The Person on My Mind - 1
It was around the time Friday tipped over into Saturday.
Aki still couldn't fall asleep after midnight. Because of the live meeting, she'd skipped her part-time shift, gone back to the dorm, and streamed instead.
…
She lay there blankly.
But maybe the habit of pulling all-nighters for her weekend night shifts had stuck to her body, because sleep just wouldn't come. She hadn't even done much beyond the meeting, so she wasn't especially tired in the first place.
That's strange. I was able to sleep just fine in the convenience store break room.
So she kept lying there, blankly.
Blink.
Blink.
Sleep was supposed to come when her eyes closed.
But the moment she shut them, her thoughts refused to stop.
…
During the live, should I change the camera direction? Or should I interact with the people sitting in the audience halfway through? What should I do after the live?
Her head was a tangled mess.
And then she remembered the advice Seonwoo Taek had given her one day.
When your thoughts start multiplying, it's best to ignore everything except what you can actually do. Most things are fine as long as you move when the time comes.
"…Yes, oppa."
She emptied her head the way he'd told her to.
But sleep still didn't come.
In the end, she started fiddling with her phone.
She checked the news,
watched movie review videos,
looked at other VTubers' performances.
She even played a few rounds of rhythm games.
Tap-tap-tap.
Boing-boing-boing.
And as for her own ego-search…
…
She couldn't do it.
Aki felt like she'd burst into tears if she saw hateful comments.
She only found Ae-ri and Do-dam strange for not being afraid of their own ego-searches. So she always pretended not to know, or heard things secondhand through the other members.
Does that make me a failed streamer…?
…
In the end, it was 3:00 a.m.
She was in trouble.
It wasn't the time for this.
Her mind felt hollow.
I wonder what Taek oppa is doing.
Using her dazed state as an excuse, she sent him a message.
…
...He has a lot of typos tonight.
He was unusually candid, but his explanation was somehow rambling.
That alone made it hard to tell who he was with.
But Aki's sixth sense began to buzz oddly. For some reason, it felt like an encounter that had happened earlier than hers. She could sense that kind of emotional swell.
…
A woman?
Was it a woman?
Woman?
…
Her fingers tapped the screen before she could stop herself.
She wanted to ask right away, but somehow it felt too clingy.
To someone like oppa, that sort of attachment would probably look awful. He was always calm and rational, so she couldn't imagine what kind of adult could be so composed and gentle all the time.
Still.
It bothered her.
…
Tap.
Tap.
Are you close with them?
…
If she phrased it that way, he would probably answer in his usual dry way.
Yes, I am. We're close.
She needed to throw in a different kind of curveball.
Tap.
Tap.
Please send a selfie.
…
Hmm.
That didn't seem right….
She sounded like a deranged stalker.
...I'm not his girlfriend or anything.
She hurriedly deleted it.
Tap.
Tap.
[ ]
What remained was empty space.
Her mind was nothing but questions.
…
First of all, what were they to each other, anyway?
With her dazed head, she typed and deleted, typed and deleted again.
Tap.
Tap.
What are we, exactly?
Tap.
Tap.
Why are you so good to me?
Tap.
Tap.
Is it okay for a self-proclaimed idol to be like this?
Tap.
Tap.
Foreign-famous VTubers are said to date, too. What do you think?
Tap.
Tap.
If I start worrying after only two months of knowing you, would that make me too easy?
Tap.
Tap.
The questions kept getting longer.
She kept deleting them and writing them again.
[ ]
Again, nothing but emptiness.
She couldn't bring herself to send any of it.
…
So in the end, she wrote the most honest thing she could think of.
Tap.
Tap.
I want to see your face.
…
Yes.
That was enough.
Even if I forget everything I can't change right now… this is one thing I can change.
Aki hugged her phone to her chest, feeling lighter than before. What she needed to do now wasn't pressure Taek into an answer, but get herself in shape so she could greet him properly tomorrow.
Time to sleep.
Then, all of a sudden.
Her phone vibrated.
Buzz!
“?”
Aki looked down at the screen.
I want to see your face.
Taek: I understand.
Taek: (typing…)
“?!”
A disaster had unfolded inside her smartphone.
