Even Regret Won't Change the Outcome
"I'll be back."
"Yes… Ah!"
"Hm?"
"Th-that necktie…."
Ah, whatever.
"Oh. Ah… thanks."
"Of course. Have a good day at work."
The necktie I'd given him had gone crooked, so I'd straightened it. That was all. Nothing more.
I'd blame the flush in my cheeks on the heating.
"Haa…."
It was because I'd become a woman. Probably.
I only had a hunch to go on. Still—there was no way my heart would start pounding like this overnight.
And the way just looking at hyung made me feel like my heart might burst and kill me—it hadn't always been like that.
Hold on… I needed to think this through carefully.
A woman…? Well, of course a woman would like a man. On a basic level, that made perfect sense.
I could stop with all the modern-world-this, modern-world-that denial. At the end of the day, it was true. If men and women never came together, how would anyone have children? How would human civilization keep going?
Had the female hormones changed something in me?
Or did I actually like men?
"Uuunngh…."
The more I thought about it, the more the questions piled up. And none of them got answered.
Nothing resolved itself—only more doubts wandered through my head until they packed it so full I could barely think straight.
"…Maybe I should just clean."
I was never much good at math.
Science neither. Those tiny points of light beyond the sky, lost in pitch-black dark—I never cared much about those either.
I was just an ordinary person who liked cooking and enjoyed cleaning.
"Ugh…! This damn Maljong!"
But as I'd said before, I hated cleaning up other people's messes.
I already had less strength in my body than before—and what was with all this garbage? Filthy heavy, useless-looking, reeking, and I couldn't even tell why any of it was here.
"Ugh…."
Here and there, a few things still looked decent.
If I sold them, I might make a decent chunk of money—except they were human-scum's taste, so whether anyone would actually buy them was another question.
The clothes should go in a donation bin. Among the cosmetics, the half-used ones could just be thrown out, and the new ones gathered up to give to someone….
"Wh… what the hell is this."
Why were there pads here.
Used ones, no less….
At first I truly couldn't understand why she and my brother-in-law had separate rooms—but whatever the reason had been, I was sincerely, genuinely glad they had never slept together.
"…?"
Then the first woman hyung ever slept with was…
"Eh… wait…."
Me.
"Ah…?"
What was this.
Why did it feel like the corners of my mouth were lifting. Why did I feel so good.
It was as if happiness were pouring into the empty space in my chest.
I didn't understand. Just… the thought that hyung had never been with another woman made me strangely happy.
"Hweh…?"
I really… didn't get it. I was happy.
"Suhan, you changed your necktie?"
"Yeah. Someone gave it to me."
"Ooh~ your girlfriend?"
"That's… not it."
The moment the word girlfriend floated through the office, they swarmed me all over again. I still didn't understand why so many people cared whether I had a girlfriend.
"She picked one that suits you perfectly, though. Not flashy, but not plain either."
"Your girlfriend's got great taste~"
"I told you, she's not my girlfriend…."
Still, Jiwoo had chosen well. Whether your rank was high or low, a necktie was best kept moderate.
Even with a pattern, there was a line of what was acceptable—and Jiwoo had matched it exactly.
"So you're not anything to each other?"
"We're not nothing, but… at least not on the romantic side?"
"They even gifted you a necktie. There's really nothing like that going on?"
"Ah…… what?"
What meaning was there in a necktie. A gift was just a gift, wasn't it.
"Does it… mean something?"
"Ah."
"Wow… Suhan, that wall of yours is solid."
"?"
Everyone except me seemed to more or less know.
"Ahem… I'm not sure it really means that, but back in the day it used to go around with that kind of meaning. Well… these days people just give them as friendship gifts too, but…."
"Aha… so what does it mean?"
"I… I want you…? Something like that, right?"
"That's right. Back when people used to load gifts with meaning. Kind of sweet, looking back."
"Aha… then they probably don't know."
"Yeah?"
Well. Jiwoo was still only twenty-two.
"Anyway. Even without the meaning, a necktie is the thing you wear the longest. Whether that person knows the meaning or not, they'll be over the moon."
This wasn't love. When Jiwoo had said it, the feeling had been completely different—more like respect for me as a man than romantic interest.
"……"
But no matter how I thought about it, the necktie-straightening….
"…Let's just get to work."
"It's a woman."
"Definitely a woman."
Even knowing Jiwoo was a man, the act of fixing my tie…
I decided to stop thinking about it.
I was pressing my sleepy eyes hard, chasing the drowsiness away at the convenience store, when the door chimed open with a little jingle.
"Welco—ah. Hyung."
"…When you get off… want to grab a drink…?"
I had only ever seen hyung smiling brightly. I'd come to think of it as his identity, so naturally I'd assumed that was his default—the way he simply was.
"Okay."
For the first time today, I was looking at a hyung filled to the brim with painful gloom.
"You've been waiting a while."
"…It's fine."
