Delusive Fate

#045

‘Ugh…!’

Ki Baek-woo’s face turned dark from the violent action. This must have been the first time he was treated like this. When we were young, I stood by this bastard’s side and endured all kinds of humiliation on his behalf, and once he grew up a bit, he awakened as the precious S-class, so no one could treat him badly.

It’s not a bad idea to let him know now. Ki Baek-woo needed to know how miserable it is to be treated so roughly like this. Already, the way he looked at me with an expression like he’d lost everything in the world was pathetic.

How weak.

I’ve been treated like a filthy bug by everyone in the world except myself. Yet I’m still living like this. It’s not as bad as you think. So don’t be a crybaby, Ki Baek-woo.

You should be grateful that you’re being treated like this by just me, you overfed pig. I wanted to spit on him as he cowered pitifully. I wanted to slap Ki Baek-woo’s smooth, trembling cheek until the blood vessels burst, so he would never act pitiful in front of me again.

‘Hyung.’

As if sensing the inflammatory mood, Ki Baek-woo’s fingertips clutching my knees turned white.

‘Move away a bit, Baek-woo. Why are you clinging to me like this?’

I ordered, releasing Ki Baek-woo’s hair that I had been gripping as if throwing it away. Ki Baek-woo froze for a moment, then grabbed my thigh through my pants. The desperate movement of his hands was extremely annoying. Clinging more desperately when told to move away. What’s wrong with his head?

‘Hyung, it’s a misunderstanding. It’s not what you think. Really, that, I really… hyung.’

‘Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?’

I looked at the air once, then asked indifferently.

‘So, you’re saying you didn’t kiss Jung Yi-dam?’

‘…That’s, hyung, I didn’t want to do that. Really. Listen to me, I’m not sorting things out well right now, if you could just wait a little… you can give me that much time, right? Just once, okay?’

‘Go. Just get lost.’

Ki Baek-woo desperately tried to bury his face in my chest.

Get lost. Hyung. Get lost. Just once. Get lost. Hyung, please.

There was a brief, sluggish physical struggle. Ki Baek-woo groaned as if crying, with a lost expression. Hyung, please. Hyung, just a moment. Hyung, it’s not like that. There’s a reason. Hyung, hyung. His muttering like a mad person was neither interesting nor amusing, and was starting to get annoying. What the hell is this about? What are you trying to do by explaining that crap to me?

‘Move aside while I’m asking nicely. Don’t make me angrier.’

‘Please!’

‘Ah!’

Ki Baek-woo, who had been fidgeting anxiously, suddenly lunged at me. He pushed me down onto the bed and fell on top of me without giving me a chance to breathe. Then he hugged me tightly, using all his arms and legs. Like a giant python, he wrapped around me without any gaps and buried his face in my chest, speaking as if pleading.

‘Hyung, please, if you’d just listen to me once, hyung please. I’m begging you, please, I’m sorry, please… I didn’t want to do it, I mean. I really, I really didn’t want to do it, hyung. It’s absolutely not a lie, really. If, if you’d just listen to how I was then without getting angry, hyung.’

‘What do you keep wanting me to listen to?’

‘That day, that day I…’

‘The story of how great it felt to kiss Jung Yi-dam?’

Indeed, the first time is always the hardest. It was the same with mocking Ki Baek-woo. Having already broken the ice, I continued to sneer indifferently. At this, Ki Baek-woo’s arms wrapped around me tightened even more. Ki Baek-woo’s body, interlocked with mine like a puzzle, was trembling. Like a small, frightened puppy. Scared? Ki Baek-woo? Why? Because of what?

I couldn’t understand Ki Baek-woo or this situation at all. How did things end up like this? Why is the system manipulating Ki Baek-woo this way? Honestly, there’s no way Ki Baek-woo would act like this voluntarily. I knew the common sense of this world. The unchanging truth of this world is that he belongs to Jung Yi-dam.

I didn’t tell Ki Baek-woo to break up. Although I’m mocking Ki Baek-woo recklessly now, I wasn’t aggressive from the start. No, even if I had said let’s break up, this is strange.

When the past Lee Han-sol, who had given up, once told Ki Baek-woo to break up. When I told him to just go to Jung Yi-dam without even crying because I was too tired, even then it wasn’t like this. Time just stopped for a moment, as if I had revealed the secret of this world to Ki Baek-woo for the first time. As if Lee Han-sol could never break up with Ki Baek-woo first.

And when Ki Baek-woo started moving again, as expected, he didn’t remember what I had said at all. He just treated me coldly as if nothing had happened and turned away like a dog in heat to see Jung Yi-dam.

But now, just because I acted a little indifferent, just because I mentioned moving out, this mess happens? Are you trying to play with me?

No matter how much I thought about it, there was no answer. Is this damn system just trying to play with me? Is that why it made Ki Baek-woo like this? Does it want me to fall in love again, swayed by Ki Baek-woo’s pathetic act?

