Since When
Since when.
I had been dreaming.
What filled my eyes was myself as a child.
There he was—the younger me, so full of energy that the person I am now could scarcely imagine it. He was laughing and chattering with his friends, darting around the park with a bright, carefree face, looking for all the world as if he were having the time of his life.
Watching him, I thought, How stupid.
And at the same time I wondered… since when had it started?
Since when had I begun to speak of that boy—the one who could smile so brightly, so hopefully, so naturally—in the past tense?
Since when had I become this pathetic loser who ran headlong until he fell flat on his face, then decided that dreams and hope were nothing but useless nonsense?
I simply stood there in silence, watching.
And as I did, something began to well up from deep inside my chest. A stifling, hollow ache—threaded through with a quiet longing I couldn't name—churned through my body without mercy.
Unable to bear that nameless misery any longer, I reached out toward the scene before me as if trying to escape into it.
But no matter how far I stretched my hand, I couldn't touch a thing. Like a mirage, the landscape of my childhood scattered and dissolved into a pitch-black void.
And in that same instant, I felt something coming after me from behind.
I didn't know what it was.
I only knew that if that nameless something caught me, it would be over—and that vague terror began to rule me completely.
I ran so it wouldn't catch me. Desperately… like prey fleeing a predator.
I just kept running forward without rest. There was no room to look back or to either side. No time to catch my breath, no chance to stop.
But no one can run forever with their eyes fixed only on what lies ahead.
By the time I finally realized that, I had already taken a spectacular fall and gone tumbling across empty ground that held nothing at all.
Something approached me as I lay there, unable to move.
Only then did I understand what that something was.
Reality. The feeling called despair. I finally understood.
And I had understood it far, far too late.
When I was little, I believed the world was something that sparkled.
If you tried hard enough, you could do it. There was nothing in this world that couldn't be done—so long as you never gave up, a person could go as far as they wanted.
Even though beneath every handful of winners there are always countless losers.
I had let myself be led by that empty nonsense, convinced that I alone would be the exception to the rule. I told myself I was the protagonist—that if I worked hard, people would notice, and I would be rewarded.
What a stupid story.
Looking back on it now, it was beyond saving—the kind of tale you couldn't even put in a children's picture book.
Failed and alone, I finally understood.
I could never become that wonderful protagonist.
At some point, my younger self had appeared and was looking down at me. Standing still, gazing at me with something like pity—and then, slowly, he opened his mouth.
You pathetic loser—
"…Yuseong-ssi, are you all right?"
A voice cut through out of nowhere, and my eyes opened.
My whole body was soaked in sweat, and a headache stabbed through my skull like a spike. Even being generous, I was nowhere near okay.
I pressed my fingers to my brow and shook my head a couple of times. Only then did Seolhwa come into focus—watching me with open worry.
After we'd finished cleaning up and dealing with the leftover pizza, the clock had slipped past midnight into what you could fairly call the early hours of morning. I'd told her to go to bed already and more or less shoved her into her room. I must have been too lazy to bother going to my own. I'd just slumped against the couch and fallen asleep right there—my whole body aching now stood as proof of that.
"You told me staying up was bad for me and to go to sleep already. So what am I supposed to do when you're the one like this, Yuseong-ssi?"
She scolded me gently, and I answered with a sigh, voice drained of strength. "…Sorry."
A shiver ran through me.
Was there no mercy for the idiot who'd fallen asleep without a blanket? Even with the heater on, December's cold was slipping in through the gaps in the windows, sending icy drafts through the room.
"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
Even I could tell I looked like a wreck. Saying I was fine in this state wasn't going to convince anyone. And sure enough, Seolhwa kept watching me with that anxious look—though she didn't say anything more.
I turned my eyes away, ducking her gaze.
Clutching my throbbing head, I checked the clock. It was only five in the morning—still painfully early.
"You wake up really early, huh."
I tossed out the remark just to change the subject. Seolhwa scratched her cheek, looking a little awkward.
"…It just became a habit."
Thinking about it, that wasn't strange at all.
Given where her house used to be, just getting to school would have taken an enormous amount of time. She'd have had to get up around now and start getting ready if she didn't want to be late.
Come to think of it, this girl had skipped school entirely more than once—but I didn't think she'd ever been late even a single time.
She really was a diligent one, I thought, not for the first time.
"Did you have a nightmare? You were making these awful sounds in your sleep, and your face looked so bad I couldn't help myself…"
"It's nothing. Waking up early every once in a while isn't so bad."
Seolhwa had no way of knowing what I'd been thinking, and she still couldn't quite shake her worry—she kept asking. But I held my ground and insisted I was fine.
