Facing Each Other (9)
I feel like I’m going crazy too.
Why are you doing this to me… why the hell are you doing this to me?
Then what am I supposed to do now? In this situation, what action am I even supposed to take for any of this to make sense?
I wish someone would just tell me. What I’m supposed to do here if I want to get anywhere close to the right answer.
Am I just supposed to walk out of the house and leave Seoa like that—shattered the way she is? Leave her behind when I have no idea what she might do once I’m gone?
Or… am I supposed to go back to her side right now and try to soothe her somehow?
I don’t know. No matter how hard I wrap my head around it, I can’t tell which one is the right answer. And the most fucked-up part is… neither of those choices is for me.
Then what about me? I’m the one who’s losing my mind here… who’s supposed to hold me together? The me who wants to give up on everything and just close my eyes this second… who’s going to comfort that?
“Come here… you’re not actually thinking of leaving, are you? You really don’t care what happens to me?”
Ha… fuck.
Fine. Let’s take this as far as it goes. I don’t know anymore either. I don’t even know what’s what… so if you’re going to come at me like that, I have no choice but to do the same.
I’m at my limit too… I really feel like I’m being driven further and further into a mental corner.
“……Fine. I’m going crazy too, so let’s just push each other all the way to the end… If that’s what you want, I’ll gladly go first. I’ll show you first—the me who’s already long since lost it… You have no idea how much I’ve suffered, how hard it’s been, do you? Watch with your own eyes.”
I trudged back over to Seoa… and picked up the empty soju bottle lying on the floor.
“M-Minjae…?”
Then I smashed it as hard as I could against the corner of the desk. The bottle shattered with a clear, crystalline sound, scattering its fragments across the floor like a shower of star candies. A few of the shards skimmed past my arm and left thin cuts behind.
All that remained in my hand was the blunt mouth of the bottle, serving as a kind of handle.
Like that, I walked across the finely crushed shards toward Seoa. The roughly broken pieces were razor-sharp, piercing straight through my socks and embedding themselves in the soles of my feet.
But… I barely cared. With every step I took, the shards that had been lodged shallowly worked themselves deeper into my skin.
“W-wait… stop… I’m sorry. I was wrong. I won’t say things like that… please just stop.”
“Should I start scraping my body with this soju bottle right in front of you? Huh? Would that make you happy?”
“No… I’m sorry. Put it down right now. Put it down and talk to me…”
Seoa edged closer little by little… then wrapped both arms around my neck.
And she stroked my head.
“I’m sorry… I think I got too emotional. I won’t do it again. So calm down. Let’s… just rest like this for a bit. Let’s set everything down and take a moment. Okay? We’ve come way too far… so let’s just stay stopped like this for a little while.”
She said that while soothing me. It seemed she wanted to calm me down as I kept gasping for rough breaths.
Just rest for a bit… like this… just take a little time.
Held in Seoa’s arms, I let a little time pass. Then I felt the strength draining from my legs. And right after that—maybe the surge of adrenaline had worn off—the pain came flooding in. Pain so sharp I could barely even stand still, radiating from the soles of my feet.
So I finally sank down. The socks I was wearing had already been stained red long ago, their original color lost.
Seoa got me to sit on the edge of the bed for now.
“What do I do… there’s so much blood coming from your feet…”
Saying that, she carefully pulled out the glass shards that had pierced through the thin cotton and lodged in my soles, using her bare hands.
“Minjae… are you okay? Shouldn’t we go to the hospital… there might be some that went in deeper…”
“I’ll handle it myself.”
“……No. What are you going to do looking like this?”
Once I was sitting on the bed, I felt like I wanted to lie down and sleep right that second. I was exhausted. Maybe from cramming too many stimuli into my brain in such a short time. It felt like my thinking circuits had simply stopped.
I didn’t want to care about anything… didn’t want to do anything more. I just wanted to close my eyes for a moment and zone out.
I only thought it in my head at first, but eventually I leaned back and lay down on the bed.
Comfortable…
As my head tipped back, the world started spinning. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open—everything was lurching so badly.
My feet kept burning with pain, but I just wanted to stay lying there like this.
“Minjae? Nothing’s wrong, right…?”
Seoa climbed onto the bed with me, looking me over as if she were worried I’d collapsed so suddenly.
“I just… want to stay like this for a little. I’m really so tired. I feel like I could throw up any second… my feet hurt so much… and my head feels like it’s going to split.”
“Yeah…”
Seoa settled in beside me and lay down too. Lying next to me, she turned her body toward me and kept looking at me.
This was us after burning hot and then snuffing out all at once. Neither of us pulled out any more emotional words, and neither of us lost our temper. It was calm and peaceful.
The ceiling I stared up at quietly held a sense of stability words couldn’t reach.
