World Chapter 3.3

As I staggered to sit up, my aunt, only then realizing I was awake, seemed to lose her tension and her knees buckled, causing her to stumble. My uncle quickly supported her as she fell.

“Hyunwoo! Are you awake now?”

“……”

“My goodness! What on earth is this mess?!”

My aunt cried out sharply, even as she was being supported. My mouth was so dry it was hard to say anything. I just grimaced and answered that I didn’t know either.

“Look at your face! If you were going to live like this, why didn’t you just live with me? Why were you so stubborn?”

“……Aunt, please find that house for me……. The house is gone. Uncle, the house is gone. Please find it….”

“You’ve lost your mind! Do you know where your things were found?! They were found in an abandoned building that was being prepared for redevelopment! How on earth were you living there?!”

“……No, Aunt, that’s not it……. There’s a house there. Look carefully. Hyungjo is there……. Sob.”

Faced with a situation where everything felt like a dream, like it was all a lie, I vehemently denied it, yet my heart ached as if it would burst. I clung to my aunt’s clothes as she urged me to come to my senses.

I definitely heard it. I heard Maria Callas’s voice.

How I longed to rest my forehead on Hyungjo’s back as he sold his soul, lost in the aria.

I walked around downtown with that record.

When I kissed Hyungjo, his cold tongue quickly grew hot.

When he held me, I thought I could die from the excitement, from the pleasure.

And that was an illusion? That was my own delusion, a hallucination?

It was all a lie?

“No, sob, no! No!”

When Hyungjo held me.

“……!”

My breath caught in my throat. My whole body seemed to turn to stone.

When Hyungjo held me, it didn’t hurt at all. I came countless times, and Hyungjo did not.

He didn’t…?

My aunt gripped my shoulders as I sat blankly staring into space, shaking me as she sobbed.

Her crying and her pleas for me to come to my senses felt as if they were coming from a very distant place. My vision grew dim and my ears rang.

Ah… please, someone tell me this is a dream.

∞ ∞ ∞

I stared blankly into the mirror. My cheeks were hollowed out, making my cheekbones protrude, and my lips were parched and cracked, with blood beading on them.

Who on earth is this person?

My hollowed-out eyes looked cold and sharp, as if haunted. It didn’t look like me. It wasn’t the face I knew as my own. A cold chill ran down my spine. I swiftly put the mirror away.

I was suffering from pneumonia and malnutrition at the same time. In a word, my body was a wreck. Inside, I was tattered, as if patched together with rags.

My parents, hearing the news, rushed up from our hometown. I couldn’t even explain to them what had happened when they asked. I kept my mouth shut tight. More than fear, I trembled with a sense of betrayal.

You’re dead. You’re dead, Kim Hyungjo!

I gritted my teeth and swallowed a scream.

Ah… who on earth did I love?

My heart ached as if it would burst from the betrayal and despair.

A few days passed like that, and as I suffered as if from a fever, I realized.

That the sense of betrayal was the other side of longing….

I was longing for a nonexistent illusion, even shedding tears. I was fine even if it was a dream. I was fine even if there was no real entity. I didn’t care anymore if he was a ghost or a spirit. I wanted to see him just one more time. I wanted to ask what would happen to us now, if we could never see each other again.

In a longing that felt like agony, I would wet my pillow with tears without my parents knowing, swallowing my sobs.

Once my body had recovered to some extent, I was discharged from the hospital. I moved into my aunt’s house. The belongings from the abandoned building had already been moved to her house.

My parents had already arranged for me to move into the dormitory as soon as a room became available.

I hated this place. I didn’t want to be in a place that had brought me such sorrow and pain. I stubbornly insisted on going back home, but my father wouldn’t allow it.

After hiding away in my room for a few days, I finally went to see the house I had been living in. The place where Hyungjo was, where Taewan, Sungjoon, and Heo Seok had been.

What courage was it?

I traced the path just as I had when I first met them. I entered the alley where I had met the real estate agent. I felt like I was wandering the alley back then, too. And it was around here that I had found the real estate office.

The real estate office that looked like it barely had any business, with not a single property listing posted. The place where the door suddenly burst open, making me flinch and take a step back.

It’s not there. There’s no such thing as a real estate office….

No trace of it remained. There was only a low, two-story building with no sign or marking, as if it were vacant.

I stood there blankly. The slightly tilted telephone pole across the street was the same as before. There was no way I, who was often told I had a sharp eye, could have gotten the street wrong. This was the place where the illusion of the real estate office had been.

My heart, which had been praying and hoping for even a small trace, even if they were ghosts, was torn to shreds once again.

Where do I have to look for you?

Where do I have to go, what dream do I have to dream, to be able to meet you?

I stared into the empty air, my lips trembling on the verge of tears. I bit my lower lip hard to stop the tears from coming.

“Who is it? Who are you looking for?”