Before she knew it, she was already on her feet. The ridiculous message she had typed earlier had been sent. And Taek was in the middle of writing back.
He understands? Understands what—? Wait… could it be…?
Her face went red.
"Huh—?!"
Her heart started pounding like crazy.
Her hands and feet tingled, and her whole body shook.
Strangely enough, though, she wasn't scared.
Thump.
Thump.
…?!
Wait.
Could this…?
If I ended up dating oppa, would I have to tell Ye-seo unnie?
The moment that thought crossed her mind—
another reply came in.
Buzz!
“!”
Aki hurriedly covered the screen with her hand. If she read it now, it felt like whatever sense she had left would fly right out of her head. So she steadied her breathing and forced herself to calm down. Her ragged breaths pounded against her chest.
“…Ah.”
Oh.
Mom, what am I supposed to do in a moment like this?
Mom said that no one ever knows what's going to happen in a man-woman relationship. So this is what she meant…
Then she gathered her breathing.
Half-closed her eyes.
And very slowly lifted her hand.
The message that had arrived was a photo.
…?
It was a selfie Taek had taken. Maybe because he'd been drinking, his normally indifferent face was flushed a little red. And behind him, she could see the familiar building of a convenience store. Around him, old men drunk on alcohol were dancing.
Are they dancing to an old man's violin playing in the back…?
It was a photo that looked like a comedy sketch.
It was the face of a utopia from a legend.
It looked like a party being held at the end of the world.
And then another reply came in beneath it.
Buzz!
“!”
Taek: It's me with my drinking buddies. If you couldn't sleep and you're tired, you can rest tomorrow. I'm always rooting for you.
There were typos everywhere.
He must have been drunk, too.
Even so, he was incredibly kind.
Kind, yes.
But…
Hmm….
…
It wasn't quite the answer she'd wanted.
Then suddenly, she let out a snort of laughter.
It was ridiculous, really—how she'd gone into a frenzy all by herself, and even more ridiculous that she'd tried to interrogate Taek while he was drunk and full of typos.
And the part about hanging out with old men is ridiculous too….
"Heh, heh-heh-heh…! Ahaha! What even! Pfft! Ahaha…."
And then she lay back down.
After laughing her fill, her head felt clear.
…Ha.
She was sure of it now.
Ah…
I already like this person.
The feelings that had been piling up all this time were already there, shaking her without her noticing.
She hadn't realized it because she'd always assumed he would be by her side. But the slightest hint that things might change, and she got this anxious.
…
Realizing your first love didn't require some romantic incident.
All it needed was one ridiculous night.
Aki had fallen in love with Taek before she even knew it. It was no longer something she could hide behind the words It bothers me.
“…This is bad.”
How was she supposed to face him at the convenience store later?
Worrying about that, she fell asleep.
…
Aki picked up her phone again and quietly deleted the message she'd sent. When Taek was drunk, she wanted to erase the evidence.
For some reason, Taek oppa feels like the kind of person who could figure it out just from context alone….
Hmph.
If he figured out how she felt, even by accident…
well, it wasn't as if she couldn't accept it.
…
Shouldn't I just go apologize in person first…?
＊
I got up, holding my throbbing head.
"Phew…."
It had been a while since I'd slept outside instead of indoors. Around the convenience store, the ground was crowded with old men who had passed out drunk and fallen asleep where they lay.
Snore…!
Fwooo….
Hoo….
The wild night was over, and now they were sleeping softly like babies.
They all wore the faces of people who had everything in the world.
…
It's warm in July, and they're old men already used to sleeping rough, so I guess nothing unusual happened. That's a relief.
I lay back down blankly.
The morning sky was blue.
…
How many loops had it taken for something like this to happen?
To wake up among people like this…
No.
To drink and dance with people like this.
…
I didn't even know anymore.
This runaway-train of a loop kept erasing the lines I'd drawn and crossing them. Even when I flailed like I was about to drown in the waves, it had still reached out and grabbed me gently.
It slammed into me like it was trying to break me apart, and yet it kept pouring strange things into my heart.
…
Little by little, noise kept building up.
Empty expectations were taking root.
Crushing hope was taking shape.
Maybe…
Maybe something would remain.
