Delusive Fate

#040

I didn’t immediately cause such inconvenience after Ki Baek-woo left. I tried in my own way. Because Ki Baek-woo said, “Hyung needs to learn how to live without me.” Because he looked down at me with eyes that said he was disgusted by how I clung to him. I had been someone who tried to fulfill whatever Ki Baek-woo wanted since I was very young. So I worked hard to learn how to live alone without Ki Baek-woo.

I tried to accept that Ki Baek-woo was gone. So I constantly reflected. Ki Baek-woo who pushed me away without hesitation as I clung to his pant leg. Ki Baek-woo who turned his back and left our home. Ki Baek-woo who never appeared before me again after that.

I kept repeating it. I tried to acknowledge it, and finally did. I am now a person pushed outside of Ki Baek-woo’s line. Even if I don’t feel particularly alive, I need to clearly recognize that fact. I am now no different from the vast majority of people who ardently love Ki Baek-woo. Like a fan and an artist, I’ve become someone who lives for Ki Baek-woo, but Ki Baek-woo doesn’t care about me at all.

It felt like I would be destroyed. I must be the only person on Earth who knows this terrible feeling. The immense sense of loss from falling from being the world’s only existence to the most worthless being in an instant. Anyone who knew this feeling would have committed suicide. Therefore, it was a wretchedness known only to me.

Nevertheless, I kept trying. When I wanted to run out right away and beg in front of Ki Baek-woo with my forehead on the ground, I endured by hitting my head with my fist. When I felt chilling murderous intent towards Jung Yi-dam, I came to my senses by stabbing my thighs with whatever sharp object I could find.

When I suddenly wanted to run out and search for Ki Baek-woo, I crawled into Ki Baek-woo’s closet and crumpled my body inside. I closed the closet door. It was cramped and dark, but so full of Ki Baek-woo’s scent that I thought it would be fine if this closet became my coffin. I imprisoned myself there. Until I was too exhausted to even have the strength to go outside. I truly struggled fiercely to try to live without Ki Baek-woo, to not bother Ki Baek-woo anymore.

But it didn’t work well. The days without Ki Baek-woo felt wrong somehow. I had an ominous feeling that the wrongness of each day was accumulating into a broken past. An anxiety that even if a chance came to fix the messed-up situation, everything was already so damaged that it could never be returned to normal.

I want to die. I have to die. I want to die. I want to die oh I really want to die I’ll die please kill me.

I repeated such thoughts uncontrollably, unable to distinguish whether I was a broken-down junk or Lee Han-sol. I wasn’t normal. I had broken down all at once. Ki Baek-woo had broken me.

I became less and less able to live. The days of insomnia and not eating grew longer. Just thinking about eating made me nauseous. When I fell asleep, I was plagued by nightmares. Terrifying dreams where Jung Yi-dam, with a face like sugar, tore out my heart and ripped it to shreds, taking the Ki Baek-woo inside it. I became afraid of sleeping too. All the acts of living became burdensome to me. While barely surviving like that, I suddenly thought:

I’m an outsider now, aren’t I? Ki Baek-woo is a rock star, and I’ve become an invisible fan at the very back of the concert hall. A distant relationship that can never be reached… Then, isn’t it okay to go see him?

Isn’t it alright to just look from nearby? I won’t touch, I won’t cling, I won’t ask for anything… I won’t be ugly with jealousy. It seems like it would be much more bearable than this if I could just look.

But where can I see Ki Baek-woo? For someone as insignificant as me to see Ki Baek-woo…

My mind, which had been dulled by depression, started working quickly.

‘Gates.’

Right, there were substitute raids. Even though I’m C-rank, if I insist on being put into raids that Ki Baek-woo is going to instead of my regular schedule, they’ll do it. It’s not legally impossible, just that no one applies because it’s practically suicide. And because it’s a raid, Ki Baek-woo won’t be able to drive me away… Then I can see Ki Baek-woo, can’t I? For the few days in the gate. For days at a time.

If I survive like that, I can see Ki Baek-woo again next time, and if I die, I won’t have to survive without Ki Baek-woo anymore, so that’s not bad either. It doesn’t feel like I’m alive anyway. There’s no difference between feeling dead and actually dying.

So I was doing this. The reckless act that everyone criticizes and mocks as a nuisance, a C-rank intruding into A-rank and S-rank gates to follow an ex-boyfriend. The pathetic act of stubbornly following along even though I can’t do anything but run away once I enter such high-rank gates, just becoming a weakness. The foolish act of making Ki Baek-woo uncomfortable when I claimed to love him so much…

“Shit… This one came again today. Hey, waste-rank. You’re doing this on purpose, right? You’re determined to ruin people’s moods. In my opinion, you couldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t that.”

