Chapter 136 – Homophobia (4)

Homophobia (4)

A candle that only scatters light in pitch-black darkness.

There were three people gathered like flying insects in that small light.

“… It’s like a school trip.”

The light flickers dangerously as if it would go out at any moment.

Lee Hye-ji, who was staring blankly at the light while hugging her knees, whispered.

“It seems like we are playing the game of truth…”

It was a faint smile resembling a dim light.

“…”

The two didn’t say anything.

Jeong Da-jeong and Park Seul-ah, who hugged her knees in the same posture as Lee Hye-ji, were silent.

While ignoring the packets of snacks scattered around the candles, ignoring Lee Hye-ji’s blurry smile—

She just sat there as if she was stuck.

“…”

It wasn’t like this originally.

Originally, the scenery of the three of them was not like this.

Jeong Da-jeong.

True to his name Da-jeong, he was a warm and cozy friend.

A sweet person who took care of the mother among her friends.

That’s why he was a really talkative person who never stopped nagging like a mother.

But a grateful person who didn’t sound hateful to those nags and worries at all.

However, in Lee Ji-hye’s memory, that person did not seem to be here.

A completely different person with the same face was in front of her.

“…”

Instead of a friendly smile in my memory, Jeong Da-jung constantly bites her trembling lips.

Lee Hye-ji couldn’t look at her like that anymore and turned her head away.

… Seulah Park.

Do you really need to eat breakfast? You don’t have a boyfriend because you eat so much.

He was a friend who was a mediator between Jeong Da-jung, who always nagged at him, and Lee Hye-ji, who gritted his teeth and insisted on acting more.

Looking back, the three of them could have been friends because of her.

Park Seul-ah’s unique cynical way of speaking evolved the atmosphere that became too much on the way.

Hyeji Lee liked her like that.

The always confident expression, the always relaxed atmosphere—

Park Seul-ah’s unique aura that flows from the person itself was good.

“…”

She was no different from Jeong Da-jeong.

Park Seul-ah lost all her unique aura and just stared blankly at the snack bags scattered on the floor.

… It is awkward.

Lee Hye-ji rolled the feelings she felt for the first time with her two friends in her mouth.

Silence like thorns that keep piercing the tongue painfully, even if you don’t want to be aware of it.

She hurriedly spits out another word, lest the thorn should pop out of her mouth.

“Well, it is too late at night to gather and chat. All three of us are very weak at night.”

Hyeji Lee pointed at herself with a blurry smile again.

“If I don’t sleep, I sleep because I can’t stand eating late-night snacks, Da-jeong sleeps with a special tremble to become a morning person who thinks it’s a miracle morning or something, and Seul-ah, you just sleep.”

There is power in stories.

Those words were Lee Hye-ji’s latest and most desperate thoughts.

Tok-! Tok-! Tok-!

Even now, a tapping like the ticking of a clock continues in her head.

The self who squeezes her hair in front of the president who indifferently knocks on the desk and ―

Even in that stuttering whisper, her life passing by like a kaleidoscope was clear.

“Because I have to sleep at night. When I asked that time, Seul-ah, you answered like that.”

This place is the same now.

She becomes clear just by talking and continuing the story.

Park Seul-ah’s expression of her naturalness makes her bread burst and Jung Da-jeong.

Soon, the smiles of the three people shouting and clinking beer glasses—

Jeong Da-jung, who picks up her French fries, criticizes her for being a pig, and Park Seul-ah, who puts her French fries in her mouth as if mediating her teeth.

“So I slightly expected you guys to be sleeping-“

Those memories made Lee Hye-ji’s smile clearer.

Lee Hye-ji smiled and glanced at the two.

“What are the two of you sleeping apart for? Why do you two suddenly separate? Or did you know in advance that I would come and played hide-and-seek?”
“… Just.”

It was the only answer I got.

It was also the answer in a more subdued voice than usual.

“That’s more… Comfortable.”

Park Seul-ah explained the reason after her brief hesitation.

“… It’s less miserable. Like you said, we had to play hide and seek every night.”

She even added reasons that she couldn’t easily understand.

Seul-ah Park, who shrugged her shoulders with her wry smile, raised her head.

“Still, it’s good to see you again like this.”

Park Seul-ah, who opened her mouth for the first time, stared at Lee Hye-ji profoundly.

She let out a deeper bitter smile and murmured softly.

“I thought it would never be like this…”

Sweep-

At Park Seul-ah’s whisper, Jeong Da-jung hugged her knees more deeply and swept her floor.

“We really thought Hyeji was dead.”
“Chii—to die—! I am the toughest person here, but where did I die-“
“What is your relationship with him?”

That person.

“Are you close with that person? What is your relationship with that person, giving you this kind of privilege and trusting you?”

No one here knew who he was.

Park Seul-ah cuts off Lee Hye-ji’s jokes and asks about her president.

Lee Hye-ji couldn’t help but smile awkwardly at that sharp question.

