Like Fireworks
I made it back to my desk.
The sweat had cooled, but my head burned as if I were running a fever.
"Jiwoo, are you all right?"
Oh Seorin was watching me when she asked. I must have slumped over the desk without realizing it. With an effort, I lifted a head that felt as heavy as waterlogged cotton.
"I... suddenly don't feel well."
"Go to a hospital. Whatever's left can wait until tomorrow."
"Would that really be all right?"
She nodded, her face as impassive as ever.
"Yes. It's your work, anyway."
She wasn't wrong. My tasks and Oh Seorin's were divided with a knife's precision.
"Right... thank you."
I packed up slowly, then paused halfway through saying goodbye. Around Oh Seorin's neck, the line I'd seen earlier was writhing wildly. It was a Red Line. The thing coiled around her throat like a python, winding tighter and tighter. Couldn't she see it? Didn't it feel suffocating?
"Nnngh..."
She looked exhausted. So I was seeing things. I rubbed my eyes hard and stepped into the elevator. Even inside, every kind of line hovered over people's heads. Unlike the one around Oh Seorin's neck, these ran straight and taut, and they didn't move.
"...So the de facto firing finally broke me."
There was no other explanation that fit. I'd meant to go home and rest, but now it seemed I really ought to see a doctor. In the lobby, the bodies of people passing by were a tangle of lines.
"I should at least try a psychiatrist..."
I'd been under a lot of stress lately. Even at home, I couldn't sleep properly. Getting counseling once wouldn't be the worst idea.
The stigma around psychiatry didn't bother me much—maybe because I'd lived with other people's prejudice since I was a child. I knew better than anyone that I was the only one who would look after me, so my health came first.
"If anything, you go while you can still walk in on your own."
As luck would have it, there was a clinic that would see me without an appointment.
"Hello. This is Han Jiwoo. I called earlier."
"Ah, yes. Please have a seat."
The receptionist guided me kindly. I sat and stole a glance at her. A bright red line was wrapped around her neck.
"Mr. Han Jiwoo? Please go into Room One."
"Thank you."
The psychiatrist had a gentle, dignified manner. A vivid red line was wound tight around his abdomen, and it had sharpened into something like an arrow, stabbing at his stomach again and again. He greeted me with careful courtesy.
"Hello. What brings you in today?"
Beating around the bush seemed like a waste of time.
"I was effectively fired at work... I think the stress has gotten bad. And I seem to be seeing things."
He scratched something onto his notepad with a ballpoint pen.
"When you say things, what kind of things?"
"Um... a red line keeps stabbing you in the stomach."
"A red line?"
"Yes."
"What does this red line look like?"
"It's... shaped like an arrow."
"And where on my stomach is it stabbing?"
"There."
He pointed at the center of his belly.
"Here?"
"No. Farther to the right."
"Hmm..."
He nodded as if he understood and scribbled with the pen again.
"Anything else? Do you see them on people besides me?"
"Yes. I saw one on the receptionist just now. And on a coworker."
"Does a bright red line stab the receptionist the way it does me?"
"No... it was wound tight around her neck. My coworker's was wrapped around her neck, too."
"I see. All right."
We talked through a few more things, and the session came to an end.
"You've had a hard day, Jiwoo. This may simply be temporary, brought on by sudden stress. I'll prescribe three days of sleeping pills, so take them when you get home and get some real rest. Walk a little before bed. Do something you enjoy. I'll see you again in four days, and we can go over the prescription then."
"Thank you."
I left the clinic after the routine visit. Sudden stress? Well, maybe. Oh Seorin's words had dropped the weight of reality square onto my shoulders. But was that really enough to make me see lines like these?
I sat on a bench for a while and watched the people come and go.
"..."
A man passed with a cast on his right foot, leaning on a crutch. A crimson line was wound around that foot.
"Oh."
I turned at once. A stooped old man was making his way along with difficulty, red lines wrapped around his whole body. Along the bent line of his lower back, the color was especially deep.
