Projection Novel (Completed) - Chapter 17

As he gestured towards the front door with his chin, Sejin silently followed Cheon Sejoo. They went down to the underground parking lot and drove together towards Gangdong-gu.

The light drizzle struck the front window. Whenever the sound of rain mixed with the engine noise, Cheon Sejoo’s eyes became cold and subdued. Since he said nothing, Sejin also remained silent, and the two thought different thoughts in the quiet.

It took about 40 minutes to reach the gate of Dongseoul Boys’ High School. At almost 9 o’clock, Cheon Sejoo dropped Sejin off from the car and warned him, “As soon as you get there, take a picture of your timetable and send it to me, and when you come out later, make sure to bring all your textbooks in your bag.”

“…Got it.”

Though he pouted, Sejin didn’t argue. It seemed he now realized that no matter what he said, Cheon Sejoo would do as he pleased.

After watching Sejin get out of the car with an umbrella and disappear into the school gate, Cheon Sejoo picked up his phone. A message from Doyoon had already arrived.

Kang Doyoon I finished my exams yesterday! But I have a closing ceremony tonight, so I have to go there. Is it okay for just a little while? 8:26

Instead of replying, Cheon Sejoo immediately pressed the call button. Trrr, the phone rang briefly, and Doyoon answered with a bright voice.

“Doyoon, I’m coming to your place.”

Whispering gently, he drove his car to Kang Doyoon’s officetel.

He had met Doyoon about three years ago. The catalyst was Kang Doyoon’s confident note. Cheon Sejoo was mindlessly shopping at a department store, trying to spend his accumulated money. He noticed a man in the same store kept looking at him, and then, at some point, he approached and handed him a neatly written memo.

Someone asking for his number or handing him a business card was common for him, but this was the first time he had received a number from a man in such a public place. Cheon Sejoo looked at Doyoon, a little flustered. Doyoon, unfazed by his gaze, smiled beautifully and then left after saying, “Please call me.” After some deliberation, Cheon Sejoo called Doyoon two days later.

Meeting Doyoon at a cafe, he was cheerful and confident. He was an attractive person, but Cheon Sejoo had no desire for a romantic relationship. He expressed his intentions and proposed a partnership, and the two had maintained a consensual sexual relationship for three years.

Their meetings mostly took place in hotels, but sometimes they visited each other’s homes. This was the case when they had limited time to meet or when a sudden meeting was arranged, like today.

Cheon Sejoo parked his car in the officetel parking lot where Doyoon lived and went up to the 19th floor. When he rang the doorbell in 1907, the door soon opened, and Doyoon poked his head out.

“Hyung!”

“Hi.”

When Cheon Sejoo flashed a picture-perfect smile, Doyoon grinned coyly and reached out, hugging him. He buried his face in his chest with a thud, rubbed against him, and then tightly embraced his waist before letting go. Doyoon, who had three older sisters, was affectionate, as befits a beloved youngest child. On the other hand, he wasn’t immature and was a cheerful, unblemished man without a sensitive side.

Cheon Sejoo cherished Doyoon, and Doyoon liked Cheon Sejoo for cherishing him. Thanks to this, the two had maintained their relationship without a single quarrel.

Doyoon was dressed in just a white t-shirt and drawers. He smelled of sweet shampoo, as if he had just showered, and he wrapped his arms around Cheon Sejoo’s neck, clinging to him. When Cheon Sejoo instinctively picked him up, Doyoon’s slender legs wrapped around his waist. The two, virtually becoming one, headed to Doyoon’s bedroom.

The day Cheon Hyein died was September 15th, during the peak of the autumn rainy season. This was when Cheon Sejoo was working as a thoracic surgery resident at Korea University Hospital.

That day was when he had planned to visit home during a short break after a week. However, just before he was about to leave work, a patient with severe pulmonary artery damage due to a car accident was admitted. Cheon Sejoo, a valuable thoracic surgery resident, naturally had to enter the operating room with Professor Kim Chunggeun, and his departure was consequently delayed.

