Delusive Fate

#091

Ki Baek-woo’s anxiety grew as bloated as a farm-raised sheep. It lay in a cramped single-animal pen, fattening up all day by feeding on Lee Han-sol. The condition worsened over time. At first, it only ate Lee Han-sol when he was laughing and chatting with others, but soon it started consuming Lee Han-sol even when he was just standing in front of others, and even when he seemed lost in thought while alone with Ki Baek-woo. Its appetite improved daily, and later it devoured Lee Han-sol even when he was looking only at Ki Baek-woo.

I love it when hyung gives me this much attention. I love it so much. But what if he does this with other people too? It’s so good that once you have it, no one would want to give it up… If that happens… what should I really do?

Ki Baek-woo laughed alone, dumbfounded.

“What’s this, Ki Baek-woo, why are you laughing? It’s mean to laugh by yourself.”

Tell me why you’re laughing too, hyung. Fun things should be shared. Lee Han-sol would sometimes cling to Ki Baek-woo like this when he smiled unexpectedly. As if he wouldn’t let go until Ki Baek-woo told him the reason, he would tightly hug Ki Baek-woo and unhesitatingly bite his ear or cheek. He would whine, making crying sounds, “Eeeeng,” and pester him, saying tell me tell me. Ki Baek-woo’s anxiety ate up even Lee Han-sol being so affectionate to him.

Ki Baek-woo knew that in the end, he was the only one Lee Han-sol acted so uninhibited with, even though he got along well with everyone. Nevertheless, he constantly thought: Hyung is truly lovable. Because he’s so lovable, everyone can’t help but like him.

And that everyone is the numerous destinations hyung could go to after abandoning me.

The anxiety had grown so large that its flesh bulged out of the pen. It clearly started as a small white sheep, but now it didn’t even look like an animal. The anxiety, swollen like a monster, pushed out Ki Baek-woo’s organs and took their place.

Ki Baek-woo knew his place and had a conscience. He readily admitted that his mind was working strangely. He didn’t have the reason to control it or the decency to stop it, but… anyway, that’s how it was.

Ki Baek-woo thought he couldn’t escape this yoke until Lee Han-sol discovered what an unpleasant person he was, learned his true nature, and naturally came to despise him. If he was lucky enough to never have his true feelings discovered, he thought he’d probably still be trembling in this anxiety even at the moment of his death.

Ironically, he was somewhat liberated from this endless anxiety on the day he felt most anxious. When his anxiety exploded and he felt like he was almost suffocating. When all he could do was pretend to be sane, pretend to be fine, and grin, as his breath was cut off and his brain was in chaos. I guess I should… die. Ki Baek-woo spent that whole day repeating such thoughts.

December 31st, at nineteen. When his adulthood was just hours away.

– Yes, we’ve just met with entertainment industry stars who are finally escaping their minor status and will turn twenty next year. Kim Seo-hyun reporter, you’ve worked hard to show us substantial interviews throughout this year. Happy New Year.

– Happy New Year to you too, announcer Yu Min-ju!

– That was Kim Seo-hyun reporter, cheerful and refreshing even at the end of the year. Back to the studio, it’s now time for reporter Han. Reporter Han, I heard you also investigated celebrities who are coming of age?

– It’s Han So-young, your quick information source even at the end of the year. Just now, reporter Kim Seo-hyun introduced stars who will come of age, so in that sense, I’m going to introduce famous people active in fields outside the entertainment industry.

– Wow, I’m looking forward to it. Who do we have?

– The hunter world that our viewers are most curious about. I’ll start with a bang from the hunter world stars. Everyone, you’ve waited long. This person finally becomes a legal oppa, a legal hyung. The protagonist is none other than the one who awakened as our country’s third S-class hunter at sixteen…

Ki Baek-woo turned off the TV with a stiff face. He put the remote control neatly on the coffee table and rubbed his face dry.

