Chapter 201

“You said you treasure me.”

The voice that broke the silence was, ironically, from the one who had created it. I don’t know what new emotion he had embraced in that brief silence, but Geon-joo’s tone trembled slightly. It trembled just enough to be distracting, just enough to be frustrating, just enough to be uncomfortable. It made me wonder if he was intentionally controlling his intonation and tremors.

“But you’re uncomfortable when I, who you treasure, show interest in you, hyung?”

He didn’t lift his head, which was bowed towards the floor. If only I could at least meet his eyes, if only I could see how the muscles in his face were moving, I would feel less frustrated. But trying to judge by his voice alone, I couldn’t determine the exact emotion with which he was uttering these words. I couldn’t carelessly open my mouth.

For fear of making another mistake.

Han Geon-joo, with his head bowed and his shoulders slumped, cowering like a frightened child, was acting like a person who would shatter if I made just one more misstep.

Whether he was actually a person who would shatter or not wasn’t important. The important thing was that he already appeared that way to me.

That pleading attitude evoked sympathy.

Fucking hell.

It was an inevitable process that made it difficult to utter even a single syllable.

“I really don’t know what you’re thinking when you live your life, hyung. You seem crazy, then you seem normal. You’re pitiful, then you’re pathetic. You’re scary… then you’re infuriating.”

“…Are you picking a fight?”

I was trying my best to stay quiet, but he kept getting on my nerves. As if it didn’t matter whether I got angry or not, Geon-joo poured out his thoughts and emotions like a broken dam. I felt like a shallow wave was relentlessly crashing against my body. With my hand caught, I had nowhere to retreat, yet it kept splashing against me.

“Do you know you have an utterly unpredictable personality?”

Are you one to talk?

I wanted to grab him by the collar right now, stand up, and list all the things he had done to me so far. This was not something a brat who had run away and come back should be saying. It was even less something to be said by a guy who, as if he had eaten something wrong, had been showing a strange obsession and fixation towards me lately.

In terms of being difficult to understand, he was number one among all the people I had met in my twenty-seven years of life. Who was he to call someone else difficult and unpredictable?

It was like lying on your back and spitting.¹

“But the fact that there is one consistent attitude you show… is so infuriating.”

He paused for a moment, let out a sigh, and then continued. The man finally loosened his grip on my hand.

Now I could retreat. I could slip out of his grasp and step back to avoid the crashing waves.

And yet, my feet, planted on the ground, wouldn’t move so easily.

“You’re vicious, then you’re affectionate. You’re cryptic, then you’re honest. You’re simple, then you’re complicated. But that one attitude has been consistent from the first time we met until now, and that’s what confuses me.”

The tremor in his voice subsided, and it became monotonous. As if he were consciously trying not to imbue it with any emotion. That’s why the emotion that faintly seeped through felt even sharper. My gaze landed on the top of his round head. The man lifted his head.

“Is the only value I have to you the fact that I can kill you, hyung?”

“…”

He really did hear everything.

And he has a uselessly good memory, which is a headache. The pause he took a moment ago, it seems now it wasn’t hesitation, but time spent mulling over and organizing what I had said.

I knew that whatever I said would not be the answer he wanted, so I remained silent. My gaze instinctively turned towards the door. Half of my heart was filled with the desire to end the conversation and leave, while the other half was filled with a sense of duty that I should stay, bothered by Lee Jaehee’s words to treat him properly.

As if sensing this, a deflated laugh escaped his lips. I had thought he would look dismayed and grab me if I showed any sign of ending the conversation, but unexpectedly, even the fingers that had been lightly resting on my wrist slipped off completely.

“Even after I came back from being trapped in that tower, saying I would find out about you, hyung, is that the only thought you had?”

“Hey, you’re misunderstanding something…”

“What misunderstanding?”

Though he had lifted his head, his gaze was still directed downwards.

“What misunderstanding am I making? Tell me.”