I drew from my bag the thing I'd brought with me—the Book of Truth, or whatever it was. Unlike before, it showed me nothing at all. It was just an old book, empty of any contents.
Then something struck me.
"Ah...!"
It was like being hit by lightning. The realization sent a shiver through my whole body.
The lines weren't only on people. They showed on plants and animals, too. Every stray cat had a red line coiled around its belly, and the trees were webbed in red, the pattern like the shape smoke takes when exhaust pours out.
Meow.
A stray crept up and rubbed its head against my leg. Something had scratched its back; a scab had formed there, and a red line lay coiled over it like a snake. I reached out carefully and stroked along its spine.
Little by little, the coiled red line grew faint.
"...!"
Slowly, carefully, I kept stroking. At last the red line vanished, and a blue one appeared in its place. A blue line seeped from my hand and settled along the cat's back, and the blue line that had been in my hand was gone. I felt drained, as if I'd just sprinted a hundred meters at full speed.
The cat, on the other hand, seemed pleased. It let out a contented sound.
Prrrrrr...
A child passing beside me tapped me on the back.
"Mister! Can I pet the cat too?"
For a kid these days, he was awfully forward with a stranger.
"Sure. Want to pet him together?"
"Yeah!"
Before I knew it, I was holding the child's hand, the two of us stroking the cat's head together.
Prrr... prrr...
I glanced down. A small red line showed on the child's hand. I tried the same thing I'd done with the cat, but it didn't seem to work on people.
Scratch, scratch.
I scratched the stray's head and stared blankly up at the sky. At two in the afternoon, the whole sky was covered in red lines.
The sleeping pills did nothing at all. Some instinct to keep reading only grew stronger, and it woke me instead. I read everything I could get my hands on.
Not just the novels at home—I even started in on the flyers. Strangely, I had no desire to read anything digital.
"I want to read... I just want to keep reading..."
Unable to bear the hunger for it, I left the house and headed for the library. I went in, planted myself at the A shelves, and read without moving. Science, philosophy, whatever I came across—I read and read again. By the time I came to my senses, it was closing time.
Only then did I go home and collapse into sleep. I was so exhausted I nearly slept through the alarm. It felt as if I'd shut my eyes for only a moment, and suddenly it was six in the morning.
"Nnngh..."
I got up slowly, washed my hair, shaved, and washed my face. I changed clothes and boarded the bus as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
"Still there."
Day one of the sleeping pills, and the lines were still tangled together in complicated knots. The longer I watched them, the more I understood that they followed certain rules.
I couldn't explain it precisely, but anything that had been damaged—or was in the process of being damaged—was wrapped in red lines. Most of the elderly in the priority seats were bound in them. The people covered in blue lines, rare as they were, were children. Now and then a red line showed at a knee or an elbow, but overall it was the blue that dominated.
"Hm."
Then the movement of the red lines caught my eye. The lines coming off the passengers gathered like a ball and began rushing toward a single point.
Where are they trying to go?
The red lines stopped in one place: directly above the bus driver's head. Surely not. It couldn't be. Even so, just in case, I moved as close to the driver as I could. It was still early and the bus was nearly empty—a small mercy that I could move at all.
Then it happened. The red ball swelled, and burst in every direction like a firework.
Bang!
The driver's eyes rolled back. He tried to say something, but the words came out thick and impossible to follow.
"Urgh... sh'namidr... urhnimipiha..."
On instinct I lunged for the driver's seat. I have no idea how I fit into that narrow space. I checked the side mirror, turned the wheel to the right, eased onto the brake as slowly as I could, and switched on the hazard lights. I don't know how I managed to do all of that so fast, either.
Screeeeech!
"Aaaaaah!"
"Ghk!"
The bus slammed to a stop, and the passengers screamed. Fortunately, it halted in the middle of the lane. I checked them at once. A few had fallen and been hurt, but no one's red lines had gathered and burst.
Normally, when I got tense or something urgent happened, my back would soak through with sweat. Right now it was drier than it had ever been.
Something in me had changed.