It happened often enough.
Being tormented by some half-baked, worthless dream and jolting awake at an hour like this. If anything, she'd woken me at just the right moment—before things could get any worse.
Fighting through the headache and the queasiness, I made myself say, "Thanks." Seolhwa blinked at me for a moment, then answered, "Don't mention it."
After a dream like that, there was no chance I'd be falling back asleep. With no other choice, I headed to the bathroom to wash away the leftover fatigue and the foul mood with cold water.
Doing this on a freezing day sent a sharp chill through me that made my body shake—but physical pain had always been easier to handle than the mental kind. That was my theory, at least.
Back in the living room, I opened the fridge. As expected, there was nothing worth eating. Snack food, instant meals—whatever stock I'd had was completely gone, and the fridge offered nothing but a bleak, empty view.
Fortunately, Seolhwa had brought a mountain of cup ramen from her place. I filled the electric kettle and waited for the water to boil.
"Sorry. Cup ramen first thing in the morning."
I'm in no position to lecture anyone about living on instant food, I thought, mocking myself. If anything, Seolhwa had barely had a choice. I was the one with money and options who still couldn't be bothered to eat properly. My habits were far worse than hers.
"It's fine. I actually enjoy it," Seolhwa said, as if telling me not to worry.
"…Well, that's good then."
She can still smile even at a time like this, I thought. What a strange girl.
Though it wasn't entirely beyond understanding—for her, everything she was going through right now was brand new. Every bit of it was a first.
The two of us polished off the cup ramen, which felt a little thin for breakfast, and I checked the clock again.
It was only just creeping toward six. We still had about two hours before we needed to leave for school.
It was too long to just sit around staring at nothing, and I didn't particularly feel like turning on a game or the TV at this hour. So I got up, opened the wardrobe, and pulled out my school uniform.
"What are you doing?"
"Going for a walk. Killing time."
Sitting still would only leave me stewing in useless self-pity. Moving around a little had to be better.
When I asked if she wanted to come along, Seolhwa looked as if she wasn't sure she was allowed—then carefully nodded.
"…You're going out like that?"
"Huh? Is something weird about how I look…?"
"You really are something else…"
Just cracking a window was enough for winter's merciless wind to come pouring in. And yet Seolhwa's outfit was the same as last night—nothing but her school uniform.
I let out an incredulous sigh, and she shrank into herself, answering in a voice that barely crawled out of her throat.
"I don't have the money…"
"I figured that was coming. Wait here a second."
I sighed for show, stepped away from the shoe rack, and headed for the wardrobe in my room.
This is exactly why she keeps getting worse.
She was already in poor health, living in conditions that would put most grown men flat on their backs. Of course she was always falling apart.
More than anything, she's careless with herself… that girl.
She worried about other people, but never about herself. Just look at what happened at the school gate. Who in their right mind would stand out there shivering in that cold, waiting for someone?
But… I understood.
Of course I did. When a person spends too long alone, something inside them starts to go wrong.
It doesn't matter what happens to me. Someone like me—whatever becomes of me is fine. You end up thinking that way. You give up.
Her. And me.
(Because no one would care anyway.)
"…You idiot."
The image of her soaked through by the rain rose unbidden in my mind.
I shook my head as if to scatter the thought and muttered under my breath, too quietly for anyone to hear.
"Um, e-excuse me…"
"I wasn't even using these. They've just been sitting in the closet. Don't apologize—just wear them."
I pulled out a thick parka, earmuffs, a scarf, and a pair of fur-lined gloves, and armed Seolhwa even more thoroughly than I had the night before.
Given the size difference, it was less like she was wearing the clothes and more like she was being swallowed by them. She ended up looking like a caterpillar wrapped in its cocoon—but there was nothing to be done about that.
I had no interest in nursing her through another illness. Better to eliminate the risk factors from the start.
Originally, these were things my mother had sent me so I wouldn't catch a cold. But bundling up had always felt like too much trouble, and I wasn't particularly sensitive to the cold anyway, so they'd just sat buried in the closet.
I supposed everything found its use eventually.
Speaking in a tone that made it clear I wouldn't accept any argument, I opened the door and stepped outside before Seolhwa could get a word in.
From behind me, small but unmistakable, came her voice: "…Thank you."
It was that in-between hour—too late to call it dawn, too early to call it morning.
On the still-dark streets, there was barely a soul to be seen. The cold had laid down a veil of white mist, and instead of the mechanical hum of cars, the only sound was birdsong. Seolhwa and I simply walked along the quiet road together.
"It's warm."
"Well, yeah."
