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Join the ServerIt seemed he finally understood. This was to be our end.
Forcing my contorted face straight, I, too, intended to offer him a proper farewell. I would tell him to forget someone like me and live a happy life.
“Han Jung-woo, I—”
How did I ever manage to pretend everything was fine? I used to be so confident in my acting, but now my body felt broken, refusing to obey.
Still, I wanted to finish what I was trying to say, but no sound escaped my diligently trembling lips.
As if I had lost my voice entirely.
“I thought this time would be different….”
Breaking the ensuing silence, he lifted his head and looked at me. The focus in his eyes was sharp now, the haze of alcohol gone, and reflected within them was my own bewildered face.
“I tried to hold onto you, even abandoning myself, just to avoid repeating the past.”
“……”
“But now you’re saying you’ll leave because it’s not fate? You have so many excuses.”
Sweeping back his damp hair, he twisted his lips into a bitter smile. I lacked the courage to meet his sharp gaze and tried to turn my head away, but he caught my chin, forcing me to look back at him.
“I haven’t finished speaking yet.”
The last trace of a smile vanished from his face, leaving it utterly cold. It was as if all the times he had smiled at me were a lie, and I felt as though I was looking at a complete stranger.
‘No, this is how he always was.’
Han Jung-woo’s gaze, when directed at Yoo Seo-jin, had never once held warmth. To him, Yoo Seo-jin was merely an obstruction, hindering his love.
Therefore, feeling unfamiliar with this gaze meant our relationship had changed significantly. I had grown too close to him, so much so that I felt a pang of disappointment at this mere shift.
“I endured for three years.”
As if certain I would no longer avert my gaze, he released my chin and began an enigmatic story.
“They said time would heal things, so I tried to live as usual. I worked, occasionally met acquaintances, and even drank and got drunk, just like you did.”
“……”
“But none of it helped.”
He let out a deep sigh, then took my fingertips in his hand. He gently rubbed my well-manicured nails, offering a faint smile before continuing to speak.
“So I gave up on everything. Pretending to be fine, trying to get better—all of it. And just like you, I holed up at home and only drank. Because when I was drunk, I felt a little better.”
As I listened to Han Jung-woo’s story, a subtle sense of unease began to bloom within me. It couldn’t be, but the ‘me’ in his story didn’t seem to be Yoo Seo-jin.
‘Surely not…’
I briefly quelled my anxiety and waited for his next words. He, who had lingered at my fingertips, now pulled away.
“I could only fall asleep when I was drunk. Otherwise, the pain was too unbearable to endure. But thankfully, after pouring enough alcohol into myself to pickle my brain, you always appeared in my dreams.”
“Me?”
“It’s funny, isn’t it? What was the last thing you said to me when we met? Was it ‘get lost’?”
As if recalling a day from his memories, his face subtly contorted. Though it quickly smoothed out, the sadness that had seeped into his eyes remained unconcealed.
“Do you know? The happier the dream, the more brutal reality becomes.”
I knew. I, too, had a time when I struggled desperately to escape reality. I wasted countless helpless hours, drunk, simply wanting to return to when I was loved.
When I finally drifted into a deep sleep and then opened my eyes again, the helplessness and misery that overwhelmed me were utterly inexpressible. It was hell itself.
“That’s why I didn’t want to wake up. Reality was too much of a hell, too hard for me to endure alone. So I chose to keep sleeping.”
“How could you—”
“Wouldn’t you know better than anyone?”
Thump. My heart plummeted. The answer, easily found, was utterly devastating. Though mine was an accident, I had escaped reality by similar means, so how could I not know?
If that were true, then who was Han Jung-woo, the man standing before me? Who was the Han Jung-woo I had been with all this time?
“When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital. I thought I’d failed. I wanted to grab whoever saved me by the collar and demand an explanation. I truly didn’t want to live….”
Many unspoken things hid in his fading words. Yet, even without him saying it, I knew. No, I couldn’t not know.
“From the very beginning, you knew?”
“No. But it didn’t take me this long to realize.”
The protagonist of the story he so calmly recounted was someone I knew better than anyone else. It was the person I had yearned for so deeply, the one I had only just managed to let go of over time.
I had merely thought it was a delusion. Every time I saw Han Jung-woo, he naturally reminded me of you, but I simply assumed it was because our roles were the same.
Only now, looking back, did I realize there were countless strange inconsistencies.
The familiar brand of cigarettes, his knowledge of my nightmares, his awareness of my favorite foods and tastes. Even the subtle shift in his speech and his familiar scent, which had appeared at some point.
You had been telling me from the very beginning that you had returned to me, but I, foolishly, hadn’t noticed. You appeared before me not as Han Jung-woo, but as Seon Woo-jung, from the start.
“Why? Do you find me repulsive for following you all the way here, even after you told me to get lost?”
Even after all this time, a dagger remained lodged in his heart. And the one who had driven it in was none other than me.
‘Because of you, I want to die. Please, don’t come. If you do, I’ll die right in front of you.’
Back then, I was plummeting endlessly, and I hated him for rising even higher.
I knew you weren’t the one who made me this way, but I needed a place to unleash my resentment. I was simply too pathetic back then, and that’s why I acted that way.
If I had known that would be our last moment together, I never would have uttered such words. But without a chance to correct myself, to say I didn’t mean it, I left, and you were left alone.
How could I possibly think of you as repulsive, when you miraculously returned to my side, abandoning everything else? You are foolish and naive, yet precisely because of that, you are utterly lovable.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“If I had told you, what would have changed?”
He had been afraid. The memory of being rejected by me when he was Seon Woo-jung, and the self-reproach of not being able to stop me when I left without a word, had kept him from revealing himself until now.
Perhaps he wanted to start anew, just as I had. He must have wanted to believe that if he were Han Jung-woo, not Seon Woo-jung, something might be different. And he had tried to make it so.
“Was it very hard?”
At my question, asked far too late, he slowly nodded. With that single nod, my heart crumbled completely.
Over those three years, I couldn’t even begin to fathom how much you must have suffered. I had only ever thought you were living well, always shining brightly in your own place.
Had you loved me enough to abandon everything? I was such a selfish person, filled only with the relief of having escaped reality. Though I missed you, it hadn’t been hard enough for me to let go of myself.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Joon-hee.”
At the sound of my name, spoken after so long, the tears I had held back burst forth. He wiped my helplessly damp cheeks, then called me again. ‘Joon-hee,’ he said.
“Please, this time, won’t you stay by my side?”
His voice, trembling precariously, pleaded with me desperately. He begged me to stay by his side, to never leave again.
Even in this second chance, where everything could start anew, he found me, and I fell in love with him all over again.
In a way, it was a truly tenacious fate, and I realized that this was what it meant to be destined to meet, no matter how many detours we took. Yes, that wretched fate that had tormented me so.
“Will you call my name?”
At his request, I painstakingly opened my mouth. And then I spoke the name I hadn’t been able to utter for so long due to guilt, the name I felt I had no right to say.
“Jung.”
You think this chapter was thrilling? Wait until you read I Want To Bite You! Click here to discover the next big twist!
Read : I Want To Bite You
