Eighteen’s Bed Novel Completed - Chapter 122

My hand, which had stubbornly pointed at the entryway, slowly lowered. Honestly, I didn’t have the presence of mind to keep my hand up. His voice today was unusually calm and melancholic, like completely melted water. Damp and sticky, yet strangely chilling and sad. It felt like Go Yohan’s original way of speaking, born of his melancholic and desolate nature. For the first time, I thought Go Yohan and his voice suited each other. Absurdly so.

“I really wasn’t lying.”

I was about to ask what lie, but then understood and closed my mouth again.

“……My family really hates me.”

“Oh really? And yet, the people who hate you so much handled your accident so kindly.”

His light-colored eyes grew still. The darkest dawn settled in his damp eyes. I have a duty to hate Go Yohan. And so, sarcasm flowed easily from my lips.

“You should have thought about your alibi, then. Were you that desperate for attention?”

Just as my uneasy arrogance was reaching its peak, Go Yohan nodded with an innocent face. Very boldly, in fact.

“……?”

I was flustered and speechless. I hadn’t expected an affirmative answer. Go Yohan nodded a few more times and then said shamelessly:

“I was desperate for attention.”

“……”

“I was desperate for your attention.”

Why, of all things, would he say that at this moment? And with that kind of face? It seemed Go Yohan had learned somewhere how to torment me the most throughout our school years. Or perhaps Go Yohan was truly a demon who appeared just to torment me. Was he a god trying to kill me with a rosary as a weapon? The endlessly tiresome Möbius strip tightened around my neck.

“But it wasn’t a lie.”

“Stop talking.”

My head throbbed, and I raised a hand to stop him. Talking to Go Yohan felt like losing my mind. If he couldn’t offer a proper excuse anyway, he shouldn’t be so shameless. Why was he putting on such an innocent face while spewing such obvious lies?

“I said stop talking…”

I clutched my forehead and looked up. And then I saw Go Yohan’s lips above my eyes. It was a mistake. Ah, damn it. The dull sensation lingering in my memory pressed down on me. I hastily turned my head and blurted out whatever came to mind.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses, they’ll just be lies anyway. There’s no proof I’d believe you even if you told the truth.”

“……”

No answer.

His strangely quiet reaction made me look up again, and my eyes met Go Yohan’s, who had his lips pressed tightly into a straight line, his eyes overflowing with an aggrieved look. But his firmly shut lips never opened.

“……”

“……”

His hands were white, showing how much force he was exerting. The subtle moisture in his melancholic eyes was surely from feeling wronged. Why was he on the verge of tears and acting like this? But for some reason, it bothered me. What was he so wronged about, and what did he want to explain?

“You’re very obedient, you are.”

“You told me to.”

Could this foolish obedience, following my words so literally and without malice, truly be sincere?

“Someone who hasn’t done anything wrong listens to others so well?”

It was an uncomfortable thing to say. I bit my lip, feeling awkward even after saying it myself. It was pathetic that I was dragging the very topic I’d tried to avoid, claiming my head throbbed.

Idiot.

What was even more embarrassing was that Go Yohan had caught my expression. I raised my eyes with a dizzying look. I had been completely exposed, showing that I was the one obsessed with that incident. My face burned with shame. Go Yohan, meeting my gaze, flinched slightly, twitched one corner of his lip, and then spoke.

“Where have you been all this time?”

Such a pretense of kindness. How very grateful I am that he’s pretending not to know. You bad bastard.

“What do you care?”

“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know?”

There was a thorn in his ordinary words. His subtly barbed words bothered me.

“Your homeroom teacher doesn’t know, the guys you know don’t know you, why are you so…”

There was a pause. It was a brief moment where Go Yohan suppressed his emotions. In that fleeting instant, I heard the sound of desperate effort to suppress the emotions that were swelling, about to burst. It was the sound of Go Yohan taking a breath.

“Why don’t you know anything?”

“……”

“Why don’t you even know me? You’re so good at studying.”

What was I thinking then? Looking back, it was a regret. Go Yohan always tormented me in various ways.

“I prayed a lot. To see you.”

“……Why?”

“There’s something I want to say.”

What did he want to say? I deliberately avoided his gaze, but his persistent stare made me uncomfortable. My eyes, which had tried not to meet his, naturally drifted to his arm. Come to think of it, I always followed Go Yohan’s rosary. What was it that bothered and unsettled me so much?

“So what?”

But Go Yohan, a devout Catholic, lacked the symbol of faith that should have been on his wrist. Instead, his bare arm looked strangely bland. I was a little flustered. I didn’t know why it was flustering.

Was it because of the preconception that Go Yohan must believe in something?

“Wait, where’s your rosary?”

“Oh, this?”