As soon as I joined the hunters listening to the briefing in front of the gate, curses flew at me. I bowed my head to Choi Tae-hyuk, who was muttering “fuck, fuck” beside me, pretending not to see Ki Baek-woo who glanced at me and immediately frowned.

“Hello, Hunter Choi Tae-hyuk…”

“Is trash’s eyes just for decoration? If your eyesight was normal, I shouldn’t look fine to you.”

“I see… Then I won’t say hello…”

“Are you protesting for someone to kill you now?”

Choi Tae-hyuk was one of the few amazing S-rank hunters in the world. And he had a terrible personality and hated me to death.

I expected Choi Tae-hyuk to dislike me. This person was famous for treating everyone lower ranked than him as less than insects. It would be fortunate if I, a C-rank, even appeared as a walking bedbug to him when he even mocked A-ranks.

Anyway, when I first met Choi Tae-hyuk,

‘Shit… What? C-rank? Substitute raid…? Is the gate a place for idiots to play house? Fuck, who’s treating who like a stupid baby who can’t even control their bowels? Who’s the crazy bastard who let this waste in here. Hey, trash. Answer me. Who’s the office worker who gave you permission for this substitute raid or whatever? Tell me their name right now, I’m going to kill them.’

It was a bit embarrassing to suddenly be cursed at with all kinds of insults. But I soon got used to it, and now I didn’t mind even when Choi Tae-hyuk ranted while pushing his forehead. It wasn’t just Choi Tae-hyuk who disliked me; no one likes me anyway.

Watching Choi Tae-hyuk rage and call me waste, trash, shit… giving me all sorts of dirty nicknames, and watching myself meekly listen to it, Ki Baek-woo looked disgusted as if looking at filth spread on the street. If even Ki Baek-woo was so uncomfortable with me, other people… I had clearly taken on the hatred of the entire world.

“The shitty thing is, you’re just like Ki Baek-woo who’s sticking with Jung Yi-dam as he pleases. Looking at how you act, you two seem to suit each other well, so why the hell did you break up and cause this mess?”

Choi Tae-hyuk sneered sarcastically. I smiled awkwardly and glanced at Ki Baek-woo. Ki Baek-woo was covering Jung Yi-dam’s ear, who was stuck close to his side, and whispering something silently.

‘I’m sorry for bothering you.’

The two people standing close together, looking at each other with very affectionate gazes. Eyes shining more warmly than the sunlight illuminating them.

I gazed ecstatically at Ki Baek-woo’s loving eyes that weren’t directed at me, then pointlessly pushed the ground with the toe of my combat boot. As if I had given up, I wasn’t even sad anymore. I just thought I had done well to come here, because I could see Ki Baek-woo’s sweet face.

“How long are you going to keep this up? Do you get an erection while doing these reckless acts? Do you have some kind of disgusting fetish like that?”

“I’m not that kind of pervert.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Then why do you keep doing these dog-like acts and bothering us? Are you crazy to die? Ah, right. You trash, I hear you write a will and crawl in here. Does it only end when you die? Is that it?”

“I guess it would end if I died…”

“Ha! Shit, what great love you have. Right? Hey, Ki Baek-woo. This is the guy you used to suck and lick, isn’t it? He says this dog-like behavior only ends when he dies, shouldn’t you at least pretend to stop him if you have any old affection? He’s following your ass around like a dog. I can see you’re unusually inconsiderate, openly hanging onto Jung Yi-dam in front of this dog shit, but can’t you at least manage the dog you raised?”

This time I felt a bit ashamed. There’s probably no one here who doesn’t know my situation, but being openly mocked in front of the person involved was a different matter. Moreover, with Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam standing so close together like that, right in front of them.

I felt pathetic. I drew meaningless lines on the ground with the toe of my boot.

That’s when Ki Baek-woo spoke up for once.

“How strange…”

A voice that made me happy, like a well-dried blanket. When I raised my head, my eyes met directly with Ki Baek-woo’s. How long has it been since I looked straight into those eyes like this?

After Ki Baek-woo disappeared, I was always confused about whether I was alive or not. The boundary between life and death was vaguely mixed, and I seemed to wander back and forth between the two, lost. But when I saw Ki Baek-woo like this, it became clear. I’m still alive.

“That’s not a dog I raised.”