Eighteen’s Bed Novel Completed - Chapter 1

Love, it’s happiest when you find someone similar to yourself. I agree with that statement. Similar values, similar family backgrounds, similar education, similar financial standing, similar levels of attractiveness. Birds of a feather. I was a clever child who knew very well that this was the highway to happiness that everyone sought.

Then, in the year I turned seventeen, I realized I was experiencing an astonishing love. Perhaps it was a case of love at first sight that I was only now acknowledging. However, I prided myself on being very rational and logical, so I simply dismissed it as a mere high schooler’s first illness, swallowing it without a thought.

But the tightly coiled emotion choked my esophagus, and in the end, it killed me.

“To Sinsa Station, please.”

I’m currently watching the city’s dawn landscape flow by. It’s because an unexpected call, like an unscheduled appointment, brazenly stole my entire dawn.

After receiving the call, I sat still on my bed for a while, then muttered curses and got up. Anyway, there was no one home except the sleeping housekeeper, so I wouldn’t be caught having gone out. So, I decided to go.

While waiting for a taxi outside the main gate, I saw a single motorcycle standing alone by the neighbor’s wall, across the alley. A year ago, a new family moved into the house next door, which had been vacated as if in a hurry. However, I never had occasion to meet the new family. Given the neighborhood’s characteristic of being full of houses where you couldn’t even see the top of the wall when you looked up, I figured it was inevitable. Guessing from the motorcycle, I thought it might be a house with a child a bit older than me.

That motorcycle usually just sat carelessly in front of the gate, or else it was tucked away in a corner of the alley, tightly bound by a chain, as if hiding. Its appearance was strangely like looking at myself. In the early morning, I gazed at the motorcycle indifferently before passing by.

After getting into the taxi, I kept looking out the window. But I get severe motion sickness and can’t ride in a car for long, so I soon gave up watching the scenery and closed my eyes.

“……”

For about a year now, I haven’t been able to digest food properly. I let out a weak sigh, feeling a stubborn blockage that wouldn’t budge. I tried not to be swayed by the emotions that made me uncomfortable, and thankfully, after persistent effort, I had managed to endure until now with an unperturbed expression. Just like how I could now get out of the taxi that had arrived and head into the hotel.

Entering the hotel, I bit my lip, clenched and unclenched my fist once, then searched for the short number clutched in my hand. Standing in front of it, I slowly knocked on the door three times.

“Hey. Han Junwoo. Open the door quickly.”

The door gave no response despite my knocking. I paused, stared into space, then exhaled. Then I clenched my fist tightly and knocked again.

“Open the door!”

This situation, honestly, it was truly fucked up. The thought of what must have happened in this room overnight was disgusting and nauseating, but I couldn’t stop knocking. It was because Han Junwoo had asked me to come find him, and the reason I was enduring this disgust and fulfilling Han Junwoo’s request was because Han Junwoo was the very man who had given me my first illness.

“Why the hell do you call me when you’re having a one-night stand, you useless bastard!”

Ah, it’s agonizing.

My eighteen-year-old life.