Eight hours later. Nearly twenty packs of blood had been transfused due to blood loss, and just when they had finally stopped the bleeding, they were met with news of another patient’s arrival. The patient had suffered extreme chest trauma from a fall, and the bleeding was so severe that cardiac arrest had occurred due to delayed discovery, making their condition critical, to the point where CPR couldn’t even be attempted in the ambulance.

Cheon Sejoo, who heard the news first, secretly thought before relaying it to Professor Kim Chunggeun: the patient currently undergoing surgery had a high chance of survival, but the other one had already gone into cardiac arrest, so wouldn’t it be better for the professor to continue this surgery?

In any case, Professor Kim Chunggeun was the decision-maker, so Cheon Sejoo informed him of the news, and the professor instructed Cheon Sejoo to go out first and check on the patient’s condition while he finished the surgery. So Cheon Sejoo took off his surgical gown, thoroughly washed his hands, and left the operating room.

He checked his phone as he ran towards the Emergency Medical Center where the ambulance would arrive. There was a missed call from Cheon Hyein five hours ago.

Having no time to call back, he sent Hyein a message saying he probably wouldn’t be home today and to make sure she ate well without him, then turned off his phone. And when he went outside with the nurses to meet the patient, he encountered a rain so heavy it seemed to deafen him.

Whoosh, a heavy downpour was pouring down, making everything look white. Cheon Sejoo, who had been confined in the narrow operating room for several hours, felt a brief sense of liberation at that moment. He liked rainy days. It was because his one precious family member had come to him on a rainy day. With a feeling of refreshment, his lost motivation returned, and he felt a little better. That was the last moment he could feel good listening to the sound of rain.

A short while later, the siren began to wail amidst the sound of rain. The familiar silhouette of the ambulance gradually approached, and Cheon Sejoo and the nurses waited for the patient to be unloaded from the ambulance.

The pure white ambulance stopped in front of the Emergency Medical Center. The siren ceased, and the back door burst open. At that moment, the distance between Cheon Sejoo and the patient was only a meter or two, but the condition was visibly critical at a glance. The patient’s blood-soaked hands and feet were as pale as those of a corpse, and broken ribs, as if pierced by something, protruded through the flesh in disarray.

In the brief moment Cheon Sejoo saw the patient, he thought it would be difficult. As if his judgment was not mistaken, the paramedics, who were urgently unloading the patient, informed him that the patient had been in cardiac arrest for 5 minutes. It was around then that he realized something was wrong.

Click, the stretcher was lowered to the ground, its wheels extended, and the patient was right in front of him. The smell of blood was sickening. But the school uniform she wore somehow didn’t seem unfamiliar. So, forgetting to immediately assess the patient’s condition, Cheon Sejoo averted his gaze and looked at the patient’s face, which rested peacefully with closed eyes.

Time seemed to stop. The pungent smell of blood and the urgent shouts faded into insignificance. Amidst it all, only the sound of rain beating against his ears remained clear.

The nurses shook Cheon Sejoo’s shoulder to awaken him from his daze, but he felt nothing. He just stood there, rooted to the spot, staring only at the face of the patient he had just decided would be difficult to save.

Cheon Hyein’s face, with her eyes closed peacefully, as if she had no lingering attachment to life…

From that day on, rainy days became a nightmare itself for Cheon Sejoo. No matter what he did, no matter how much time passed, he couldn’t shake off the last image of Cheon Hyein on rainy days. Memories stained with regret would resurface with the sound of rain, constricting his breath and dragging him into an abyss-like darkness.

Whenever he felt that suffocating sensation, Cheon Sejoo felt an urge to just let himself go. But he couldn’t do that because he had given his life to Shin Gyoyeon in exchange for Hyein’s revenge. As it was a choice for Hyein, Cheon Sejoo had to persist in living until that man abandoned him.

