A Living Expression
──It's a living expression.
……I'm bored.
When I was a bear, I never felt boredom. Hungry—eat. Sleepy—sleep. Danger—run. That was the whole of it.
But something was strange.
Those memories clearly weren't mine.
I had been a person, not a bear.
The real me was the one who worked overtime, rode the subway, tore into fried chicken while watching UFC broadcasts.
Yet that boundary was growing fainter by the day.
The sensation of burying my snout in a stream and drinking. The instinct of hunting prey by the wind's direction. The impact when I swatted Dominic away with a forepaw.
None of it felt like someone else's memories anymore.
At first they had definitely belonged to the bear. But the more I called them up, the more they felt like mine.
Meanwhile, the memories of my previous life kept drifting further away.
I couldn't recall my team leader's face.
I could barely remember which subway line I used to take to work. They were definitely my memories, yet they were blurring like a dream.
My own memories faded. The bear's memories became mine.
……Am I actually turning into a real bear at this rate?
Becoming human had piled on a bunch of useless emotions.
Boredom. Loneliness. Frustration. And now this pointless fear on top of them.
That was when it came.
Knock. Knock.
"……?"
The door opened.
It was Kang Seo-yeon.
"Hey. Came to hang out."
"……Seo-yeon?"
"The cafeteria on this floor's better. The food downstairs is trash."
She walked in carrying two hospital meal trays.
Two of them.
One for her, and one—
"What are you staring at? Let's eat together."
"……."
I sat up on the bed.
Seo-yeon dragged over the spare chair, sat down, and shoved one tray toward me.
Hospital food.
Rice, soup, three side dishes.
The portions were tiny.
By bear standards, it barely counted as a snack.
One bite for the rice.
Two bites for the sides.
Three bites for the soup.
Just like that, the tray was empty.
Seo-yeon stared at me, dumbfounded, still holding her first spoonful without having taken a bite. She tilted her head.
"……D-did you just eat that?"
"……Yeah."
"How many stomachs do you have?"
"……One."
"Liar. Even a cow would eat slower than you."
Seo-yeon plucked one of her side dishes and set it on my tray.
"……This?"
"I don't like it. You eat it."
That was a lie.
She had been about to pick that side dish first with her opening bite.
She only offered it after watching me clear my whole tray.
…….
When I was a bear, no animal ever shared its food.
Food was something you took.
But this tiny kid was giving me her own meal.
"……Thanks."
"For what. I said I don't like it."
Seo-yeon turned her head away.
The tips of her ears were faintly pink.
……She's the type who can't lie, huh.
Bears can't lie either.
Looks like this little one couldn't either.
"But you really eat a ton."
"……I've always been like this."
"Is 'always been like this' your answer for everything? Heehee—fists always, appetite always~"
"……."
"I don't eat much myself. The food here just tastes bad."
Seo-yeon poked at her rice with her spoon as she spoke. But it didn't look like she was choosing not to eat so much as she simply couldn't. One look at her gaunt face made it obvious she hadn't been eating properly long before she ever got here.
"……How long have you been here?"
"Me? Day three. I came in the same day as you."
"……Same day?"
"Yeah. They said we were rescued together from that smuggling ring's hideout. I heard it from the doctor."
"……Yeah. I heard that too."
"What, you already knew? Then you should've said something first."
"……Couldn't find the right timing."
"Timing? Come on, conversations don't need timing~"
Seo-yeon took a sip of canned coffee. Her expression didn't change. It stayed far too steady.
When someone could talk about something like that without their face shifting at all, it was one of two things. Either it truly didn't matter to them—or they were pretending it didn't.
"……What did you see in there?"
"……."
Seo-yeon smiled. That same smile again. Her mouth curved, but the inside of her eyes stayed still.
"I'm not the amnesiac here, you know."
"……."
"I remember. All of it."
Seo-yeon set her spoon down. Those bright golden eyes looked up at me.
"But there wasn't much worth remembering."
"……."
"When I was locked up in there, you know. It was surprisingly nothing special."
"……Nothing special?"
