Chapter 57: Stay With Me

Yoon Heesung said his piece.

I squeezed his wrist harder. Desperately. I tried to make him let go.

I had to take what was in his hand. Even while the world spun around me, I struggled with that one thought.

Thick teardrops rolled down my cheeks. My vision went blurry, then clear, over and over.

At this point, I almost wanted to just get hurt. Go ahead, do whatever you want.

If that was the only way to end this, I had to endure it. Heesung got hurt because of me too.

So…

Seeing me like that, Heesung said,

“Yunwoo. I still like you, so… let’s stay together a little longer?”

His eyes were like the night sea. Black, dark eyes.

With those ominous eyes, Heesung tried to reason with me.

Watch carefully, this is what you’re doing.

Maybe Heesung actually said that, or maybe the words just surfaced in my head. I didn’t have the leisure to sort out the details.

When Heesung moved his arm, my hand followed weakly. As if he had been holding back all along, he moved freely with my hand still gripped around him.

But the one he hurt was not me.

“…”

Blood splattered. I couldn’t pull my hand away; it stayed right there.

Heesung didn’t stop after one stroke. He dragged the savagely broken bottle neck across his own arm.

Again and again. Without a trace of hesitation.

Heesung wounded himself with his own hand.

Red liquid seeped from the lines the weapon had carved. It gained volume, then streamed down his forearm like it was bursting.

Only then did I let go.

“Did you think I would hurt you? Do I look that stupid?”

Heesung’s voice pierced my ear like an awl.

“You only listen when I get hurt.”

“What… what is this… right now…”

“For now, Lee Yunwoo will be quiet.”

I really thought Heesung would kill me. Even if he didn’t kill me, I thought he would stab me.

I never expected him to hurt himself with that hand.

Clang.

Heesung finally threw down the bottle neck, now covered in blood.

“You’re crazy. You’re insane. You’re really crazy…”

The curse slipped out on its own. Blood kept surging from the vertical cut on his forearm.

Heesung was even more soaked than I was, and I had come in from the rain. At this rate, he would die.

I grabbed Heesung’s arm. I tried to wipe the blood away with my hand, but it kept pouring out and wouldn’t stop.

I felt like I was losing my mind. It was so frightening.

The blood and Heesung were both terrifying.

Heesung seemed like a person who felt no emotion. Pain, fear, none of the feelings a person should naturally have.

He looked like someone who had even deleted the fear of losing his life. My stomach churned in an instant.

“We have to go to the hospital. Let’s go. Okay? My, my phone…”

The first time I saw the glass living room windows of this villa, I was overwhelmed. Looking at a view like that, I understood why he had come down here.

Watching the changing sea from inside, safe and warm, was appealing.

But being inside it was another story. I wanted to admire the crashing waves from a cozy place, not jump into them.

“Wh… what should we do… You’re crazy. What if you die like this. You…”

Tears started to well up again. Sounds that couldn’t form words escaped like groans.

I couldn’t breathe. He was the one hurt, so why was I like this? Why…

My vision flipped between red and white. A ringing filled my ears. It was like someone had pressed a noise-making machine to my ear.

The sound grew more irregular. It swelled and faded, and I had heard it somewhere before.

It was the sound of waves.

The shush sounded like someone’s scream. I covered both ears with my hands. My head felt like it would split.

“Stay with me, Yunwoo.”

A bloodstained arm wrapped tightly around me as I was about to faint. I wanted to push him away, but I couldn’t do anything except get swept along.

Beneath that gaze,

One weekend when Heesung had just started elementary school, his parents were having a secret conversation in the study.

Heesung pressed his ear against the door and listened to their nonsense.

“Animals are easy to kill, so how about attaching a person? Not an adult. Someone his age.”

“Hmm. That might be better.”

Young Heesung frowned at those words, his fair face scrunched up. Even if they were his parents, they were strange people.

Attaching a person. That meant they were going to make him do something hard again. Digging holes had been tiring enough.

“…”

Just then, an employee who had been approaching from a distance stopped and quickly backed away.

Heesung loosened his wrinkled expression a little. There was a good side to it. After that incident, the employees avoided him.