So he sought a way to escape the suffocation. To shake off the memories filled with despair, he went through several processes. First, it was alcohol, then self-abusive exercise, and now it was sex.

Cheon Sejoo’s way of holding a man was tenacious. He was the type to push his partner until they lost consciousness. There was no other way. Without doing so, there was no way to erase the sound of rain that filled his mind.

At two in the afternoon, Doyoon, having been tormented by Cheon Sejoo for nearly five hours, was asleep, his face tear-stained. Cheon Sejoo, on the other hand, felt a clean sweep in his mind, as if he had drained not only bodily fluids but emotions as well. It was inner peace achieved through Doyoon’s sacrifice.

Seeing Doyoon groaning, belated regret washed over him. He gently washed Doyoon, who was practically unconscious, and laid him on a freshly sheeted bed. He patted Doyoon, who was murmuring incomprehensible words, until he fell asleep again.

Cheon Sejoo quietly looked down at the sleeping Doyoon. Soon, he carefully applied medicine to Doyoon’s lower body, which was not only swollen but also reddened as if abraded. Though no one enjoyed sex as much as Doyoon, it was still true that seeing the marks he left never sat well with him.

It was just past three. In his heart, he wanted to rest beside Doyoon, but he couldn’t fall asleep because he had to pick up his disobedient little brat of a dog.

Stray Dog [Image] 8:52 Sejin entered the classroom and immediately sent a photo of the timetable. Today was Tuesday, and the last class ended at 3:50 PM. He figured he could go to the school gate around 4:00 PM.

He stayed by the side of the sluggish Doyoon, and when the clock pointed to 3:30 PM, he covered him with a blanket and left the bedroom.

But as he went to put on his shoes in the entryway, he noticed a small shopping bag by the middle door. He wondered if it was Doyoon’s and was about to leave, but the word ‘Hyung’ written on a memo attached to it caught his eye.

Hyung, this is delicious

Looking inside, there were cookies. Cheon Sejoo let out a small chuckle at the cute handwriting Doyoon left, then picked up the shopping bag and left Doyoon’s house. He went straight to the parking lot, placed it on the back seat, and started the engine.

The distance from Doyoon’s house to Sejin’s school was a little less than 30 minutes. Cheon Sejoo arrived at Dongseoul Namgo High School exactly at 4:00 PM. But Sejin was already waiting for him at the school gate. Hugging what looked like a bag or a bundle filled to his chest, Sejin, who had been blankly staring at the sky, turned his head at the sound of Cheon Sejoo’s car’s exhaust.

Their eyes met above the lowered passenger window. Even from a distance, Sejin’s beautiful face, which seemed admirably delicate and sensitive, stiffened immediately upon seeing Cheon Sejoo. At that change in expression, Cheon Sejoo let out a hollow laugh and opened the door.

“You said it ended at 3:50.”

It wasn’t unfamiliar for Sejin to complain as soon as he got in the passenger seat. Cheon Sejoo, thinking it would have been stranger if he had greeted him warmly, shrugged his shoulders and drove off.

“So I came at 4:00. Don’t you guys have a homeroom?”

“We don’t do that.”

“……”

Cheon Sejoo frowned and looked back at Sejin. There’s no way a school wouldn’t have a homeroom, is there? But judging by Sejin’s expression, he didn’t seem to be lying. Moreover, 4:00 PM was the time when students would be leaving school, but the school gate was exceptionally quiet.

Surely they hadn’t all left school already? Cheon Sejoo had such a thought, then shook his head, finding himself absurd. No way. There couldn’t be that many kids like Kwon Sejin. If what he said was true, the future of South Korea was bleak.

“It’s true. Our homeroom teacher doesn’t do the homeroom.”

But unfortunately, Cheon Sejoo’s guess was correct.

Kwon Sejin was one of the five students who remained in the classroom until the end. Sejin’s homeroom teacher, who taught the last period, mathematics, entered the classroom tapping his phone and even screamed in surprise when he saw Sejin.