That was the atmosphere of this room right now. Exactly as Seoa had said—the two of us resting with everything set down.
“Minjae… earlier I was really awful to you. I’m sorry. Then I’ll compromise a little too. I’ll wait until you come back. Would it be okay if you at least let me wait by your side?”
She said that while resting one hand on my chest. Compromise… I wasn’t sure the word even fit this situation, but maybe it was something that I’d managed to pull even a compromise out of her.
But more than that… if it was just waiting by my side, wasn’t she already doing that right now? It didn’t seem all that different from the present. So in the end she was saying she’d just keep spinning her wheels in the same place.
“How is that any different from now… you’re already doing that right next to me. I’m going to give you the same answer over and over. So even if you say you’ll wait, it won’t mean anything.”
“Mm, no. You might think that right this second… but after a little time passes, you’ll end up looking for me too, Minjae.”
What was she talking about? That after time passed I’d go looking for Seoa? I had no idea what she even meant. Why was Seoa so certain of that?
Someone like me… would go looking for Seoa again once time passed? That didn’t make any sense. Even in this very moment I’d rejected her confession. How was someone like that supposed to come looking for you again?
Ah… my head feels like it’s going to explode. This was really too much now.
I closed my eyes. I gave up forcing them open any longer and just closed them.
Nari… I need to take Nari’s call… what time is it now. It’ll be fine if I just sleep a little and get up, right? Even just a while ago it was still pretty early.
It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay. Just sleep a little… I’m so worn out too.
“But… I’m going to be a little greedy about just one more thing. This is something I absolutely can’t give up to anyone else. I have to be the first, no matter what.”
Seoa’s voice slipped gently through my fading consciousness from beside me. I couldn’t properly make out what she was saying. What was she talking about like that?
“Hah…”
I made that sound as my eyes snapped open. A pitch-black ceiling. Even without checking the time, I could tell at once that it was already insanely late.
I pushed myself upright to clear my head. My skull still ached like it was about to crack.
Did I fall asleep here… I’m a real crazy bastard. How the hell did I end up sleeping here of all places. Of all places…
I turned my head slightly to check beside me. Seoa seemed to have fallen asleep with me; she was lying right next to me. And she still looked like she was out.
Of all places, I’d slept so carelessly here… Seeing Seoa breathing softly and sleeping so deeply snapped me fully awake.
I picked up my phone and checked the time. It was already well past eleven at night.
Nari… what happened with Nari?!
Thankfully there were no missed-call alerts on my phone… so it seemed she still hadn’t contacted me. Relief washed over me all at once.
Thank god… that was close.
I need to get home, fast.
I tried to get up from the bed and walk. But the moment I stood, I couldn’t help letting out a short scream.
My feet… hurt like absolute hell. I curled my toes as hard as I could, creating a tiny space between the floor and my soles. That way I walked little by little, trying to keep the bottoms of my feet from touching the ground as much as possible.
And at that single cry of pain, I heard Seoa stir as if she’d woken up too.
“Minjae… you’re up?”
“……I didn’t mess anything up, did I?”
“Yeah. Are you leaving now?”
Seoa got up from the bed a beat later and came over to me. Then she took hold of one of my arms as if she meant to support me.
“You okay? Can you walk?”
“Yeah… you don’t have to hold me. I’ll get there on my own.”
I shook off Seoa’s hand and walked all the way to the front door. It was a really hard walk, but I had to do it that way.
But… something about Seoa’s atmosphere felt a little different. Had she always been this gentle? There didn’t seem to be that sense of urgency anymore either. What is this… just my imagination, probably.
“Minjae. I’ll keep waiting in the same place. I’ll think of it as the punishment for the mistakes I made… and wait quietly in the same spot. So whenever your heart changes, come find me. I’ll wait looking only at you.”
As I was about to step out the front door, Seoa left me with those final words.
I felt like I’d heard something similar right before I fell asleep… but I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember it well.
Saying she’d wait for me was something she’d always said the same way. But… the words Seoa was saying now sounded almost like they were announcing the end of a long fight. For some reason the atmosphere was different.
Maybe because the way she delivered them had changed. I didn’t really know, but… that was how I took it. That today had brought this whole thing to a close.
It wasn’t a clean ending, but it felt like a provisional stop at least.
Well… maybe that was enough. For now, just stop thinking about it. Right now I was busy getting home.
I took a taxi back to my place.
By the way… it’s almost past midnight, and Nari still isn’t going to contact me? After she’d made such a big deal of it herself.
Just in case, I should try calling her first. With that thought, I dialed Nari.
“Hello? Nari, is the work not going well?”
“What the hell… what are you doing, you bastard?”
“Huh…? What do you mean all of a sudden…”