From Lies

I stepped out of the capital’s portal station and started walking back to the academy. Maybe it was late, but the streets were eerily quiet.

Even the moonlight was hidden by clouds, and all I could hear on the bleak autumn street was the whisper of crushed fallen leaves. Ssak, ssak.

What Eunice had said kept replaying in my head. I thought I was good at letting things go in one ear and out the other, but her words seemed to have become thorns, stuck in my heart.

Because I realized, deep down, that Eunice’s words, ‘being dragged around by a regressor’s blind purpose,’ also applied to me.

I was the same. I lied to everyone for the blind purpose of preventing the start of a tragic story and making everyone happy.

To prevent the spark of rebellion that would start at the triathlon, I acted on my own without explaining anything to the club members. It was an act of forcing understanding based on our past ‘trust.’

The upperclassmen who participated in the triathlon were simply swept up in my plan without any explanation or understanding. Because I thought the benefits of the result would outweigh the harm caused in the process.

The reason for transferring Eunice as a special case was also for my purpose, not for her sake. I didn’t realize that Eunice becoming a club member meant turning her life into a thorny path. I was just shamelessly trying to use a salvation that the person in question didn’t even know about as a reward.

Without realizing it, I blurted out self-reproach.

“So that’s why we’re brothers…”

The night air is cold. My breath comes out white. I chuckled bitterly and put my hands in my pockets.

Can I confess the truth I’ve been hiding from Luna? Can I tell her everything, that this world is just a story in a novel I wrote, and that I’m just a writer possessing Ross?

Can I tell you that I sincerely love you, even though you’re just a supporting character who doesn’t even have a name in the novel?

Telling the truth. The words are simple, but the execution is difficult. It’s hard to think about the variables that will arise when I tell the truth and the shock Luna will receive. No, I can make all sorts of excuses, but the truth is one.

Because I know it’s easier to maintain the current lie.

There’s no need to ask for understanding, no need to demand persuasion. I can use the pangs of conscience as an excuse to put on the hard shell of a lie.

I don’t even realize that I’m deceiving the other person. I only realize that it’s a white lie for the sake of the relationship. That I, born from lies, was the absolute truth I had learned in my life.

That’s why I became a writer. Because I could tell lies more plausibly than anyone else.

But I’m no longer comfortable with lying. The absolute truth is shaking. Luna’s existence constantly reminds me that my lies are wrong.

It’s a simple reason. Because I love her, I didn’t want to lie.

Lying to Luna, who completely trusts me, is the same as what my mom did. I wanted to deny that at least.

When I was about 11 years old, my parents, who had been maintaining a precarious relationship, divorced. I wish the reason was just a simple difference in personality, but it was because my mom’s hidden, ugly lies were revealed.

The person I called Dad became an ‘ajusshi’ because of a piece of mail that came to the house. Overnight, we became strangers with no blood relation, so the title ‘ajusshi’ would be more appropriate than ‘Dad.’

Ajusshi cried. It was the first time I had ever seen an adult cry like that. I could only watch in silence as the person who had always been reliable and diligent collapsed endlessly.

Mom left home. I later heard that she went back to my real dad, with whom she had been having an affair, but they broke up shortly after. After that, Mom dated a few trashy boyfriends, I heard.

I didn’t want to know, but Mom, who occasionally came to see me, had a habit of lamenting her life while drunk. That lament always ended with the cliché, ‘If only you hadn’t been born.’

Mom abandoned me, but Ajusshi never abandoned me. For years, we lived in a suffocating atmosphere without much conversation. But I thought we had adapted to each other.

We became a relationship where we couldn’t offer words of comfort or even say ‘I love you’… but we still lived together.

I thought the reason Ajusshi didn’t look me in the eye was simply because he was embarrassed to have shown me his tears.

I lied to myself that I didn’t lend a shoulder for the collapsing Ajusshi to lean on.

After my high school entrance ceremony, I received a call from a detective telling me that Ajusshi had committed suicide.

Unlike in dramas or novels, I didn’t grab my phone and cry, or feel like my heart was falling.

I simply wrote down the address that the detective-nim told me to come to.

I identified Ajusshi’s body and held the funeral with the detective-nim’s help. I didn’t cry until the funeral was over.

I felt so calm that I felt strange myself.

The house I lived in was a monthly rental, so it was too big and expensive for a high school student to live alone. While I was packing my things to move to a cheaper studio apartment, I opened the closet to throw away Ajusshi’s clothes and found a beautifully wrapped gift box.

The number of boxes I took out was six. The sizes were different, but they all had one thing in common: my name was written on them. The most recent gift box had these clumsy words written on it.

[Celebrating my son, Sian-ie’s, 17th birthday.]

