Things Only Visible When Faced
There are things that only become visible when you face them.
In the midst of a situation flowing against my will, I suddenly realized something.
At some point, the thought of waking from the dream had simply vanished.
Was it that I found this unfolding development… not so bad?
Or that I found it good?
The emotion that seemed knowable yet unknowable felt like walking a single-log bridge.
It was as if I were gazing at something I had long forgotten.
“Until now, you’re the first person I’ve ever poured out my personal circumstances to. So I guess that makes you someone special to me, right?”
Speaking with a heavier face than usual, Jin Jo-hwa showed me her sincerity.
It felt awkward, but this was her true self.
She was the kind of girl who hated letting anyone see her thoughts or feelings. That was why she lived wearing such a precise, thick mask of pretense.
“My family is pretty well-off. My father and mother are both lawyers. We’ve got a big family too—father, mother, my oldest sister, my second sister, and me. Five of us. But like I said, my parents are lawyers, right?”
“Yeah.”
Come to think of it, I remembered Jin Jo-hwa having older sisters.
It would be a little later than this, but she and I used to hang out a lot even outside of school.
It wasn’t common, but every once in a while I’d get swept up in her pace and we’d end up visiting each other’s houses.
Looking back now, it feels like something that should never have happened. Even if it was my past self, I can’t help thinking how pathetic I must have been for going along with it.
As time passed, the sunset outside the window deepened, and Jin Jo-hwa’s face grew darker along with it.
“You know what kind of job a lawyer is, right?”
“Obviously. Are you looking down on me?”
I dropped my voice as low as I could, and Jin Jo-hwa flustered and started explaining.
“Ah, no. I didn’t mean to look down on you. I just asked just in case. You might not know, right? If it hurt your feelings, I’m sorry.”
I knew there wasn’t even one percent of pretense in her words, but I deliberately kept the suspicious look on my face.
There was a reason for every action of mine that carried pure malice.
Jin Jo-hwa had teased me more than once or twice, so this was payback. From a spectator’s seat, the way she got flustered was a delicacy the world had only one of.
Still facing my unrelenting suspicion, she appealed with sincerity.
“I’m really not. Believe me.”
“Fine. Got it.”
“……It feels like you’re just brushing it off. Do you actually believe me?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t trust that.”
“Then don’t.”
If that was how it was, then that was how it was. What a tiresome personality.
Looking back now, I start to wonder how I ever managed to get along with Jin Jo-hwa at all.
“Fine. Let’s just move on like you want. We don’t have time to nitpick over that right now.”
“……”
I conveyed my agreement in silence, and she continued.
“Because my parents’ jobs kept them so busy, they almost never took care of me themselves. When I was a baby I was raised by my grandparents, and once I started talking and running around it was mostly my sisters who looked after me. I grew up without receiving my parents’ direct love, and so I always envied my friends my age. So I thought—why not make the love and attention from my oldest sister and second sister, and even from other people, mine as well? Why not use that to replace my parents’ love? It started with one friend. I matched my words and actions so that good rumors about me would spread from her mouth. And she ended up liking me a lot. Every time that happened, I felt something inside me filling up. And every time something filled up inside me, I felt a warmth I couldn’t put into words. So I made more friends, and I’ve been living a life of matching myself to every single one of them just to receive even a little more love and attention.”
“……”
I couldn’t continue speaking.
Because I was shocked.
I couldn’t understand the boundless happiness I felt from her expression and words, and at the same time goosebumps rose at the monstrous sight of her erasing herself into a blur just to crave love and attention.
“So I have a favor to ask you!”
Was that look on Jin Jo-hwa’s face—someone who wore pretense like a habit—itself pretense?
No.
It was sincere.
The tension in the corners of her eyes and the anxiety seeping into her voice made it easy to tell it wasn’t an act. I could tell because it was me. We had once been friends who trusted each other without hesitation. Even if that relationship belonged to the past.
That was how I knew.
“A favor?”
“Yeah!”
The dynamic way she nodded her head up and down carried desperation.
“What’s the favor?”
“Keep the real me that you’ve seen—and the real me you’ll see from now on—a secret. Please. Okay?”
I didn’t remember every single detail of the past vividly. So I hadn’t known in advance what kind of favor it would be, but so this was it.
I still couldn’t tell whether false pasts were mixed into this dream I was having, or whether real pasts from my unconscious that I hadn’t recognized were mixed in.
I still hadn’t decided whether to take everything happening in the dream seriously or treat it as reference material, but for now I answered.
“Okay.”
“Huh……?”
I repeated it to Jin Jo-hwa, who was questioning me with a blank face.
“I said okay.”
“……”
Why no reaction at all?
“Ha, hahaha……”
At the sight of her laughing in disbelief, I stood up, slung my bag over my shoulder, and spoke.
“If there’s nothing else, I’m heading out first.”
“Wait. Are you really granting my favor with no conditions at all?”
“Yeah. Why? Want me to attach some conditions?”
“No, no. I’m really grateful that you’re granting it without conditions.”
“Then that’s settled, right?”
“I prepared myself thoroughly and thought through all sorts of situations, but you accepted it so simply that I feel deflated.”
“Right. Then I’m going.”
There was a lot to think about, so I left the classroom without hesitation. Behind me came the hurried sound of her locking the classroom door and chasing after me.
“W-wait!”
Ignore her.
“I said wait!”
I already knew what kind of development would unfold if I waited just because she told me to.
So ignore her.
“Can you listen when a person is talking?”
I can’t hear it.
I’m alone.
I’m going home alone.
“……”
“Hey! Listen when someone’s talking! There’s a limit to ignoring people. When a person speaks, you at least look at them, don’t you?”