Dongseoul Namgo High School was where the most hopeless children in Seoul gathered. It was a place where those who were rejected everywhere else were pushed and pushed until they ended up there. Kwon Sejin was one of them, so the school atmosphere was vastly different from what Cheon Sejoo, who graduated from a top liberal arts high school in Suwon, imagined. There were fewer than five students who actually studied in each class. As Sejin said, it was an environment where it was difficult to concentrate even if you tried.

However, Cheon Sejoo, unaware of Sejin’s school atmosphere, simply couldn’t understand his words. Cheon Sejoo looked at him with an expression that asked if he was being mocked, then seeing the frustration in Sejin’s eyes, he wondered if it was true. But regardless, Cheon Sejoo was someone who believed that studying depended solely on one’s will. No matter what anyone said at school, if you closed your ears and opened your eyes to your books, that was studying. Therefore, in Cheon Sejoo’s eyes, Sejin’s words were nothing but an excuse.

The two remained silent, unable to understand each other and feeling frustrated. As they parked the car and before getting out, Cheon Sejoo retrieved the shopping bag he had tossed in the back seat. While waiting for the elevator, Sejin’s gaze passed the shopping bag and went to Cheon Sejoo’s nape. Cheon Sejoo rubbed his nape, which Doyoon had bitten, and gave Sejin an indifferent look.

“What?”

“……”

It was a mark too embarrassing to ask what he had been doing. Sejin turned his head forward as if it were nothing. He seemed to fall silent while riding the elevator up to the 41st floor, then, as Cheon Sejoo pressed the keypad after getting out, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity and spoke.

“What kind of person are you?”

“What do you mean, what kind of person?”

Unsure what he meant, Cheon Sejoo asked back. Sejin, who had followed him into the entryway, took off his shoes and said,

“Are you really a loan shark? Don’t you work? You just play around all the time.”

He wondered what was wrong with playing around. Cheon Sejoo being busy meant there were many people in the world who deserved to die. Cheon Sejoo, who enjoyed this leisure, ignored the hint of pity in Sejin’s words and retorted,

“If I were busy, there’d just be more poor kids like you. Would you like that?”

“……”

Turning around at the lack of response, he saw Sejin, who had been following him into the hallway, standing with a thoroughly displeased expression. Seeing such a vivid reaction to just one remark made him feel a little better. Cheon Sejoo chuckled and left him to head to the kitchen.

While he took out the gift Doyoon had given him on the island bar, Sejin placed his school bag on the table, went into his room to change, and came out. Now, he acted with considerable quickness without being told first.

Cheon Sejoo also put down his coffee and headed to his room. He was about to put on a gown over his usual bare body, but remembering Sejin’s disgruntled remark, he put on a t-shirt and running shorts and came out. He took the Florentine cookies and mug from the bar to the table and sat on the floor.

“Come here.”

Sejin, who had been hunched on the sofa with a sullen face, came down at his words. The two sat facing each other across the sofa table.

Cheon Sejoo took out clearly new textbooks from Sejin’s old bag. He didn’t need to check inside. It was the second semester, and he looked at the textbooks with curious eyes, seeing no folds, as if they had never been opened. So this is how idiots who rank last in class store their books. Thinking that, he asked,

“Your storage condition is excellent. Are you going to donate them to a museum later?”

“……”

Sejin twitched the corners of his mouth in annoyance. Watching his pretty pink lips twitch as if they were about to spout complaints, Cheon Sejoo thoroughly examined Sejin’s textbooks.

Although the titles on the covers were different, the content wasn’t significantly different. He thought he could easily get a first-grade score on the Suneung (college entrance exam) right now with this much knowledge. Then, Cheon Sejoo suddenly became curious and asked Sejin,

“What grade do you get on mock exams?”

