Delusive Fate

#029

“Set up house in the hospital room, will you? Hey, isn’t everything they say in the community true?”

A voice tinged with laughter that I vaguely heard while in the hospital room. After urgently accessing the center’s community site, recalling those words gossiping about Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam, it happened like that. There, numerous stories I didn’t know had already been piling up for quite some time, to the point of overflowing.

[Anonymous] But Ki Baek-woo has a lover, right? Is this okay?

He’s probably had a lover for a long time lol. Everyone at the center seemed to know. Did he break up with them?

They say they acted like a married couple at the center, but as soon as the healer showed up, how could this happen?

As expected, love is an open door~~~ haha

Comments

Anonymous: Oh, that’s pitiful… But what can you do? How could he not switch? It’s Jung Yi-dam… He’s an angel

Anonymous: They say that person is C-rank

└ Author: Who doesn’t know that?

└ Anonymous: C???? Who?????? The one who got dumped?????? For real???

└ Anonymous: Yeah, I was in disbelief when I heard it this time too. C-rank… lol

└ Anonymous: Wow, crazy. How can he date a C-rank? Hunter Ki must be incredibly kind… If it’s true, it’s an unprecedented heartwarming story

Anonymous: If that C-rank person is even older than Hunter Ki Baek-woo… With that rank… Even if they were 15 years younger, C-rank wouldn’t cut it. The difference in level is almost urban legend status. The only redeeming quality for a C-rank might be their face…? But even if their face is fantastic, C-rank is too much

└ Anonymous: What kind of face could overcome being C-rank? Does light burst out from their face like a million spotlights or something?

└ Anonymous: I don’t know, just seeing them made Ki Baek-woo’s face light up; Still, a C-rank is too… lol. It’s so bad it doesn’t even inspire sympathy… haha

Anonymous: Wow, it was really a switch? I saw them hugging tightly near the center’s recovery room; They looked madly in love -_-;;;;

When Ki Baek-woo wasn’t around, I would stay holed up at home, endlessly peering into the conversations others were having about Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam, as if possessed. I obsessively took in how they were arbitrarily making my relationship with Ki Baek-woo a thing of the past and trampling on me. Even though I knew this behavior wasn’t helping me at all, I repeatedly engaged in this pathetic act, like picking at a scab.

“They don’t know anything… Yet they talk as if they do.”

While I kept saying out loud that they knew nothing, that all these ridiculous stories spread on the internet were just fiction and lies, my heart was gradually being eroded by the truth.

“Ki Baek-woo is mine. I still love Baek-woo more than my life, and of course, Baek-woo… me.”

Me, not Jung Yi-dam…

“Please…”

As time passed bit by bit, I reached a point where I couldn’t assert with certainty that Ki Baek-woo loved me. And I knew. I was becoming increasingly strange. My emotions and attitudes became erratic and complicated. I wanted to act normally and properly, like a good hyung, but I just couldn’t manage it. I couldn’t control myself.

Stop looking at these strange posts. Let’s just ask Baek-woo directly. Even if it’s scary and anxiety-inducing, there’s no choice. Because I love him, I should trust him. Baek-woo wouldn’t deceive me like this, you know that too. Our love couldn’t have disappeared. That’s not something that can just happen. So, when Baek-woo comes home, this time for sure, I have to ask.

‘Baek-woo, I’m sorry for asking this. But somehow I saw you and Jung Yi-dam together privately. And there are rumors going around… Since you didn’t tell me first, I’m asking like this, but are you two in some kind of relationship? I won’t get angry, there’s no way I could be angry with you. So don’t feel sorry or anything, just tell me everything honestly. The whole truth.’

Yes, let’s ask like that. Very calmly, so as not to burden Baek-woo at all.

Is the reason you’ve been treating me coldly lately, like an insignificant outsider, the reason you’ve been staying out overnight more and more as if you don’t want to be with me, is it all because of Jung Yi-dam? Is it true, that fact that everyone else seems to know except me? How could you do this to me? You were the one who asked me to love you first, but now how can you do this…

Don’t press him like that, act your age. Just ask the most important point. There’s no use in agonizing alone and blaming everything.

I tried to think rationally like that, but soon I found myself crying on the floor.

But, but what if Baek-woo really answers yes? I don’t need you anymore. If he says that, what are you going to do, Lee Han-sol? What are you going to do after asking all that? Are you planning to break up?

