Chapter 17: Are You Lonely?

What’s going on? At this hour.

That day, the night wind was particularly fierce. Even though it was midsummer, the air suddenly turned chilly, requiring an overcoat to go outside.

Aren’t you tired, nuna? You had a lot of work yesterday, too.

His complexion, after being plagued by late-night shifts due to an important project, looked extremely weary. Though I probably looked the same.

Despite that, he greeted me with a forced smile. A smile that betrayed a hint of unease.

Perhaps from the moment he received the call to come out in front of his house, he had already anticipated to some extent what I was going to say.

He wasn’t particularly quick-witted, nor was he good at reading people’s minds, but he was an expert at accommodating others.

I have something to say.

You could have just called or texted…

His parched lips, the way he moistened them, his hands clasped behind his back, avoiding my gaze, made him look like someone who had done something wrong.

For a while, I silently stared at him like that. Wondering why someone who had done nothing wrong was so restless.

So… what’s… wrong…?

If it was a ploy to make it difficult for me to speak, I might have rated it as quite sophisticated.

Because for a while, I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth, seeing him anticipate something coming his way, and fearing it.

But.

Let’s stop.

Once I actually said those words, I felt nothing.

No guilt, no hesitation. It was as if the long-standing emotions weighing down on my shoulders had been resolved all at once; I even felt relieved.

…Huh?

Let’s stop, this dating thing.

Contrary to his seemingly anticipating attitude, he seemed dumbfounded by my words, blankly staring for a while before finally uttering a single word.

Were the words I spoke different from what he had expected, or did he expect them, but was more surprised than he had anticipated when he actually heard them?

…So… you’re saying… we should break up?

Yes.

Seeing him regain his composure before long and ask me with a trembling voice, he was probably more surprised than he had anticipated.

…I thought I would hear these words someday.

Forcibly pulling up the corners of his mouth that had drooped, he replied with an awkward smile.

I think I heard it a few months later than expected. Should I call this… luck?

I guess that’s when you use the saying, “A smile that isn’t a smile.”

The most beautiful expression in the world is a smile, but his smile lacked the happiness and joy that make a smile beautiful.

A bitter, gloomy, and sad forced smile.

I couldn’t help but avert my gaze from that smile, as if he was desperately shouting to me, and to himself, that he was okay, that it was nothing.

…Could you, perhaps, tell me? The reason for breaking up…

…No.

To his hesitant and difficult question, I couldn’t bring myself to answer truthfully.

Because I thought it would be absurd to reveal a secret that even my family didn’t know to someone who would now be a complete stranger.

…I see.

But as if he had anticipated my answer, he didn’t cling to me or beg.

…Thank you for everything, nu… Team Leader.

He merely showed trembling lips and swallowed his tears.

That is the last image I have of Seo Hanbyeol as my lover.

An image I can no longer see, and therefore etched in my mind.

“….”

With the loud ringing of the alarm, my heavy eyelids slowly rise.

The fatigue that gnaws at my eyeballs like sandpaper and weighs down my body as I try to get up.

But I couldn’t succumb to the fatigue. For office workers, fatigue is like a friend.

There is duty and responsibility. The higher the position, the heavier the responsibility.

The continuous all-nighters for the past few days have depleted my mental and physical energy, but as long as my lifeline hasn’t been cut, I can still get up. Like a zombie.

“Mom, I’m off.”

Maong—

After a quick wash and applying makeup, I stroked Maru once and headed to the company. With an Americano I bought from a cafe in one hand.

“….”

I am always one of the employees who comes to work early. It’s my daily routine to arrive at the company and organize documents from a time when most people are still at home, perhaps not even awake yet.

There’s no special reason. It’s just that I’m a workaholic who gets anxious if I don’t have work.

And usually, the second person to arrive after me was Seo Hanbyeol.

The reason why he, who isn’t exactly a workaholic like me, comes to the company early in the morning is… what was it, he said the morning air was nice to breathe.

“…Hmph.”

Even thinking about it again, it’s such an absurd answer. This isn’t some rural countryside, how can you breathe fresh morning air in a city full of smog and people?

