Eighteen’s Bed Novel Completed - Chapter 105

My first impression wasn’t good, but Go Yohan’s mother, while talking with my mother, was the epitome of a benevolent parent. Besides, I couldn’t criticize her mother in front of her daughter, could I? However, Go Rosa crumpled her face at my words and spoke contemptuously.

“What is this, not even a fool?”

“Did I make a mistake?”

Perhaps my strength is that I’m a fast learner. Go Yohan once said that his sister had a crush on me. Of course, I knew Go Yohan was just teasing excessively. But I definitely sensed a tiny bit of goodwill in her words. Go Rosa definitely didn’t think badly of me.

“Is there a reason why the auntie helped me? Should I not have done this?”

“Wow, you hung out with an idiot and became a real idiot yourself.”

Go Rosa is sharp, but still young. Truly, young. I felt both mortified to the point of wanting to die and exhilarated. Yes, after all, a child is still a child. Isn’t she the only one in this house from whom I can find something out? That’s why I came here. To meet this child.

My hands were drenched in sweat from nervousness. So I naturally rubbed my palms on my clothes, which must have made me look even more foolish. Go Rosa, who snorted again at my hands, suddenly asked me a question.

“Why did you do that at our house back then?”

But this wasn’t the question I wanted to be asked.

“…What happened?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know, back then at dinner. To be honest, you looked like a complete idiot.”

I had heard that before, sometime. I agonized as suppressed memories resurfaced vividly.

“What did you say back then? I feel like I heard something utterly ridiculous. I can’t remember it. I think I only thought about getting out of there quickly. What kind of idiotic bastard suddenly… I think that’s all I thought.”

“…”

“Then I thought, ‘Ah, it’s Go Yohan’s prank. That bastard is playing tricks again.'”

Go Rosa scanned Go Yohan’s room with a look of contempt, as if looking at an insect. Then she lightly clicked her tongue, turned her head, and looked directly at me.

“I’m going to tell you something because I pity you. Don’t get close to Go Yohan.”

“Why?”

I asked a little crookedly. To be honest, I felt a bit choked up. At that miserably dismissive tone.

“Afraid you’ll be influenced?”

So I spoke a little sharply. Okay, let’s say I made a mistake. But was it something I deserved to be criticized for like that? Even if the outcome was disastrous, my intention was good. Is it something I deserve to be criticized for just because I did something foolish? My heightened emotions burst open the anger I had suppressed. My mouth, on its own, blabbered out my unjustly felt emotions from back then.

“Back then, I… Was I that stupid back then? I, I did it because I felt sorry for Go Yohan in my own way. If being an idiot means not understanding the atmosphere, then I guess I was an idiot. Right?”

“What, what are you saying?”

Go Rosa looked at me with flustered eyes. Her attitude made me even angrier.

“I admit Go Yohan is strange. But this is all because of what happened in this family. I, in my own way, tried to shield someone who was being ostracized and take their side. Was that so foolish?”

“Ostracism?”

At my words, Go Rosa’s expression stiffened. But it was the face of someone who had heard something incomprehensible rather than guilt. Go Rosa, twitching one eyebrow, asked again.

“Ostracism? Who?”

Only those who have been hit by a stone know the pain. Of course, the problem was that the bastard who threw the stone at me was Go Yohan. But I had learned the pain of being shunned by a group.

It was a truly disgusting feeling. Unlike my short period of ostracism, Go Yohan’s must have been his whole life. In a way, I could think it served him right, but then again, human emotion makes you feel unfairly treated. If you hadn’t tormented Go Yohan like that in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened, would it? Why did you raise that bastard like that? My primal resentment goes to the source.

“Go Yohan. Who else in this house is being ostracized besides him?”

“Go Yohan? Ostracism? In our house? This is crazy-!”

Go Rosa, who had been making a high, metallic sound again, abruptly stopped speaking and quickly shut her mouth.

A small hand gripped my clothes and pulled hard. She didn’t say ‘follow me,’ but it was an implied command. I followed behind Go Rosa, still holding onto my clothes, and we both huffed heavily, heading towards a small room I had never entered before. Go Rosa, who violently pushed me into the room, shouted as soon as she locked the door.

“Crazy, I’m hearing such bullshit!”

“Bullshit? I saw and heard everything.”

“Hey! What do you know?”

Go Rosa’s slender index finger jabbed my shoulder hard. Being pushed wasn’t painful, but it was unpleasant, so I frowned. But Go Rosa didn’t care at all. She just screamed with a flushed face.

“What do you know! Go Yohan, that bastard, is the most loved one in our house!”

“What?”

“What the hell are you talking about? That’s what I felt like asking back. You need to say something that makes sense. What was that condescending tone from Go Yohan’s father, what were the insults, what was the alienated dinner table, and what was Go Yohan’s sad expression? I’m disgusted by how you’re trying to cover up lies with such absurd words. It was sickening.

