Responsibility
In the bathroom, the only sound that echoed was retching.
I kept heaving up something I couldn't even name, endlessly, helplessly.
But the queasiness showed no sign of easing. And layered on top of it came the familiar, wretched self-loathing — that same contempt for my own pathetic self that always found me.
"Damn it…"
I wiped the cold sweat with my sleeve and spat out a curse.
I understood what Eun-ha was trying to say. I understood it. …But I couldn't accept it.
(Even that side of me…)
"…There I go again."
A voice that felt half-remembered lingered at the edge of my hearing. The moment I tried to place where it came from, a sharp ache bloomed in my chest and rolled over me like a wave.
I splashed cold water on my face, hoping it would clear my head, but the churning in my stomach and the throbbing behind my eyes had no intention of letting go.
Giving up, I let out a heavy sigh and stepped out of the bathroom.
As if she'd been waiting, Eun-ha pushed off the hallway wall and approached me carefully.
"…I told you I wanted to be alone."
"I figured I should apologize… I'm sorry."
"You don't have anything to apologize for."
I answered without looking at her. I didn't want to see her expression darken.
There was nothing wrong with Eun-ha. Nothing she'd said had been incorrect. If there was a problem, it was on my side — the pathetic one who couldn't even accept a perfectly reasonable truth.
I waved a limp hand to say she didn't need to apologize and started back toward the classroom. Eun-ha gently caught my arm.
"If it's okay… will you hang out with me a little longer?"
Turning her down would have pricked my conscience, so I had no choice but to nod.
"Whoa, the wind feels so nice—!"
We ended up on the rooftop.
There was no way food would stay down in my current state, and talking in a classroom where every eye would be on us was out of the question. The rooftop was the only place that made sense.
"So this is where you and Seol-hwa do your lovey-dovey stuff? I'm so jealous~"
"I'm leaving."
My head started throbbing for an entirely different reason. I grabbed it and reached for the door handle without hesitation.
Eun-ha yelped, "It was a joke, a joke!" and clung to my arm like she was begging me to spare her, which only made me sigh more loudly.
"Seol-hwa and I aren't like that in the first place. And honestly, who am I to—"
She was a good person. A kind person. At least, that was how I saw her.
But that was exactly why someone better — someone good enough to love a girl like her — had to exist out there. I'd decided to stay her friend, and that was all. Anything beyond that…
"That's it. Right there."
While I was still muttering to myself, Eun-ha jabbed a finger at me and cut in with a sharp tone.
"…What is?" I turned my head away. Meeting her eyes felt suddenly difficult.
"Seol-hwa's like that, and so are you, Yu-seong. How do I put it… ah! No self-love. Zero self-love. A girl like me~ A guy like me~ You two are carbon copies."
I had nothing to fire back with, so I just kept my mouth shut.
Eun-ha, still grinning, leaned against the nearby wall and kept going.
"I said it earlier, right? Words and people both have two sides."
"You did. Like the cafeteria… though I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean."
I mixed a half-hearted joke into my sigh. Eun-ha lit up. "Oh, that? Easy!" She raised her index finger.
"Nobody really goes to the school cafeteria, right? Because the reviews are terrible — bland, not worth it — so the talk starts, the rumors spread, and before you know it people have decided it's worthless. Fixed idea, case closed. But if you look carefully, there are menus that aren't half bad — like that curry earlier. Just my personal opinion, maybe? But that's how I see it.
In short, nobody is without flaws. But you know what? Nobody is without strengths, either."
She paused mid-stream and glanced over at me. Probably checking in — she'd done the same earlier. Couldn't blame her.
"…I don't know what happened to you, Yu-seong."
Even so, she opened her mouth again. "I just want you to understand this one thing," she said.
"To Seol-hwa, you're someone precious. So at the very least… don't look away from that fact. No — you shouldn't look away. That's the responsibility of someone who's being cherished."