Why is everyone so excited about coming of age? Ki Baek-woo wasn’t happy at all. Twenty years old. Do they know that for someone, this is a pre-announced death sentence? Of course they don’t know.

Because they don’t have Lee Han-sol.

It’s ruined. Ki Baek-woo felt a terrible sense of defeat. Why can’t anything go right? Ki Baek-woo felt an enormous sense of helplessness, realizing that not a single thing had gone according to his plans so far. He was supposed to remain a being that Lee Han-sol had to protect.

Stay small. Stay weak. Don’t become a person who can function in society. Remain a pathetic and insignificant being, forever hiding in a corner. Don’t even become an adult.

Ki Baek-woo had clearly decided this. Because a responsible Lee Han-sol wouldn’t be able to abandon such a person. Believing him to be a miserable being who couldn’t survive without his help, he would keep him by his side like feeding and raising a sick dog…

‘But look at me.’

Ki Baek-woo felt drained as he saw himself moving further and further away from what he wanted. His body growing larger by the day, his unnecessarily high awakening rank. Even the shell of being a minor that he would lose tomorrow… Ki Baek-woo now had nothing left. He had no justification left to forcibly tie Lee Han-sol to his side.

Ki Baek-woo really wished this day wouldn’t come. Even without that casual remark Park Jae-i had made one day, he would have desperately wished for this day not to come. Because being a minor who needed a guardian was too good a shackle. Ki Baek-woo didn’t want to lose the powerful position that the kind and friendly Lee Han-sol could never shake off. But finally, today had come.

Ki Baek-woo felt resigned, facing complete bankruptcy. He was too depressed to even cry. There was no anger. His head was empty, with occasional disjointed and disgusting thoughts. For example, plans to harm his own body.

‘Maybe a leg or… an arm would be okay…’

If he could just cut off one and cling to Lee Han-sol’s ankle. If he could plead that he’s now an incomplete person because something he had is gone, that he’s someone who can’t do anything alone… Honestly… isn’t that… a profitable deal? Ki Baek-woo thought. It was pure sincerity without malice.

‘If I disguise it as an accident in a gate, no one would suspect…’

It wasn’t strange for necks to fly off at any moment in raid sites. So even if Ki Baek-woo disappeared briefly during a raid and reappeared with one arm torn off, no one would find it suspicious. A normal person wouldn’t even imagine it. That there was an unpleasant guy trying to cling to someone else’s life by damaging his own body, and that it was the famous S-class Ki Baek-woo…

He self-deprecated. The given situation was really good. It was as if the world was telling him that he was born to do such unpleasant things.

He was really at his limit.

“What are you doing just sitting there?”

Ki Baek-woo, who had been mechanically breathing, raised his head. Lee Han-sol was approaching with plates of cake slices in both hands.

“Not even watching TV, what is our Ki Baek-woo thinking so hard about?”

Lee Han-sol, who had put the plates and dessert forks on the coffee table, naturally sat down close to Ki Baek-woo, right next to him. Feeling the sofa cushion sink softly, Ki Baek-woo answered inwardly.

Yeah, hyung. I wasn’t thinking about anything special. Just… if I were to cut off a part of my body, whether an arm or a leg would be better, and whether the left or right side would be better… That’s what I was pondering. So you don’t need to worry.

Ki Baek-woo smiled appropriately and shook his head.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything.”

“Tsk, tsk, it’s not good to spend the last day of your teens without any thoughts.”

Lee Han-sol lowered his voice, pretending to be solemn. After stabbing the strawberry on top of his slice of cake with a small dessert fork, he tapped Ki Baek-woo’s lips with it.

“Say ah.”

At Lee Han-sol’s request, Ki Baek-woo obediently opened his mouth. The cream-covered strawberry slipped in. As Ki Baek-woo chewed very slowly, Lee Han-sol said:

“A gift.”