It was just words written on cheap wrapping paper. But I cried. I cried endlessly like a baby who doesn’t know how to stop crying.

Actually, I knew. That Ajusshi might die if things continued like this.

After that day, Ajusshi’s solid body became thin, and his cheeks were sunken. His rough breath, caused by drinking alcohol every day, made me feel uneasy. I pretended not to notice his lifeless eyes staring at me sometimes.

Because I thought a comfortable and false relationship was better.

Just by deceiving myself that nothing would happen. I didn’t have to be afraid of being rejected if I approached him first, and I didn’t have to be afraid that he would think I was pretending to be his son, even though we weren’t related by blood.

Although we weren’t related by blood, Ajusshi and I were very similar. We knew what we had to say to each other. We shouldn’t have kept it in the closet or pushed it to the back of our minds for years.

Mom thoroughly and meticulously deceived Dad, who loved her. That’s why I hated Mom. I thought I would be different, even though we shared the same blood.

But I guess blood can’t be fooled, because I’m deceiving Luna, who I love. I lie and make excuses, hoping that there won’t be even a crack in our relationship.

I’m a moron who closes his mouth out of fear, even after learning the painful lesson that I shouldn’t push the words I need to say to the back of my mind.

I know.

Just like Ajusshi was silently waiting for me to call him Dad again.

Luna is silently waiting for me to tell her the secret I’m hiding.

The whispering of the fallen leaves stopped. I had arrived at the front gate of the academy, my destination. The security guard saw my face and silently opened the small iron gate next to the main gate.

Thanks to my face being known as Roel’s younger brother, I was able to enter without any restrictions, even though the curfew had passed.

I said, “You’re doing a great job,” to the guard and walked towards the academy’s main building, where the club room was located.

Next week, all academic schedules will be over, and a long winter vacation will begin. It’s time to part ways with everyone again.

Someone was standing in front of the main building. I couldn’t recognize the face because it was far away, but I instinctively knew it was Luna. She must be waiting for me to come back again.

I quickened my pace. Luna, who was breathing out white breath, had red cheeks, probably because she had been outside for a while. That sight warms my heart in a strange way.

I wanted to run to Luna, but the worries from earlier made my steps heavy.

I’m still stuck in that moment when I was 11 years old. I lost Ajusshi and was so sad and regretful, but I haven’t grown at all.

I’m afraid that this happiness will end. It’s so precious and undeserved for me, so it’s even more so. It takes a lot of courage to leave the false, easy path and walk a path where the outcome is unpredictable.

As I stopped walking, lowered my head, and hesitated, I heard a voice from in front of me.

“It’s hot, so be careful not to burn your mouth!”

It was Aria’s excited voice. When I looked up, I saw Aria handing Luna a sweet potato with steam rising from it.

Luna blew on the sweet potato and took a bite, saying it was delicious, and Aria also made a fuss and took a bite of the sweet potato.

“Hey! You should give it to the person who baked it first!”

“There’s a separate person to eat and a separate person to bake. Hurry up and bake more before Ross comes!”

“Ugh, I should just…”

When I turned my head towards the place where Kane’s voice was heard, I saw Kane squatting down with Lacar, making a small fire and baking sweet potatoes.

It wasn’t just Luna who was waiting for me. Lacar, Kane, and Aria were also waiting for me to come back.

Why is that? I feel strange.

They’re friends who aren’t related to me by blood. We haven’t known each other for a long time either. When we graduate from the academy, we might not even see each other’s faces. But strangely, I regained a feeling from them that I had lost a long time ago.

The feeling of ‘family’ that I thought I would never feel again.

My heart moves on its own. I took a step and walked vigorously towards where the club members were.

It’s a confident and energetic walk.

Luna, who found me, said in a happy voice.

“Ross!”

Behind Luna, who was running towards me with small steps as if to hug me, I heard the voices of the club members.

“Oh, Ross is here! Give him that!”

“Ugh, I was going to eat it, so I endured the heat and peeled all the skin off!”

“Let’s give it to the club president first. There are a lot of sweet potatoes.”

I hugged Luna tightly and held her cold hands. I smiled at Luna, who was just happy that I was back.

The club members with warm sweet potatoes came to me. I blew on it and took a bite at Aria’s urging.

“How is it! Awesome! This is the famous honey sweet potato from the North!”

As Aria said, it was definitely a delicious sweet potato that tasted sweet.

“It’s delicious.”

“Right? Okay, Kane and Lacar, who lost the bet, hurry up and bake more.”

Kane grumbled at Aria’s words, and Lacar, whose face was covered in soot, smiled awkwardly. I took a deep breath and said.

“…I have something to confess to you guys.”