Go Yohan raised his arm, revealing his wrist. Sure enough, the rosary that always dangled there was gone. It wasn’t my imagination. My melancholic gaze swept over his empty wrist.

“I threw it away.”

“Why would you…?”

“God is a liar. So self-centered. If you look closely, he only does what he wants. He gives hope, then brings nothing but hell in the name of trials. He torments.”

In the midst of it, I had an absurd thought. It was funny that Go Yohan was the one saying it, knowing all that.

“I thought he’d answered my prayers when I saw you at the graduation ceremony…”

Graduation ceremony. What happened then violently seized my mind. I didn’t want to hear it. I desperately shook my head. Don’t.

“Don’t talk about that.”

“So I said thank you, thank you…”

“I said don’t talk about it!”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t.”

The story of the graduation ceremony was a memory I didn’t possess. I desperately believed that. My first kiss. That idiotic memory. I unfairly pinned the nightmare, clinging like sticky glue, onto Go Yohan.

“Enough, now get out.”

“……”

“Or should I leave?”

His long fingers foolishly fiddled with the lock. Slowly, slowly. Go Yohan, who said ‘no,’ contrary to his words, equivocated and kept looking back at me. His eyes were overflowing with lingering attachment. That gaze drenched me from my legs to my head. I felt as if my shabby body was being soaked in water.

…Please, just leave.

I cried out internally. Like a cavity, my unseen flesh was rotting away. Please, please, please… While I believed myself to be righteous, the gloomy stalker was once again following Go Yohan.

My brilliant future was being defiled. Ah, please… I’m the one who really needs God.

His lingering fingers pitifully scratched at the lock, thoroughly imprinting his presence in the room. The small room, not even a few pyeong, was filled with Go Yohan.

This wasn’t what I wanted.

I remained silent, sending a persistent gaze. It was filled with my dawn, and countless resentments. Go Yohan didn’t avoid my sticky, unfortunate emotions. Instead, he seemed to welcome them, acting intimately. And to the very end, Go Yohan wouldn’t listen to me. He was just as he always was.

“Shin Jaehyun is a bad guy.”

That’s what Go Yohan said the moment I cheered deep in my heart, seeing the tiniest gap open. The cheer fell to the bottom of the sea, remaining a pathetic core. Damn it.

“What’s that supposed to mean, all of a sudden?”

“When I got a little angry, he was the one who first said you were going to the dorm.”

Then, after a slight pause, he muttered to himself, as if caught red-handed.

“……I didn’t hit him.”

Is that what you call talking! Flustered and dumbfounded, my breath hitched, making my body heave. He must have seen that as an opportunity, Go Yohan quickly closed the door and stared intently at me.

“That Shin Jaehyun bastard, he’s a cowardly opportunist. So don’t be friendly with him.”

“……”

“Got it? Don’t even associate with him.”

“Okay.”

In my words, Go Yohan’s face bloomed like a flower. Sunlight entered his melancholic expression. The dorm, where mice scurried, was now bathed in light. At the same time, my stomach churned and felt nauseous. Go Yohan had a talent for releasing thousands of butterflies into my gut.

“Just leave for now. It’s not like I’m going to be friendly with you anyway.”

“……”

As soon as I finished speaking, the blooming flower withered miserably. His melancholic fingertips sadly scratched at the lock. It was as if he was doing it to completely steal my attention.

“Don’t pretend to know me again.”

“……”

……Okay, I get it. A tiny voice whispered, as if dying.

The door opened and closed. When the faint sound of wheels disappeared down the hallway, only then could I lift my feet from the floor and dash to my bed. I buried my face in my comforter and screamed. The scream spread silently, undetected.

“Damn it, why me…?”

Why is there no decent human being next to me? Is it because I’m not a decent human being myself?

It was late afternoon.

Department announcements rang noisily twice a day. The class representative, who had been chosen without my knowledge, simply left a message saying that there were school-distributed pamphlets available at the department office, and each student should pick one up, then disappear. At that time, I didn’t know that the pamphlet was completely unimportant. It was only after stopping by the office and seeing the boxes full of pamphlets that I realized I had done something useless.

I regretted doing something pointless, but still took a pamphlet. It was due to a habit of pointless caution. Just then, the teaching assistant, who had been glancing at my face ever since I entered, called out to me. She had been staring so openly that I was waiting for her to speak.

“Excuse me, is your name Kang Jun… student? You’re a freshman in our department, right?”

“Yes.”

Honestly, I was very surprised. How could she accurately pick out my name when there were over 50 freshmen? It would be impossible unless she knew my face and deliberately memorized it. So I asked with a little caution, but what the TA said next was even more suspicious.

“Is there anyone who might be looking for you, student?”

“Me?”