Just A Friend

#56

“Um, I heard the surgery went well and they did the extubation right after… There’s pupillary response, no hydrocephalus… and given his young age, the prognosis is all good. That’s why I heard he was moved to the general ward…”

“Who performed the surgery?”

“Professor Park.”

If so, it meant the statement about the surgery going well wasn’t a lie. His strength left him. Lee Minsu was right. Everything about Nam Seonwoo was normal to the point where it wouldn’t be strange if he woke up right now.

“…Then why isn’t he waking up?”

At the mumble that was close to talking to himself, Lee Minsu lowered his head as if he had committed a crime.

“It’s not really for us to say, but you know too, hyung. There’s no area as unconquerable as the brain. Actually… um, I’ve been debating whether to tell you this… but I think I should.”

After examining Kang Jihan’s expression, he hesitated a bit before speaking.

“He said it’s strange that he’s not waking up. Professor Park, I mean.”

The Professor Park that Kang Jihan knew was someone who didn’t speak about things he wasn’t certain of.

“He said something like the patient seems to have given up his will, as if he’s refusing to wake up… I don’t remember exactly what he said, but ah!”

“……”

“He said it seems like he’s chosen not to wake up.”

He ‘chose’?

That couldn’t be. Nam Seonwoo wasn’t weak enough to choose death. Though he had a soft side due to his affectionate nature, he was firmer and stronger than anyone.

But a few seconds later, he realized he was missing something.

Soft but strong. If you just switch the order of the sentence, it means strong but soft.

“It’s really ambiguous to tell the family members this… After all, you know. Telling such things to people waiting for him to wake up. So, I was wondering, was there anything… psychologically difficult happening to him before the accident?”

No way.

“The family members keep saying there’s no way, but… You know, people often can’t tell their families about their real struggles. Especially things like money problems or relationship issues.”

…No way.

“Even if it’s not objectively a big deal, you never know. Pain is subjective, after all. In an unconscious state, one becomes more vulnerable, so I can’t help but think it’s because of some recent issue… Hyung?”

Is it because of me?

Because of me?

But surely, Nam Seonwoo was smiling when he spoke about breaking up.

…Or was he? Now that face from back then was blurry. The face he saw at the front door seemed a bit sad. No… no. That wasn’t the real Nam Seonwoo. That was just a hallucination he saw when he momentarily went crazy in the empty house. The real Nam Seonwoo left with a smile as if relieved. Without looking back even once.

Then why on earth…

‘Ah.’

For a moment, he had a foolish misunderstanding. To think that he wasn’t waking up because breaking up with someone like him was too hard to bear.

Nam Seonwoo wasn’t struggling because he broke up with Kang Jihan. He was exhausted from the long time he had spent with someone like Kang Jihan.

That’s why he chose not to wake up.

“Um… I’m sorry. I thought I should tell you since you’re his hyung… J-Jihan hyung? You’re not usually like this.”

What kind of person did ‘like this’ refer to? Kang Jihan smiled bitterly. He could guess what kind of person ‘Kang Jihan’ was in his junior’s eyes. A machine-like person who tells the worst-case scenario, urging families to face reality whether they’re wailing or collapsing. He must be making that expression because such a person is suddenly shedding tears.

He didn’t feel the need to wipe his face. He knew from earlier experience. Tears dry up anyway. So there was no need to wipe them away. Kang Jihan walked past Lee Minsu, who had frozen in bewilderment, and went out into the corridor.

He could see Nam Seonwoo’s mother’s back in the hospital room. It seemed she had taken over while he had collapsed. After watching her for a long time as she continuously spoke to Nam Seonwoo with a kind face resembling his, he eventually turned away.

He was no longer certain if staying by Nam Seonwoo’s side was the right thing for him. But he couldn’t just watch from afar as Nam Seonwoo remained unconscious.

He had to do something.

Ridiculously, what came to mind at that moment was a small pendant.

Although he loved and respected his mother, he didn’t believe in the far-fetched stories she used to tell. It wasn’t that he thought his mother’s profession was meaningless. He knew that sometimes people need superstitions, and that nothing comforts them as much. The only difference between them and him was whether they knew that superstitions couldn’t change reality.

