CH 109

“…You probably haven’t been told this before, but I can see your black eyes.”

The male idol singer was overly kind to me.

“Black eyes,” Woorim repeated.

‘A well-maintained cage,’ I mumbled inside and remembered Yeonseon when he visited me without Hyehyun. I didn’t tell him about the black eyes that I saw in the recording studio, so he thought that we grew apart because of the incident at the motel. Yeonseon, who had desperately clung to me, was no longer endearing in my eyes.

“My mom, the guy who killed himself… and Yeonseon. They were all you, right?”

A well-maintained cage. I really loved Yeonseon.

“No wonder you kept telling me not to die. You were worried that I would run away. If I died and had to move to another person, you’d have to find me again,” Woorim mumbled and moved closer to me. He lifted his hand to touch my forehead and stroke my cheek. He rolled his thumb over my chin, then he kissed my lips. The warmth on my lips felt distant like I was in a dream. He pushed his tongue between my lips. The deep kisses continued.

From the familiar kisses, I could feel the warmth of a dead person. The shape of his lips, the sensation of his tongue—they were all different yet the same as Yeonseon. Yeonseon used to learn about me, one by one. He was so delighted every time he learned what I liked and disliked.

Much like my lips that were being crushed beneath his, my heart was utterly crushed. I was so happy and lovestruck that I kept wanting to die.

“It was too bad about Yeonseon. I could see it in your eyes that you really loved me,” Woorim whispered.

I held my breath at the mention of Yeonseon. My brain felt numb like it was being torn apart. I managed to ask back, “So?”

Woorim raised his hand and pointed to his head. “The memory of the body—the brain. Do you know how much it affects our bodies, Haeseo? No matter how hard I try, I can’t ignore the influence of the brain of the body I’m in.”

“…”

“The person’s memory, habit, physical characteristics, illnesses—I get influenced by all of those. It’s just like how you can’t help that a round stream of water comes from a round hole while a square stream of water comes from a square hole.” Woorim sighed as if he were reminiscing about a far-off past. “So, I actually tried to throw away Yeonseon’s body several times. His mental issues were too severe. I couldn’t love you without having others nearby—how much more crippling could that get? But I couldn’t throw him away because of you.”

Woorim talked about it so easily—Yeonseon’s deficiency that I had loved as I watched him from nearby and the thing that filled up the void in my heart. I didn’t know what face to make. Yeonseon used to ask what I would do if I had met someone better than him and was reluctant to enter a relationship with me. I wondered why Yeonseon couldn’t be satisfied when I said that I was fine. I felt like I had just heard the reason.

A better person.

“When you said that someone without any problems could appear, you meant…?” I tried to ask as coolly as possible, but the end of my sentence trembled with my voice. I made a face, trying to hold back my tears, but it didn’t work very well. Tears gathered in the trough of my pursed lips. I swallowed back the saltiness and continued, “When a better person appeared, were you going to move on to that person’s body and approach me?”

Woorim paused, then he answered, “Yeah. But I couldn’t do it. I only had failures up to that point.”

My black-eyed mother stabbed her neck before my eyes, and my classmate committed suicide. If those two were also the same person, I could begin to understand their last words.

“Then, if I remove myself, will you be happy?”

They both tried to do well for me but were rejected. Thus, the Child threw them away. They only gave me pain and suffering, hence, failures.

But Yeonseon was different.

“That was the first time I succeeded, so I hesitated,” Woorim readily explained, “When Hyehyun Ham said that he would help, I thought you would refuse. If you did, I was planning on throwing this body away the next day. I didn’t need a body that couldn’t embrace you.”

But I went beyond his expectations and accepted the offer. I wondered if he was taken aback, angered, or despaired at my reply. He answered my question then, “That time, I thought that you had come to love me that much, so my heart fluttered.”

Woorim chuckled and gazed tenderly at me. “I was so enamored by you when you said that you were willing to go through such pain and humiliation for me.”

“…”

I couldn’t take it anymore without laughing at myself. His answer was the same as mine. He thought the same things that I did when I looked at Yeonseon. I trembled, thrilled with Yeonseon’s obsession with me and that he wanted me to the point that he came up with something ludicrous.

I thought that he was so endearing.

…Just like he did.

I covered my face with both hands.