At last another true face of hers revealed itself.
That was the real Jin Jo-hwa. Strong sense of pride on one hand, a hot temper on the other—if I had to compare her to something, she was roughly like an enraged bull. And don’t yell right next to me. It hurts my ears.
“……What.”
Afraid she’d start yelling beside me again if I kept ignoring her, I gave the bare minimum of a reply.
Even after I answered, she still wore a sulky face as if something didn’t sit right with her. But I didn’t care. I simply kept walking my own path.
“Haa. Fine. I get it. I forgot for a moment that you’re just that kind of kid. But which way is your house?”
There it was.
I should have gotten out of school before that question came up. Was it really impossible to unfold a development different from the past?
“Straight ahead from the main gate.”
“Not the same direction as me, huh? Too bad.”
“Yeah. Guess so.”
“……If you’re going to agree, can’t you at least put some decent emotion into it? From the listener’s perspective, I start to wonder if you’re even human. You’re way too half-hearted!”
She scolded me as if it were absurd, but I really had nothing particular to say in response.
“Ah!”
“?”
Jin Jo-hwa suddenly stopped mid-walk, and I stopped along with her.
What now?
“I have to return the key.”
“……”
How many times was I seeing these rare sides of Jin Jo-hwa today? Let’s see. Once, twice……
While I was recalling one by one the rare faces of hers I’d seen today—
“Could you wait for me?”
“Yeah.”
—an answer slipped out of me unconsciously at her words.
……Ah.
Mistake.
After spending the whole day trading lines in the same role and the same pattern, the words had come out on their own. I really should have firmly refused this part—
“Just wait a little! I’ll be right back!”
“……”
—or so I thought. Yeah. I could only think it.
I turned to explain that it was a mistake, that I hadn’t meant to say it, that the answer had come out unconsciously—but by then Jin Jo-hwa was already racing ahead toward the teachers’ office.
Left alone in the hallway against my will, I muttered to myself.
“She’s still ridiculously fast, even seeing it again.”
The moment I tried to take a slow step, my vision began to distort.
“Wh-what!”
The shock at the unreal phenomenon lasted only a moment.
Because I realized that the present me was inside a dream. The dream had been so realistic that I had briefly been less conscious of the fact that I was dreaming.
The distortion of my vision grew worse with every passing second.
When my sight had warped so badly I could no longer tell what the original shapes had been—
“……I can’t see anything.”
—a darkness without a single ray of light swallowed me.
I was left alone at the center of that darkness.
Inside the dark space I felt nothing at all.
No fear or loneliness, no wonder or curiosity.
Instead, a sense of comfort ruled over me.
Why? Even I didn’t really know the reason.
In the quiet dark there was nothing to disturb me.
No sounds that could cloud my thoughts or judgment reached me.
There was no difference between closing my eyes and opening them.
So I closed my eyes.
And I thought.
I looked once more at my homeroom teacher from back then and at Jin Jo-hwa. Even though I had only seen them through a dream, I could see things other than what my past self had seen and thought.
I could feel other things, and the difference wasn’t large.
It was subtle.
But why did that subtle difference feel so big?
Why, just because I faced people from the past once more, did other things become visible?
Was it an error in memory?
Or because they were false memories my brain had freely created?
No.
Because the homeroom teacher and Jin Jo-hwa I saw in the dream were no different from the past I currently remembered. They had simply become a little more detailed.
Then why was it that the present me and the past me saw and felt different things when looking at the same people?
I think there’s only one reason.
My past self was indifferent to those around me. In contrast, my present self was facing and looking at the other person no matter what. That was why so many things felt different and looked different, I believe.
I said so myself and knew the answer, yet I couldn’t help finding it truly strange.
I had looked at people from the past who hadn’t changed. The only difference was that the present me was the one looking.
Of course, it could also be that I had grown mentally and could now see what had once been invisible. But while many things had grown compared to my past self, I think there are parts that haven’t.
Even now, my indifference to those around me remains the same. Or is it slightly different from simply being indifferent?
I learned that what my past self had believed was right had been wrong.
At first this dream had been truly unpleasant.
Having to face past memories and Jin Jo-hwa brought rejection and discomfort…… and a little fear. But I deliberately ignored those feelings and chose to face them, and I didn’t wake from the dream. That was how I arrived at the answer above.
Honestly, many people around me had already given me the answer or the hints. But I hadn’t accepted them. No—I had known, but I couldn’t accept them. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it.
Using the excuse that it went against my own convictions, I…… kept running away. Because I was afraid. Because I was scared that if I received the same wound again I wouldn’t be able to endure it and would shatter into pieces.
Because I was alone.
So I thought.
If I just don’t create situations where I can get hurt, it’ll be fine.
And as a solution I came up with the answer that I simply shouldn’t close the distance with others.
I thought it wasn’t a bad answer. And I still think so now.
Just as you can’t run forever, I realized you can’t look away forever either.
I’m tired.
I want to put an end to my connection with Jin Jo-hwa soon.
To make my wish come true I have to do that, so I will accept it without looking away.
I will no longer run.
I am afraid of getting hurt.
I hate getting hurt.
That is why I also don’t want to hurt others.
“You really like looking out the window, don’t you? At school you stare outside whenever you get the chance. You’re doing it at the hospital too. What exactly are you looking at?”
“!”
Startled by the familiar voice that entered the silence, I opened my eyes.
Before me the scenery outside the window was reflected, and I was sitting on a hospital bed.
Another past had been created inside the darkness.
Even knowing it was a dream, it wasn’t easy to adapt.
When the sunlight dazzled me and I slightly frowned, Jin Jo-hwa seemed to misunderstand something and apologized to me.