"Responsibility… huh."
Responsibility. I turned the word over quietly under my breath.
Come to think of it, that girl was always the same.
Getting soaked in the rain, shivering in the cold like an idiot. Calling a guy like me a good person — the biggest fool of all. And me, wanting to stay by her side… I was a special kind of fool myself, no doubt about it.
I looked up at the sky without a word.
After a moment, Eun-ha quietly stepped up beside me.
"I want things to go well for you too, Yu-seong — just as much as for Seol-hwa. If someone is precious to you, then you're precious to them. That's how it works. Mm… I talked a lot for someone like me, huh? But that's the point."
Eun-ha thrust a fist toward me.
I blinked at it blankly. She beamed.
"Fighting!"
(I'm rooting for you!)
Why.
Why wouldn't that voice leave me alone?
A voice I couldn't even place — why did it keep circling through my head?
Just wondering about it made my chest ache all over again.
I swallowed the surge of pain and looked into Eun-ha's eyes without speaking.
She was probably worried I'd react badly again. For all her bold talk, the smile on her face didn't reach the rest of her — her eyes, glittering like a galaxy, were trembling with unease.
Even though it felt unlike me, I forced the words out. "Thanks." And I bumped my fist against hers.
Eun-ha blinked a few times, then let out a bright "Pwah!" of laughter and smiled again.
"We're friends. Of course!"
That night, sleep refused to come.
Every time my eyes happened to meet Seol-hwa's, I found myself looking away, and so we went through the entire evening without exchanging a single word.
My mood was a mess. Outside, the rain had escalated into a full thunderstorm — a thoroughly irritating middle of the night.
"…Yeah. No chance of sleeping."
The clock already read half past twelve. I tossed and turned a few more times, then gave up with a sigh and stared up at the dark ceiling.
I lay there blankly, wasting time on a ceiling I couldn't even see, when—
(KRA-KOOM—!!)
"…It's really bad tonight."
The wind and rain hammering the window would have been annoying enough on their own. Adding thunder on top of it made the whole thing unbearable.
Too many thoughts. Noise that wouldn't stop…
"…I'm such an idiot."
Staring blankly at the rain-lashed window, I suddenly remembered the night I first met Seol-hwa.
It was raining that night, too.
Back then, I'd thought the world was worthless — and that a guy like me was even more worthless than the world. But that idea had been shut down completely. By a girl who'd lived a life more painful, more lonely than anyone, and still kept fighting through it harder than anyone.
(Even if something happened to someone like me… no one would care.)
I could still see those empty eyes of hers from that day, clear as ever. Eyes filled with nothing but the sorrow of someone who had completely abandoned the word hope — both for herself and for reality. I could still picture them perfectly.
Lying in bed drowning in useless sentimentality made me restless. I twisted around a few more times, then finally got up.
"Maybe some water will clear my—"
Before I could finish, another crack of thunder slammed into my eardrums.
"…Seriously bad tonight."
Weather this vicious would probably make the news. I scratched my head with a sigh and stepped out into the hallway — and noticed that Seol-hwa's door was slightly ajar.
"…That's weird."
She might look spacey, but she was surprisingly meticulous about everyday things. Leaving her door open wasn't like her.
Thinking it was nothing, I went to close it — then glanced through the gap toward the bed. Seol-hwa, who should have been sleeping there, was nowhere to be seen.
Instead… though it was hard to make out in the dark, I could see a shape in the corner of the room, buried under a blanket.
"…Yun Seol-hwa? You awake?"
Wondering what was going on, I approached carefully and tapped the blanket with a finger, calling her name.
That was my mistake.
"Hyaak?!!"
The blanket heaved violently — she must have been terrified. Then came a loud thud, as if she'd cracked her head against the wall, followed by a pained whimper from under the covers.
"…You okay?"
Worried she might be hurt, I had no choice but to pull the blanket back.