I'd bundled her up so thoroughly it almost looked uncomfortable. It would have been a problem if she weren't warm.
"Hey."
Before long, I broke the silence that had settled over us, as silence always did.
Seolhwa turned toward me. "What is it?"
"About what I said before."
"…Before?"
"That it would be better if you didn't get involved with me."
"Th-that was already settled, wasn't it?!"
Her face crumpled as if she might burst into tears on the spot. I hurriedly shook my head and tried to calm her down.
"Relax. What I mean is… at least while we're at school, we should keep a little distance."
I'd tried to bring this up last time too, but her unexpected reaction had derailed the conversation before I could get it out properly.
Back then, my plan had been simple—help her make a few friends, then gradually put some space between us and settle into the role of someone she merely knew. But things had gone too far for that now.
Seolhwa had told me. That going together was better.
That she wanted me—not anyone else—to be her friend.
If I hadn't changed my mind, I never would have let her into my home in the first place. At the very least, I wanted to be there for her as a friend.
But there was still… a problem standing in the way.
Walking side by side like this felt like the right moment, so I'd brought it up.
"I told you before—the rumors about me at school aren't exactly flattering, right?"
Yesterday I'd at least pretended to pay attention in class, but normally I was the kind of student who cut class far more often than I showed up late. For me, class time was a synonym for nap time.
I only went to school at all to scrape by just enough to avoid flunking out. If a guy like that had a good reputation, that would have been the strange part.
The labels that followed me around never changed.
Trash.
Dropout.
Life's loser.
It wasn't something worth getting angry over. More accurately, I didn't have the right. I'd been the one to walk away from school first—so the criticism that came with it was only the natural price.
"…Yuseong-ssi, do you hate school?"
"I don't exactly like it."
I felt no attachment to it whatsoever. But saying I outright hated it felt like going too far, so I softened the wording a little.
"You're the same way, aren't you?"
If anything, she had even more reason than I did. I was sure of it when I asked—but Seolhwa looked at me as if I'd said something bizarre, a question mark practically floating over her face, and shook her head.
"I like it, though?"
"…What?"
Faced with that expression of pure confusion, all I could do was blink.
"I don't get it. You've got it worse than I do. There's no way you could like a place like that."
"That was my old school. This one's different."
"…How is this one any different? Nobody pays any attention to you here either."
I pushed back, unable to believe it—trying to deny that what I'd been so sure of was nothing but a prejudice.
But Seolhwa shook her head again. "It's completely different."
"Because you're here, Yuseong-ssi."
The answer that followed left me genuinely speechless.
And at the same time, a voice rose up again from somewhere inside me.
A voice that felt strangely familiar… strangely dear.
Along with that thought came a sadness I couldn't explain—and a headache that drove into my skull like an awl.
As if warning me not to remember. Not this.
"A-are you okay?!"
My body suddenly swayed, and Seolhwa rushed over in alarm, steadying me.
"I-I'm sorry…"
"…You idiot. I'm the one who's hurting—why are you apologizing?"
"I thought I'd said something out of line and made you angry…"
"You're consistent in all kinds of ways, you know that?"
She kept bowing her head over and over. I waved a hand, telling her she didn't need to.
Then I leaned weakly against a nearby vending machine and looked up at the sky without a word.
The dark color of night. The bright color of moonlight.
That canvas of mixed hues was already losing its meaning to the morning sun rising far off in the distance.
And with it came the sound of car horns, the noisy chatter of kids gradually starting their commute to school… the scenery of morning settling in. Little by little, the throbbing in my head began to fade.
"…Um, are you all right?"
Seolhwa, who had been watching me with quiet concern, carefully stepped closer and stood beside me.
"…More or less."
I pulled a card from my wallet, tapped it against the vending machine, and pressed a button without thinking.
With a clunk, a cola dropped out. I drained it in one go before answering.
The carbonation stung my throat with its clean bite. But that strange feeling still lingered in my chest, pulsing dully, refusing to leave—so I let out a long breath, as if trying to expel it.
…Nothing changed.
I asked Seolhwa if she wanted something to drink. She quietly shook her head, so I tossed the empty can toward the trash bin.
It traced a clean arc and dropped neatly inside.
"Wow, that's amazing."
"Just luck," I said flatly, watching her look at me as if I'd done something impressive.
The truth was I simply hadn't had the energy to move properly, so I'd just chucked it. If I'd missed, I would have had to shuffle over looking ridiculous to pick it up—so I was glad I hadn't had to put on that particular show.
"Um… Yuseong-ssi."
After a brief lull following that nothing of a moment, Seolhwa spoke up first.
"What?"