Startled, I turned my head. I couldn’t think of what to say and swallowed my saliva.

“I asked who you’re looking for.”

It was an elderly-looking grandfather. He frowned, looking somewhat gruff.

I hesitated and asked.

“Wasn’t there a real estate office here before?”

Even though I had confirmed with my own eyes and realized it was an illusion, the old man furrowed his brow at my foolish question, which clung to a lie as if wanting to believe it.

“That damn old man. Causing trouble even in death.”

The old man clicked his tongue and suddenly pointed the cane he was leaning on at the building.

“That, that, senile old fool. Hey, you! If you’re dead, just go on to the afterlife! What lingering attachment makes you do this to people! Stop bewitching perfectly fine people. Tsk, tsk, tsk. What a pathetic person.”

“……You know that man?”

“Of course, I know him. That bald old geezer. He talked so much even when he was alive……. A babbling, rambling old geezer he was.”

“……”

“Were you bewitched too? Did you go to that house too?”

“Pardon?”

“That house, I mean. He must not have the fare for the afterlife, wandering around instead of crossing over…, what grudge do those guys have, tsk tsk tsk.”

“……”

He clicked his tongue for a long time and limped past me.

I stood foolishly on the street, staring blankly into the empty air.

So I really was bewitched by a ghost.

Yes, they were ghosts. They were ghosts with no physical form.

You were ghosts? Taewan, Sungjoon, Heo Seok! You guys were ghosts?

Kim Hyungjo, Kim Hyungjo!

“Kim Hyungjo, you son of a bitch!”

I spat a harsh curse into the empty air. The tears I had been holding back streamed across my cheeks. I looked up resentfully at the blurry, spreading sky.

Please answer me. Anything is fine, so please just answer me.

“You should have told me before I started liking you……, you should have told me before I fell in love with you….”

If we couldn’t be together, whether they were ghosts or spirits, he should have pushed me away until the very end. He should have.

Even with a witness and evidence, I couldn’t believe it. There was no such thing as a severed finger. The profuse bloodstains were not on me anywhere. Even if my belongings came from an abandoned building, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe the old man’s words either. No, it was probably that I didn’t want to believe.

If they were illusions, then what on earth was the Hyungjo I loved?

What I couldn’t believe was that Hyungjo hadn’t loved me. I couldn’t believe that the someone I had loved like crazy for the first time did not exist in this world.

Holding on to a foolish hope, I searched every nook and cranny of the alley. The alley that led to the house I was living in, past the shop, had to be there.

But the road was blocked.

The road was blocked.

∞ ∞ ∞

Once my body had recovered to some extent, I returned to school.

Looking back, there were more than a few strange things. I suffered from hunger to the point of starvation and my whole body ached as if from neuralgia. My classmates treated me like a crazy person and whispered about me. Lee Taewan, that damned ghost, even appeared at school and spoke to me. He appeared looking like a wonderful upperclassman, someone to be admired, not like a ghost, and chattered on to me about ideals and ideology. That bastard was a revolutionary even in death.

I went to the school library. I looked through the yearbooks, organized by year. I searched desperately for any trace of them, even cutting my fingers on the edges of the paper.

I was fine even if they were ghosts. I wanted to find proof that they had existed. Even a single line would do. I felt like I would go crazy if I couldn’t find anything at all. I was that desperate. I combed through the 70s and picked up a yearbook from the 80s.

I was looking for Hyungjo. Hyungjo wasn’t an activist student like Taewan or Heo Seok.

Even if the incident where Taewan and Sungjoon were dragged away by someone was an illusion, if it were true, then there would be no problem with Hyungjo’s academic record since he hadn’t been an activist. And even if he had become an activist later, there was a high probability that he had lived for a longer time. And if no particular problems had occurred, he would have graduated.

As the night deepened, only a few students and I remained in the vast library. The later it got, the more urgent my hands became. There was no trace of them in the 8X year roster either.

On that day when blood soaked the hallway, did they all end up dying? Is that why they keep repeating that grudge?

I’d heard something like that somewhere. That earth-bound spirits can’t leave the place where they died and keep repeating the same actions….

I opened the 8X yearbook. Hurriedly but precisely, I went over the faces.

“Ah, ahh!”

A scream burst out.

It was Hyungjo.

It was definitely Hyungjo. In the second row of the yearbook, Hyungjo’s neat face in a graduation cap was captured in a black and white photo.

Hot tears welled up and flowed uncontrollably.

“You’re alive, right?”

“……Yes.”

You were alive. Weren’t you? Hyungjo?

The next day, I contacted the alumni association and managed to get Hyungjo’s phone number.

I knelt down, holding the phone in my hand like someone performing a rite, and stared at the phone number written on the note as if I would devour it.

My mind grew complicated again.

If Hyungjo was alive, how did he live with those spirits?

In the end… did he die?

