Delusive Fate

#085

They say misfortune comes on horseback. It arrives on horseback and leaves on foot. They say misfortune never comes alone, and that misfortune begets misfortune.

They say the cause of misfortune always lies within oneself.

So this is all a situation I’ve created, Ki Baek-woo thought. Where did it begin? That night, when I lied to hyung who was so affectionate even in his sleep? Or was it when I momentarily forgot about hyung? When I was living normally despite forgetting hyung, when I… did that thing with Jung Yi-dam…?

Or perhaps when I met Jung Yi-dam.

When exactly did misfortune find me, and how has it grown so large? Ki Baek-woo stood alone at the front door, quietly staring into the house.

‘What should I do…?’

Ki Baek-woo couldn’t figure out what he should do or how. Things he thought would soon get better didn’t, and things that needed to improve immediately didn’t…

Ki Baek-woo had just returned from several days of raiding. The morning when Lee Han-sol suddenly started cursing and glaring at Ki Baek-woo with cold eyes. After breakfast that day, he had left for the gate in a daze, and only now were the two of them finally facing each other.

No, is “facing each other” the right expression? Ki Baek-woo lost confidence in his choice of words. Because Lee Han-sol didn’t even spare him a glance. So this was closer to a one-sided return than a reunion. Ki Baek-woo felt his mouth going dry.

The day he left for the raid, Ki Baek-woo thought Lee Han-sol must have been angry about something. When he suddenly called out Jung Yi-dam’s name and spoke sharply, Ki Baek-woo fell into confusion, wondering if he knew something, what he knew, and how much he knew, and what would happen to him now. But Lee Han-sol told the stunned and sitting Ki Baek-woo that it was all a joke. Was it really a joke? If it was a joke, why Jung Yi-dam of all people? Why that name specifically…? It was somehow hard to believe, but realistically, there was no way Lee Han-sol could have known about his relationship with Jung Yi-dam, so he forced a laugh. And he thought, right, it’s just a thief being overly suspicious. There’s no reason for hyung to lie to me about something like that…

So he concluded that he must have done something wrong to upset Lee Han-sol. Of course, Lee Han-sol had been so affectionate the night before, but Ki Baek-woo couldn’t come to any other conclusion. If that wasn’t the case, there was no way Lee Han-sol would suddenly become so cold. No, wait a minute.

Is this really impossible? Actually, I’ve often thought about it. That someday, something like this would happen…

A familiar anxiety was creeping in.

Ki Baek-woo’s heart had a complex structure. He hoped that Lee Han-sol wouldn’t see him as a nuisance, so from some point, he tried to act like a simple person, but his inherent nature was unavoidable. Ki Baek-woo was, to put it kindly, sensitive, and to put it negatively, complicated and oversensitive. His heart was divided into hundreds and thousands of layers. At the very top was a Lee Han-sol who would love only him forever, below that was a Lee Han-sol who was too kind and gentle to him, and below that was a Lee Han-sol who smiled only at him.

But below that, further down, even further down, there was a Lee Han-sol who smiled at him but also smiled at others, and below that was a Lee Han-sol who was too kind and gentle to him but also kind to others.

Below that was a Lee Han-sol who didn’t love him forever.

When did it start… It had been like that from the beginning. This was entirely Ki Baek-woo’s problem. It was the result of Ki Baek-woo not being as straightforward as Lee Han-sol. Ki Baek-woo knew this too. So he tried desperately. He tried to think of only one thing. Lee Han-sol had always been by his side since the Annihilation fell to earth, and he had never said he would leave. So he shouldn’t engage in the tiresome act of creating misfortune alone, pulling it out alone, and ruminating on it alone. He shouldn’t let it show.

Ki Baek-woo, who had been like that, now looked at the very back of his heart for the first time in a long time. There were old doubts that he had buried, trying not to think about them.

He was actually always afraid. He had been scared for a very long time that something like this might suddenly happen. A fear that stubbornly revealed its underwater existence, emitting a stench even when he tried to cover it up and not look at it.

Yes, that’s right. Hyung could abandon me at any time. In fact, it would have been much easier for him to leave someone like me behind… That… even now… isn’t… much… different….

