No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 148

Saying that I feel like I’m going crazy because I feel sorry for you meant a collapse for me. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t even my business, but yours, to be so purely concerned about it. It’s impossible.

But I think it may have been a foreseen thing.

Perhaps from the moment I did the thing I hate the most to you…

I should have anticipated that I would shatter.

***

Let me say it again from the beginning.

I hate pity.

No, I like men who are doing it with me for the first time.

But I extremely dislike feeling sorry for me.

That doesn’t mean I get angry at people who pity me though. I’m a twisted kid, so in front of people who sympathize with me, I acted pathetic. I put on a pitiful act. While internally giving them the middle finger, I extorted benefits based on others’ soft sensitivity.

Pretending to be utterly pitiful to get food. Receiving used clothes. Groveling on the floor to get beaten less. Screaming to match the assailant’s petty satisfaction even for violence I can easily endure. Moaning prettily.

I lived by giving whatever performance the other person wanted. Because when people’s desires are fulfilled, their hearts become more generous.

I pick up the crumbs that fall from there.

I had no intention of having self-esteem. I had too little to hold on to such a luxurious concept. When you have nothing, you have to beg and take. I had a sophisticated understanding of society’s logic, and it wasn’t sad to beg. So the reason I hate pity wasn’t because of pride.

…Let’s say there was a turning point.

In elementary school, there was a time when it became known at school how I was treated at home. They didn’t know that there were no other kids raised like me due to lack of socialization. Lunch time was the problem, and I’ll skip the details, but anyway, I suddenly became a pitiful kid. There was no information that I was the youngest son of a chaebol family, so I just became a poor kid. An abused kid. An unfortunate kid.

The kids generally didn’t treat me badly. Rather, most of them shared side dishes or milk with me.

But I was a bastard, so I hated the kids who felt sorry for me.

I thought the food they gave me was disgusting even though I ate it.

No, to be honest, it wasn’t that I hated the kids, but I hated the daily life they took for granted. It was sickening. I’m not whining that you and I can’t live the same life. That’s not the context.

I don’t want to have a basic conversation that you and I are different people and all humans live different lives.

Let’s go a little more advanced.

I hated the fact that those kids took everything for granted. It drove me crazy that they would never know how much I yearned for the daily life they were wasting without knowing its value.

I was tied to heated iron without being given a sip of water, and they were playing in the water.

If I was given just one drop, I wouldn’t mind dying that very day. And I would never be given water.

I had known for a long time that I was a person who couldn’t drink water. I recognized it. I knew that I was a person who couldn’t even wet my lips, let alone cool the scorching iron that burned me black. I accepted that it was determined that way from the moment I was born.

Still, the reason I hate pity is because I can’t stand my misfortune becoming your comfort.

‘I’m glad I wasn’t born like that kid.’

…I understand it’s the first time seeing a human living like this in the 21st century. I understand how grateful it is to pity me instead of treating me like a zoo monkey. I understand that giving me milk out of pity is no different from doing a good deed for the underprivileged. So I understand the children who feel proud just by the fact that they have sympathy for me. But you shouldn’t have been comforted by my misfortune.

Even if you were comforted, you shouldn’t have told me.

At least if you thought of me as human.

Just that…

I hated you who were annoyed by the daily life that someone can never have even if they try until they die. No, maybe it can be boring. Let’s say you went crazy because you were sick of being able to live like that all the time. But I have a question. What’s the point of telling me it’s good that I don’t have to listen to my mom’s nagging, but it’s still good to have a mom?

It would have been better to spill milk on the floor and tell me to lick it. That would have been better. I could have licked that while smiling.

Because that’s violence that looks down on me. Because it’s an offense, a put-down, and an insult.

That was really easy.

The most hateful thing was good intentions.

It drove me crazy that I had to accept it even if I felt humiliated because the other person had good intentions. I didn’t want to realize this much that even the nerve to feel humiliated was a luxury for someone like me.