“Uh… Rather than friendly…”

Tok-! Tok-! Tok-!

A dull noise echoed through her head again.

Aaaaa!

Ah-! Sorry-! Kyaaak-! Sin, I’m sorry, just this one time- ha, please forgive me just this one time- hey hey hey!

Countless cries and screams overlapped with the passing days passing by like a kaleidoscope.

It was her own cry.

“… It’s just a relationship that makes sure I’m safe. You know? What was the reason I was quarantined in the first place?”
“… What a scary person. He is a very scary and creepy person.”

I couldn’t tell them all about it.

“The most trashy people are those guys, but everyone here knows. Who the men pay attention to, who even pretends to die at a single word, who gets beaten until they become half-corpses when they get out of sight.”
“…”
“No one here can disobey him. Even Linnea sister can’t deny what he said.”

I couldn’t tell Park Seul-ah who was talking gibberish like this.

“But what’s scarier is that it’s only here. There is no place for us to live except here where that demonic man reigns. There is no place to survive.”

While Lee Hye-ji is quarantined in the nursery, while Jeong Da-jeong and Park Seul-ah belong to the Hyundai Department Store camp—

A lot has changed.

A lot has changed since when they clinked beer glasses with a bright smile.

The biggest difference among them was the ‘time gap’.

Lee Hye-ji stared at Park Seul-ah, who had forgotten even the existence of Baeksan.

Unlike himself, who was remembered by the president for those days, the two people in front of him now forgot Baeksan.

The entire memory itself was lost due to a power similar to the one the President possessed.

There was no way I could talk to them like that.

There are memories you guys have forgotten.

There is a hell worse than this place.

That’s why you have to endure, you have to survive in this place.

At least I’m not dying here.

I don’t want to be killed by dogs screaming so horrifyingly.

“… It’s okay, everything will be okay, Seulya.”

Lee Hye-ji comforted Park Seul-ah, who was shaking her body.

For the first time in her life, she smiled as she consoled Park Seul-ah.

“I am just like you. I am very, very afraid of that person.”

Still, there was only one difference from Baeksan.

“You just have to listen to him. It won’t hurt if you just listen to him—”
“You are laughing.”

Hyeji Lee, who had been talking for a while, shut her mouth.

Jeong Da-jeong.

She, who had not uttered a single word since their reunion, was glaring at Lee Hye-ji.

“You can still laugh like that, Hyeji Lee.”

With eyes that are colder than any other eyes in the world.

“That puny laugh is still the same.”

It was an expression that did not suit Jeong Da-jung the most.

Her knees were pulled tight, her face half-hidden.

Eyes shining with coldness quite different from poison.

“Did nothing really happen during quarantine? You are still Lee Hye-ji.”
“…”

It was a tear.

Tears that hadn’t flowed yet filled her reddened eyes.

“What do you mean? You are still the Da-jung Jeong I knew, Da-jung.”
“… Lie. Talk about what you know! What happened while you were quarantined-what we did-how dirty we were to those bastards-“
“Dear.”

Park Seul-ah hurriedly hugged Jeong Da-jung by the shoulders to calm her down.

Black black black—!

Black black black black—!

Jeong Da-jeong cries in the arms of Park Seul-ah.

The sound of that sad cry echoed through the room for a long time.

Lee Hye-ji stared blankly at Jeong Da-jeong, who was crying sadly, and Park Seul-ah, who hugged her.

Tok-! Tok-! Tok-!

The second hand of the clock rings in her mind again.

Tied to her chair, she recites her self-introduction letter like a parrot, and the person watching it with indifferent eyes.

Thud- thud-

One day because she memorized her self-introduction letter well, another day because she couldn’t memorize it well, and another day for some other reason that she couldn’t even guess –

Aaaaa!

The days of being beaten like hell until the person felt better.

What they don’t know is rather them.

It was rather those two people in front of her who didn’t recognize her.

“… Sorry.”

At that moment, Jung Da-jung’s voice, submerged to the fullest, flows in.

“… I’m sorry, Hyeji.”

Jung Da-jeong, who raised her head in Park Seul-ah’s arms, was looking at Lee Hye-ji with more bloodshot eyes than before.

“… You know If I come near that day, I become a manic-depressive bitch.”

It was the friendly look she knew.

In those eyes-

“I’m really sorry that I took out my anger on you, which must have been the hardest…”

At the last words Jeong Da-jeong uttered, the dam she had been holding back burst in an instant.

Feeling something rising in her, Lee Hye-ji hurriedly opened her arms.

Rustle- rustle-

Stepping on the snack bags scattered around the candles, I approached Jeong Da-jeong and Park Seul-ah and hugged them.

“… Sorry.”
“No, I’m more sorry.”
“No, I’m even more sorry.”

Apples hugging each other and chanting like echoes.

Thanks to that touching hug, no one knew.

The door that quietly closed while they hugged and sobbed.

The eyes of a person who carefully observed them before they closed.

… Click-.