What I found was Seol-hwa curled up like a hedgehog, clutching her head — whether from pain or pure fright — trembling hard.
"Yu… Yu-seong…"
Had she been crying? There was a faint red tinge around her eyes. Looking up at me with a voice thick with something heavy and raw, she made me let out a silent sigh. "I'm sitting down," I said, and settled beside her without waiting for an answer.
"Are you scared of the thunder?"
"A-a little…"
The words had barely left her mouth when another KRA-KOOM! slammed against the window. At the same instant, Seol-hwa made some unintelligible sound and headbutted me out of nowhere, driving my own head into the wall behind us.
"…That wasn't a little."
Normally she would have launched into a frantic stream of I'm so sorrys right away — but right now, Seol-hwa didn't seem to have the presence of mind for that.
"It's okay, it's not scary… it's okay, it's okay… even alone, it's okay…"
Hearing her murmur like she was trying to hypnotize herself, I wordlessly pulled her trembling body into my arms.
"Eh— eh…?!"
Startled for an entirely different reason, Seol-hwa made another confused noise and started squirming.
"Alone, nothing. I'm right here."
I patted her back the way you would to soothe someone. Little by little, the struggling eased.
"…Hey, Yu-seong."
How long had she had her face buried against me? Her voice sounded a little calmer now. Still stroking her back, I answered, "What is it?"
"My head too… is it… too much to ask…?"
I couldn't help the small laugh that slipped out. Seol-hwa made a mortified "Ugh…" and ducked her head so low I could practically see steam rising off it. "Sorry," I said, and moved my hand from her back to her hair, stroking it gently.
Come to think of it… doing this for her had become almost ordinary. A habit? A routine? I didn't know what to call it, but at some point, this kind of closeness had started to feel natural between us.
"You like this that much?"
She gave a tiny nod against my chest.
"Your hands are… how do I put it… they feel safe. Nice."
"…Then I'm glad."
Her voice had steadied, like the fear was finally letting go. But I couldn't say the same for myself.
(If someone is precious to you, then you're precious to them. That's how it works.)
Eun-ha's words.
(Yu-seong… you're a good person to me.)
And Seol-hwa's words from the walk home that evening. I kept turning both of them over in my mind.
I must have tightened my arms without realizing it. Seol-hwa looked up carefully. "Yu-seong…?" I dropped my head and muttered, "I'm such an idiot…"
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Who are you trying to help, you pathetic bastard.
A voice inside me sneered, sharp and merciless. I let out a long breath, trying to push out the rising discomfort — but nothing changed.
I knew. I knew Seol-hwa cherished me. I was the one who'd made her feel that way, and I wanted to live up to it. But still—
What am I even doing…
Seol-hwa had told me once, after Ju-hui and the others' gossip had cut her open, that dealing with people scared her. I couldn't just leave her like that, so I'd comforted her — but even then, I hadn't been able to say what I really felt.
Actually, I'm the same…
That simple sentence had refused to leave my mouth.
Pathetic.
The voice laughed at me. And I couldn't even shake my head to deny it.
Just like earlier in the day, a wave of queasy, rising discomfort threatened to swallow me.
…Then something warm settled on top of my head.
"It's okay. I… I'm here."
When I came back to myself, Seol-hwa — still in my arms — had stretched up and was carefully stroking my hair. I could only blink at her. She spoke first, flustered.
"Um, so… you looked… anxious? Your face didn't look good… if it made you feel weird, I—"
"…No."
I cut off her panicked apology.
"It was perfect timing. Thank you."
The warmth in my arms was pushing back all those formless, nameless pains.
Eun-ha had said it. Not looking away from being cherished — that was responsibility.
"Hey."
My voice still trembled. But if I was going to talk, now was the time.
"If you don't mind a boring story… will you listen?"
Seol-hwa nodded without a word. And I began to open the lid on a box of the past I had sealed shut — running from it, turning my back on it, locking it away.