She Opened the Door and Came In
The door opened, and someone came in.
Hellish nights had replayed themselves in his dreams without end. The moans of those filthy bastards were still vivid at his ear.
When he opened his eyes, his shirt was soaked through with cold sweat. Sick with the feeling, he flung it to the floor and pushed himself up off the bed. He had slept the entire day, and the dark window told him it was already late.
Over winter break his classmates had drifted by now and then, claiming they were there to comfort him. From around finals, though, with summer vacation looming, not one of them had shown. Gossip dies the way gossip does. It had simply burned out.
For half a year he had barely left the studio. School was a leave of absence. From what he had heard, that insane woman he did not even want to think about seemed to be on leave as well. The piece of shit, they said, had died in a motorcycle accident over the break.
He did not feel particularly sorry, and he did not feel like cursing the man either. Since that day the guy was still alive inside him. It simply had not landed.
It was much the same with her. The pain of that night clearly had not faded, and twenty-two years could not be set down so easily over a single day. It hurt. Her name had become a curse to him, and every time he recalled it, it tore his heart to shreds. The woman from that day was plainly not the woman he had known for twenty-two years.
He headed for the bathroom and, as he did every day, performed the ritual meant to wash all of this feeling and memory away as quickly as possible. He turned on the shower and let the water hit his head whether his underwear got soaked or not. Hot or cold, he only wanted his thoughts and his feelings swept off with the water. There was a reason he did it this way. It was how the near-seizure hyperventilation settled once he was up.
If there was any mercy in it, his parents, after hearing what had happened, had simply let him stay on in the studio until he slowly steadied. Part of that was surely worry over a chance meeting. They were neighbors with only a hallway between them. She had been that kind of presence—someone who had left a trace on every corner of his life.
He had loved her so much, and he had been certain she felt the same, and he had resolved that it was time to take the next step. He had never imagined it would shatter so emptily, two months after his discharge. At a gathering meant to bless the two of them, no less. One day after he had finally confessed and they had come together.
That bitch.
He let the grief drain away under the sound of the shower.
Bang. Bang.
Someone was knocking on the front door.
"Sunbae Jang Woojin! Woojin-sunbae! I'm sorry for coming so late!"
A bright, ringing woman's voice came through the wall, muffled and stifling. Goosebumps rose along his spine, and his body ached as if needles were being driven into it. Since that day, even the sound of a woman's voice wound him so tight that the tension itself turned to pain. There was a doorbell, and the sheer nerve of her pounding on the door anyway sent anger surging up through him. Still, careful not to seem threatening, he opened the door with the chain on.
"Be... quiet. There's a... doorbell. Why are you... banging... the door."
The moment he registered that he was dealing with her, his lungs dragged in air far too hard, against his will, and his voice would not come out right.
"Oh—you're Woojin-sunbae, right? The professor—eek! Sunbae, please put some clothes on and come out!"
A young-faced woman with a bob stuck her head through the crack, saw how he was dressed, and flinched back behind the door.
"Forget... the clothes. What... is this... about?"
"Ah, um. The professor wanted to counsel you about your leave of absence, but they couldn't reach you, so they asked me—the class rep—to come by."
She seemed to be one of the juniors he had never met, since he had been on leave the whole time. He had barely turned his phone on in half a year, so the professor had probably sent her to check on him—his military leave running straight into a semester's leave.
"Haa. All... right. I'll... contact the professor... myself. Later."
"Ah, okay. Then I'll be going, Woojin-sunbae."
But she seemed curious about how unsteady he looked through the gap. Only her eyes peeked out as she looked him up and down.
That was not good. You need to get out of here. Fast. I don't think I'll make it otherwise.
"Are you feeling really unwell, sunbae?"
"I'm fine. Please... just... go."
Damn it. The edges of his vision were going black. It felt as if his mind were being hauled up toward the crown of his head. The sensation of fainting, closing in.
"Go... now!"
When he snapped back to himself, a cutter was a breath away from shearing through the chain.
"W-wait!"
A male rescuer, hearing his voice, pushed his face into the gap and asked after him.
"Sir! Are you all right? Can you move?"
"Yes, I'm fine. It was just a simple faint!"
The paramedics murmured among themselves outside, then asked him to open the door. He hauled his trembling body up, undid the chain, and opened the front door. Two paramedics stood there, and behind them the bob-haired woman, hands clasped, her face startled.
They sat him against the wall and checked him over. Finding nothing seriously wrong, they asked what he wanted.
"Then we'll transport you to the hospital."
"I'm all right. I've been diagnosed with neurogenic syncope before. I'm not going."
The EMT looked uneasy about leaving it there, but he packed up, urged Woojin and the bob-haired woman on what to do in an emergency, and left. Out in the officetel hallway, people who had come to see what the commotion was were already scattering.
The attention seemed to weigh on her. She stepped carefully into the entryway.
"I'm sorry. I was so startled, I just..."