Bullshit. There’s no way I would. If you wanted to play with me like that, you shouldn’t have left my past memories intact.

You seem to have forgotten because you’ve killed and revived me so carelessly, using me as you please… but I’m not an amoeba, I’m still human. My frontal lobe might be quite dissolved from depression, making my cognitive abilities a bit worse than others, but I still have something called intelligence. Do you think I’d fall for it just because Ki Baek-woo is being a bit clingy?

While I was thinking to myself and sneering, Ki Baek-woo was spouting a bunch of unfunny excuses.

‘I didn’t mean to do that, hyung, I never once thought about doing such things with that person. Really. It’s true, please believe me. That day, somehow I ended up taking that person to the center, but it wasn’t because I wanted to take them, it really just happened that way… But suddenly things got weird. I didn’t feel like myself, I got dizzy… It happened suddenly. Really.’

‘…’

‘My head felt like it was going to split, and I couldn’t see well, but when I came to my senses, I was doing that, hyung, I was so scared, hyung, so scared. Why was I doing such things with this person, something so absurd happened…!’

‘Move.’

‘I, I didn’t not tell you on purpose to deceive you. I was so scared. I wanted to die thinking about how angry you’d be, I was so scared. That’s why I did it. I thought I couldn’t tell you, because you’d hate it, because you might not like me anymore, you might not forgive me, I thought. Hyung, please, forgive me just this once, hyung.’

‘Hey, I said move.’

‘Hyung, I’m sorry, it’s all my fault, I’ll never do it again, can’t you forgive me just this once, hyung please, if you could just let it slide this one time… Please…’

I rolled my eyes at Ki Baek-woo’s words, which weren’t worth listening to at all. This bastard, isn’t he completely without conscience? What more does he want me to overlook?

I was already overlooking enough for him, in that I had never once tried to kill Ki Baek-woo until now. In fact, there hasn’t been a moment in the past when I didn’t overlook Ki Baek-woo. I always overlooked him. Even at this very moment when I’m mindlessly mocking Ki Baek-woo and stuck under his heavy body, unable to move.

Because I’m the person who knows best in the world how to be cruel to people.

I could have imitated exactly what Ki Baek-woo did to me in the past.

What Ki Baek-woo did seemed to have the sole purpose of tearing down my faith in him, destroying my mind, and collapsing my heart. It seemed like he wanted me to become a pile of ashes with no soul or flesh left. As if he wanted me to be abandoned there forever, unable to go to the future or the past. As if to never encounter me again, even by chance. I was someone who had personally learned such vicious acts.

Originally, it was those who had dealt with jerks who were good at being jerks themselves. If there was a competition for making others suffer and hurting them, I would definitely be the world champion. A true veteran and expert who grew by actually working in the field. Such a person like me wasn’t not hurting Ki Baek-woo because I couldn’t, I was just always overlooking him.

The reason I overlooked Ki Baek-woo for so long was because I liked him. Thinking back to my childhood when I lived recklessly like a stray animal, I think I was originally a rare, high-quality human who was naturally patient, brave, and overflowing with a spirit of service. In the midst of that, I liked Ki Baek-woo so much I could go crazy, so I could endure everything about him.

As I endured him, consuming my love, my heart wore down steadily. At some point, my emotions bottomed out to the extent that I gave up on Ki Baek-woo. And by that time, I was too tired. I didn’t have the strength to turn my back on the long-standing affection that remained even after removing love. So I always died quietly alone. But now it’s different.

I no longer feel any attachment to Ki Baek-woo. I’ve scraped off and thrown away even the marks of Ki Baek-woo that were burned into my heart. Not even a crumb of Ki Baek-woo remains in me now. Such a person like me could do anything to Ki Baek-woo.

I could slap his cheek and hit him as I pleased like the first Ki Baek-woo, I could use him like a masturbation tool without any emotion like the second Ki Baek-woo, I could spread rumors about his misdeeds everywhere and make him a public enemy like the third Ki Baek-woo.

I could do unfunny things like throwing wads of cash and asking him to stay away, saying this would compensate for our childhood, like the fourth Ki Baek-woo, I could hurt his self-esteem by treating him like a non-existent ghost like the fifth Ki Baek-woo.

Like the next Ki Baek-woo did, I could drive him to paranoia by saying it doesn’t make sense that I loved him, I could deny our shared childhood memories and treat him like a pervert who brainwashed a child using his life as leverage, I could pretend to vomit in front of him as if I couldn’t stand how disgusting he was, I could bring another man, I could bring a stranger to our house knowing full well he was there and mock him openly, I could provoke someone who likes me to kill him by showing how much I’m suffering because of him, and… and…. Yes, I could suddenly disappear without notice and not contact him, making him suffer from anxiety. But I didn’t.

I could have suddenly fled to Planet B one day, but I was kind enough to tell him in advance, ‘I’m planning to move soon.’ So what? What more do you want me to overlook?