Chapter 249: Innovation (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 249: Innovation (3)
"…Hyung?"
Lee Cheong-hyeon’s eyes trembled as he called out to me. The practice room fell into a suffocating silence.
All their eyes were fixed on me.
Am I losing it?
Of all the things to snatch away, I took a kid’s drink.
And simply because I found it unsettling to watch him drink it.
"Sorry, it’s nothing. I’ll give it back."
Even to my own ears, my voice was shaking.
Lee Cheong-hyeon reached out with an uneasy expression. The cup slipped from my fingertips back to his.
Assistant Manager Kim, aren't you overreacting? It’s not like something’s going to happen to him just from drinking that. You’re making the person who offered it feel awkward.
The sound of my heartbeat filled my head.
The car accident that year had happened in an instant. It came without warning, shortly after I had parted ways with my sister. It was caused by a driver who had been distracted by their phone while driving.
There were no young passengers like Lee Cheong-hyeon or Choi Je-ho in that car. Whether they would have been safe if there had been companions is anyone's guess.
The last time I saw my sister, her clothes were stained and mottled.
The scene of the accident, which I saw later in photos, was drenched in dark colors.
Just like the asphalt under the streetlight on the night Yu Han-su hit me over the head.
My sister’s skin had been pale. So was mine, when I was left alone in the officetel.
Motionless, not making a single sound of breath, just lying there still.
That was the end for us siblings.
What was I like before my breath stopped?
The pain, as if my heart were being wrung out, was still vivid.
Even after dying like that, I was still suffering through the same agony.
I wanted to say, How can a person die so easily? I knew all too well what kind of consequences a moment’s embarrassment or competitive streak could bring.
But my sister wasn't by my side. The scent of blood was too vivid.
The pain tightening my chest was overwhelming, and the sensation of suffocating was impossible to forget.
I remembered myself going to Hannam Bridge alone because I had no one to ask for help.
I couldn't breathe. My eyes grew hot, and I gritted my teeth to hold it back.
I felt the need to adjust my Emotion Perception Rate. I didn't have the confidence to stay in this state any longer.
But sometimes, action is faster than thought…
"Hyung?"
Before I could even touch the perception rate, my hand snatched Lee Cheong-hyeon’s drink again.
Then, I pressed my palm firmly over the straw to block it, gripping the cup with my other hand and refusing to let go.
I pulled the cup as far toward me as I could.
"I'm sorry."
"Hyung."
"I'm really sorry."
I could only apologize. I didn't know why I was suddenly acting like this myself. I couldn't explain it in words he would understand.
"Let’s drink something else. I don't want you to drink this. I’ll buy you a new one."
"Okay. I won't drink it, so just calm down, Hyung," Lee Cheong-hyeon said softly. He reached out with both hands, as if to grab my arms.
In that moment, I pulled my arm back so the drink wouldn't touch his hand.
Lee Cheong-hyeon’s pushed-away hand went limp in the air.
Slowly, his bewildered face came into view.
Behind him, Park Ju-woo watched with a worried look, and Jeong Seong-bin stood with his hand over his mouth.
It was a mistake. A very big one.
"Sorry."
Why on earth was I acting like this?
I couldn't understand it. I felt like I was going to die, swept away by unfamiliar emotions and submerged in swirling memories.
Kim I-wol suffered from intermittent seizures when he went to bed. He frequently clutched his chest in his sleep, and whenever he did, he couldn't breathe properly.
However, whenever they tried to call an ambulance, he would quickly fall back into a deep sleep with only a furrowed brow. Consequently, the worried members took turns sleeping in Choi Je-ho’s bed to keep watch—excluding Kang Gi-yeon, who needed to focus on his own recovery first.
'And then he acts like everything is perfectly fine in the morning. It’s seriously infuriating.'
Lee Cheong-hyeon had said that once. Although Kang Gi-yeon didn't say it out loud, he seemed to agree.
They didn't tell Kim I-wol every time something happened at night. Not only did he often not remember it properly, but the first time he heard about it, he had practically knelt down to apologize to the members.
'You guys must have lost sleep because of me. Do you want to sleep a bit now? I'll let the manager know.'
None of them wanted an apology from Kim I-wol. Rather, they knew that this situation would only become another source of stress for him.
So, they left it alone without saying anything. They just took turns checking to make sure they didn't hear him gasping for breath.
And that was how they discovered that Kim I-wol was the type of person who, despite nearly dying the night before, would act as if nothing had happened once morning came.
Did he think everything was fine just because he took a shower and came out looking neat? As expected, the members of Spark were all driven to near-madness by his behavior.
"Don't you think it would be better for him to be hospitalized?"
Jeong Seong-bin, who was on night duty today, asked worriedly.