He was that kind of person. A romantic who doesn’t fit in this day and age. A person who would have fit in Japan during the bubble economy of the 1980s or Europe during the Belle Époque.

Judging by his old-fashioned taste, I thought he would have lived a really happy life if he had been born in those times. Not that he looks unhappy now.

Perhaps because of his taste and personality that don’t seem like they belong to someone born in the 2000s, I never really felt any ill will towards him.

There was even a time when I hoped that his untainted purity would never be tainted. To me, who grew up seeing countless of the dirtiest human beings in the world, he was a one-of-a-kind mutant.

But then I was the one who first tarnished that purity.

“Hello~.”

Today, he arrived at the office second, following me. With a smile as always.

He couldn’t hide the signs of fatigue from the late-night shifts, but he still didn’t look too bad.

“Welcome, Seo Hanbyeol-ssi.”

“Good morning, Team Leader… Why, what’s wrong with your face? You look terrible…”

As if the exhaustion from the continuous all-nighters was showing on my face, he asked me with a worried expression.

“It’s okay. It’s always like this. I’ll feel better if I drink some coffee.”

I’m used to late-night shifts. Anyway, once today’s work is done, I won’t have to work late like this for a while.

So just today, if I can just get through today…

Thud.

“….?”

Thud, thud. I heard a sound from somewhere. A small but distinct sound of something falling.

Drip, the hot sensation I felt on my philtrum.

“….Blood?”

Red. The palm of my hand that I brought to my nose and mouth was stained bright red.

And the moment I saw my palm stained red—my vision plummeted downwards.

“Team Leader!? Team… ”

A body sprawled helplessly on the floor.

It’s fading. My vision, my senses, my consciousness.

“!#$…@$!$!.. ”

…..

――

Computers have a function called shutdown. Not the shutdown law, but shutdown.

Usually, computers can be turned on and off as the user wishes, but when problems such as overheating occur, they automatically shut down to protect the computer.

The human body is like a computer. If you overexert yourself beyond what is permissible, your body will turn itself off to protect itself.

People who work in physically demanding industries or those who work consecutive all-nighters without getting a wink of sleep will have felt their body’s power turn off at least once. I’m not quite at that level yet.

But if you break through even the level of a body shutdown, you can just collapse and die.

And in Korea, that’s called death from overwork.

“Team Leader, Team Leader!?”

I knew that this person was weaker than she looked.

She’s not so much lazy as she extremely avoids moving her body enough to sweat, she also hates exercising, and according to her, her maternal side is weak.

A body with congenital weakness combined with a tendency to avoid exercise can’t be strong. She’s been working all-nighters with that body, so it must have been severely damaged.

The problem is that the backlash from that overwork happened in front of me, at a time when there was no one else to see it but me.

“Team Leader, wake up, Team Leader…”

What should I do? There’s no one around to help. What should I do first… Ah, right, 119.

—Yes, this is 119.

Fortunately, the kind firefighters answered the phone even in the early morning.

“I’m calling because someone collapsed here. They’re bleeding heavily from their nose. I think it’s probably because of overwork… The address? The address is Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si…”

—Yes, we will dispatch immediately.

They checked the phone’s location, and the call ended with a message that an ambulance was scheduled to arrive.

“….”

So, what do I do now?

“Team Leader, um, excuse me for a moment…!!”

I couldn’t leave the person sprawled on the floor, so I carried her to the lounge and laid her on the sofa.

I covered her with a blanket and tilted her head to prevent the nosebleed from flowing into her windpipe, then gently covered her nose with a wet tissue.

Even though the blood that wouldn’t stop soaked through the tissue and onto my hands, it didn’t matter. Saving a person’s life is important, is the smell of blood on my hands important?

Even if I hate this person, even if I resent the past.

Doesn’t the Bible have a passage that says to love your enemies?

Besides, it’s only natural that I can’t stand to see someone I liked, and still like, die.

Even if it’s an impossible love, the fact that I once loved her doesn’t change.