Eighteen’s Bed Novel Completed - Chapter 116

“But I’m not!”

Go Yohan, interrupting him with a shout, roughly wiped his face with his palm. His already reddish, frostbitten face turned even redder. Whether it was due to the cold air, or if he was genuinely crying, or if they were crocodile tears. Unidentifiable tears welled up in the unwelcome guest’s eyes.

“What do you know? My… my whole life has been about giving up.”

“…You? Hey. You…”

“I’ve never once had what I wanted. Everyone… everyone hates me. Nothing works out.”

“That’s because your personality is weird.”

“It’s not my personality!”

Standing on the white snow, they glared at each other, in a battle of nerves. Even the reason that had been suppressing his emotions for days had reached its limit. Go Yohan seemed to be the same. He grabbed his head with his reddened, chapped fingers. Then Go Yohan cried out, almost howling.

“I… I’ve never had what I wanted. I’m always a failure… My very existence is a failure… I’ve been broken since birth. I’m a defective product. Dumber than my younger sibling, and… and I want to do so many things, and I want to have things… but everything gets taken away.”

“…”

“Why are you pretending not to know? You know.”

“…What am I pretending not to know?”

“You too, you were the same as me. You were the same. You, you definitely saw it. Seeing that Han Junwoo bastard. You, who wanted and wanted him, yet were driven mad by inferiority, wanting to surpass him. I recognized you.”

Go Yohan’s foot crossed the gate. The sound of him stepping on the piled snow was clear. But Kang Jun still couldn’t take his eyes off Go Yohan’s face. His words were squeezing him.

“Because you and I are kindred spirits.”

No. I’m not like that. The words he was about to say were swallowed back.

“You also couldn’t have many things you wanted, didn’t you? You were in the same… the same situation as me. Still… still, you were different. In the end, you got what you wanted. You became the top student, received love from your parents and teachers… You succeeded. At least your homeroom teacher liked you. You’ve experienced it.”

“…”

“So do it for me too…”

Go Yohan’s two feet completely crossed the gate.

“I… I think I could do it then…”

What should he do? He pondered for a moment. He couldn’t deny that he was swayed by Go Yohan’s words. His words were true. His words were true. He tried to be loved by everyone. And Go Yohan, who had so easily gained the attention and admiration he craved, was actually longing for him. He silently put a hand to his forehead. Then Go Yohan shouldn’t have done that to him.

He took a step. And he forcefully grabbed Go Yohan’s cold, frozen arm and turned him around. He silently pushed Go Yohan’s back, who was flustered by the sudden action.

“Hey, wait…”

“Don’t say anything more.”

He didn’t want to hear Go Yohan’s excuses. He instinctively felt a sense of repulsion. He had an uneasy thought that he might be standing in the eye of a storm.

He, too, was obsessed with Go Yohan. The idiotic bastard he couldn’t let go of until now because of his damned habits. But he wasn’t someone who could handle Go Yohan, nor did he have the courage. He had an easy path. There was no need for him to walk a difficult path for Go Yohan, who looked down on him. Yes, there wasn’t.

He raised his head, pushed Go Yohan harder, and opened his mouth.

“You’re a good actor. Do your parents hate you a lot? Oh, why did I fall for that?”

At the sudden confession, Go Yohan frowned. As if asking what he was talking about. Kang Jun let out a hollow laugh. He was truly an absurd guy every time he saw him. And he thought Kang Jun would fall for it again.

“What are you talking about…”

“Go ahead and lie again if you want. I won’t see you again anyway. I want to curse at you right now, but I’m barely keeping my voice down because we’re in front of my house.”

“Hey, Kang Jun. Who told you that? Who said that?”

“I don’t know, and thankfully I know that all the worries you just spouted are lies.”

“No, no. Wait, wait!”

“Get out. Whether you can do it or not… take your worries home. Don’t dump them on me.”

He pushed the stumbling Go Yohan out of the gate and grabbed the doorknob. And before Go Yohan could turn around, he quickly closed the door. He didn’t want to see the expression Go Yohan was making. Through the closing gap, he saw Go Yohan’s neck below. He felt a strangely heavy, accusing sensation.

In other words, he used this opportunity, this opportunity of a quiet dawn, to release all the pent-up emotions he had. Perhaps he was drunk too. Because of the heretic who flowed in at dawn, his mouth moved on its own.

“If you knock on the gate again, I’ll call the police. Now, I won’t care about appearances when it comes to you, and I’d rather be embarrassed than run into you. Come to think of it, you’re drunk right now, aren’t you? Good.”

“Jun.”