The voice, speaking as if shooting words at me, sounded like someone exhausted by something. His refusal to meet my eyes was persistent. My fingertips twitched.

I wanted to grab his chin, force his eyes to meet mine, and demand an answer, but I could feel that he was being stubborn, so I couldn’t. In a situation like this, unless I yelled at him and threatened him violently, he would surely keep his eyes downcast even if I forcibly lifted his chin.

As I was busy observing his reaction and failing to offer any reply to his words, he muttered, ‘See, you can’t say anything,’ and wiped his face.

So annoying.

The disgruntled voice, I couldn’t tell if it was a phantom sound or his real voice, echoed in my head.

“In the first place, I was the one who went into the tower to find out about someone, without even being asked. Is that childish and selfish of me? And you brought me here because you needed someone to kill you from the beginning, so if I say I can’t do it, does that make me a bad person?”

The questions kept flying, though they were phrased as questions, the tone was something else entirely. I vaguely thought the air in the room was humid, and then I heard the sound of rain outside the window.

“…”

The rhythmic sound of water filled the silence in the room.

“Han Geon-joo.”

I parted my parched lips and, after a long moment, called his name. Whether his emotions had been sorted out, or he had said all he had to say and no longer had the will to be stubborn, he slowly lifted his downcast eyes and looked directly at me.

In contrast to his calm voice, his black eyes held the remnants of turmoil. Seeing them, the back of my throat tightened.

A bare face.

With nothing embellished, nothing packaged, his bare face was there.

“Let me ask one thing, too. Who are you to go this far?”

I hadn’t intended to say this, but the words came out first. Surprised at myself, my pupils dilated. My opponent’s lips twisted.

“Was everything I just said also overstepping?”

How strange. All I did was ask what you think of me, about me.

The voice that retorted was a little sharp. Thinking it was better than his powerless, monotonous voice, I reached back and brought a chair over. I sat on the metal chair, leveled our eyes, and opened my mouth.

“Putting aside the question of what I think of you, why are you going this far?”

“…What do you mean?”

“The way you’re protesting like this, getting angry, feeling miserable. It’s all because I…”

I paused mid-sentence, crossed one leg over the other, and irritably ran a hand through my hair. I was annoyed, but I didn’t know why, so only my violent tendencies kept rearing their head.

“It’s because I was planning to ask you to kill me, and you don’t like that. Isn’t that right?”

When I questioned him directly, he clamped his mouth shut. He had been so talkative a moment ago, but now he was silent again, as if he had lost his voice. Is he the Little Mermaid or something? I blinked a few times, let out a breath, and leaned against the back of the metal chair.

“Did you grow fond of me or something? Or what, have I become precious to you, too? There should be no reason for that.”

I wanted to keep him by my side because he had come to represent another life I had lived. But he had no reason to be so blindly devoted to me. I asked, not understanding his feelings, but he was silent again, as if he had no intention of answering. I didn’t press him on that point.

Because I, too, had just exercised my right to remain silent to all of his questions.

Good grief. At this rate, I couldn’t tell if this was a conversation or just us taking turns making one-sided pleas to a wall.

Then, I should ask a question he can answer.

I took a deep breath of the damp air, held it, and then slowly exhaled, uncrossing my legs. My upper body leaned slightly towards him.

“Then what do you want to do?”

If he didn’t like that I was keeping him by my side to ask him to kill me, then he could just leave. Unlike a simple escape, this time it would be a departure by mutual agreement, so it would be fine.

…Would it be fine?

I didn’t know.

But if I kept him by my side, we would keep clashing like this, and he would keep making that pitiful face like a puppy caught in a downpour after being abandoned. Watching that from the side was, in its own way, unpleasant.

It was the first time my own psychology had been so back and forth.

As I was about to let out a hollow laugh, feeling like I was experiencing a personality disorder, the man who had been staring straight into my eyes finally spoke his first words after a long silence.

“I want to make you live, hyung.”

The moment I heard those words, my breath stopped.

It felt as if a crevasse was opening up at my feet.