“Do you really curse at a child you call pretty like that? Do your parents do that?”

“Does that bastard’s actions look like they wouldn’t make you swear, you? If it were me, I’d have disowned them. They should be grateful that they’re even being kept around right now. You should be thankful that that damn sociopathic bastard is in school and not a mental hospital! Yeah, I hate him. I just wish that bastard would leave home!”

Go Rosa couldn’t hide her excitement and screamed, and I, disgusted by her, couldn’t hold back and snapped, responding just as loudly.

“Sociopath? Wow, what did he do? Just, just liked a guy? Just that one thing?”

“You went through all that, and you still want to defend him?”

No, this isn’t defending Go Yohan; it’s defending myself. Right now, I’m taking this kid’s words not as an attack on Go Yohan, but as an attack on me. It’s absurd to say it’s okay to be personally insulted just for liking men. I’m not a sociopath, and I have no reason to go to a mental hospital.

I’ve lived better than anyone, harming no one.

“There’s no need to treat someone like this for just that one reason. Calling them crazy, a sociopath. Who was it that revealed and dug up the secret first? It was your family. Just, just for something like that…”

“What? Who said that? Go Yohan? Did he say it with his own mouth? That it’s true?”

Go Rosa’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open.

“Who revealed it? He said it first! That crazy bastard, that crazy bastard said it during middle school Christmas! In front of the whole family! While everyone was praying together, wishing for the family’s well-being and peace, he was the bastard who said the gift he wanted was a ‘boyfriend’!”

“…What did you just say?”

“Ostracized? That kind of bastard rides around on that expensive motorcycle and causes accidents every time, and his parents cover for him? He’s the bastard who walked on his own two feet and reported a secret that the adults were keeping quiet about because he didn’t like some kid in his class! Our family bore the brunt of that backlash! That bastard is truly insane. He’s not just any crazy, I’m telling you! And on top of that, he’s a bastard with an attachment complex, trying to monopolize all his parents’ love, a typical second-child complex. For causing that much trouble, just getting cursed at is getting off easy!”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

What is this?

What did I just hear?

Suddenly, I remembered going to Han Junwoo’s hospital room. The strange atmosphere back then began to make sense. The strangely confident Go Yohan, and Han Junwoo’s father, who was watching his expression. No way, it couldn’t be. I refused to interpret it. He’s just a high school student. Go Yohan is just a high school student.

“Ah, I remember now. That idiotic thing you said. The most absurd thing I heard at that dinner table.”

Go Rosa couldn’t suppress her anger. She bit her lip slightly and groaned, then shouted so fiercely that veins popped out in her neck.

“What was it, that… you don’t seem to like marinated crab? Ah, that’s what it was. Hey, you idiot. He’s crazy about crustaceans. That bastard can devour a whole crab or lobster in one sitting, snap out of it! You fool. You’ve been fooled! That bastard is truly insane!”

Honestly, I was scared by the words pouring out like a waterfall. Secondly, I thought it made no sense. Go Yohan couldn’t be that meticulous. Not with his personality.

“…No.”

I was convinced that Go Yohan was definitely ostracized by his family. That conviction hadn’t changed even now. I was just confused by the unbelievable opinions that had been pouring out for days, overturning everything I knew. That was all. So, what I did to assert my righteousness was to desperately search for evidence to refute it.

“It’s a lie.”

Go Rosa, who had been raging, breathing roughly, then bit her lip tightly and pushed her chest with her palm, swallowing her anger. She closed her eyes once, then opened them, and spoke in a slightly calmer voice.

“A lie? Are you stupid, or just naive…?”

However, Kang Jun was swaying amidst several storms, and Go Rosa was so full of conviction. That’s how human psychology works. One’s beliefs sometimes shake like autumn leaves depending on the other person’s posture.

“…But Go Yohan knew how to cook by himself, and how to use the washing machine by himself.”

“It’s so obvious it’s driving me crazy. He must have read the manual.”

“…”

I couldn’t refute that. Tracing back my memories, Go Yohan searching for the manual clearly came to mind. My mind was slowly fading. The inside of my head throbbed. I couldn’t connect my thoughts at all, so I clutched my forehead. I felt like I was getting anemia. I leaned my body, which felt like it would collapse, against the wall and fell into thought. Go Rosa scoffed at my actions.

“Huh, it’s funny when I think about it. Didn’t you even consider that it’s stranger not to be able to do things by yourself? Serving rice, taking out side dishes from the fridge. Doing dishes, everyone knows how to do that, don’t they?”

“…That, me.”

“Surely you don’t know how? How pampered you must have grown up. Wow, how fun it must have been for Go Yohan to tease you.”

“No. It wasn’t, it wasn’t that kind of feeling…”

I protected myself. The atmosphere back then was truly strange. Go Yohan starving himself, the four of them happily eating at the dinner table… Then, something suddenly occurred to me.

“The living room drawer!”

“What?”