"Yeah. They fed me, locked me up, people came by sometimes. Other than that, nothing much. If anything…… if anything, I felt at ease. Weird, right? I even thought I might die like this, but I wasn't scared."
"……."
"Because before I got there, things were a lot harder."
That single line held everything.
Her tone was light. But it wasn't light at all. Saying captivity had been a relief meant the life before it had been worse than a cage.
I'd felt it when we first met at the vending machine too—this kid carried a weight that didn't match her age.
I didn't ask anything more. It felt like I shouldn't. Instead I offered something else.
"……I really don't remember anything."
I didn't know why I said it, but Seo-yeon had put her story out there, so it felt only fair that I put something out too.
"I opened my eyes in the mountains, then opened them again in a hospital."
"I know. The doctor told me. Dissociative amnesia."
"……."
"You know, we're complete opposites. I remember everything but don't want to, and you want to remember but can't."
Seo-yeon let out a small snort of laughter.
"Kinda feels like a set menu. Rescued the same day, same hospital, same floor, eating the same food."
"……."
"But you know what."
Seo-yeon looked out the window.
"Not remembering might not always be a bad thing. There's a lot I'd rather just forget."
"……."
"I'm not saying I'm jealous. Just…… that it's a thing that exists."
It had to be sincere. I didn't know what was in this kid's past, but I could tell there had been something she wanted to erase that badly.
"……Thanks."
"For what?"
"……I'm the opposite. I wanted to bring it all back. Constantly."
"……."
"My old memories keep getting fainter. Who I was, what I did, where I lived…… it's all fog. I can't even tell if the memories left in my head are actually mine."
Seo-yeon listened while fiddling with her coffee can.
"So I wanted to get them back. Before they faded completely. At least who I used to be."
"……."
"But hearing you talk…… maybe forgetting is the lucky break."
I looked down at Seo-yeon.
"What if the memories came back and it turned out I was a hitman in my past life? Then what."
Seo-yeon's eyes went round.
"……Hey. That was my line from the vending machine."
"What. Was I wrong?"
"Not wrong, but…… getting hit with my own joke feels weird."
Seo-yeon burst out laughing—pfft.
"Whoa, you've got some comebacks in you?"
"……I've always been like this."
"There it is again—'always been like this.' Hey, you're actually pretty funny?"
Seo-yeon lifted her coffee can.
"……Shall we toast? To the things we've forgotten, and the things we don't want to go back to."
"……Yeah."
Can met can. A light metallic clink rang out.
We drank at the same time. We grimaced at the same time.
"……Tastes awful."
"……Yeah."
"But you're not throwing it out."
"……."
"I don't throw them out either. Even if it tastes bad, I can't throw away something someone gave me."
Same here. This was a canned coffee someone had given me after I became human. Even if it tasted terrible, I couldn't toss it.
Seo-yeon wrapped both hands around the can. That was when something caught my eye.
The calluses on her finger joints. The second and third knuckles were worn flat and smooth. Such small, thin hands—yet only the joints were knobby and uneven.
…….
Whether it was a bear's instinct or a human's intuition, I knew one thing.
These were hands that had hit things. Not once or twice, either.
I didn't ask. Seo-yeon hadn't asked me either.
Seo-yeon let out a soft laugh. This time her eyes laughed with her mouth.
The next day.
Seo-yeon came to hang out again.
This time the excuse was different.
"Just bored, that's all."
Then she turned on the TV in my room.
Like it was her own place.
She flipped channels and stopped on one.
UFC broadcast.
A heavyweight bout was underway.
……!
My heart kicked.
The Octagon—the eight-sided cage of steel.
Two fighters circling toward each other.
When I was a bear—no, before that, in my previous life—I used to watch this every week while tearing into chicken.
On screen, one fighter shot in on the other.
Low stance.
Double-leg takedown.
"Double-leg, but the timing's late."
It slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.
The opponent sprawled to defend, pinning the upper body down.
"He needs to get an underhook there…… ah, he lost it. Not enough hip drive—that's why it slipped."
"……."