A painful hope rose in me that this loop might actually mean something.
…
Then I heard a sound from beyond me.
I heard the violin that had turned the night into a drinking party.
I stood up and followed it.
As the dawn broke over the Han River, Dr. Jang was playing the violin.
His shadow moved gracefully over the water.
The piece was full of sorrow.
It carried the aria of an old man's time, destined to flow on with nothing left behind but regret. The original name of the song had long since been forgotten, and people remembered it only as a violin piece.
It felt like a song that belonged to Dr. Jang.
He was playing his life.
On the G string,
he cried out at the top of his lungs.
I could hear that scream.
The echo of regret was too familiar.
…
…
The performance slowly came to an end.
With obvious satisfaction, he said, "Man, it feels great doing this with an expensive violin after so long. This thing cost a few tens of millions, didn't it?"
"It was 100 million won."
"Oh-ho. Well, aren't you a precious little thing."
…
Dr. Jang was joking around, but he didn't treat the violin like a burden. He had the attitude of someone who had already handled instruments worth billions of won more than a few times in his life.
I asked him, "Do you regret it?"
…
He nodded.
And then he said, "You're no ordinary one, are you? Hardly anyone can understand that."
…
"Did you study music?"
"No."
"Oh?"
"Yes."
"Then you do regret it. Everything you've lived through, I mean."
…
Dr. Jang went on, "Classical music is fascinating, you know."
…
"Even if you play the same score, on the same instrument, with the same technique… one little variable like the weather, the temperature, the humidity, the mood of the audience, or the concert hall, and all the sound changes."
…
"Even if you repeat it hundreds of times, what you're hearing in the end is still only one performance. In other words, you're hearing a different piece every single day."
…
"But now I can only play one of them."
"Why?"
"Because I forgot everything. Everything except regret."
The old man said,
"If you can still change, then don't regret it. That's hell."
"That is…"
My drinking buddy, Jang Cheol, turned back to me with a broad grin.
"A promise between friends."
…
"Wherever you are, live happily."
…
I hesitated for a moment.
…
…
Then I answered, "Yes."
Again.
Again….
I had made another promise I probably couldn't carry.
Jang Cheol laughed as he patted my shoulder.
"Hahaha! That's right! That's how a young person should be!"
…
"Then let's have hangover soup together or—"
He cut himself off mid-sentence, looking somewhere in the distance. Then he lightly tapped my back and turned around.
"I'm going to go look after the old men. You take care of that hangover!"
"Pardon?"
I turned to look at him, but he was already striding toward the convenience store.
"Hey! You clueless old geezers, wake up! Let's go get some hangover soup!"
"Yaaawn! Oof, that was a good sleep."
"Dr. Jang's got energy to spare, doesn't he."
…
And then.
I heard footsteps from far away.
Tap-tap-tap!
"Manager—! Taek oppa—!"
“!”
I turned toward the voice.
A-young came toward us, her yellow hair swaying beneath a baseball cap. She had a strangely urgent look on her face. Waving, she hurried over.
"Hah, haah…."
…
"Ah, well…."
…
Neither of us looked particularly dignified.
I had woken up after sleeping rough, my hair sticking out in every direction, and A-young had dark circles under her eyes, as if she'd stayed up all night and rushed out here.
…
…
A-young said, "Uh, do you happen to remember the text messages from last night? I mean, early this morning?"
"?"
I looked at my phone.
…
A chat log with A-young.
She and I had deleted it back and forth in turns.
Did she act on reflex because she was drunk?
Message deleted.
Message deleted.
Message deleted.
…
…
…
"What is this?"
"Ah!"
A-young, who had been peeking at my phone from beside me, suddenly shouted. Then she looked down at her own phone instead. After that, she laughed like she was about to cry.
"Pfft, ahahaha! Seriously! Why does it end like this?!"
“?”
She laughed for a long time.
I couldn't begin to guess why.
Emotions were truly impossible to predict.
“….”
“….”
In the end, we greeted each other like normal people.
"You're here again."
"Yes! I'm here again."
"Would you like to eat with us?"
"Yes, I'd like that."
And we walked toward the convenience store.
It was a complete mess,
but in the end, everything returned to normal.