Just A Friend

#52

He felt that if he grabbed him hastily, Nam Seonwoo would slowly shake his head while maintaining that smile. But if he didn’t grab him, it seemed he would leave at any moment, just like before. His heart started racing madly. He tightened his grip on Nam Seonwoo’s wrist.

But Nam Seonwoo vanished like smoke in an instant.

“……”

There was nothing in his hand. His nails, deeply dug into his palm, had broken the skin, forming droplets of blood.

Kang Jihan slowly looked around the house. He couldn’t understand why this space, which he had been frequenting for days, suddenly felt unfamiliar.

He looked back at where Nam Seonwoo had been. There was nothing. He couldn’t distinguish whether what had been speaking to him just moments ago was an illusion, reality, or if even that reality was a lie.

So it seemed as if Nam Seonwoo had evaporated.

His legs moved on their own towards the kitchen. Nam Seonwoo had definitely been standing there earlier. Nam Seonwoo had existed. Stopping in front of the refrigerator, he opened where Nam Seonwoo’s slender finger had pointed, telling him to eat what was inside. There really was food there.

He took out the porridge in a disposable container. The smell and color were a bit off, but when he scooped it with his bare hands, he was sure. It was indeed what Nam Seonwoo had bought. Because he could chew the abalone. Whenever Kang Jihan said he had no appetite, Nam Seonwoo always prepared abalone porridge. He slowly chewed and swallowed the mushy texture. What went down his throat definitely had substance. As if afraid it would disappear in his mouth, he scooped up more food with his hand and put it in.

Before he knew it, the bottom of the container was visible. Even after scraping and eating everything that stuck to the sides, he still felt hungry. But he didn’t feel like eating anything else. His gaze meticulously scanned the kitchen as if searching for something. Then suddenly, a post-it note on the shelf caught his eye.

“Take your supplements”

It was Nam Seonwoo’s handwriting. Somehow knowing he would be hungry, Nam Seonwoo had left instructions on what to eat. The supplements lined up above that post-it were also bought by Nam Seonwoo.

He opened the first one he grabbed and poured it directly into his mouth. But he still felt empty inside. He shook out the next bottle completely, chewing and swallowing it all. After repeating this a couple more times, he felt something filling his stomach. Though it didn’t completely suppress his hunger.

“I ate.”

There was no response. He stared at the post-it note and waited a bit longer, but the surroundings remained deathly quiet.

In that silence, he realized.

That he had truly been abandoned.

Nam Seonwoo couldn’t easily throw away even a single item. So when he bought something, he would hold onto it for a very long time. Even seeing the junk piling up in the house, Kang Jihan couldn’t bring himself to tell Nam Seonwoo to throw things away. Because he knew that due to this personality, Nam Seonwoo couldn’t throw away a person like Kang Jihan for a long time.

But there were times when even Nam Seonwoo would discard things without looking back. It was when he felt that ‘no matter what, it just wouldn’t work anymore.’ When a decade-old game console wouldn’t work no matter how many times he tried to fix it, when it became too painful to keep the graduation album of a student he had parted with on bad terms, Nam Seonwoo would decisively throw these things away.

This time, that thing was just Kang Jihan.

He already knew Nam Seonwoo would leave him. Because it was none other than himself who had made it so.

‘Will I be able to see our son get married before I die?’

‘Well… I suppose I’ll have to, someday.’

The overheard phone call on the day of his mother’s funeral was the starting point.

After some time had passed, he could somewhat understand the context in which Nam Seonwoo had said those words. But Nam Seonwoo’s back as he answered like that seemed to have left a bigger shock than he thought at the time. Nam Seonwoo in his black suit looked like he could disappear at any moment. Not towards the dark, gloomy funeral hall, but towards a bright white wedding hall.

Thinking back now, maybe he felt that way because it was right after the funeral.

The day of his mother’s funeral was still vivid. The only reason he wasn’t completely overwhelmed by terrible loneliness at the funeral where not a single relative showed up was because of Nam Seonwoo alone. Twenty-year-old Nam Seonwoo, wearing an awkward suit, helping with the funeral procedures with clumsy gestures, not sitting down for even a moment or eating a proper meal.

Thinking that Nam Seonwoo, who had stood by his side like that, would someday disappear made him terribly afraid.

That childish fear turned into resentment, and the more beautifully Nam Seonwoo smiled, the more that resentment grew. But he couldn’t bring himself to be the one to say they should break up.

Every moment was a process of separation. Once, when he was too exhausted, he even considered leaving Nam Seonwoo first. But he just couldn’t do it. He didn’t know how. He was only familiar with being left behind. So he just waited for Nam Seonwoo to discard him as soon as possible. He didn’t expect Nam Seonwoo to hold onto him for fifteen years like this.

