Chapter 28: Left Behind

She looks quite calm.

Either she didn’t understand what I was saying, or she thinks I’m spouting complete nonsense.

For a long time, we walked side-by-side under the night sky without saying a word.

Though it wasn’t exactly a romantic atmosphere.

“I’ll just put my bag away and come back, can you wait downstairs?”

She neither nodded nor answered.

She seems slightly out of it.

I went up to my room and placed the large bag on the bed.

Then, not wanting to go back down, I poured instant coffee into a paper cup and boiled hot water.

Listening to the unique sound of the electric kettle boiling water, I gazed up at the plaster ceiling with the sea wave pattern.

‘Why did I say that?’

‘No, before that, why did I even talk to her?’

‘Just meeting her and being in the same school was enough, wasn’t it?’

‘Somehow, I didn’t want to be swayed back and forth by that girl anymore.’

‘In the end, it feels like my whole life is shaken because of that friend.’

‘Is it because Si-hyun unni died?’

‘I’ll probably just spout some pointless words, return to the dorm, get high on drugs, and act like nothing happened, right, the drugs.’

From the handbag unni gave me, I took out three small pills from a tiny bottle, chewed them roughly, and gulped down the cheap instant coffee.

Feeling dazed, I closed my eyes for a moment, but then remembered I told her to wait and slowly walked back down the building.

I walked out the main entrance and approached Seo-jun, who was sitting on a nearby bench. She turned her head towards me.

Her expression looked incredibly blank.

“You said you went to your hometown today.”

“I did.”

“You went there to meet someone.”

“Yeah.”

‘Did she come to meet me?’

‘How many months has it been?’

‘Probably half a year and another month have passed.’

‘My phone was changed, so she probably couldn’t contact me.’

‘Honestly, from the moment I was thrown into the lab, it wasn’t a situation where I could care about anything that came my way.’

‘What do I care?’

‘Seriously, what do I care?’

‘Why the hell do I have to be considerate even at times like this?’

‘Because Yoo Ha-rin is that kind of person.’

‘But I’m not.’

“It was still the same.”

“That disgusting town.”

“The town I always wanted to escape, it was exactly the same.”

“It felt even more so because the kid I wanted to meet wasn’t there.”

Come to think of it, Seo-jun intensely disliked that village.

It seemed like she hated everything except me.

She was the type of kid who would get utterly fed up if someone said she was the same kind of villager as those people.

To the point where she smashed the neighbor  head in when he tried to do something incredibly common in that village – attacking me after I was left alone.

‘I don’t like people either.’

‘But that village, I don’t just like it, I think I love it.’

‘The snow that falls in autumn and doesn’t melt even when spring comes, the kids always bundled up tightly in fur clothes, the houses clustered together, the snow falling all day long.’

‘And my own self, playing beneath it all.’

‘I quite loved those times, you know.’

‘Yes, I think that feeling can definitely be called a kind of love.’

‘Whether thinking of Seo-jun or the village, longing, love-hate, suffering, hatred, and yet the thought of wanting to return always, always made me sob in that lab.’

‘Though I would just fall asleep when the sleeping gas was released because I was being noisy.’

“She was the same age as me, innocent but preferred quietly reading books.”

“Was she?”

“Yeah.”

“Her hair was brown.”

“Her eyes shone incomparably brighter than rotten fish eyes.”

“They must have been red.”

‘The ground where I could leave my footprints everywhere, the deer with clear eyes I occasionally encountered, the hunting dog I raised at home – why do the memories of running around playing here and there in the village come back so vividly?’

‘Probably because my red eyes looking at the village back then weren’t withered like this.’

‘Surely, just as much as my eyes shone, the scenery I saw, the person I saw before me, must have shone too.’

‘Now, Seo-jun doesn’t shine before me.’

‘Even though she’s become a child who radiates light with her whole body, praised by everyone, loved, and lauded.’

‘All that remains in my head is the scent of wood filled with the cool feeling of that time, the dog that came running when I called its name, the sunlight reflected by the snow piled high along the mountains.’

‘It seems Seo-jun doesn’t remain there.’

‘Maybe because she’s right in front of me, or maybe because she’s changed.’

‘Maybe I’m the one who changed.’

‘Isn’t it utterly ridiculous that someone who spent most of her days cooped up inside looking out the window recalls memories like those?’

‘But, you know.’

‘Whenever I leaned against the window reading a book or petting the dog bigger than me, my friend always came to our house and asked me to play together.’

‘Is it because the friend who surely brightened my world back then doesn’t shine before my eyes now?’

‘Or have my eyes lost their light?’

“She said she’d definitely come find me someday, I think.”

‘I started blaming her a little.’

‘Even though Seo-jun surely did nothing wrong.’

‘I just got angry on my own, disappointed on my own, sad on my own, crawled into the research facility, and got trapped, that’s all.’

‘It’s just an insect that wanted to become a butterfly, diligently crawling on the ground towards the sky, only to get stepped on.’

“Maybe I remembered wrong, or maybe someone like me was forgotten long ago.”

“Like you said, I must be really useless.”

“It’s the same wherever I go.”

The words she said before slowly start coming back.

Words I didn’t hear directly, but words I was told.

It felt like the edge of my heart was aching slightly, but I don’t want to show it.