He believed in medical science more than prayer, and trusted probability more than wishes. The more he directly saved patients with his own hands, the more firm this belief became, like an iron fortress.

But now, those hands couldn’t do anything.

That’s why. That’s why he thought he should find the necklace his mother left him.

He went outside the building and hailed a taxi. It was his first time breathing outside air in days, but he felt nothing. Looking at the rapidly changing scenery outside the car window, Kang Jihan carefully recalled the story his mother used to tell.

‘Have you heard of Julie’s Law?’

It was the first thing his mother said after finishing a long surgery.

He was in his third year of high school then. Back then, he only knew how to make money recklessly, so he worked part-time jobs until late at night. He chose delivery not just because the pay was good, but because he liked the sensation of speeding against the wind.

Even on the day before the mock exam, he rode straight onto the road without stopping by home. Not knowing that his mother had collapsed alone at home. The moment he discovered his mother fallen in the living room was still unforgettable.

After that day, his mother’s condition rapidly deteriorated. But she seemed rather calm. She even seemed detached, as if she had realized something.

With that indecipherable face, she asked that question. If he knew Julie’s Law. When he asked what she was talking about as soon as she woke up, the answer he heard was so striking it felt like a nail in his ear.

‘It’s a law that says if you wish for something earnestly, it will come true.’

‘What nonsense…’

‘It’s real, they say. Because you never believe me, I studied a bit, and there really is such a law. Why do you think it’s called a law? Because it’s real.’

He was angry then. He was frustrated that someone who had been on the brink of death was talking such nonsense. It was only later that he thought, perhaps his mother had anticipated her death then. Because she told a similar story the day before she closed her eyes forever.

The taxi had arrived at the apartment. When he asked the driver to wait a moment as he would come back down soon, the driver nodded willingly.

The house was a mess. The refrigerator door was open, and the floor was a disaster with spilled pills. He didn’t feel like cleaning up. The only reason he came to this empty space he didn’t even want to step into was for one thing only.

The necklace was in the suitcase. When he opened the necklace case among the jumbled luggage, a white butterfly-shaped pendant revealed itself.

A white butterfly. Among butterflies, his mother particularly liked white ones. It was for the ridiculous reason that they were the souls of the dead, but after his mother passed away, he started to believe that ridiculous story a little.

‘When a white butterfly comes, welcome it warmly. It’s mom coming to greet you.’

On the day he sent his mother off, he really saw a white butterfly. As he blankly watched the butterfly circling around, Nam Seonwoo asked. If he liked butterflies. So he shook his head. And he told him that nonsensical superstition too.

Nam Seonwoo didn’t laugh. Nodding seriously, he quietly gazed at the butterfly. From that day on, whenever he saw a white butterfly, he would call Kang Jihan excitedly, despite hating insects terribly. Saying his mother had come to see him. If they were far apart, he would even send a video to let him know. Remembering Nam Seonwoo’s voice in those videos, speaking to his mother, made him smile.

Of course, the white butterfly was just a medium for mourning, and superstition was still superstition.

But now he needed that superstition. Desperately so.

The night before she passed away, his mother handed him this necklace she had always worn.

‘Mom always told you, right? That if you wish for something earnestly, it will come true.’

‘……’

‘Believe it now. So that mom can give this to you with peace of mind.’

He intuitively felt that it would be their last conversation. So he kept his mouth shut and listened.

‘I received this from my mom too. My mom made such a fuss about it then? Saying it was something whose value couldn’t be measured by anything. I thought it had a diamond in it or something.’

But what came out of his mother’s mouth was a story even more implausible than any superstition he had heard before.

‘Mom said this. When the last moment of life comes, if you hold this tightly and think of the time you want to go back to… Just once, you can go back to that time.’

As she said this, his mother smiled quietly. So he accepted the necklace without a word. And he asked. Why she wasn’t using it and giving it to him instead.

‘Mom has moments she wants to go back to too. But I won’t do that. Because if I go back to before I met your dad, I won’t be able to meet my son either.’

‘……’

‘Because you go back while keeping your current memories intact.’

He thought it was an absurd story. So he kept the necklace stored away along with the memory of that last conversation, forgetting about it as he lived on.