she began eating her pasta. It pained me to see such a complicated smile on a girl her age.
“Oppa, if I hadn’t stabbed you… how do you think things would be right now?”
“I don’t know.”
“No, think about it and tell me.”
“…We probably would have had a better relationship than we do now.”
“Would we have been dating?”
“No. Even then, I wouldn’t have accepted you.”
“…Why not?”
“You’re my client. I don’t want to get hurt by my clients, and I don’t want to hurt them either.”
Jimin tapped her fork against the plate.
“…The fact that you won’t accept me is what hurts me.”
“…I already know that. But right now, I don’t want to get hurt.”
“…Okay, I understand! I’ll just eat.”
After that, neither of us said another word. We simply ate the food in front of us in silence.
“You need to go home and study hard again, okay?”
Jimin walked with her eyes fixed endlessly on the ground.
“Jimin, I don’t want to put this kind of stress on you right before the CSAT. Let’s talk again after it’s over. Alright?”
She gradually drifted closer to me as we walked slowly. Then she held out her hand and looked at me.
“…Then just hold my hand until we get home.”
“…Fine. But in return, cheer up again.”
She slipped her fingers between mine, filling the gaps. The warmth I felt from her hand. The way her grip tightened as if she wanted to feel me more, her hand trembling slightly. And the sensation of my own scar where our wrists touched. That was how we slowly walked toward Jimin’s house.
The closer we got to her home, the more her hand began to shake.
“…Oppa, I’ve been thinking. I’m going to stop receiving counseling now.”
Her voice cracked as she struggled to speak through tears.
“If things stay like this, you’ll never accept me. I know that. Even though you feel sorry for me and sometimes pretend to lose and give me a piece of your heart, you’ll never truly accept how I really feel.”
She squeezed my hand tightly, her whole body trembling. I simply stayed still and accepted that tremor.
“You don’t need to feel any guilt. I did terrible things to you, and this is just me paying for those sins.”
She released our interlaced fingers and used her hand to wipe away her tears.
“Oppa, even so… I won’t give up.”
She kept wiping her tears, but they refused to stop falling.
“I had fun on our date today.”
With those words, the girl turned and left me behind. My right wrist began to throb with pain.
I didn’t know anymore. I didn’t understand my own heart, I didn’t understand anything about Jimin, and now I didn’t even understand the scar on my wrist. I simply stood there in front of the closed gate, watching the girl walk away from me.
“…Please wait for me this time, oppa.”