Pity is an emotion that grows based on good intentions. At the same time, it’s an emotion used for others’ self-comfort. No one respects me. Even if they pretend to respect me now, everyone will use my misfortune for their own pleasure when they hear about it. I hate pity. Because even if I have no self-esteem, I don’t like being used to brighten your happiness. Because I hate you feeling good thinking you did a good deed.

So I pitied others as I pleased.

‘You go through it too.’

I used others for my own comfort. I took others’ misfortunes as a source of consolation.

Ryuseong was a prime example. I pitied Ryuseong and comforted myself that at least I was raised like a human. I indulged in Ryuseong’s misfortune, saying that young Ryuseong had to eat corpses while I could at least eat if I begged during my childhood. I was comforted by the fact that there was a life like yours. Because of your misfortune, I sometimes had moments when I could breathe. It was clearly a sinister intention.

While pitying Ryuseong’s past, I shamelessly did the very thing I despised and abhorred the most, thinking I was fortunate because I was better off than him.

I hated myself the most anyway. It didn’t matter if I became more hateful.

But…

“Because that place wasn’t a cave.”

You. How far will you go to ruin me?

This is serious. I realized that the feeling of purely pitying others actually exists. I found out that others’ pain can be truly felt as my own, not just attached to comfort me. It was a truly terrifying realization.

I mocked and tore apart people who pitied me all my life, but maybe they were genuinely worried about me…

I covered my mouth with both hands as I felt like retching. Ryuseong grabbed my wrist. Tears fell with a thud.

‘If that’s true.’

I shouldn’t unconditionally mock people and dismiss them as worthless beings who will use my misfortune for their own comfort anyway if they see it.

I shouldn’t live the way I’ve lived all my life.

The thinking I’ve built up solidly is shattering. Ah, even if it was narrow-minded and foolish, it protected me. If the fortress that protected me collapses.

What if I get hurt again?

I lived cynically out of fear of getting hurt. Even now that the cynicism is collapsing, I just wanted to crouch in the ruins.

But the one knocking on the door was you.

I wanted to go to you.

“…”

I hugged you. I almost threw my body at you. I wrapped my arms tightly around your neck and embraced you with all my heart. Did you feel it? Did it reach you that I gave my entire self to you at this moment? I couldn’t tell. But your heart was shaking. It rang in my eardrums with a pounding sound. Ryuseong. How far are you going to shake me up?

I had to let go of my defense mechanisms to go to you. Of course, it won’t all get better just by letting go once. I may have to wrestle with the persistent cynicism that comes back for the rest of my life. But for the reason that I love you, I will try to embrace the world. Can you hear how I feel? Do you understand now? Can you feel how much I’m trying to take on?

Ryuseong, who was hugging me back without a word and listening to my heartbeat, smiled with a strange expression. It was a smile that looked like he was about to cry.

***

A little while later, the ten-minute cut ended. But we didn’t want to separate, so we started the strategy meeting stuck together like a pair of snails.

“…By now, assassins will be scattered in the Black Wilderness. With the intention of killing me as I escape. They won’t be picky about the means and methods. They will even lure ancient demons that are asleep to kill me. So we won’t escape to any wilderness.”

“…?”

Flap! The sleeve spread out stylishly, and the fingertip pointed to the sky.

“We’ll fly.”

“…”

The resonance of the words lingered like an echo.

By the way, it’s a plan anyone can come up with. But there’s a reason no one thinks we’ll escape by flying.

Fog is gas. So there’s more of it in the air. So there are more demons in the air too.

If there are a hundred on the ground, it means there are a thousand in the sky.

Ryuseong, who heard the killing plan, nodded his head.

“I knew you were crazy earlier. Don’t worry. I’ll take responsibility.”

“I’m not done yet, you know?”

“What’s the point of listening? It’ll just be a waste of ears.”

I grabbed Ryuseong’s ear, telling him to waste well, and forcibly continued my explanation. And as expected, Ryuseong’s eyes gradually began to widen.

The key point of the escape plan is ‘changing perspectives’.