“I was incredibly happy while you were by my side, but after you left me behind, so many things happened.”

“I lost many precious things, and I often forgot things I thought were important.”

I take a slight breath to compose myself.

Because I wanted to appear composed.

I didn’t want to show such an intense appearance – desperate, angry, excited.

Whether thanks to the drugs or my hardened heart, I suppressed the rising feelings remarkably well.

“Still, I thought you’d come.”

“For a while.”

“I waited quite a long time, you know.”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

“The money to gradually make my way to you ran out, and my surroundings didn’t just tighten around me, they tried to bury me.”

‘Come to think of it, wouldn’t a life spreading my legs in a brothel and fawning over customers have been happier than living in the lab?’

‘A drug-addicted whore would surely be a despised existence, but at least while high on drugs, she’d be incredibly happy.’

‘Now that my body has become useless, unable to even get properly high, I can’t even fathom how happy that would be.’

‘It wouldn’t just be the body becoming dull and the mood lifting slightly.’

“…Ha-rin.”

“Should I answer, ‘Yes’?”

‘I took out a cigarette and stuck it in my mouth.’

‘It tastes awful, but when the smoke sweeps through my insides, the rising screams quickly subside.’

‘Because even though I’m incredibly sad that this isn’t some tearful, touching reunion filled with exhaustion, the tears won’t come.’

“When I grumbled a bit last time because you didn’t recognize me, I was a little upset you didn’t.”

“Far from recognizing me, you told me to just die.”

“Hmph.”

“I, I.”

“Th-Then, so…”

‘It seemed I truly loved coffee, cigarettes, and music.’

‘For the first month, it felt like if I didn’t have those things, I’d smash my head against the wall and die.’

‘I actually did smash it, too.’

‘But from some point on, yes.’

‘I think I was incredibly sad at the thought that I couldn’t be saved even though the protagonist of this world was right in front of me.’

‘I think I was angry too.’

“No, well.”

“I’m not trying to blame you or anything.”

“Even I probably wouldn’t recognize you if your hair color, face, personality, and even voice were slightly distorted.”

‘We were so close.’

‘We liked each other so much.’

‘If I’ve changed so much that you couldn’t even recognize me, maybe the me from back then has already disappeared somewhere, leaving no trace?’

“I just didn’t want to be alone in that village.”

“Being left alone to wait was lonely, you know.”

“I just wanted to be with you, so I left the village and took steps forward.”

‘If I had stayed in that village, I would surely have become a person similar to the terrible humans living there, and if what I became by not staying is this current form, then indeed, only a hollow laugh escapes.’

“It’s just, nothing worked out.”

‘A person for whom nothing works out, maybe that’s the only kind of thought that comes to mind.’

“Approaching you wasn’t particularly enjoyable.”

“Trying to talk to you, it just seemed to make me angry.”

“Just like when I used to visit you back then.”

“Back then, I didn’t lack leeway, no, thinking about it, I surely must have had some…”

Seo-jun’s mouth opens.

Though nothing significant comes out.

“Even more so because you treat me the same whether you recognize me or not.”

“You…!”

Therefore, it seemed there was no need to listen.

I cut her off roughly and continued my own story.

As if muttering softly.

So low that she couldn’t hear unless she listened intently.

Looking down at the ground, I let out a puff of smoke, spat on the ground, and then spoke as if muttering.

“The villains you curse, those people you say deserve to die, they saved me, you know.”

“So I didn’t like you cursing them, and I didn’t like you worrying about that person sitting guard in front of the research facility either.”

‘It stinks.’

“I was just being a little sarcastic.”

“Compared to what I went through, that’s really mild, isn’t it?”

“But you, no.”

“Well.”

“This isn’t what I meant to say.”

“Sorry.”

“Hee.”

Seo-jun, right in front of me, remained frozen, just staring at me smoking away on the bench.

Her lips tremble, but no words come out.

‘I’m not holding onto the fact that she didn’t recognize me that much.’

‘Though I think the beating is probably stored away somewhere near the corner.’

“I was always a bit mischievous, wasn’t I?”

“Sorry for bothering you this time too, by not telling you my name and pretending not to know you.”

“I didn’t want to remain.”

“Being left alone, I thought that much was enough.”

‘I’m alone again.’

‘My only friend in front of me, it seems she doesn’t think this changed friend is a friend anymore.’

‘Even though I’m still right here.’

‘Because Si-hyun unni, the only one in this world who thought of me, was hunted down by the great heroes.’

‘No one probably knows about that.’

‘I decided to just continue my hobbies appropriately, maybe get some semblance of revenge on the people who killed Si-hyun unni, and when I become a somewhat notorious villain, I’ll leave a gift for Seo-jun.’

‘Just like I thought of before.’

‘Who would like a girl soaked in drugs, possessing a strange ability, not particularly pretty, and whose personality has become twistedly eccentric anyway?’

‘But villains are probably necessary.’

‘Left alone again, I don’t know how to live lonely.’

‘Because I’ve already experienced someone thinking of me.’

‘I want to become someone needed.’

‘This, I think I thought this when going to the lab too.’

“Ha, ahh.”

A hollow laugh escaped, and I roughly extinguished the cigarette I had been chain-smoking and put it in the empty pack.

Leaving Seo-jun, still staring at me and rambling incoherently, I returned to my room.

It seems sleep did not come.