Unlike Juhan’s room, which was unexpectedly simple, Yuni’s room was so crammed with stuff that three people could barely move at the same time. On top of that, the peculiar mess made by someone about to leave hung in the air, filling the room with an unstable current.
Telling them to take anything they needed, Yuni invited Juhan and Ihyeon into her room before the real drinking started. Most of what filled the space was clothes and books.
Watching Juhan’s back as he dug through a double-decker rack that was half empty—as if she’d already done one round of sorting—and focused on picking out clothes he liked, Ihyeon tried to concentrate on Yuni’s story.
“They told me to do as I please. Said, ‘Since when did you need our permission?’”
Perched on the edge of a cluttered single bed piled with books of various sizes, magazines, and printed materials, Yuni let out a wry smile and took a sip of beer.
“And?”
Juhan, who had been struggling to tug a knit sweater out of a box under the rack, froze and looked back. While he clicked his tongue like he was speechless, Yuni merely shrugged, idly flipping through a magazine within arm’s reach.
“I said I didn’t come for permission. I’m going to work abroad, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back, so I thought I should at least tell you. That’s why I came.”
She said she’d visited her family this afternoon. She’d left home, and though there had been a few brief phone calls, this was the first time she’d actually met them. Even if he didn’t show it, Ihyeon had been pretty shocked.
He knew it had been at least four years since she left home. He was shocked once that she hadn’t seen them at all in all that time, and then again that she’d broken that long silence and gone to them of her own accord.
Momentum works in human relationships, too—once distance opens up, it’s not easy to close the gap again. But standing back and watching requires no effort or resistance at all. That way is much easier. Even with a hundred excuses to avoid it, she chose the harder path.
“I told you, just say it on the phone.”
Looking down at Juhan’s back, grumbling because he was thinking about the hurt she must have taken, Yuni let out a small laugh.
“Whatever parents say, there are things you don’t relay between parent and child over the phone.”
She’d kept calling to report news they hadn’t asked about, that they certainly didn’t welcome, and yet this time she chose to meet face to face. She must have had her reasons. If her choices up to now had been incidental to the very first choice, this one felt like a turning point that would shift her life into a new phase. It wasn’t just that her residence was changing from domestic to overseas.
Tilting her head back like she was tired and rubbing the back of her neck, Yuni murmured toward the ceiling.
“They’re still telling me to come home, prep for the college entrance again, get into a teacher’s college. They have no intention of acknowledging anything I achieved after I left. They still... think I’m just acting out of rebellion against them, that I’m off on the wrong track... that they still... think like that....”
Unable to finish, Yuni shook her head and snapped the magazine shut with a sharp slap.
“I used to think it was at least for me. Getting a stable job and settling down. By their standards, that’s a good life, so I thought they were being strict because they wanted me to live well. But hearing the same lines even now, and seeing they don’t try at all to learn about my present life or the future I’m dreaming of... now I’m not so sure.”
Faced with Yuni’s frustration—being denied once more by the people she most wanted to be accepted by just as she was—neither Ihyeon nor Juhan could toss out easy comfort.
“Even if it’s hard, even if it’s not stable, I’m telling them I’m happier like this... so why do they keep saying I’ll regret it later...? Even if you’re parent and child tied by blood, even siblings born and raised by the same parents, can’t the conditions for happiness be different for each person? Huh?”
Watching her stretch out her leg and press it into Juhan’s back as if to demand agreement, Ihyeon turned his head slightly against the pressure building inside. Then he mechanically swallowed beer that hadn’t tasted like anything from the start. It felt like the only thing his helpless self could do right now.
“Hell, the four of us at home don’t even share the same taste in food. Why would a finicky thing like the conditions for happiness ever match?”
Her voice sounded exhausted as she said it. It wasn’t so much physical fatigue as a resignation close to acceptance—the realization that it was time to cut the slender thread of attachment she hadn’t fully let go of.
She didn’t get the ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ result she wanted, but at least she hadn’t run from the problem, nor made excuses to justify running away. She had walked into a situation that was bound to be awkward and uncomfortable.