Ki Baek-woo looked at Lee Han-sol’s back, hunched over the laptop on the living room table. His body, wrapped in loose homewear, seemed unwilling to move. Ki Baek-woo thought about the volume of that body. A body that filled his embrace perfectly, like fitting puzzle pieces, without any gaps. Clinging tightly without any empty spaces, preventing Ki Baek-woo’s petty deficiencies from leaking out… Lee Han-sol, who now wasn’t looking back at him.

Ki Baek-woo stared at this quietly. It wasn’t that he was calm; he couldn’t move because he didn’t know what to do. His solar plexus tightened. His heart was beating heavily. Boom, boom, boom. It felt like a giant metal ball was repeatedly falling to his feet and bouncing up, crushing his brain.

Without realizing it, he was gripping his left arm tightly with his right hand. His five fingers pressed into his skin as if they were going to tear the flesh off. As he got used to that pain, he mechanically started scratching the inside of his arm. Scratching harder and harder. Harder. Just a little more… If that could help him endure the anxiety right now, Ki Baek-woo would…

“Ah.”

He momentarily came to his senses at the stinging sensation. Looking down, he saw blood seeping from the abraded skin. Raising his head after watching the blood newly beading on the scratched wound, he felt cold on his back. The t-shirt he was wearing under his shirt was already soaked with cold sweat.

Ki Baek-woo gathered his courage once again. He called out to Lee Han-sol. He pretended to be hurt, extending his arm. Although it was a self-inflicted wound from just moments ago, he thought he wouldn’t be rejected this time since there was visible blood.

‘Because hyung… is kind.’

Because he was so kind that even when he was angry, if Ki Baek-woo pretended to be hurt, he would sigh and hug him. Every time he was embraced, Ki Baek-woo could feel reassured that hyung still liked him.

It’s okay if he keeps being angry, but it would be nice if he could just hug me once right now…

‘Just once, right now.’

Ki Baek-woo desperately longed for Lee Han-sol’s embrace. Questions and anxieties, ominous feelings and guilt, fear… These things were swelling up in an indistinguishable mass. Inside Ki Baek-woo, they were expanding precariously, on the verge of bursting, pressing down on all his internal organs. Ki Baek-woo had recently had a strange experience, had done something dirty to Lee Han-sol that he never wanted to tell him about with his own mouth, and had even forgotten about Lee Han-sol for a moment. It’s unbelievable. It’s a story that shouldn’t exist even as an urban legend.

But such a thing really happened, and it felt like a signal that the end of Lee Han-sol and himself was approaching. As if on cue, even the timing separated them. At a time when he needed to be right next to Lee Han-sol to confirm that he was still normal, Ki Baek-woo had to head straight to the gate.

From that moment on, Ki Baek-woo repeated his thoughts incessantly. We’re okay. We’ll be okay forever. When I return home after work is done, hyung will smile at me as if nothing ever happened, and I will never again do anything shameful in front of hyung. So we will always be the same. His thoughts continued more persistently than obsession, almost like self-hypnosis.

Before entering the gate, Ki Baek-woo, dressed in his combat uniform, kept checking his phone repeatedly for any contact from Lee Han-sol while pacing restlessly. Unlike his usual quiet demeanor, he was acting as fidgety as a dog needing to relieve itself, drawing puzzled glances from others. Among them was Jung Yi-dam’s, but Ki Baek-woo tried to consciously, more and more deliberately, cover up the unconscious attraction of “Jung Yi-dam is over there.”

We’re okay. I’m okay. Hyung is okay…

Even before entering the gate, even after the raid started, Ki Baek-woo tried his hardest not to look at Jung Yi-dam. As if possessed by something, unpleasant sounds kept popping up.

We’re okay we’re forever lookatidam okay I’m idamalmostfell we’re okay we’relookatidamwe’re okay. Please.

Ki Baek-woo unleashed this maddening anxiety by flying around inside the gate like a runaway. Choi Tae-hyuk’s curses flew towards him for breaking the pre-arranged formation. Still, Ki Baek-woo didn’t stop, running along the mossy gate walls, crumpling and bursting the Annihilation. The cracked voice calling for Jung Yi-dam digging into his mind, the unpleasantly sizzling monster before his eyes. Strangely, feeling as if these two were the same thing, he found it even more unbearable.