Park Ju-woo, who was hanging up Choi Je-ho’s blankets to repay the debt of using his bed the night before—though Je-ho himself didn't care in the slightest—replied.
"It feels like… Hyung is driving a car that’s been in a wreck, with nothing but a few sheets of metal patched over it."
Jeong Seong-bin understood the metaphor immediately. It was a remarkably apt description.
Park Ju-woo spoke as he shook out a pillowcase.
"…It might be because he’s anxious. Hyung has been under a lot of stress."
At those words, Jeong Seong-bin looked up at Park Ju-woo.
He couldn't even remember how many years it had been, but he recalled the first time he saw Park Ju-woo at UA.
The quiet, expressionless face of the old Park Ju-woo, which was hard to imagine now, overlapped with the present.
"If you open the window and let him get some fresh air… he gets much better."
"Really?"
Park Ju-woo nodded as he hung up the pillowcase. That must have been what happened last night.
Watching Park Ju-woo, who looked satisfied after hanging the laundry with perfect precision, Jeong Seong-bin asked.
"Ju-woo."
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
Park Ju-woo blinked.
Then, after tilting his head a few times, he looked at Jeong Seong-bin with a faint smile and answered.
"Yeah. You don't have to worry about me."
At times like this, Jeong Seong-bin found his friend quite unreliable.
However, he didn't say anything more. He didn't want to see his precious friend’s face turn dark again.
Not long after the drink-snatching incident, I began receiving counseling separately from my health checkups.
Since I had promised to go to the hospital once Kang Gi-yeon’s condition stabilized, it was a "killing two birds with one stone" situation.
The first topic that came up in counseling was family relationships.
My family was a total disaster—the "crazy dysfunctional" edition—so I tried to choose my words carefully. But when the counselor told me to speak comfortably within what I could share, I told her various things.
"…But this might not be everything. I tend to forget things easily."
Seeing how my sister used to feel wronged whenever I couldn't remember things from the past, there must be quite a few episodes I’ve forgotten. However, the counselor was considerate, telling me to take my time and speak whenever I remembered something.
The counselor was horrified when I told her about being hit with a blunt weapon by a coworker and standing at the crossroads of life and death after eating food I was allergic to.
"After that, I became sensitive to even small things. My emotions fluctuate wildly, like they're jumping all over the place."
There were other questions as well. When asked about my relationships with those around me, I opened up about my troubles with Kang Gi-yeon.
"He told me he was scared because he didn't know when I might die, and I think he has a point. I don't know what will happen to me either."
When asked if there was anyone I could lean on, I answered no. I wondered if I should say there was someone but they died, but I couldn't bring myself to do it because the counselor’s expression was already so dark.
After a moment of thought, the counselor asked me.
"I-wol, have you ever had extreme thoughts yourself?"
It was a difficult question. I debated whether to combine my memories from before and after the regression, but since my head seemed to have started malfunctioning the moment I opened the first memory data, I decided to be honest. I told her I had gone to the Han River once but just came back.
"What was it that held you back then?"
I retraced my memories for a moment. Then, I spoke about the things that came to mind one by one.
"That I had to work…? That if an accident happened here, it might be traumatic for the person who first discovered me…? That it would be hard for the people who have to clean up. I heard that the bodies of drowning victims are badly damaged. I shouldn't be a nuisance… I think I had thoughts like that."
The counselor’s hand became busy. I was curious about what she was writing, but my interest quickly faded. How she interpreted this story was her domain.
"What is the most important thing to you right now?"
"Activities, I suppose. It’s important for the members to promote safely and smoothly…"
After that, we talked about our schedule and activities.
When she asked what kind of protective measures the agency had agreed to provide, I explained the negotiation plan as specifically as possible to show that I was now in a safe state.
After hearing everything, the counselor looked at me and spoke.
"Earlier, you said you tend to forget things easily, right?"
"Yes."
"But listening to your story, it seems like you actually have a very good memory. You know how people usually say they can't remember anything once the CSAT is over? But you’re even helping the younger members with their studies, aren't you?"
"Uh…"
"It might be that you have a tendency to try to forget bad things quickly. This is a phenomenon that falls under 'repression' among defense mechanisms…"
In short, it meant that my forgetting most childhood anecdotes was part of a defense mechanism.
"If I don't remember them, isn't that fine as it is?"
At my words, the counselor drew a line, saying that wasn't the case. She said that accumulated stress could eventually manifest physically through somatization.
If so, this could also be linked to synchronization. It was a fact that the synchronization rate had increased after my mental state became unstable.
"And, I-wol, it would be good for you to reduce your workload. If possible."
Including the counselor’s advice, the session filled the entire two hours. I was only able to leave the center after receiving a recommendation that it would be best to combine the counseling with drug therapy.