He looked around. All of Nam Seonwoo’s things were still here. Being left here with these items made it feel real that he had truly been abandoned.

What followed was an unfathomable sense of fear.

He picked up his phone. He pressed the call button next to Nam Seonwoo’s name, hung up when a woman’s voice answered instead of Nam Seonwoo’s, pressed call again, hung up when the connection tone ended, and pressed call yet again. He repeated this action endlessly as if it had been programmed into his head. He wasn’t even aware of what he was doing. The number next to outgoing calls had exceeded three digits.

Then,

The call

Connected.

-……

His breath stopped. Feeling that if he exhaled, he might miss the sound from the other end of the line, not only his breathing but all his movements froze for a moment. But he heard nothing. No, he might have heard a sigh. Just as he felt the urge to press the phone harder against his ear, thinking he might have heard something—

-You crazy bastard.

It wasn’t Nam Seonwoo.

Why? Only a single question mark floated in his mind. Why was someone other than Nam Seonwoo answering Nam Seonwoo’s phone?

“Who are you?”

It felt like his blood was rushing in reverse. Yet his heart felt like it was being buried in the ground. If it was going to be like this, he wouldn’t have let Nam Seonwoo go in the first place. If Nam Seonwoo wasn’t going to meet a normal partner and start a family, there was no reason to let him go at all.

“Put Nam Seonwoo on.”

-…Hah, this fucking bastard, really.

“I said put Nam Seonwoo on!”

As he shouted in anger, the other person started laughing. But it was a strange laugh. For some reason, the laughter, which was neither a sneer nor contempt, seemed damp.

-Hey, you trash.

At that familiar address, his stopped thoughts finally started moving again. There was only one person who called him like this. Park Gyuhyeon. It was Park Gyuhyeon. As expected, Nam Seonwoo was with Park Gyuhyeon.

“Where are you?”

-I can’t talk long, so text me.

“Where is Nam Seonwoo?”

-Shut up, will you? Be grateful I even answered your call, you fuck. If you call one more time, I’ll block—

“I said where is he!”

Park Gyuhyeon spewed out curses. It was a familiar reaction. Park Gyuhyeon had always disliked him. But something was different. Why did it feel like Park Gyuhyeon wasn’t just angry, but pouring out his anguish? His heart raced quickly with an inexplicable anxiety. So much that his pulse almost drowned out Park Gyuhyeon’s voice.

-I’ll send you the location, so come if you want.

Kang Jihan, momentarily stunned by the abruptly ended call, picked up his phone. Just as he was about to call again, a clear notification sound rang out and a message popped up on the screen.

It was a strange thing.

He had asked where Nam Seonwoo was, but Park Gyuhyeon had sent him the location of a hospital.

* * *

Park Gyuhyeon was standing in the hospital parking lot. Nam Seonwoo wasn’t with him.

As Kang Jihan turned off the engine and his cigarette and got out, Park Gyuhyeon raised his head as if he had been waiting. Park Gyuhyeon, who had looked ready to throw a punch, was startled when he saw Kang Jihan and looked him up and down.

“Where’s Nam Seonwoo?”

“……”

Kang Jihan, asking for Nam Seonwoo as soon as he arrived, was in a terrible state by anyone’s standards. His hair was disheveled, and his shirt sleeves and collar were severely crumpled. For Park Gyuhyeon, who knew how meticulously Kang Jihan usually maintained his appearance, it was a shockingly disheveled look. Above all, the smell of cigarettes that permeated him was enough to make one’s brow furrow just by his approach. But still maintaining that expressionless face, Kang Jihan spoke.

“Who are you here to visit? A colleague? A parent of a student? But why did he come with you for such an occasion instead of me?”

The content he was spouting in a calm voice was anything but calm. His words, bordering on incoherent, sounded plausible due to his characteristic expressionlessness, but Park Gyuhyeon could tell. This bastard wasn’t in his right mind right now.

“And the phone.”

Kang Jihan held out his hand. Looking askance at the phone in Park Gyuhyeon’s hand, he continued.

“No matter how close friends you are, it’s not right to keep someone else’s phone for so long, is it? So that’s why the calls weren’t going through. Give it here. I’ll tell Nam Seonwoo—”

“Hey.”

Park Gyuhyeon said incredulously.

“Didn’t you two break up?”

Kang Jihan closed his mouth. But the silence didn’t last long.

“No.”

In a tone full of conviction, Kang Jihan looked straight at Park Gyuhyeon and answered.

“We didn’t break up, I didn’t.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. You didn’t break up? Then why did the accident notification come to me?”

Accident. Kang Jihan hesitated at that strange word.

“If you didn’t break up, why is the emergency contact set as me instead of the supposed boyfriend? And why is that supposed boyfriend asking a mere friend where his partner is? And only now!”