Part 1 - Fake Leash(7)
Part 1 - Fake Leash(7)
I turned the shower to maximum pressure and clenched my teeth as the ice-cold water hit the crown of my head.
It was to wash away the hazy fog filling my brain and the sweet immorality I'd felt while biting the senior's thin neck like a beast just moments ago.
Every time the cold stream of water flowed endlessly down my spine, goosebumps rose, and my whole body shuddered.
"Uheut... Sunbae, Sunbae...."
The warm sensation of the senior, who had shed tears while I bit her neck, still lingered vividly on my fingertips, driving me insane.
"Haa... Haa...."
Breathing heavily, I nervously turned off the shower valve and stood before the vanity mirror.
When I roughly wiped away the fog that had clouded the mirror from my hot breath, there was an unfamiliar woman inside, pale and drained of all color.
Beneath her eyes, dark circles like bruises—as if someone had beaten her—had settled deep and thick, and her bloodless lips were dry and cracked.
The composed, model student Jung Yeon-woo was nowhere to be seen; she looked like a drug addict suffering from days of hallucinations or a mental patient deprived of sleep.
The nonsense I'd spouted on the podium yesterday, with dozens of classmates watching, seemed to echo in my ears again, and I felt a wave of nausea rise up.
I grabbed the toilet bowl and tried to vomit up my stomach acid, but only violent dry heaves came out.
With trembling hands, I gripped the edge of the vanity and struggled to hold onto my fraying sanity.
Then, I pumped out three times the usual amount of foundation and began to nervously pat it onto my face.
After layering concealer to erase the dark circles and traces of fatigue, and covering it with thick makeup, I applied a deep, bright red tint to my cracked lips to force some life into them.
As the makeup grew heavier, I looked more and more like an artificial, emotionless mannequin in the mirror, but I felt a tiny bit of relief, as if I were wearing the shell of a normal person that others wouldn't find strange.
"It's okay. I am the always perfect Jung Yeon-woo."
I whispered to myself, as if casting a spell, while locking eyes with my reflection.
Yes, the disaster during yesterday morning's presentation was just a temporary, minor happening caused by excessive academic stress and extreme sleep deprivation.
I had just been overworking myself, staying up all night to provide feedback on that trashy novel the senior wrote, and my brain had overloaded, causing me to spout nonsense.
The fault for this whole situation lay with Cha Do-hee, who writes third-rate yuri trash, not me.
I just need to walk in, smile as if nothing happened, and make a light excuse.
If I just casually brush it off, saying, "I've been overworked lately and took sleeping pills, so I must have been babbling under the influence of the meds. Sorry, guys," everyone will likely accept it. Even if they think it's a bit strange inside, they'll treat me with the usual affection and kindness on the outside.
Especially since I have my best friend, Kim Ji-min, by my side—the most well-connected person in the department who leads public opinion and always looks out for me.
The fact that Ji-min didn't send me a single CocoaTalk message yesterday must have been her way of being considerate, knowing I'd ruined my presentation and was likely in despair, giving me space to recover my mental state on my own.
Because Ji-min was always on my side.
I forced my hunched shoulders to straighten, put on the neatest, most crisp white shirt from my closet, and left my studio apartment.
While I was washing up and doing my makeup, Do-hee Sunbae had already left for school, leaving my portion of warm honey water and neatly cut sandwiches on the dining table.
Seeing the senior's tear-jerking devotion, as she willingly played the role of a maid for me, my heart, which had been pounding with anxiety, found its pace again, and a sense of relief washed over me.
The morning sunlight pouring over the campus was bright and dazzling enough to sting my eyes, but my steps toward the school felt as heavy as if I were dragging lead weights.
And from the moment I entered the first-floor lobby of the lecture building and waited for the elevator, I began to be enveloped by a strange sense of incongruity.
"Oh, there..."
A junior who would usually wave and approach me with a bright smile, calling out "Yeon-woo Sunbae!" from afar, flinched and hunched her shoulders the moment she made eye contact with me in front of the elevator.
She furtively avoided my gaze, looking restless, and then hurriedly turned her body away, abandoning the elevator and fleeing toward the stairs.