He had an instinct that he shouldn’t look directly at Jung Yi-dam. If he saw him, he felt he might throw up remembering that day’s kiss. He became scared. Afraid that if he stayed next to him, he might forget Lee Han-sol again. Last time he was lucky enough to realize his mistake, but this time he might never remember Lee Han-sol again. Such a thing absolutely… Ki Baek-woo was on edge, desperately trying not to be close to Jung Yi-dam, not to look at him during that raid. He was desperate. At some point, the stress became so severe that his stomach churned. Still, he didn’t stop thinking.

Me and hyung are okay we’re okay we’re forever no idam okay we’re okay okay idam is okay okay hyung

When he got caught up alone with Jung Yi-dam in a double dungeon during this time, Ki Baek-woo felt like he was about to faint. Like a germaphobe screaming after falling into a septic tank, he too felt the urge to scream out loud. It was terrible.

‘I’ll keep moving until we find the gate core.’

‘Don’t push yourself too hard, Hunter. Not getting hurt is the most important thing, right?’

‘…’

Ki Baek-woo focused all his attention on escaping the dungeon. Jung Yi-dam tried to strike up a conversation a few times, but Ki Baek-woo hardly gave proper responses. He was using all his mental energy just to maintain his sanity and be wary of Jung Yi-dam. Being in an abnormally heightened state of alertness, strange things like his mind going blank despite the extreme stress didn’t happen.

Some time passed filled with tension. During this time, Ki Baek-woo focused only on destroying the approaching Annihilation. When he could finally gauge the location of the gate core, he suddenly felt a heat in his throat. Something seemed to be refluxing. He ignored it and kicked off the ground, running forward.

Grrrk, grk.

Ki Baek-woo hurled himself towards the Annihilation that was undulating in a strange shape. Thud, he felt a dull pain as he rammed into the giant monster, but he still stretched out his arm and pierced through the monster’s body. The monster crumpled around Ki Baek-woo’s hand stuck inside its body.

Ah, as expected. The gate core is here…

Throwing away the monster’s remains, Ki Baek-woo spat out what had refluxed into his mouth. A blood clot fell near his combat boots. There was no sign of agitation. It would have been stranger if his body was fine after finishing a gate alone in three days without rest. It wasn’t self-destruction, just its precursor, which was okay. He just wanted to get out of here quickly.

‘Haha…’

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand covered in black tactical gloves, Ki Baek-woo approached the gate core embedded in the dungeon wall. He thought he heard Jung Yi-dam laughing behind him, but he ignored it. Come to think of it, Jung Yi-dam, who had been persistently trying to talk to him, seemed to have fallen silent at some point. Thinking that was at least fortunate, Ki Baek-woo threw his fist towards the huge, green-glowing gate core.

As the double dungeon collapsed, Ki Baek-woo heard Jung Yi-dam’s voice once more.

‘Hahaha, haha. That’s right, it ends up like this after all… Finally! Ahahahaha, hahaha…!’

It was an incomprehensible burst of laughter. The intense laughter, as if he might burst into tears, felt eerie as it contained no sense of joy or pleasure. Still, Ki Baek-woo didn’t look back.

We’re okay. Hyung and I are okay. We’ll continue to be fine forever, without any problems. I love hyung, and hyung loves me.

Repeating only those thoughts, he rushed home. He wanted to see Lee Han-sol. But.

“I’m hurt… If you’re angry about something, can’t you tell me? I’m sorry, I don’t really know why you’re angry… Hyung, please hug me quickly.”

But what if Lee Han-sol still seems to love me less? Even when I say I’m hurt… if he looks at me like that… with those scary eyes as if looking at a stranger… with no interest… what should I do?

Ki Baek-woo lost his bearings and moved his lips silently. Lee Han-sol said,

“If you’re hurt, you should go to a healer. Ask Jung Yi-dam to heal you.”

Ki Baek-woo thought then.

It’s Jung Yi-dam. My misfortune took on Jung Yi-dam’s face and entered that conference room back then. Everything is my fault for encountering Jung Yi-dam…

‘What should I do…’

He wanted to turn back time.