Chapter 114: The Weight of Three Years

A year had passed since Yoo Joon-hee vanished from his life.

For months, he had been a wreck, making countless mistakes and eventually needing to take a hiatus for his health. Yet, as time wore on, he managed to feel somewhat better.

He even laughed as he once did, save for the occasional blank stare, and performed his work without a hitch. While some still harbored concerns for him, he would simply reiterate that he was fine, a habit he’d developed.

Upon returning home, his schedule now even more demanding after his break, he would collapse like a corpse, doing absolutely nothing. He would slowly blink his eyes, letting the chance to rest slip away, only to head back out for work once more.

“Are you alright?” his manager asked, glancing at his face in the rearview mirror.

A smile, as if painted on, replaced his usual blank expression, and he offered the same pre-programmed response he always did. He truly felt like a machine.

“Should I speak to the CEO about adjusting your schedule?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“But you look…”

“I’d rather be busy.”

When he worked without pause, he could, if only for a brief moment, forget Yoo Joon-hee. It was preferable, truly, to exhaust his body if it meant silencing his mind. The alternative was an endless immersion in despair.

“With a little more time, you’ll be okay.”

‘No, I won’t. No matter how much time passes, I will never forget Yoo Joon-hee. I will likely regret that day, over and over, until my dying breath.’

‘I should have stayed by his side until the very end, even if it meant being hurt. The pain would have been fleeting; if I had just persevered, he would have slowly found his way back. But the moment I couldn’t bear it and turned away, Yoo Joon-hee was gone forever.’

‘How truly cruel.’

‘For someone already gone, resentment, longing, or affection held no meaning. Those were all burdens meant for those left behind. Yes, these were the things I would have to carry, alone, for the rest of my life.’

“Go home and get some good rest today. You know you have to be out early tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Make sure you sleep. Tonight, I mean.”

With a final promise to try, he exited the car. Upon arriving at his desolate home, he collapsed onto the sofa without bothering to switch on the lights. A profound sigh escaped him, heavy with unspoken burdens.

Sleep was a necessity, yet it eluded him. Even if he managed to close his eyes, he would awaken after merely an hour, or, on worse nights, just a few tens of minutes.

Repeating that cycle countless times only served to accumulate fatigue, leaving him no choice but to abandon the pursuit of sleep altogether.

He had even resorted to sleeping pills, but it seemed he had developed a tolerance; a mere few pills proved utterly useless. He then took it upon himself to increase the dosage, and while he finally slept soundly, he awoke to find himself in a hospital bed.

Naturally, sleeping pills were forbidden after that incident, and his insomnia only intensified. Though he managed to snatch brief, restless naps, unable to withstand the crushing fatigue that had mounted over months, he could count on one hand the times he had slept soundly and peacefully.

Slowly, he pushed himself up and made his way to the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, he retrieved a bottle of alcohol he had purchased at some forgotten time. This very substance had been the primary culprit in Yoo Joon-hee’s downfall.

After a moment of profound contemplation, he returned to the living room, bottle in hand. As he uncapped it, a sharp, bitter scent immediately filled the air. It was the very same odor he had so often detected from Yoo Joon-hee in those final days.

‘…Just a little bit will be fine,’ he assured himself. ‘I am different from Yoo Joon-hee.’

Confident he wouldn’t succumb to the drink and destroy himself, he raised the bottle to his lips and took a long swig. Gulp. The alcohol, cool and surprisingly sweet, slid down his throat.

“Haa…”

Perhaps it was the novelty of it, but the light, pleasant buzz that soon followed lifted his spirits. A small chuckle escaped him, and his body felt loose, pliant.

Having thus emptied what he intended to be merely a single sip, he was, for the first time in ages, able to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

‘So this is why hyung drank.’

‘When drunk, not only did insomnia vanish as if by magic, but reality itself blurred, offering an escape from profound despair.’

Only then did he truly understand Yoo Joon-hee. From that day on, he began to drink whenever he had a spare moment, save for the hours he spent working.

His body, growing accustomed, gradually demanded more and more. What was once a single bottle had, without him realizing, swelled to a staggering five.

Yet, unlike Yoo Joon-hee, who had utterly crumbled, he continued to live his daily life with unwavering diligence.

Another year had swiftly passed since he began this cycle: living busily, returning home to seek solace in drink, and then resuming his life as if nothing was amiss.

“You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you?” his manager questioned.

He had come to the house when Jung-ah failed to appear for their scheduled appointment, and his gaze immediately fell upon the scattered bottles littering the floor. With a sigh, he pressed a hand to his forehead.

Jung-ah, sprawled on the sofa, offered a blurry smile, attempting to greet his manager. However, he couldn’t suppress a sudden wave of nausea and vomited onto the carpet.

Thankfully, he had nothing in his stomach, so only alcohol and stomach acid emerged, but the pain in his gut was excruciating.

