You Wanted Me to Find Out
"…Pathetic, right? Looking perfectly normal on the outside, and yet…"
"…Seora."
Knock, knock—
Her voice carried through the apartment hallway from just beyond the door.
From the moment I heard the elevator chime and the steady tread of approaching footsteps, I had steeled myself to face her.
She arrived at my door. I would open it, and I would tell her:
Please go.
…After running through that final simulation one last time, I let out a long breath and opened the door.
Beep-beep-beep—
"…Thank goodness. You opened it."
"……!"
Before I could even push the door open myself, she yanked it hard toward her, and I nearly toppled forward.
But the second she got it open she pulled me into a tight embrace, so I never actually fell.
Wrapped in Seol Eun’s arms, the scent I had unconsciously been longing for filled my nose.
And in that instant, I knew.
Contrary to everything I had prepared myself for, there was no way I could coldly turn her away.
"Seora… why did you suddenly start crying…? Hmm? You had me so worried."
Her warm voice reached me.
That warmth she never offered when Myo-myau was around—reserved only for me.
Every scrap of resolve I had spent the dozens of minutes after hanging up the phone carefully building simply dissolved the moment I heard her voice and breathed in her scent, as if it had never existed at all.
"…Hic… kh…"
Huh. What’s wrong with me.
It was as if my tear ducts had short-circuited; tears welled up from somewhere deep inside and spilled over.
Was I crying because the resolve I had worked so hard to harden had crumbled in an instant and I felt pathetic, or because I was actually relieved it had turned out this way?
I simply clung to her and cried without end.
Seol Eun flinched for a second, startled, then wordlessly began stroking my hair.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do.
Should I try to put into words this heart that was glad and yet somehow hated it at the same time?
She had come all this way because she was worried about me.
Now that things had come to this, it seemed I could no longer run.
I had held out until the absolute last second, but I decided to admit it now.
It was the same in games.
/Suicide
You thrash and struggle as hard as you can, and the moment you realize it’s over, you coolly accept it and type GG.
"Ah… you’re crying again. What’s really going on with you?"
At her question, I decided to give her an answer—not the whole truth, but a definite one.
Kim Seora.
From the day I met her, my heart had never once known peace.
Every time I thought of that name, of her, of those eyes—
an indescribable pity would come flooding in.
On the surface she seemed fine enough, but every time I looked at her—every time I saw those eyes that gazed blankly out at a world already ruined—
I simply could not rest easy. I wanted to protect her. To keep her safe.
Maybe that was why I had wanted to hold her so badly.
The instant I heard Seora crying through the receiver, I dropped everything and ran.
I didn’t even finish putting on my makeup. I covered a forty-minute drive in twenty and headed straight for her place.
Because a bad feeling had taken root in me.
When I reached her front door, I forced down the uneasy thoughts that kept crawling up my spine and called her name.
"…Seora."
I knocked on the door with a little too much urgency and gripped the handle tight.
Thump, thump—
The faint, lifeless footsteps from inside eased my heart just a fraction.
Beep-beep-beep—
I yanked the handle before the door-lock chime had even finished.
The moment I saw her, my blood ran cold. In her eyes—eyes that used to hold at least a fragile spark of life—there was nothing left at all.
She looked so much like she was already dead that I immediately pulled the girl in front of me into a fierce hug.
"Why are you suddenly crying…? Hmm?"
I held her tighter and tighter, desperately praying that the light would return to her eyes, that her strangely sluggish pulse would pick up again.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long before those eyes unfocused and the tears came pouring out in a rush.
"…Hic… kh…"
She cried in my arms for a long time.
Looking at her face, I was certain those tears were being wrung out of a pain she simply could not bear any longer.
She sobbed so wretchedly I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she was suffering or how deep it ran.
It made one corner of my chest ache terribly—and at the same time I felt relief that whatever was festering inside her was finally finding a way out, even like this.
I soothed her with that quiet gratitude.
I stroked her hair and held her so tightly there wasn’t a single gap left between us.
Before I knew it, Seora and I were sitting on the sofa, looking at each other a little awkwardly.
She seemed to have calmed down somewhat, but she still couldn’t quite smooth the rigid set of her face, as if she were turning something over and over in her mind.
I had no intention of rushing her.
I simply watched her eyes, anxious that the light in them might die again.
Beneath lowered brows, sorrow still cast across her face, her lips began to move, just a little.
The sight overlapped with the day I first met her.
…Realizing I had thoughtlessly made a girl this emotionally fragile cry back then sent a fresh wave of guilt through me.
"Um, Unnie…"
At last the voice I had been waiting for arrived.
It sounded like she was forcibly packing down tears that threatened to burst free at any second.
"…Yeah. Go ahead."
"The truth is… I’m scared of relationships."
"……?"
For a moment I couldn’t understand what she meant.
Relationships?
…Surely not.
So that was why she didn’t want to see me—
…The second the meaning of her words clicked into place, guilt crashed over me like a tidal wave.
"…I’m sorry. I’m really, truly sorry."
Right. Reality wasn’t a comic book.
The idea that “I hate it” could magically turn into “I like it” only ever worked in fiction.
What Myo-myau and I had done on our own—yes. It was the kind of thing that deserved divine punishment.
"…I’m sorry… I was wrong. Later I’ll call Myo-myau over too and apologize properly."
"…Y-…yes?"
But Seora only looked more confused by my apology, as if she had no idea what I was talking about.
"…Ah."