As if I were a pile of filth that would spread a terrible plague if I got too close.
It must be my imagination. She was probably just late for class and in a hurry, so she ran up the stairs.
I forced my stiffening lips to curl upward and headed to the large lecture hall on the 3rd floor where I had class.
The whole time I walked down the hallway, the gazes of the people passing by seemed to prick my skin strangely, and the sound of whispering behind my back buzzed like auditory hallucinations, but I bit my lip hard and hurried my steps, looking only forward.
Arriving at the back door of the lecture hall, I took a very small, deep breath, gripped the cold metal doorknob, and carefully opened the door.
Kki-ik.
The moment the sound of the somewhat old door opening echoed through the lecture hall, the noise of the students chatting, laughing, and joking in groups died down—slightly, but clearly.
No one pointed at me or shouted at me outright.
But the natural atmosphere that had existed until yesterday, where people would greet me when I walked in, was nowhere to be found.
People glanced at me and then hurriedly turned their heads away, huddling closer together and lowering their voices.
I felt a suffocating chill, as if an invisible, giant glass wall surrounded me, isolating me from their world.
Amidst a sense of alienation that made my insides twist, I desperately searched for Ji-min, who was sitting in the middle of the lecture hall, trying to act nonchalant.
Ji-min had her bag on the seat next to her, her head bowed, staring intently at her smartphone screen.
My best friend, the power player of the department who could clear this cold air in an instant.
I clenched my trembling hands into fists, forced a smile, and approached Ji-min's seat.
"Ji-min-ah."
I called her name, crafting my voice to be as cheerful and normal as possible.
As if nothing had happened.
But the moment I approached and spoke, Ji-min's shoulders, which had been watching her smartphone, flinched and stiffened.
There was no affectionate concern in Ji-min's eyes as she looked up at me—the kind I had expected.
Instead, they held confusion, fear, and a clear desire to keep her distance.
She, who would usually jump up from her seat, grab both my hands, and ask me with concern, instead pulled her body tightly against the back of the chair, carefully widening the distance between us.
"Oh... oh, Yeon-woo-ya."
Ji-min's voice was trembling slightly.
Taken aback by her strange and unfamiliar reaction, I used the resentment I felt about her not contacting me yesterday as a weapon to speak first.
"Why didn't you send a single CocoaTalk yesterday? I almost collapsed from overwork after the presentation yesterday. I passed out the moment I got home. Is the seat next to you empty? Move your bag, I'm sitting."
It was the moment I reached out to move the bag on the seat next to Ji-min, acting as if nothing was wrong, just as I always had.
Ji-min hurriedly reached out and snatched her bag to her chest before my hand could touch it.
"Ah... w-wait a second."
Looking at my hand hanging in mid-air, Ji-min stammered, her face clearly flustered.
Her expression was full of what looked like cognitive dissonance.
"Did you... really not see the CocoaTalk yesterday?"
Ji-min asked in a cautious voice. I was so flustered that I even stuttered as I made a pathetic excuse.
Yesterday morning, after I ran out of the lecture hall, Ji-min had sent me a long text message filled with fear and concern, asking, 'Don't you think you need to go to a mental hospital?'
But since Do-hee Sunbae had secretly checked that text on my phone and permanently deleted it, there was, of course, not even a trace of a message on my phone.
However, on Ji-min's smartphone screen, the '1' on the message she had sent yesterday would have disappeared, meaning the fact that I had read the message would be recorded all too clearly.
Not only had I completely ignored the serious message she had sent out of genuine concern and fear, but now I was smiling shamelessly, pretending to know nothing, and asking 'Why didn't you text me?'—Ji-min must have felt an uncontrollable chill.
"Huh? Oh... there weren't any notifications on my phone... really. Why are you like this, Ji-min-ah? Are you really mad because I ruined the presentation yesterday and Group 3 got a base score?"
At my pathetic excuse, Ji-min's expression turned cold.
She didn't openly swear at me or shout. She just looked at me as if I were a bizarre creature she couldn't understand, and shook her head very slowly.