But if he had known Wonhwa would act like that, maybe he would have held back a little.

Heesung thought it over.

‘No, maybe I wouldn’t have.’

From a very young age, Heesung had someone who stayed by his side. That person’s job was to take care of him.

He had gone through several people as he grew, and none of them had any real problems.

But the new employee who got attached this time talked too much. So much that Heesung finally said something.

“Stop following me around. Keep your mouth shut too.”

“It’s my job to follow you, Young Master Heesung. And I only say what’s necessary.”

Other employees followed Heesung around, but they gave him room to spend his free time.

She, however, stuck to him the whole time. When he went out to the garden, when he folded origami, when he flipped through books, when he assembled LEGO.

That wasn’t all. When he went outside, she told him to wear sneakers, not slippers. The rabbit had to be folded in white.

This book looked more interesting. A prince on top would look cooler than a soldier.

In her own way, she was eager to get close to the rich family’s late-born son. She didn’t know she was getting on Heesung’s nerves.

“Young Master Heesung. You already had snacks twice today. Madam said you should only have one.”

“…”

She had said it just because she wanted to talk to Heesung.

The woman had several younger siblings. She was used to taking care of kids.

So she thought that if she said this, Heesung would beg her not to tell. Then she would say, fine, if you quietly tell me next time, I’ll sneak you some snacks.

So when Heesung just gave her a blank stare, she was a little flustered.

Even at that moment, the woman had no idea what would happen to her the next day.

The next morning, Heesung said he had a headache and couldn’t go to school. Wonhwa fussed over him and laid him down.

She took his temperature, brought tea that was good for headaches, and gave him medicine. After all that fuss, she went back to her room to rest.

Raising children was a rewarding and tiring job.

Left alone, Heesung looked at the clock. The woman came to work at Heesung’s return time.

Everyone else worked in the morning or evening, but because she was the one who followed Heesung around, she was the only one with different working hours.

Heesung lay around a little longer, then went outside. On the narrow path leading from the garden to the back gate, all kinds of flowers were in full bloom.

He walked along the path to the end of the garden. Along the way, he stomped the ground several times to check.

Then he came back. Then he went to the end again, then came back. He kept walking back and forth on the path.

Finally, he found soft ground. Ground that was easy to dig, soft and pliable.

Heesung brought a shovel from the corner of the garden where the tools were gathered. His small arms gripped the shovel tightly.

The surrounding flowers hid young Heesung from view.

Sweating heavily, Heesung dug a small pit, then broke off some branches and covered the top. He laid the shovel down beside it.

‘Not enough.’

One shovel wasn’t going to be enough. Heesung went back to the tool storage.

He squatted down, studied the tools carefully, and picked out the sharp ones he liked. He carried an armful back and carefully arranged them around the pit.

‘Good.’

Heesung smiled in satisfaction. When he went back inside, an employee made a fuss.

“Oh my goodness. Why are your clothes this dirty? Covered in dirt! You said you were sick, are you okay now?”

Heesung slowly shook his head and went into the bathroom.

‘He’s a quiet but strange young master.’

She sighed.

A few minutes later, someone screamed in the garden.

“Ah, aaaah!”

The employees rushed over, and the place was covered in blood. The woman kept wailing.

Her face was so twisted that people didn’t recognize her at first.

She was the one who took care of Heesung.

The employees hurried to support her. She was babbling nonsense.

“The ground suddenly gave way, my foot sank in, and when I tried not to fall I grabbed the side, and there…!”

They didn’t need to hear the rest. The blood-soaked tools were telling the story.

The pit itself wasn’t deep. It only came up to an adult woman’s ankle. But there were tools all around it.

The employee’s foot sank in, she fell, put her hand out, stabbed it on an awl, flinched, threw her arm back, and cut her elbow on the shovel.

The odd thing was that the accident happened on the path the employees used. It was a path connected to the side gate of the mansion, so only the employees used it.

Why was there a small pit dug there, and why were tools scattered around? And today was the gardener’s day off.

After washing up, Heesung stood among the murmuring crowd. He stared down at the wailing woman.

Then someone shouted.

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