Her family’s house. The place that should be the coziest in the world. It was easy for Ihyeon to imagine how long she hesitated and loitered in front of that door.
Even while living in the same home, it had been hard for him to say a word to his father. He’d justified his avoidance with the excuse that there was no point speaking when he wouldn’t get an answer anyway. Compared to the pain of speaking to his father and receiving silence back, avoidance was very easy.
But even expecting what would come back, Yuni hadn’t turned away from the door. She did what she had to do and said what she had to say. What came after wasn’t her responsibility.
Yuni, who had been silently tilting her beer bottle, suddenly pulled it from her lips like she’d remembered something.
“Oh, my family and I do share one thing.”
“......”
“This stubbornness that makes Mom and Dad throw up their hands and ask who on earth I take after? I probably inherited it straight from Mom and Dad.”
She even managed a laugh as she said it. It was a laugh to force-block complicated feelings, but having decided not to expect any more understanding from her parents, she looked lighter in a way. She had finally confirmed there was no room left for lingering attachments. Before moving on to the next course of her life, she was clearly sorting what to leave behind and what to keep.
Everyone was using their own choices as fuel to move somewhere. What to leave behind, what to cut away, even mistakes and regrets—everyone seemed to be choosing those for themselves.
Only Ihyeon felt like a coward who had never crashed into anything.
Was this retribution? The price for not digging up problems, not drilling into them to find a breakthrough... for relying on a “cowardly peace” of stepping back, taking long detours, and pretending not to know? Even the body he could most concretely claim as his own had been altered by someone else.
To stop his thoughts from flowing too far into sentimental, self-deprecating territory, Ihyeon drank more beer. This was not the right situation for thinking about anything.
Rising from the bed, Yuni set her empty bottle on the sink, pulled a new beer from the fridge, and nudged the shoulder of Ihyeon, who was blankly leaning on the counter.
“Why are you so quiet today?”
“......”
It wasn’t a question he could answer. That his head was even more of a jumble than her room. That he felt like an ant crushed under a problem so huge he couldn’t take it in at a glance, unable even to scream. He couldn’t say it.
Even if he’d had the guts to spill it, he had no idea where to start or how to tell it. Explaining to someone else a problem you haven’t even fully recognized yourself is impossible.
Facing Yuni’s worried look as she gazed up at him, Ihyeon bit hard on his lower lip. Yuni stretched out her arm and ruffled the back of his head lightly, giving him a faint smile.
“What, are you bummed about saying goodbye?”
Juhan sprang to his feet, eyes shining, and grabbed Ihyeon’s shoulders tight.
“Seo Ihyeon, then you go tell the boss. Tell him not to go to New York.”
Then he got a light smack to the back of the head from Yuni.
“Hey, why’d you hit me?”
“Ihyeon, ignore him. He knows he’s talking nonsense and he’s just mouthing off.”
Watching the two of them squabble like usual over something silly, Ihyeon tried to focus on squeezing the most out of this last bit of time the three of them could spend together.
The fact that his body was turning into an omega because of Rau... that problem felt as distant and unreal as some internet gossip piece. But even if he couldn’t quite feel it, the shock separately battered his body and mind. The shell lining his insides shook, everything shifted out of place, fell, broke, and mixed together—and yet he still couldn’t feel that it was happening in his own body.
So a problem he couldn’t possibly do anything about right now should be shoved somewhere out of sight while he focused on what was in front of him. Looking away and covering things up was, after all, his specialty. Even if his and Rau’s trip to New York got canceled, Yuni would still leave for Paris. He didn’t want to handle his parting from her carelessly.
“This jerk’s head is completely somewhere else, isn’t it?”
He tried to pull something like a smile for Juhan, who waved a hand in front of his face... but it was no use. His specialty failed to show up at the moment he needed it most.
Ihyeon scrubbed his face with his palms again and again.
“Why, what’s going on?”