"No... I'm not mad. Right, you didn't see the text. You must have been tired."
The words that came out of her mouth were an affirmation, but the temperature was colder than the ice of midwinter.
Ji-min forced an awkward smile at me, but that smile didn't reach her eyes.
"But Yeon-woo-ya, I'm sorry, but I think I need to sit with the kids over there today. They're really sensitive because of the group project score yesterday... I'm the vice-class rep, so I have to soothe them. Sorry, please sit alone today."
No sooner had Ji-min finished speaking than she hugged her bag and stood up from her seat.
Then, she brushed past me and blended into the group of other classmates on the other side of the lecture hall.
As soon as Ji-min arrived at that group, a few of the classmates caught my eye as they glanced at me and whispered something to Ji-min.
In an instant, the space around me emptied like the Miracle of Moses.
I stood there, nailed to the spot as if my feet were set in cement, staring blankly at Ji-min's back as she ran away from me.
My mind was bleached white; I couldn't think or make any logical judgments.
I hadn't been explicitly told we were breaking up. I hadn't been cursed at.
But this firm distancing was enough to tear my mental state to shreds.
Ji-min is avoiding me.
My only friend isn't shielding me, and she's even uncomfortable being in the same space as me, leaving me abandoned alone.
Ji-min sent a text? I read it?
What are you talking about? There really was nothing on my phone.
Not last night, and not when I woke up this morning—Ji-min's name didn't appear on my lock screen or in my CocoaTalk chat window.
What on earth is happening to me?
Have I really gone crazy, hallucinating and losing memories of things that didn't happen? Or do I have dementia, and I unlocked my phone, read the text, and deleted it from my mind?
A terrible distrust of myself and uncontrollable fear rushed in like a tidal wave.
Dozens of sidelong glances pouring in from all directions stabbed at my body.
'Look at that crazy bitch, pretending she didn't see it even though she read the whole text.'
'It gives me the creeps. I feel sorry for Ji-min.'
'I should have known from when she was panting alone yesterday.'
No one opened their mouths to say it directly, but those disgusting auditory hallucinations buzzed and swirled in my ears like a swarm of bees.
It felt like my eardrums were going to burst. No, it felt like my skull was going to shatter under the pressure.
"No... no. I didn't do it. I really didn't see it... I'm not crazy... I'm not really crazy..."
I muttered like a fool, like a patient, reaching out into the air with trembling hands.
My vision flickered to black, and I felt like I was choking. It was as if all the oxygen I was supposed to breathe had evaporated from this lecture hall.
The sound of hyperventilation, like someone strangling me with a rope, leaked out between my blue lips.
Just as I was about to collapse onto the cold lecture hall floor, my legs completely giving out in this chilling isolation, it happened.
Someone's hand was placed carefully and affectionately on my trembling shoulder.
And then, the deep, cozy scent unique to the senior wafted over.
If the scent of Lady Grey, which sometimes teased me, was the switch that stimulated my nervous system to draw out beastly lust and immorality, the cozy and sweet scent emanating from the senior's skin was the smell of a sanctuary where I could breathe and escape, soothing my tearing anxiety.
"Yeon-woo-ya."
A low, elegant, affectionate voice that enveloped me.
When I looked back, Do-hee Sunbae, dressed in a crisp, wrinkle-free white blouse, was looking down at me with a benevolent smile.
Even in this terrible, suffocating, hellish situation where everyone in the lecture hall was ostracizing and loathing me, the senior's gaze was calm and affectionate, without a single tremor. It held only me, completely.
"The professor said to come to the faculty office for a moment because of the Group 3 presentation yesterday. I'm on my way to the department office anyway, and it's boring to go alone, so do you want to come with me?"
As if she didn't feel the cold air filling the lecture hall at all, the senior made a very natural excuse and interlaced her fingers with my trembling wrist, holding it firmly.
The moment the senior's warm temperature and cozy scent touched my racing pulse, my heart, which had been about to burst from panic, calmed down as if by a lie, and a sense of relief rushed through the blood vessels of my entire body.
I nodded like someone possessed. And led by the senior's hand, I left that hellish lecture hall without a second thought.