He didn’t want to hear it. Not his name. Not being called Jun instead of Kang Jun. He pushed the door hard. Bang. The door slammed shut violently. No, he slammed it shut. In the end, he didn’t look at Go Yohan’s face. He was afraid to look. Afraid he would do something stupid again. Or afraid he would regret his choice.

“Just get lost now, please! Get away from me! Before I start to hate you even more terribly!”

The knocking on the gate slowly stopped. The very last sound was a tiny one that could only be heard in the silence. Somehow, that sound seemed a little sad. He lowered his gaze. Below the gate, Go Yohan’s legs were visible. Go Yohan, across from him, but making no sound, frozen like ice.

At the same time, he had an ominous feeling that this moment might remain a bothersome, unremovable lump deep in his heart in the near future. Perhaps even by morning. And that lump would only barely be forgotten after a very long time, his instinct-like obsession told him.

But he pretended not to know. He thought he had every right to do so.

“Let’s never see each other again, you son of a bitch.”

He didn’t realize how little there was to do if he didn’t go to school. He must have lived a busy life until now. School, cram school, tutoring, self-study. When all his routines disappeared, only emptiness remained.

“Ah, I’m bored…”

He was so bored that he went out to the garden to stretch, and even downloaded a famous game on his computer. Honestly, it wasn’t fun, so he turned it off after 10 minutes. His eyes hurt, and he felt nauseous. He read the news that popped up on the search bar. All the newspapers were talking about the same old things, so it was boring.

1 PM. Finally, he gave up everything and lay down on his bed. Just thinking about having to do this until graduation made him feel like he was suffocating.

Right, let’s find a hobby. But what kind of hobby?

When he thought about what hobby to do, nothing came to mind. It was because he had never thought of creative ideas. He was just good at memorizing, but he had never actively done anything. He thought about exercising but shook his head.

“That’s troublesome…”

Exercise didn’t suit him. He was born that way. The only events he got an ‘A’ in for physical fitness were long-distance running and long-duration hanging. He only had pure endurance. Everything else was mediocre.

So what should he do? He blinked and stared at the ceiling. Something floated on the white wallpaper. It must be floating in his eyes, not on the wallpaper. Is it called floaters? The shape of the floaters looked like the continent of Europe. Ah. His languid body shot up.

“Should I go see my parents?”

He got into college, and they’d be happy to see their son. He could also travel at the same time. He couldn’t control his suddenly excited body and stumbled out of bed. The moment he grabbed his phone with a clatter, his sudden excitement instantly plummeted.

“Ah, my phone’s off.”

He couldn’t do anything with his phone, which had been a black screen since morning. Also, wealth accumulates through diligence. Since his parents used that as their motivation, he would surely be scolded if he brought up something like this unless he was sick. Even now, he was skipping school under the excuse of being sick.

He had to endure until graduation, at least. Ugh, he groaned and collapsed back onto his bed.

There was another reason why he was particularly distressed.

After that, someone visited his house every night. The housekeeper found someone quietly loitering in front of the gate at irregular hours in the early morning. When he asked how she knew, since the doorbell never rang, she said she saw it on the CCTV. He didn’t bother to check the CCTV. It was obvious who it was.

“I’m definitely not going out. Who knows what he’ll do to me if I go out.”

If he had to explain his situation, it was an escape. No, was it exile? Or was it like closing the castle gates and holding out until the end? If asked if he was doing this because he was afraid of Go Yohan, the answer was ‘yes.’ However, he knew that this standoff was a wise choice. Go Yohan couldn’t be dealt with head-on.

“If I face him, I’ll just look foolish. Why would I meet him?”

However, this standoff had a major drawback. Since he had nothing to do, he ended up thinking about Go Yohan.

Go Yohan’s expression that he hadn’t seen that day, only Go Yohan’s neck below that he had seen. That kept haunting him like a ghost. He resented himself for not being able to raise his head then. He should have looked. He should have looked, even if it was out of spite. His imagination trapped him.

What kind of face was Go Yohan making then?

His emotions couldn’t be simply summarized into one. Various complex situations, feelings, and realities were like colorful modeling clay, clumped together but not mixing, playing separately. He wished they would all mix into gray. But before the colors could mix, Go Yohan always caused some trouble. When colors covered the gray clay, swirling lines of color were created. Like roughly mixed paints being sucked down a drain.

Every morning, the housekeeper would just stare at him silently, until on the seventh day, she asked for the first time.

“Are you really okay not going to school?”

How startled he was by that question. He felt as if he was being scolded, and he immediately started rambling excuses.

“I’m sick. I have a bad cold these days.”

The housekeeper, who shared the same space, must have quickly realized his lie. However, she didn’t seem to mind, just nodded once and didn’t ask any further questions.

