The Burden of Responsibility
"Good love to share between the two of you."
"──!!!"
No.
That had never been what I intended.
I had simply been...
'...What was I trying to do?'
I couldn't remember.
I didn't know.
I went to meet Sunwoo in the morning.
I had heard him say such harsh words.
Truly, truly harsh ones.
Words that he had said could never have come from his mouth.
So I just stood there, dazed.
And then...
"The man is garbage. Don't worry, Miss Narim. I'm different from those kinds of men."
"Ah...!"
How had I ended up like this...
...
..
.
"............"
After Sunwoo left.
Narim sat down right there on the spot.
I had lost my way.
I had lost the goal I was aiming for.
From the very beginning, what exactly had I been aiming to reach here?
'I.'
I hadn't thought about it.
I had simply wanted to get close to Sunwoo vaguely.
But this was never love or affection, never that soft, fluttering feeling.
I already had far too many sins on my conscience.
And she had already known some of it to a certain degree.
I could no longer go back the way we had been.
There was already a line drawn between Sunwoo and me that could never be erased.
Yet the reason I had approached Sunwoo anyway was the fundamental purpose behind it.
".....Ah."
Sunwoo was the one I could rely on?
"Ahaha... haha..."
It was disgusting. It was filthy.
The thoughts I had carried in my heart had been conveyed without a single shred of deception.
The truth I had been turning my eyes away from until now.
The tacit agreement, the unspoken expectation.
In other words, yes.
[Ask Sunwoo and he'll somehow fix it.]
A vague yet certain premise.
There had been nothing particularly wrong with it.
From the academy days until now, Sunwoo had always been like that.
If something happened, he would examine it and solve it.
If I had a problem, he would throw himself into helping without hesitation.
Even if he knew it would cost him something, he would smile that kind person's smile and pull me close.
A foolish man. A fool of a guy. So I could depend on him more...
"....Ugh."
Dependence.
Could I even call this dependence?
It made me dizzy, to the point of wanting to vomit.
Something was wrong.
I had felt it for a long time.
But where exactly it had gone wrong, or where I should have started fixing it...
"........frh."
I couldn't even claim I didn't know.
The photo Sunwoo had shown me earlier still bothered me.
A men's puffer jacket deeply worn from use.
The lewd attire that showed between the zippers.
The exposed skin covered in tattoos in places, and the decadent, thick dark circles identical to those of the woman Sunwoo had been selling his body to just moments ago.
I couldn't deny it.
I wanted to deny it. But I couldn't.
Because the Sunwoo who had denied me so much had now given up denying.
The dirty woman.
The trashy girl.
The Sunwoo who had only ever protected me when I had denied myself.
Now he was affirming me as if he would never see me again.
"How... am I supposed to do this...?"
I didn't know.
I couldn't sense anything.
Cold air. A chilly wall.
I had to stand up.
I had to go somewhere.
The thoughts circled back to Yun Ayoung, a colleague from the NTR Party.
"Are you asking me for help?"
"Please. Right now... you're the only one I have."
I knew it was shameless.
But I had to force myself to say it.
"Requesting help from my parents..."
"...That's impossible."
"Why is that?"
"........"
I couldn't say it in detail.
I couldn't bring myself to tell Ayoung.
'I sent a video of Dick...'
A video of someone soaked in drugs and body sold to men.
At first I had screamed what kind of nonsense.
But the junkie just shrugged and said it was her problem.
When I think about it now, it sounds insane, but back then I had no choice but to nod.
"...I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help you."
"Is it really... really not possible? If it's housework, I'll do everything."
"You don't know how to do housework."
"That's..."
"....I'm sorry. I must have said something I shouldn't have."
"No. It's fine. I'm... I'm fine... but..."
A sharp voice.
Something felt off.
A wall rose from Ayoung that wasn't like before, cold and icy like transparent ice.
"...Do you remember?"
"Eh?"
At the end of it, Yun Ayoung said.
"Before. About three months ago. When I called you, Miss Narim."
"A call...? Three months ago...?"
"Maybe you don't remember. I think you don't."
Ayoung nodded calmly.
"Someday Sunwoo-nim told us something."
A true friend is someone who reaches out when you are at your weakest.
The person who did that was Sunwoo.
"The one who reached out when I was at my weakest was Sunwoo."
"And for Narim-nim as well. Sunwoo reached out."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Well, I don't know either."
The feelings I was feeling now.
Regret?
Disgust?
Injustice?
Pity?
Or...
"Just... wanting to pretend I don't know..."
"Ayoung-ah. We were good, weren't we? Helping each other, supporting each other?"
Ayoung's voice gradually turning colder.
A sense of crisis. An unease. Narim's heart grew colder.
I was in danger if I kept going like this.
Instinctively I stepped closer and tried to speak, but Ayoung's response grew even colder.
"When I was at my weakest, you didn't even send a single text."
"That was because I was busy with my own things─"
"In the hospital bed. I was waiting."