I answered with a deliberate what, but I could already guess the reason. Guess—or rather, there was only one thing anyone would say in a situation like this.
I'd let her see me like that. Of course she'd be worried. She might even try to dig for an explanation.
But that would be a problem—because I didn't know the reason myself.
I couldn't remember… no. I simply didn't want to remember.
It was probably something from back then. From middle school.
There had been nothing but miserable things in those days… and I had not the slightest desire to revisit any of it.
The only thing that bothered me was that this particular headache—the one that arrived hand in hand with that strange feeling—was new. Thinking about the past had always just put me in a foul mood. Nothing more.
"Do you remember what you said before?"
Why is this happening? Should I go to a hospital?
And how am I supposed to explain this to Seolhwa right now… I was turning those thoughts over when a different topic came out of her mouth, and the first thing I felt was relief.
"About what?"
Grateful for the consideration she was showing by not pressing further, I answered while fighting off the thirst that had come back from gulping the drink too fast.
"The first time we met—when I collapsed and ended up imposing on you, and then woke up in your room."
"…I don't know. Nothing's really coming to mind."
"You said, I'll wait."
Ah. I gave a small nod to show it had come back to me.
I'd said that on my way to school ahead of her, hadn't I. Seeing my reaction, Seolhwa went on.
"It was just something I said out of a selfish wish. I simply hoped I'd get to see you again at school.
But even as I said it, I honestly… didn't think there was any chance. We weren't friends or anything. I was just some stranger who'd caused you nothing but trouble in passing. I figured you'd let it go in one ear and out the other."
I wondered if I'd managed to hide the twinge of guilt.
Honestly, the second she'd left, I'd been ready to dive straight into bed without a second's hesitation, telling myself it was none of my business.
Had she noticed? Looking at me, Seolhwa didn't sneer. Instead, she smiled—as if she were happy.
"But you came. I was so glad that I wanted to at least say hello… but I just couldn't manage it…"
"So that's what that was about."
It must have been the moment our eyes met in the classroom, right before I planted my face on the desk.
"You looked like you were trying to say all sorts of things and then just ended up giving me this awkward smile and a little wave."
"W-why do you remember it in that much detail?!"
"Because it was funny, obviously."
That really was the reason, so there was no point lying about it. It had just stuck with me.
Watching her get flustered, eyes shining with embarrassment, I couldn't help a small snort of laughter. Seolhwa muttered, "You're so mean…" and hung her head, sinking under the weight of it.
But she must have decided she still needed to finish what she was saying. As if trying to pull herself together, she raised both hands and slapped her cheeks with a sharp smack.
Or rather—she tried to.
Those are fur-lined gloves. That's not going to do anything.
I hadn't bothered to stop her, so Seolhwa only realized it after she'd already gone through the whole gesture.
Her face went past red and looked ready to burst. She shook her head vigorously, then opened her mouth again in a slightly trembling voice.
"A-anyway… you asked me just a little while ago. Whether I hated school too. I don't know if I'd go as far as hate. But like you said, I at least didn't like it… I think.
It was better than my old school, but in the end I was still alone here too."
I was about to say See?—but before I could, she said, "But," and kept going, taking my hand in both of hers.
"You said it to me, Yuseong-ssi. To someone who'd always been alone. You asked me to be your friend. I've told you before—that made me so happy. And school…
The place that let me become friends with you—I was finally able to like school because of that."
Before, I had never even considered it.
Becoming someone's friend again… making someone happy… being thanked like this.
"…Is that so," I said weakly. Seolhwa answered, "It is."
"I know I'm not in any position to ask you for anything. But if you could like school too, Yuseong-ssi—even just a little—it would make me really happy."
I couldn't say anything.
More accurately, I chose not to. That was probably the better way to put it.
Seolhwa was gathering her courage, pushing herself, trying to comfort me. Someone who was so relentlessly hard on herself was doing this—for my sake.
Faced with that kindness, I carefully chose my words.
"…I'll try."
I scratched my cheek with a finger, feeling awkward as I answered.
In the end it came out as something that simple—but I didn't want to answer the feelings she'd worked so hard to express with some clumsy lie. This was the best I could do.
In all the time since that day, I had never once thought of myself as liking anything. I didn't want to just nod along for the sake of matching her mood.
Still, it sounded like the halfhearted mumble of a kid getting scolded by his mother, and a complicated feeling settled over me before I could stop it.
But maybe even an answer like that was enough for her. "I'm glad," Seolhwa said, and gave me a faint smile.
Through the fur of the gloves she still hadn't let go of, something warm pressed against my hand—pushing back the cold scent of winter.