Beside me, Seo-yeon was staring.
Ah.
I shut my mouth.
"……You said you'd never done combat sports."
"I haven't."
"Then how do you know all that?"
"……Watched a lot of it on TV."
It wasn't a lie.
I had watched it on TV.
Just while eating chicken—never actually done it myself.
As a bear I had once sent a UFC champion flying, but that was instinct, not martial arts.
"Hmmm……."
Seo-yeon's golden eyes narrowed. The look a cat gets when it spots prey.
"Okay then. Pop quiz. What's a double-leg?"
……Huh?
The question felt wrong.
A normal person would ask, "What's that?"
But Seo-yeon's tone wasn't asking because she didn't know.
She was checking whether I knew.
It was the question of someone who already understood.
"A double-leg takedown. You grab both of the opponent's legs below the knees and dump them."
"Sprawl?"
"Takedown defense. You shoot your hips back and press their head down to kill the shot."
"Underhook?"
"You slide your arm under their armpit to control their upper body."
Seo-yeon kept nodding along. Listening to my answers, looking satisfied.
……This little brat.
She knew combat sports.
She knew the terminology.
Her eyes tracked every move while I explained.
The way she watched the fighters on screen.
That wasn't an ordinary spectator's eye.
"You learned double-legs from TV? That's hilarious."
Seo-yeon crossed her arms and looked up at me. She was under 160 cm, but the pressure of that upward stare felt three times her height.
"You're hiding something."
"……."
"It's fine. I'm hiding stuff too."
Seo-yeon turned her head. The interrogation stopped there.
But I had questions of my own.
It had been bugging me from the start.
This kid who knew double-legs, sprawls, underhooks.
The natural way she'd said "I know that too." That wasn't TV-viewer level.
"You like combat sports too, Seo-yeon?"
For a second, Seo-yeon's eyes flickered.
Those golden irises darted left, then right.
The cat that had been grilling me a moment ago suddenly looked like a cat that had been caught.
"……Eh, just. Watched some on TV."
"On TV?"
"……Yeah."
"That's the exact same answer I just gave."
"……."
Seo-yeon's earlobes went red. Same reaction as when she handed over the side dish. This kid always blushed from the ears first when she tried to hide something.
"You're hiding something. I'm just giving you back the line you used on me."
"……Hey. That's dirty."
"I'm always good at dirty."
"'Always' again?"
Seo-yeon laughed and turned her head. Then she snuck a glance at me and turned away again. Maybe that was her habit when she was covering something up.
On screen, a fighter dropped his opponent with a KO. The crowd exploded. The commentator was screaming.
I realized I had unconsciously leaned forward toward the TV.
"……You like it, huh. Fighting."
Seo-yeon said it.
"……Something like that."
"Your face is different. When you're watching fights."
"……Is it?"
"Yeah. It's a living expression."
…….
A living expression. When I was a bear, I had no expressions at all. Even after becoming human I thought I was bad at making them. But when I watched fights, it was different?
"What about you, Seo-yeon? You don't like it?"
"……Me?"
Seo-yeon glanced at the screen for a moment. Inside the Octagon, the winner was roaring.
"Not really."
A short answer. But thinking back to the eyes she'd had while quizzing me on terminology, it didn't feel like "not really."
If she didn't like it, then what was it? Knowing it, knowing it well, and still saying not really.
"……You coming again tomorrow?"
When I asked, Seo-yeon stood up as she answered.
"The cafeteria food's better on this floor."
Still the same excuse.
……A cat who changes her excuses every day.
Seo-yeon left.
The hospital room fell quiet again.
On the TV, the next match was starting. I watched the screen.
Looking at those fighters standing in the Octagon—
…….
Suddenly the business card in my patient gown pocket—Rachel Kim, the UFC official—and the words Seo-yeon had just left me both rose to the surface at once.
──It's a living expression.
A man who only came alive when he watched fights. I'd gone from bear to human, and the most intense moment I felt truly alive as a person was when I watched combat sports.
……Funny.
But it wasn't bad.
At least, I wasn't lonely.