“…”

“In just a few hours, you’ll be twenty. This strawberry is my concession for Ki Baek-woo becoming an adult.”

Go out and see. Is there anyone else but me who would give up the king strawberry on top of a strawberry cake? You should be grateful that you’ve been with such a good person like me from childhood until now, got it?

Lee Han-sol boasted playfully. Ki Baek-woo was really at his limit. He was so at his limit that a resigned laugh, “hehehe,” burst out without him realizing.

Go out and see… Why are you saying that? Do you perhaps want me to go somewhere? So… because I’m not young anymore, are you saying that because you want me to disappear soon?

Ah, just as Park Jae-i cursed, I’m being abandoned as soon as I become an adult. That’s it, right, hyung?

Ki Baek-woo knew this was all his paranoia and speculation. Lee Han-sol had never said anything even remotely close to goodbye to him. Someone as kind, affectionate, and gentle as Lee Han-sol wouldn’t suddenly change like that and yell at him to disappear right away. Ki Baek-woo was clearly aware of this.

But his brain was already a mess, and his nerves, either on edge from tension or withered from anxiety, were tangled together, making it impossible to distinguish what was what. Normal judgment was too much to ask of Ki Baek-woo at that time.

In the end, that’s why he confessed everything before that day passed. As midnight approached, as the moment of adulthood that would strip away all means to hold onto Lee Han-sol’s ankle drew nearer, Ki Baek-woo became unbearable. His head was spinning, and it felt like his thoughts, soul, and body were moving separately. It was uncontrollable. Finally, he couldn’t hold back anymore and spilled everything.

“Hyung, you know… I love you.”

I’ve been looking at your feet all day today. Your feet walking around the house. I wondered why even your feet shine. Will you try to distance yourself from me with those feet that I want to lick so badly, if that happens I’d naturally want to die, that’s what I thought.

Hyung, they say silkmoths that come out of their cocoons die soon after. They have no mouths and are blind. So they have no choice but to die. They’re born with the fate of having to die the moment they leave their cocoons.

And you’re truly my cocoon, hyung. This isn’t a joke…

If you disappear, I plan to sew my mouth shut and starve myself to death in a week without eating anything. Even if you don’t know, I’ll really do that. This kind of talk is creepy, right?

“I’m sorry… It’s all my fault. But you know, I like you so much, hyung…”

I’ll be quiet from now on. I’ll only reveal my disgusting inner thoughts today. All the money I earn is yours, and I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I’ll try to be a person who’s comfortable and useful to be with…

Couldn’t you just say one word that you won’t leave?

Ki Baek-woo laughed inwardly, “haha,” while babbling incoherently. It’s ruined. It’s all over. This is the end… Even as he struggled not to fall from Lee Han-sol’s embrace, even as he cried as if his eyeballs would fall out, he kept bursting into laughter inside.

The end.

The end of my life too.

He was certain. There was nothing but the end.

“Ki Baek-woo, look at hyung.”

Unless God grants a miracle…

“Am I crazy? To abandon you. Stop talking nonsense and don’t you abandon hyung.”

And Lee Han-sol might really have been God. When Lee Han-sol kissed him and accepted him then. When he said he would love him… Ki Baek-woo thought so. The only God who could make Ki Baek-woo, who had reached a dead end, endure after all. The only being who could lead Ki Baek-woo to a place with oxygen and turn even his flaws and despair into something good.

But…

But if such a Lee Han-sol disappears… what should I do…?

***

Ki Baek-woo’s eyes slowly opened and closed as he recalled the past when he had been saved by Lee Han-sol. The house he had returned to immediately after the raid, without even changing out of his combat uniform. Despite his hurried return, Ki Baek-woo had been standing in front of the entrance for a long time. He put his phone to his ear once again. An inorganic voice was heard.

– The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again.

“…”

His arm fell limply. Looking at the messy living room, Ki Baek-woo closed his eyes. He wanted to die.