"...I'm sorry I couldn't find you back then. I was really too weak at the time─"
"You must have seen the news."
"........."
The mind-control villain.
Articles about the female college students linked to that villain and about Ayoung.
Even if you didn't read them, you could know from YouTube how widely the "unknown love spy" content had spread.
"When I was at my weakest, you never called, never texted, never visited once."
"Even when I was at my weakest, Sunwoo-nim's hand you rejected."
"Now that Sunwoo-nim has turned away too, is my last resort to ask you for help?"
"No... I don't have that kind of thing..."
There was no way. That was exactly what it was.
I had only been turning my eyes away until now.
Narim's principles of action reflected Ayoung's words exactly.
"I'm an adult, Miss Narim. And so am I."
"...Ayoung-ah."
"It is time to take responsibility for the actions I have performed."
"..........."
Narim lowered her head deeply.
Ayoung quietly looked down at her and murmured softly.
"There is a loan available for awakeners. Since you are an A-rank awakener, you should be able to pull out a quick emergency fund right away."
"You already took out a loan..."
"......"
That was possible.
Ayoung had done the same.
But the worst was not yet over.
"Participate in a dungeon raid. Since you are an A-rank awakener, if you move under the guise of accepting money only at C-rank awakeners' level, anyone would recruit you."
"Selling all my equipment..."
"You can just rent."
"You don't have the money for that..."
"..........."
"....I'm sorry."
"No. It's fine. I am... yes."
When Sunwoo-nim looked at me, I must have looked like this.
Even though I hadn't thought about it, Ayoung felt gratitude toward Sunwoo again.
It was really hard to reach out to someone lost, even if they were a friend or a colleague.
And how had Sunwoo-nim helped someone as thoroughly broken as I was?
Sacrifice and devotion.
And above all, it was sublime.
If I had to point out one difference between me and Narim-nim, it would be...
"...........?"
A difference in personality?
Upon reflection, I didn't see anything particularly different between me and Narim.
We both didn't understand it. We didn't even try to understand it, and we kept falling into the abyss.
We struggled even after realizing it, clinging to empty hopes, and the result was falling into the abyss again in the most tragic way.
Yet if the results were different, the difference lay in...
"What am I supposed to do, Ayoung-ah? Now there are no parents, no Sunwoo. Now it's really only you left for me to turn to..."
".....Ah."
Yes.
This was it.
Looking at Narim on her knees, I realized.
"I am, that is, Miss Narim."
A hesitant single word.
"I am an orphan. Raised in a church without parents."
"...Ayoung-ah?"
The words kept coming, and finally I understood.
"I have always taken responsibility for my own actions."
But Narim?
She had parents, she had Sunwoo beside her.
Even when they messed up badly, they always took on Narim's responsibility instead.
A life without responsibility.
That is why it was an endlessly light life.
"Did Narim-nim ever take responsibility?"
".....I don't know."
"Then from now on, take responsibility."
The responsibility for a life of excess.
The responsibility for wasting money wastefully.
The responsibility for trying to depend on someone else.
The responsibility for abandoning yourself.
And all the countless karma, past, present, and the many things that have happened because of it.
"Until you take it on and settle it. You can't."
"..........."
Ayoung quietly looked into Narim's two eyes.
She didn't know. She simply wept without knowing anything.
In the past those two eyes had seemed pure.
Pure and clear eyes.
Eyes full of passion and vitality, like those of a innocent child.
But now they were nothing but cheap glass beads shining dully.
No value, no meaning could be seen there.
Because value and meaning are born from responsibility.
"Ten thousand won. With this money eat, sleep deeply for one night. Then wake up and take responsibility for your actions one by one."
"...I am."
"This is the best I can offer you, Miss Narim."
".........."
Narim received the two bills Ayoung handed her.
Ten thousand won.
To my past self, far too cheap.
But to my current self, extremely heavy.
Cheap to call friendship
Expensive to call pity
'....No.'
From the beginning. It was because of me.
Making the concept of friendship, the concept of value into mere ten-thousand-won bills was none other than myself.
When Narim raised her head again, Ayoung had already disappeared into the training center.
"I..."
I didn't know.
What was I supposed to do?
I just walked with a vacant mind.
Gripping the ten thousand won in my pocket tightly.
So dazed, I let my thoughts go, and the place I arrived was...
"....Ah."
The Club.
Familiar atmosphere.
Dark and dingy.
Even after barely escaping into the place where light barely shone, it pulled me in like a magnet, like a swamp.
"I..."
I had to think.
I had to think.
But I couldn't, nothing, nothing at all.
"Hey, you. Why are you looking at me like that?"
"........."
Like some kind of habit.
Narim simply dropped the thread of thought.
She drank, overlapped lips, and naturally slipped outside.
"Ah...?"
"....You right now."
The price of giving up thought.
"Ah... no. No! I wasn't thinking about that at all──"
The price of shifting responsibility.
"Good love to share between the two of you."
"──!!!"
It brought a disaster that could no longer be solved by simply 'taking responsibility.'