Hyung sat at the outdoor table outside the convenience store, staring blankly up at the sky. For some reason the cold full moon lit him, and the summer cicadas cried with a sharp, aching sound.
He looked lonely—and yet, as if he hated loneliness itself, he looked like he was in pain. Who had thrown that hyung into a trash bin of silence and faint emptiness.
"…This place is a bit much. Mind if we go somewhere else?"
"Sure. I don't mind."
Hyung bought a six-pack of soju bundled together, a few snacks, and some jerky, then trudged heavily over and got into the car.
"……"
What had happened, who had made this uncomfortable atmosphere, I tried to crack this unreal situation with my stupid brain—but I didn't have enough information. And every time we passed under a streetlight, that sorrow on his face made me fall silent.
"We're here. Originally… I was going to drink somewhere like the Han River, but… tomorrow's the weekend, and… if I drink I can't drive anyway…."
"It's fine."
We pulled into the underground parking garage of what looked like a luxury apartment, parked, and rode the elevator up.
The only sounds filling the space were the clink of soju bottles bumping my legs and the rustle of snack bags. We still didn't say a word.
It simply felt like that was how it had to be. Because without quite knowing how, I thought I already knew what had broken the hyung who always stood upright, always quietly smiling from the side of good. And soon enough, the truth would come out along with the feelings.
—Ding~!
"First… let me start with an apology."
"Ah… it's okay."
"No… I mean the place is kind of a mess."
The door opened quietly, and as the sensor lights came on, the lights in every room flicked on one after another.
My hunch met hard evidence and began to harden into certainty. A luxury apartment. An elevator that looked gold-plated. A door lock that worked by fingerprint.
"……"
Should I call this wretched. Somehow it even felt familiar.
Clothes strewn everywhere. Objects on the floor furred with dust. A woman's cosmetics rolling around. The complete opposite of what it should have been made my teeth clench.
"Sorry. I'll tidy up a bit."
"I'll help too."
I caught my brother-in-law's hurried but powerless hands. He must have found it hard to let someone else do it.
I understood—but I gently turned his hands aside and started cleaning the room.
"Just… let me help you."
I wasn't someone else. Ours wasn't a relationship that felt like strangers. Hyung was my hyung, and family.
"Thank you…."
A house with no sign of life. A wrecked room. The acrid smell of cigarettes. No matter how I thought about it, only one bitter fact came to mind. Where on earth had that human scum who went by the name of older sister gone.
In the wide living room we cleared the trash strewn around the sofa and table, then sat down on opposite sofas at the same time.
"I'll just… turn off the lights."
He fumbled around the table, then switched off every light in the place again.
When the room filled with darkness, vision went black and sound fell silent, the tightly drawn curtains whirred open on their motor.
"……"
The cityscape lay bare before us.
Cars streaming endlessly along the roads like strings of light, buildings still bright, the red glow of Namsan Tower far in the distance.
Without meaning to, I took in the night view and silently marveled.
But hyung brought over glasses without any particular fuss and pulled the bottles from the bag. What had he grown sick of. What had he lost.
I acknowledged the sentimental-looking gesture, then rejected it again with a rational judgment. What was hyung feeling right now.
In silence we set up the drinking spot, left the rest on the floor, and lifted our drinks. Without any noisy shaking, careful not to mix top and bottom, he quietly twisted off the caps.
Strange as it was, hyung was still hyung. He'd come home because drinking meant he couldn't drive, and though he could have blamed some innocent person and gotten angry, he had suppressed his own feelings instead.
I didn't know what the standard of good was, or where good ended and evil began—but objectively and subjectively both, hyung was at least good.
Quietly we traded cups, and a low clink of cheers rang out.
The taste of unmixed soju was bitter enough to make my head ache for a moment, sharp and stinging.
"Sweet… so sweet…."
But to hyung, a single cup of soju seemed to taste as sweet as if someone had dumped a whole bowl of sugar into it.
"…You're right."
At the end of a cup that should have left only bitterness, a faint sweetness clung.
The drinks tipped again, and before long half a glass remained, dwindling finely away.
"Eup… hngh…."
There were snacks, but we didn't open them. Drinking on an empty stomach would wreck us and get us drunk fast—but that was exactly what we wanted.
"Hwaa…."
For some reason the pace kept picking up, and hyung's cheeks were already red when he finally tore open a snack bag with a soft tuk. At the little pop of escaping air, hyung flinched for a moment.
"Ah. Ah."
"Even if you wreck your stomach, don't wreck it too badly."
I kept waiting for hyung to speak first, but he still hadn't said anything of substance. I could have asked what happened myself—my hunch had all but hardened into proof—but.
It wasn't that I hesitated to speak. It wasn't that I refused to listen.
So I had burst the static atmosphere, and I was waiting for hyung's words.
Because I had the thought that this humiliating ending had already been decided from the moment hyung met that human scum.
But I could have stopped it. I could have changed fate.
Regret does not torment you over the future.
Regret comes from the past. I thought of the past.
I had regretted it—and now, to atone.