“Stop drinking so much. If you keep this up, you’ll…”

The manager’s voice trailed off, his sentence left unfinished. Seeing Jung-ah’s painfully distorted face, he tried to reassure his manager that there was no need to worry.

“I’m still fine.”

Yet, to say he was ‘fine’ was a cruel joke; he was steadily losing all semblance of himself. But in his deep addiction, he seemed utterly oblivious to his own deteriorating state.

He was barely clinging on, but at this rate, his work would inevitably suffer, and his complete collapse felt like an event waiting to happen in an instant.

“Jung-ah, perhaps we should take a short break?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not fine.”

At his manager’s resolute words, Jung-ah let out a deep sigh. Indeed, he hadn’t truly rested since Yoo Joon-hee’s departure, save for those initial few weeks when the shock had rendered him utterly incapable of action.

Living a busy life had once allowed him to forget Yoo Joon-hee, if only for a moment, but now even that solace was gone. He had become an actor initially to be with Yoo Joon-hee… but he had been adrift for so long that his work held no affection for him anymore.

“Alright, I’ll rest.”

A look of profound relief washed over the manager’s face upon hearing Jung-ah’s agreement. Patting him gently on the back, he commended his decision and departed, promising to speak with the CEO.

Left alone, Jung-ah nudged one of the scattered bottles on the floor with his foot. He surveyed his surroundings, a bitter realization dawning: his current state was precisely that of Yoo Joon-hee’s in his final days. They say love makes people alike; perhaps even in this destructive path, he was mirroring Yoo Joon-hee.

Truly, he missed Yoo Joon-hee with a desperate, maddening ache.

****

Half a year had now passed since he embarked on his health-related hiatus. The CEO had initially envisioned a break of merely a month, yet Jung-ah continued to postpone his return, fabricating excuse after excuse.

During his extended break, he found himself doing surprisingly many things. He still drank, of course, but he also traveled, meeting new people and engaging in conversations along the way.

He made countless attempts to forget, employing all the usual methods people spoke of, but the undeniable conclusion was that nothing worked. He might find fleeting moments of peace, yet the instant he was alone, an even greater void would engulf him.

Then, to numb that emptiness, he would drink, become intoxicated, and inevitably crumble. In the end, he abandoned all those futile efforts, retreating to his home to do nothing but drink. Just like Yoo Joon-hee had.

‘My head aches.’

He had drunk through the night until he blacked out, yet when he opened his eyes, the world outside his window remained shrouded in darkness. He retrieved his phone, only to discover it was already the following night.

He felt no regret for the hours that had simply vanished. For him, time had become nothing more than something to be endured, to be allowed to pass.

Staggering, he pushed himself up and made his way to the kitchen. After wetting his parched throat with water, he pulled out another bottle of alcohol. He uncapped it and drank deeply, attempting to return to the living room, when his legs suddenly gave way.

Falling like a fool, he tumbled onto the floor and laughed, a hollow sound. He must have looked utterly pathetic. He had promised himself he would be different from Yoo Joon-hee, yet here he was, exactly the same.

“Haa…”

His every exhaled breath was thick with the cloying scent of alcohol that had saturated his insides. Running a hand through his disheveled hair, he slowly pushed himself to his feet. Then, his gaze vacant, he surveyed his surroundings.

‘It’s hard.’

It was always difficult, but today, enduring felt particularly unbearable. The thought even crossed his mind that it might be easier to simply give up and let go of everything.

‘Someone would surely say, “It’s been three years; shouldn’t you be fine by now? They say time heals all wounds, so why are you still like this?”‘

‘Indeed, I myself didn’t know. I had been Yoo Joon-hee’s lover for only about two years, and the time I had lived without him was far longer. So why, then, was it still so incredibly difficult?’

‘Why do I feel as though a world without you holds no meaning at all?’

“Yoo Joon-hee hyung…”

‘Every time I close my eyes, I desperately wish for it. That all of this is merely a dream, that my current solitude is a terrible nightmare, and that when I open my eyes, Yoo Joon-hee will be there to greet me.’

Staggering to his feet, Jung-ah opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony. He gripped the chest-high railing, his gaze fixed intently on the ground far below. What should have appeared distantly far now seemed, for some unsettling reason, right before his eyes.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he hoisted himself over the railing, hanging precariously as he stared down. The wind that whipped around him was piercingly cold, enough to completely dispel even the last vestiges of his intoxication.

He gently closed and then opened his eyes, a faint smile spreading across his lips. Thanks to the wind, his mind felt clearer than it had in ages. This, then, was entirely his own choice.

The moment he released his grip from the railing, he desperately wished for one thing: that this time, he would finally be able to meet Yoo Joon-hee. If only he could, he would never let go again.

It was the end of a long and agonizing three years.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Blue Teaser

BLBoys LoveDevoted Top

Read Now →
Not interested