I didn’t want to confirm it. I didn’t want to feel that sense of betrayal and longing that gouged out my raw flesh again.

And even if he were alive….

Would he remember me?

No, he’s dead. He must be dead.

I ended up not making the call and threw away the note, but I had already memorized the number. The number engraved in my mind made my heart uneasy. For days on end, I agonized as if I were sick. I tossed and turned all night worrying, but no answer came.

The most frightening thing was not reconfirming Hyungjo’s death, but meeting him alive and him not remembering me.

The one who held me, who entered me, who told me he loved me—even if that was a spirit, I didn’t think I could handle it if the living him, the one with a physical form, didn’t remember me.

I was afraid that with that face I longed for, with that desperate face, he would say he didn’t know me, that he didn’t know who on earth I was. I was most afraid that those lovely lips would say such things.

That wasn’t all. Hyungjo had leaped across an eternity of time alone. He had lived through those distant years by himself. Hyungjo was now my father’s age.

And I was still the same as I was that day.

∞ ∞ ∞

I commuted from my aunt’s house. I tried to adjust to school life. I even tried to approach my classmates first, hesitantly.

My aunt became pregnant. Her house was always filled with happiness and excited anticipation thanks to the new life.

I was going to have a cute cousin, but I wasn’t happy, or joyful, or glad. Feeling sorry and burdensome for being gloomy and listless in front of my aunt, I would leave at the crack of dawn and return late at night.

I started eating normally and gained back some weight, but I wasn’t plump like before. My grades were a mess, and I often skipped lectures.

Sitting blankly on a bench in front of the Department of East Asian History and the Humanities building, where I had no business, I would suddenly think of Hyungjo and swallow the tears that welled up.

He was a ghost, and I was a person. I tried my best to think that way, but no matter what I did, his face wouldn’t be erased from my mind.

“I liked you from the moment I first saw you.”

“…….”

“Go.”

Hyungjo’s low bass voice, the corners of his eyes where tears flowed….

I resented Hyungjo. I didn’t just resent Hyungjo; I resented the era as well. I resented Taewan, Sungjoon, and Heo Seok just as much, whom I had liked so much. If you’re going to die, you should have died peacefully. What grudge did you have left to do this to me? It was to the point where if I could just meet King Yeomra, I would wish to die immediately by slitting my wrist somewhere.

What on earth did you have against me….

I was spending those days steeped in such resentment. It was then that I suddenly recalled Hyungjo’s behavior towards me.

Whenever I began to suspect that they were living lives that didn’t fit the era, Hyungjo would grab my wrist and manipulate my consciousness. Every time, I would accept them and that era as a matter of course, and then, after some time, I would doubt again, only to have Hyungjo dispel those doubts with his control. Just as consciousness fades to white, my suspicions would disappear in the same way.

I recalled the things Hyungjo had said.

You’re different from us. You can’t live with us.

Don’t say anything, just leave.

Remember this well. You have to remember.

Go inside, it’s time to sleep.

It’s because we’re different! We’re different! Different!

Uncover it. Uncover the truth, Hyunwoo.

I won’t forget.

I won’t forget. Forever.

Uncover it. Uncover the truth.

“What was he trying to tell me…?”

I shot up from my seat.

Hyungjo is alive. He’s alive, and for some reason, he called me, controlled me, and made it so that I could see them!

The moment my thoughts reached that point, I picked up my phone. I had thrown away the note with his number, but the number remained perfectly in my head. Taking a deep breath, I dialed the number I remembered.

—Yes, this is the Seongbuk-dong residence.

“……Hello?”

—Yes, this is the Seongbuk-dong residence. Please state your business.

“I-is this by any chance the home of Mr. Kim Hyungjo?”

—Yes, it is. Who is this?

“Gasp!”

I hurriedly covered my mouth to stop a scream from escaping. The person on the other end kept saying, hello, hello, waiting for my response. I trembled as if someone was grabbing my shoulders and shaking me.

—Hello? Please speak. Are you looking for Professor Kim Hyungjo?

“Ye-es! Where is Mr. Kim Hyungjo, where is he right now?”

—Oh my, you must not have heard the news. Are you a student from the university?

“What? Yes.”

—The professor is in the hospital right now. Can you take a memo? I’ll tell you. His wife said to give the information to any student who calls the house.

“Yes, I can take a memo.”

I pressed down and wrote what she told me on the palm of my hand.

“……”

I stared blankly down at the hospital and room number written on my palm.

Hyungjo is alive.

Hyungjo, who is now my father’s age.

Hyungjo was trying to tell me something.

And he’s in the hospital now?

My mind was a whirlwind of chaos.

What do I do, what do I do…. The address written on my palm had become a little blurry, but like the phone number, I had naturally memorized it as well.

Hyungjo, who loved Maria Callas, Hyungjo, who loved me.

It feels like a dream, someone please tell me it’s a dream. Please….