Then, as though something had just dawned on her, she let out a soft snort of laughter.
That laugh threw me off balance this time. Even so, I was ridiculously glad to hear it.
"Ah… I’m sorry."
"…Huh?"
"The relationship I meant… um… it wasn’t that kind of ‘relationship,’ the one people talk around so delicately. I was talking about interpersonal relationships."
……Ah.
"……I see."
Shame flooded me. But the words that followed left me no room to feel embarrassed—my breath caught clean in my throat.
"…I’m scared. That after we close the distance and get close like this, after we become someone special to each other someday… Unnie, and Myo-myau-nim too… will just leave."
"……."
After she finished speaking and closed her mouth, I watched her tongue tap lightly against the inside of her cheek.
Then she added one more thing.
"…Pa-pathetic, right? Looking perfectly normal on the outside and still thinking stuff like this. I-it’s just… before I even realize it. I really don’t want to, but… those thoughts keep floating up and it makes me so anxious."
"……."
Beneath the words jammed in my throat, I sorted through what I ought to say, one careful phrase at a time.
Then I delivered it to her slowly, clearly, deliberately.
"…Deep down, you wanted me to find out, didn’t you?"
For an instant the eyes looking up at me went wide.
I could see her pupils trembling hard.
Not as violently as her pupils, but her shoulders tensed as well, shaking just a little.
…I quickly pulled out a tissue.
I got ready to wipe away the tears and the runny nose that were about to come.
I watched the scenery sliding past outside.
Maybe because I felt so unburdened, the view beyond the car window rushed by with a wonderfully clean clarity.
…Deep down, you wanted me to find out, didn’t you?
No other words could have understood the state I was in better than those.
Yeah. I had wanted her to know. And yet I had been terrified of looking too pathetic, terrified that once I accepted comfort I would no longer be able to turn back.
Even so, I had spoken—because I had finally admitted it.
That they had already stepped inside me and made themselves at home a long time ago.
The moment I breathed in Seolgam’s scent again, I had been certain.
I had tried so hard to deny the feeling, but I was already in too deep with them to turn around.
The heated time I had spent with them had been intense… and also…… good.
……But it wasn’t only that kind of carnal desire that had made me fond of them.
The real-world relationships that had been absent for so long.
I hadn’t wanted them at all—I had been so afraid I tried to push them away—and yet…
the lonely part of me underneath had been welcoming, with everything it had, the girls who had taken that first step toward me.
Click—
The car-door locks released. The moment I stepped out of Seol Eun’s car, a wind that had grown much colder cut straight through my padding and brushed bare against my skin.
"Ugh…"
Without meaning to, I ducked my head a little and shrank into myself.
"Oh my, are you cold?"
Seol Eun turned to look at me as she asked.
I met her eyes awkwardly.
Just looking into them made it feel as though the cold were already melting away.
She was the kind of person who could take hold of me and shake me without even trying.
Flustered, I quickly looked away as I answered.
"Ah… no… I’m not cold."
Her distinctive, elegant little laugh reached me.
"Don’t be like that. Just a second."
She stopped walking. I stopped too and looked at her.
"…!"
Exactly like a scene from a movie, she unwound the scarf from her own neck and carefully looped it around mine.
That gentle touch, and the faint smile directed only at me, sent heat flooding through my whole body in an instant.
Even if it had been a pitch-black night, I was certain she could have stood in for the sun and made a traveler shed their coat.
People passing through downtown kept glancing our way as they went by.
Embarrassment made me burn even hotter, but whether she noticed or not, once she had finished wrapping the scarf she slipped her arm through mine.
"……Thank you."
"Don’t mention it."
I hurried to acknowledge her kindness and turned my face away. Worried my cheeks might have gone red, I tried to tug my padding up as high as I could to hide them.
That was when she linked our arms properly.
With my free hand I stroked the scarf, and we continued a date that I had expected would be nice—and that turned out even better than I had imagined.
Even after we reached the movie theater, got our popcorn, and sat down in our seats, we never unlinked our arms.
Once we finally let go to sit, we still kept our hands tightly clasped.
I didn’t take in a single frame of the movie. Apart from occasionally accepting the popcorn Seol Eun fed me, I didn’t even reach for the bucket myself.
I kept swallowing dryly, the film completely secondary, simply watching her face lit by the glow of the screen.
Luminous skin. Those eyes that flashed a blue light as they widened and narrowed from time to time.
Even as we walked out leaving more than half our cola and popcorn unfinished, we stayed arm in arm.
Every time embarrassment made me try to put a little distance between us, she would catch my arm and pull me back in.
We went on like that all the way to the walking path, and I continued a date steeped in the tenderest feeling.
It was the first real date of my life. I had never known something called a date could be this ticklish and this good at the same time.
The cold November wind blew, but I couldn’t feel the chill at all.
"Seora, I’ll head off now. Go up carefully."
"Okay. You be careful getting home too, Unnie."
"Hehe. I will. Call me anytime."
In an atmosphere that had grown even softer, I said goodbye and turned away.
The knot inside me had loosened, and the moment Seol Eun left, my eyelids felt impossibly heavy.
I had cried myself out, after all… Tonight I should hurry upstairs and sleep.
Thinking that, I rode the elevator home, washed up, changed clothes, and was just about to lie down on the bed when—
"…Wh-who are you…??"
If it hadn’t been for that distinctive pink hair, I would never have noticed her and would have flopped straight down on top of the mysterious woman already under my covers.