‘Okay Baek-woo, do as you wish. I’ll do anything you want.’

Are you going to say that and let him do whatever he wants, just like always? Is it okay to no longer be in this loving relationship? Can you go back to how things were before? To a relationship where you don’t embrace, don’t kiss, no longer passionately whisper words of love?

No, before that. If we let Baek-woo go, can we really go back to how things were before?

Look at his attitude. Look at Ki Baek-woo who’s lying to me, not caring about me, treating me worse than before. It will end completely. If this is really, really the truth, Baek-woo will just leave me here and go off to Jung Yi-dam. And we will cease to exist. It will only remain as my solitary memory. No. Absolutely not. I can’t do it even if I die.

“Hic, th-that, sob, how could I possibly do thaaaat… I can’t do iiiiit, waaah.”

I hated myself for acting so foolishly and confusedly. Even I thought I was being an idiot. It felt like my mind was splitting. I couldn’t control it. Every time these overwhelming emotions surged, tears burst out uncontrollably.

Unable to handle this burdensome mass of emotions, I started hitting my own head and scratching my arms and legs until they bled. I groaned and screamed. Still, these piercing emotions wouldn’t subside. I crawled on the floor with my injured leg, continuing to sob. I tried to comfort myself, saying it’s okay, that Baek-woo and I won’t change, as I wandered through every corner of the house filled with memories of Baek-woo. Then I’d pick up my phone again and scroll through the community with hollow eyes.

And then I’d suffer again, wondering if my love wasn’t love but obsession, if I had suffocated Baek-woo, if that’s why this happened, thinking about whether I was really that unsuitable for Baek-woo, if I had been eating away at him, feeling depressed, then resolving, ‘Why are you clinging to this alone? Don’t do this, when Baek-woo comes, this time for sure you’re going to ask. What exactly is going on, what’s the truth, what should I do.’ I’d make up my mind, then cry while imagining thousands of possible responses from Ki Baek-woo.

These days, I was definitely not normal. I kept fumbling around, not knowing what to do. I was trying in my own way to restore my relationship with Baek-woo to how it used to be ‘for us’, but as nothing seemed to work, I felt like I was dying.

So I became even stranger.

For example, even after crying endlessly, when I was with Ki Baek-woo, I would suddenly act like someone overflowing with happiness, behaving energetically. As if nothing had happened, as if I didn’t know anything. Like how we used to be.

‘What’s this, Ki Baek-woo brushing his teeth?’

I casually jump onto Ki Baek-woo’s back as he’s brushing his teeth.

‘Our Ki Baek-woo is really admirable. Brushing teeth so well on his own. Hyung needs to check how well you’re doing.’

I hug his broad back tightly and look at us in the mirror, giggling. A prank I often played before. If I did this, the old Ki Baek-woo would smile brightly and kiss my lips several times with his toothpaste-covered mouth. When I would back away in disgust, Ki Baek-woo would chuckle, rinse his mouth, wrap his arms around my waist and always say,

‘You said you’d check. Please check if Baek-woo brushed well, hyung.’

And then the kiss that followed. Ki Baek-woo’s tongue tip that would intertwine with mine, pulling it into his mouth as if we’d never part. The sweet and fresh scent of toothpaste that lingered long in each other’s mouths during the kiss.

Reminiscing about these utterly ordinary memories, I hug Ki Baek-woo tightly as if the present is no different from usual. The Ki Baek-woo in the mirror, unlike the one in my memory, isn’t smiling at all. His gray expression shows not a hint of joy.

I clearly see this, but I disregard it and brightly, forcefully stretch my lips into a smile. Ki Baek-woo furrows his brow and sighs softly. Hehe. I pretend not to hear and smile like an idiot. As if nothing has happened.

‘Ki Baek-woo, where are you? Come here quickly.’

When the sun shines into the living room, I call for Ki Baek-woo as if I’ve been waiting.

‘The sun is really nice today. Hurry and come do some photosynthesis.’

I lie down in the bright spot and urge Ki Baek-woo. Reminiscing about our ordinary days when we used to stick together like two cats under the warm light.

Unlike the usual Ki Baek-woo, the current Ki Baek-woo doesn’t respond at all and just glances at me with indifferent eyes, but I just smile again. Pretending not to know anything, as if nothing has changed between us, I whine ‘Hurry up’ to Ki Baek-woo.

Ki Baek-woo sighs, gets up from the sofa, and disappears into the room.