Place to Be Chapter 39

Without room for further discussion, Jang Wigeon left those words behind and immediately ran out of the shop. Seo Chiyoung muttered, “Oh,” and looked around the shop in a panic, but seeing Jang Wigeon already running a fair distance away into the rain, he quickly grabbed the plastic umbrella and Yoon Junyoung’s belongings and ran after him.

Rather than getting the car from where it was parked and driving to Yoon Junyoung’s house, Jang Wigeon strode along almost at a run, saying it would take less time to carry Yoon Junyoung on his back; Seo Chiyoung followed behind, holding the umbrella over his head, though it was so small it was hardly of any use.

The phone in Seo Chiyoung’s hand had been repeatedly ringing and cutting off for some time. Jang Wigeon, glancing at it as if annoyed, caught sight of the phone Seo Chiyoung was holding and raised his eyebrows.

“Isn’t that Junyoung’s phone?”

“Yes… Mr. Kwon Kanghee has been calling since a while ago, but I wasn’t sure if I should answer…”

As Seo Chiyoung muttered in distress, Jang Wigeon fell silent. After glaring fiercely at the phone, he turned his head away without a word. Seo Chiyoung quickly switched the phone to vibrate during a brief pause between calls and put it in his pocket.

“That bastard, it’s because he’s angry… he’s calling continuously because he’s angry.”

Right then, Yoon Junyoung, who had been hanging limp as if fainted on Jang Wigeon’s back, muttered in a voice that could barely be understood only if one leaned in close to listen. It seemed he had woken up at some point. Even so, he couldn’t even open his eyes, looking half-unconscious.

Jang Wigeon glanced over his shoulder. Even though he couldn’t possibly see Yoon Junyoung clearly while carrying him on his back, he cast a pained gaze in that direction and spoke bluntly, “Why.”

Yoon Junyoung, who had been silent for so long that one might have thought he had fainted again, spoke slowly and intermittently while the faint vibration from inside Seo Chiyoung’s pocket could be heard.

“…Because I poured out all sorts of curses before I left. Asking him if he thought I’d go to a thug’s wedding…… Ha ha, he said he’s getting married to distance himself from me. So, I told him to just hurry up and get married. That he should just bring that woman right now and get married on the spot. That it’s reached the point of being tedious, so I actually feel relieved…. I told him congratulations on the wedding, and let’s never see each other again…. It’s over. Wigeon. It’s over.”

As if talking in his sleep while in a coma, difficult-to-understand words flowed out one by one. Even while catching only half of it, Jang Wigeon remained silent. Eventually, he muttered in a low voice.

“Right…. End it…. It’s been very hard for you all this time. You’ve been through a lot.”

The aching comfort contained in that low voice seeped into the heart.

Seo Chiyoung stared blankly at Jang Wigeon before turning his gaze away.

With what kind of heart is he saying those things, he wondered, as he cleared his throat where something hot was welling up.

For a long time, no one spoke. There was Yoon Junyoung hanging limp—whether he had fallen asleep, lost consciousness, or was simply closing his eyes—and Jang Wigeon moving his feet in silence while carrying his friend on his broad back, and Seo Chiyoung walking beside them, holding up the umbrella while his own shoulder grew sodden with rain.

Eventually, they left the market alley and entered an apartment complex, until the only sounds remaining were the sound of rain, footsteps, and the occasional vibration of the phone.

And from some point, the sound of low, quietly suppressed sobbing brushed against the ears.

“…I, I don’t know how to stop… I want to stop, but I can’t. Even now, I can’t… I don’t know how I can give up…. I can’t breathe…”

Yoon Junyoung was crying, whispering the words piece by piece like a monologue. He who always wore a cold and indifferent face, who was never without composure, cried like a defenseless child with his limp body soaked by rain and his heart bleeding from being torn to shreds.

Strength entered Jang Wigeon’s tightly set jaw. His rigidly frozen face seemed to tremble faintly.

Eventually, after a long silence. While keeping Yoon Junyoung on his back as he trembled slightly, swallowing the sobs that kept leaking out despite his efforts to suppress them.

Jang Wigeon opens his mouth.