Yuni gently tugged his wrist down and asked. Meeting her worried face, Ihyeon felt the impulse to unload the shock on someone. Only by discharging it into another vessel and dispersing its impact did it feel like he could keep his body and mind from rupturing.
“The truth is... I’m not feeling well....”
If Shushu’s words were true, then saying he wasn’t feeling well wasn’t entirely a lie, he thought, letting out a hollow laugh.
“You don’t look great. Your lips are white, too.”
Only then did Juhan start to worry, studying his face carefully. Yuni took the beer bottle from his hand and set it on the sink.
“You should go home and rest. You’re not the type to complain about feeling off unless it’s more than a little.”
“......”
Ruffling his hair as he sat there unwilling to budge, Yuni soothed him.
“It’s not like we’ll never see each other again. I’ll be at the boss’s place on Friday—see you then.”
If things went according to plan, Ihyeon and Rau were scheduled to depart on Saturday. Because of that, on Friday they were supposed to finish Phantom early and all have dinner together.
It wasn’t the dinner that was the problem; the New York trip might be canceled. In a single instant, everything had been driven into an uncertainty where he couldn’t see an inch ahead.
Swallowing down the desperate urge to just dump the truth in front of the two of them, he slowly nodded. Then he picked up the still-unopened backpack propped in the corner by the bed. The bag felt heavier than when he had packed it.
“Thanks for the gift.”
When he turned at the light squeeze on his shoulder, Yuni was giving him a bittersweet smile. She meant the travel souvenir no one had taken last time, which he had brought today.
“I only carried it over... the boss bought it, you know....”
“Right. The boss gave it to me....”
Murmuring like that, Yuni seemed to be running through the list of all the opportunities and considerations Rau had given her till now. Just because Han Manager had said it wasn’t a betrayal didn’t mean her heart would suddenly feel at ease. But Ihyeon could be sure Rau hadn’t offered every opportunity just to keep Yuni and Juhan’s labor tied to Phantom.
No—by this point he couldn’t pretend to know Rau that well anymore. More than that, Rau had been pushed into the far, hazy zone of chaos and the unknown.
After a long while persuading Juhan and Yuni, who wanted to drive him home, Ihyeon managed to leave the officetel. The thought flickered that they might contact Rau, or Rau might contact them, but a let-it-be fatalism cut that worry short.
He had no room at all to restrain his actions out of consideration that someone might worry about him. Even in his fogged-up state, a faint flare of resistance toward Rau rose up: whether Rau worried or not, right now he wanted to think only of himself.
The night air edging toward October was chilly. Wind slashed between the hulking high-rises, making his shoulders hunch. But he didn’t even think to put on the jacket in his hand.
Once he parted from Yuni and Juhan and was alone, it was time to solve the problem. He had to become properly conscious of what had happened and grasp it. This wasn’t about outlook on life or a passive attitude. It was happening to his body; he couldn’t pretend not to know.
Haa...
Sitting on the high planter in front of the officetel, Ihyeon let out a sigh full of confusion and covered his face with both hands. He scrubbed hard until his skin stung, then pulled his phone from his jeans pocket.
Who should he call? He didn’t have to think long. The anemic contact list didn’t even reach ten numbers.
He stared at the name saved as “Awi,” which used to be “Boss,” and rubbed it with his thumb for a long time. Even he didn’t know if he was stroking the memories represented by that name or wishing they would be erased.
■ ■ ■
“Ihyeon.”
He lifted his head at the urgent voice. Inwoo, who had parked tight along the curb, was coming toward him at a half-jog. Ihyeon awkwardly pushed himself up from the planter.
“Sorry, it’s so sudden....”
“No, don’t worry about it. It’s really fine.”
Inwoo didn’t press him as he stood there staring at the ground, chewing his lip and fiddling only with the shoulder strap of his bag. He didn’t crack silly jokes with his usual smirk, either. The moment he’d gotten a sudden call asking if he could put him up for the night, Inwoo would have sensed this was far from normal.
Keeping his gaze lowered toward the tips of his shoes, Ihyeon clenched the hand gripping the strap.