In fact, he had tried going to school a few days ago. It was because boredom and the hellish imagination that constantly plagued him had trapped him.

He had worn his school uniform, which smelled unfamiliar since it hadn’t been washed in a long time, and even went to the school gate. However, the ringing of the school bell and the heavy clamor of teenagers pushed him away. In the end, he couldn’t even go home, worrying about the housekeeper, and just wandered around near his house. He could only return home at 12:30 PM.

When he had nothing to do and lay on his bed, that scene always came to mind like a recurring nightmare. Go Yohan’s neck below. In his dream, he tried to lift his head, but couldn’t.

When he woke up from his sleep, sweat drenched his entire body. It wasn’t even hot in the house. His body was burning up. He washed his sticky body, fearing he might actually catch a cold. Then he felt thirsty, put on his bathrobe, and left his room, only to be met by the housekeeper who calmly said.

“They asked what happened to your phone.”

Was he the only one embarrassed? He pulled his gown tighter out of unnecessary awkwardness.

“It broke. Please tell them I’ll buy a new one soon.”

“Yes.”

He drank water and returned to his room. When he changed his clothes, he smelled Go Yohan’s scent on his body. He shouldn’t have lent him his body wash. He should have just told him to wash with water. Annoying. In a fit of anger, he took off the gown he was wearing and threw it on the floor. Only a flapping sound was heard, and his anger wasn’t appeased.

“…”

Why did that bastard have to show up like that and bother him? Everything was calm now. Things were going well. No, not past tense, things are still going well. Right, of course.

So when his thoughts deepened, he filled the sink with water. When it was deep enough to fill both hands, he plunged his head in. Then his thoughts quieted.

He endured until graduation like that. He somehow endured.

The day before graduation, he finally turned on his phone. Surprisingly, no one had looked for him. He was momentarily speechless at the quiet screen. He realized his social circle was truly this small. He had been such a flip-flopper, so it was understandable that people would dislike him.

He had blocked Go Yohan, so he didn’t know if he had looked for him or not. Anyway, he wasn’t curious about the guy who had been sneaking around his house like a thief every dawn. No, he pretended not to be curious.

Then, a delayed message arrived. It was from his homeroom teacher.

「Jun, I’m sorry.」

It was his homeroom teacher. In that short message, he read the tsunami of premature expectations. He actually felt a little sorry. Had the days he hid been like a stranded person walking in the desert without water for his homeroom teacher?

He looked at the clock. 9 PM. It was a borderline inconvenient time. If he had only seen it 5 minutes earlier, it would have been fine. With a feeling of regret, he was about to turn off his phone but stopped his hand. Wouldn’t it be worse to prolong the agony? He only needed to send a short text anyway.

He willingly decided to cause a little inconvenience for his homeroom teacher. He typed a bit and pressed confirm.

「It’s okay, and don’t worry about me.」

And he turned off the screen and turned to get a glass of water, but his phone immediately rang. As expected, it was his homeroom teacher again. After a brief hesitation, he lightly cleared his throat and answered the phone.

-Jun, why haven’t you been answering your phone? I was so worried!

“Well, I haven’t been feeling well.”

-Ohhh…

“I’m sorry. Were you very worried?”

-Jun, I’m really, really sorry. Ha, that. I was really sure… Ah, but I’m truly ashamed. I have nothing to say.

“It’s okay.”

His homeroom teacher was so apologetic that Kang Jun felt even more sorry and couldn’t speak. He wanted to tell him about his acceptance right away to alleviate this uncomfortable feeling, but he was afraid it would reach Go Yohan’s ears, so he couldn’t open his mouth. He just had to parrot “It’s okay.”

And so, the day of hell arrived.

He woke up from another nightmare where he had no neck, but even with his eyes open, he was still in a nightmare. He barely managed to get up, wash, and sighed as he pulled at his school uniform tie. He could even feel his lower lip trembling from his exhaled breath.

He delayed his steps as much as possible. He felt the gazes of those around him. It was because of the bulky bouquet already in his arms. His housekeeper had given it to him as soon as he woke up that morning. When he stared at her in shock, she calmly reassured him in her usual flat tone.

“Your parents gave it to you, Jun. The order arrived this morning.”

“Ah, ah… Yes. Thank you.”

“Yes.”

After that, silence. He fled the house as if escaping the unbearable silence. He often found his current housekeeper both comfortable and difficult.

He arrived at school with slow steps, and the graduation ceremony had already begun. The speakers were so loud that the principal’s voice could be heard even outside the building. And at the school gate, he met Han Taesan, who seemed to be waiting for someone.

“Damn it.”