"N-no. It's fine. But please don't... come in... any farther."
The moment he registered her drawing closer, his breathing turned difficult again. To put distance between them he crossed the living room almost on his hands and knees and made for the bed. A certain distance, and he was all right again.
The bob-haired junior, though, shut the front door and stood in the entryway, staring blankly at him.
"Um... are you really okay, sunbae?"
Her pale, young face had gone blue-white.
"Yes, I'm fine. Please go. I'm sorry for worrying you."
Why isn't she leaving? She had frozen, unable to do one thing or the other. The situation was unbearable, but he gathered what courage he had.
"Then stay a minute, and go once you've calmed down."
The moment she heard that, she took off her shoes, stepped into the short hall, hesitated, and slowly came into the living room that was also his bedroom. She looked around as she entered. When she reached about the kitchen and set a foot toward the low table spread in the middle of the room, his heart suddenly raced and his breath went short.
"Wait! Not there. Could you take one step back?"
Startled, she edged backward until she met the kitchen. At that distance he was considerably better.
"I'm sorry, but could you only come that far? Past that, I have my reasons."
She listened, then sat neatly on her knees in the kitchen and spoke.
"My father collapsed all of a sudden once, so... I understand trauma. I'm sorry, sunbae."
"It's all right. You were worried. Thank you."
Then she followed with a question that had not lost a child's purity.
"Is it because of that rumor going around the department? Is that why you ended up like this?"
A knife, swung in all innocence. His heart had already been slashed several times just to hold on, and he could not answer at once. Still, she seemed to take his gasping for an answer, and she flustered out an apology.
"I wasn't reading the room. I'm sorry."
If you know you're sorry, then please just get out of my room. But he was not made of anything so sharp, and he asked gently.
"Before that—I don't even know your name. Who are you? I don't think you've seen me either."
"Ah, I'm sorry! I'm Na Yujeong, Social Welfare, forty-second class!"
She shot to her feet, bowed a vigorous ninety degrees, and upended the canvas tote she had been carrying onto the floor. Lip tint, a shirt, a sports bra—so much junk poured out that he wondered how any of it had fit.
"Ah! I'm sorry, sunbae!"
Yujeong, her white face flushed red as if it had ripened, frantically stuffed everything back into the bag. Her face was young, her eyes extremely round, and her slightly large front teeth were rabbit teeth, so she did not have the look of a beauty. Still, it was the kind of impression anyone would have called cute.
To him, now, she was only an uncomfortable intruder.
Even so, the tension had eased enough that he felt it: his underwear had dried a little, but it was still damp, and the sensation climbed over his hips. He had fainted in the shower, so he was naked but for that single pair, and she was talking as if it were nothing.
"Look, I'm sorry, but once you've calmed down, please leave. No—I'm your senior, so I'll drop the formal speech. Will you go? Thanks for today. But I'm really uncomfortable right now."
Yujeong, still cramming things into the tote, stared straight at him again. What? Pressed by that look, he quietly covered his lower half with the blanket.
"Sunbae. I'm sorry, but could I sleep here tonight? The last intercity bus already left, and I don't have taxi fare."
Every so often her pronunciation slipped past those front teeth, and it made her look a little dim.
"You're going to sleep alone in some stranger's room? Then crash at a friend's place. Why?"
Yujeong laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of her head.
"I commute, so I don't really have friends I'm that close with! If it's really too much, I'll try the library, or a jjimjilbang—you know, one of those bathhouses where you can sleep. I'm sorry."
She said it in a single stroke and made to leave, and his soft heart gave. He waved her back down.
"Fine. But only that far. Like I said, you can't come any closer."
"Yes, thank you! And anyway, even if it is a guy's room, if it's a sunbae I figure he won't try anything, so I feel safe."
So the foolishness was not only in her pronunciation. Startled by how calculating she was, he sat up.
"Ah—oh no. You'll catch a cold if you stay like that. Put some clothes on, sunbae."
She spoke as if she had only just registered his state of dress again, having briefly forgotten it. The earlier incident must have shaken her badly.
"Then could you help for a second?"
Yujeong panicked, her face going red as a beet. A misunderstanding.
"No, not like that! When I move, I need you to circle the room with me. If you come within a certain distance, the hyperventilation hits again."
"Ah—ah."
Embarrassed by her own mistake, she scratched the back of her head, then turned circles around the room in time with him. It was funny. To him, it was a terribly sad sight. Still, because she followed well, he gathered his clothes, went into the bathroom, changed, and finished the shower.
When he came out, she was perched on his bed, reading a book. After half a year, it was a truly unfamiliar scene. Even so, he was steadier than when he had first met her, and the aching pain along his spine had eased a great deal.
"Oh, sunbae. Do you have another blanket or pillow?"
He could not tell whether she had no sense, or whether she was calculating.
They had to spin around the room several more times before each of them could make a place to sleep.