To say the words he had kept in his heart for a long time.

Without even a hint of playfulness, without hiding behind the guise of a joke, fully revealing a sincerity so heavy it was painful.

“Can’t it be me?”

The low voice was by no means loud, but it was enough to resonate in that place.

“Come to me. I’ll do whatever you want…. Junyoung. I love you.”

The quietly whispered words contained unmistakable sincerity. To those serious words, which no one could dismiss as a joke or lightly brush off, no answer returned for a while. The sincerity that flowed out for the first time scattered in the air without anyone to receive it.

Only much later.

“I’m sorry,” a trembling voice that barely suppressed its sobbing whispered. But that voice soon cried out as if exhaling its breath. The crying did not stop, as if he were crying for the first time in his life. No, perhaps he truly was crying for the first time in his life.

Until they arrived at Yoon Junyoung’s house and stepped inside, Jang Wigeon also did not say a single word. Well, aside from that short response that flowed out much later.

That seemed to be the last of the energy remaining in Yoon Junyoung.

When they entered Yoon Junyoung’s house and laid him down on the floor, he did not open his closed eyes. He said nothing more. His eyes, wet with seeping tears, also slowly dried.

“…I’ll use some of your things.”

Seo Chiyoung, who muttered awkwardly even though the owner of the house was unconscious and there was no one to answer, peered through a few doors before finding the bathroom and bringing out several towels. And soon, he began to remove the clothes Yoon Junyoung was wearing. Taking wet clothes off the body of an unconscious, limp person was not easy, so it took quite a bit of time just to remove a few items of clothing. During that time, Yoon Junyoung continued to shiver violently, but once the clothes were all off, the shaking subsided slightly.

Jang Wigeon, who had been standing blankly as if he had lost his soul, stared vacantly at Seo Chiyoung as he struggled to remove the clothes from Yoon Junyoung’s unsupporting body, only coming to his senses and approaching when Seo Chiyoung’s hand reached Yoon Junyoung’s trousers. He then silently assisted Seo Chiyoung.

After removing all the wet clothing from his body and wiping away the moisture with dry towels, they laid him in the bed where the temperature had been raised. Thinking it would be worse if he got soaked with sweat, they wrapped his naked body tightly in the duvet without putting any clothes on him before quietly closing the bedroom door and coming out.

When Seo Chiyoung returned to the living room after putting the wet clothes and towels in a laundry basket he found while carefully peering into every corner of the house, Jang Wigeon was standing silently in the living room. As if lost in thought or out of his mind, he didn’t even glance at Seo Chiyoung as he approached, staring only at the floor.

“…You should take your clothes off too, Mr. Wigeon. You’ll catch a cold.”

From carrying Yoon Junyoung like a wet lump of cotton, Jang Wigeon himself was soaking wet. It was more severe than Seo Chiyoung, whose one shoulder was completely wet from tilting the umbrella as far as possible toward the two of them.

Jang Wigeon, who didn’t budge even when Seo Chiyoung spoke to him as if his mind were elsewhere, finally muttered, “Ah, clothes… right,” and unbuttoned his shirt himself only after Seo Chiyoung began to quietly undo them for him. Once he removed the wet clothes and wiped his body to remove the moisture, it wasn’t cold even without clothes because the interior was heated.

While saying “Thank you” to Seo Chiyoung as he took the shirt and draped it over the back of a chair, Jang Wigeon stared only into empty space, seemingly absent-minded.

Just then, a vrr—, vibration rang out from Seo Chiyoung’s pocket. At that sound, Jang Wigeon turned his head for the first time. In an instant, his expression vanished. Seeing that cold face where not a single emotion surfaced, Seo Chiyoung instinctively shrunk back.

“Give it to me.”

Speaking in a low voice, Jang Wigeon held out his hand. That expressionless face, which hid what he was thinking, looked as if it wouldn’t be strange if it transformed into a terrifying monster in the very next moment.

After hesitating for a second, Seo Chiyoung handed him the phone where the name Kwon Kanghee was blinking on the screen. Jang Wigeon looked at the screen briefly and answered the call.

“Hello.”

{…Why are you answering? Did Junyoung go to you?}