“The living room drawer, the glass drawer, your family photos are in there, right?”

“…So?”

“How many photos of Go Yohan are there?”

“Why are you suddenly asking that? What is it?”

“Quickly!”

His expression clearly showed he thought I was a complete lunatic. Go Rosa’s face was exactly like that. What idiotic thing are you saying? It wasn’t my concern. I was that desperate.

“Was it two?”

Of course. Ha, I smiled.

“As expected, it must have been a photo hastily put up.”

“What…? What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean, the photo? When I saw it earlier, there was clearly only one.”

Where do you think you’re going to make up such absurd excuses? My resentful gaze swept over the girl, who was much younger than me. It was ridiculous, but I felt a strange sense of victory there. Just for something like that. Truly, I couldn’t be more of an idiot. But the child didn’t care at all; instead, she looked at me with an expression that made me feel like she was scoffing at me.

“Weren’t you just putting on a show, caught up in your own prejudice? Did you even look at the family photos properly?”

“What?”

“What do you know to act so presumptuously?”

Normally, I would never have been shaken. I definitely wouldn’t have. I rolled my eyes, then put my hand on the wall and moved my feet. It was a fast pace, fast enough that anyone watching from the side would have thought it a little strange. Before going down the stairs, I suddenly looked at Go Rosa, then hurriedly moved my feet again.

Go Rosa left me alone, and my dazed body brushed past the two people who were still talking. I think I met Go Yohan’s mother’s eyes for a moment. But I didn’t have the presence of mind to even care about the gaze directed at me. I just stared blankly into the glass drawer, leaning against the large sofa.

“No way, no… It can’t be.”

I scanned the photos. My gaze, meticulously sweeping right, left, bottom shelf, top shelf, suddenly stopped. It was a photo I had definitely never seen. Not even that evening. It was a photo of the four family members standing and taking a picture.

“…”

Now that I think about it, it makes sense. Why wouldn’t there be a group photo in a house like this? The answer was at the edge of the photo. It was a mirror reflecting the opposite side of the four family members taking the picture.

Go Yohan was there.

A young Go Yohan, smiling brightly, even making a V-sign with his fingers by his eyes.

The sound of conversation and the world fractured.

The world felt empty. Every step I took felt like an illusion. Like a broken stepping stone that might plunge me somewhere. I don’t even know how I got back. No, Go Rosa was there on the path I had walked aimlessly. With her arms crossed. As if she had followed me.

“He pathologically wants to stand out more than others, you know?”

“…”

“He threw a fit when that photo was taken too.”

The sarcasm pierced my head. But that sneer was my only lifeline. The only truth in this illusion. My eyes must have been empty. That’s why Go Rosa’s face twisted as soon as she saw mine.

“Was he… always like that?”

My throat was choked. I vigorously massaged my choked throat with a hot hand and continued speaking.

“Was he always like that?”

“What, Go Yohan? Well, he’s been an idiot since he was born. Greedy, wanting everything beyond his means, pretending not to give up when he can’t do something. And then constantly eyeing things. Stealthily.”

Go Rosa suddenly burst into laughter. It was truly sudden laughter. I stared at her laughter with a blank gaze. Go Rosa, covering her mouth as she laughed, glanced at me and spoke.

“Something really funny just came to mind, want me to tell you?”

“…What is it?”

“Do you know what his complex is?”

It’s funny that even in this situation, I’m curious about Go Yohan’s complex. Anyway, I was serious even about a funny story. After thinking for a while, I mentioned the most plausible complex.

“…Liking men?”

“No, having a lower IQ than me.”

“…”

“I’m 137, and Go Yohan was probably 119. When we were little, I teased him a lot. ‘Your brain is a real emergency. Even the world knows it.’ Then that bastard, who pretended to be so relaxed, would turn red then. Phew, he also had ADHD. It was hard to fix that.”

“…”

“He’d die before admitting he had ADHD. No one would know, probably? Oh, right. Looking at what he does, he seems somewhat smart, but the important thing is that his empathy is incredibly low, so he can’t think from other people’s perspectives, you know? Every time I see him, I think, ‘Is this what a sociopath is like?’ They say that’s why sociopaths succeed socially, right?”

Go Rosa peeked in the direction of the adults and stifled a laugh. Her snickering sounds played like background music. As for my brain, well, maybe a fuse had blown. Only empty thoughts came to mind. Empty thoughts. Even if I forced something out, every word that came out was pathetic.

“He told me his parents wouldn’t send him to an academy…”

“Academy? Why would he go to an academy? He hates hard workers. He likes geniuses.”

“Go, he even studied with strange books.”

Ha! A condescending voice lightly popped out. When I looked at her with a confused face, my eyes met Go Rosa’s, who was wearing a mocking smile.

“You don’t know, do you? That’s all a concept, a concept. Useless antics to boost his self-esteem. He’s acting like he’s that relaxed. Don’t you know? It’s because he doesn’t want his limitations exposed.”