Sejin pretended not to hear the question, looking away. Seeing Sejin, who was silent and looking at the cookies on the table, Cheon Sejoo sighed and put down the book in his hand.

It seemed he really had to teach him from scratch.

“Do you even know your multiplication tables?”

“…Well, roughly.”

“Roughly? How can you ‘roughly’ know the multiplication tables? Is that something you can know roughly just because you want to?”

Cheon Sejoo was quite confident in his tutoring skills, but he had never taught a child who didn’t even know the multiplication tables. All the children he taught were those who hovered barely above a first-grade score and needed advanced study. In fact, it was rare for Cheon Sejoo to even talk to someone so foolish.

But what could he do? Since he had vowed to take responsibility for him, he couldn’t back down now. Cheon Sejoo sighed and threw various questions to assess Sejin’s learning stage. Of course, Sejin couldn’t answer most of the questions he threw, and as time went on, Cheon Sejoo felt not just frustration, but utter exasperation.

Can a person truly know so little? Is Kwon Sejin actually a bird in human form? Is his face so small because he has a chicken brain? Without that, there was no way he could be human. Cheon Sejoo, muttering to himself, finally lit a cigarette in exasperation and mumbled,

“I’ve never seen such a blockhead in all my life.”

“……Like you’re so great.”

He was stupid and even shameless.

Cheon Sejoo suppressed his rising anger and picked up a pen. He opened the notebook that Sejin had received from a church at the subway station and shoved into his locker, then wrote down the multiplication tables.

“If you can’t memorize this by tomorrow morning, you can’t go see your mom.”

“……”

In Sejin’s eyes, Cheon Sejoo was a dictator who unnecessarily meddled in others’ lives and resorted to dirty and petty threats. He must have been old, and it was truly childish and laughable how he constantly brought up his mom, but the problem was that the threat worked. Sejin gritted his teeth and took the notebook. And as expected, Kwon Sejin could not memorize the multiplication tables by the next morning.

Early in the morning, Cheon Sejoo, sitting on the sofa in the living room, asked Sejin, who had finished breakfast and was sitting on the floor,

“Seven, eight.”

“……”

No answer came back. No way, it couldn’t be. Cheon Sejoo roughly ran his hand through his hair and brought out another number.

“Six, nine.”

“……”

This time, Sejin silently looked away. Cheon Sejoo swallowed his frustration, looking at the small head that turned away from his gaze towards the window. No, he tried to swallow it, but it didn’t work well. A deep sigh escaped his lips. He moistened his dry lips and tapped the table where Sejin was sitting with his fingertips, asking,

“Hey, damn it, stop looking away and look me straight in the eye. You didn’t memorize it?”

The answer that came back was quite a sight.

“Why are you swearing? And how can I memorize so much in one day?”

Sejin raised his voice in retort. If it was the multiplication tables, there were 90 things to memorize. In fact, that calculation was wrong too, but anyway, Sejin thought it was unreasonable to memorize 90 numbers overnight. Still, he had memorized up to the 4th table, so honestly, wasn’t that good enough? At Sejin’s shameless remark, who was secretly thinking that, Cheon Sejoo felt his blood pressure rising.

“You’re not human, are you?”

Cheon Sejoo simply couldn’t understand. He’d been given a whole night to memorize something that takes an hour? Not the nineteen-times table, but the multiplication tables? Sejin frowned at the absurd question. And so, the two began to argue from early in the morning.

“What makes you so great? The only achievement in your life is memorizing the multiplication tables, isn’t it? Don’t look down on people just for something like that.”

“I’m looking down on you precisely because you can’t even memorize something as simple as that. How can I say anything good when an 18-year-old can’t do what an 8-year-old can?”

Does he mean I’m worse than an 8-year-old? Sejin frowned and glared at Cheon Sejoo. Then he asked by surprise,

“Then you answer. What’s 8 multiplied by 7?”

“Ha.”

Cheon Sejoo chuckled in disbelief at Sejin turning the question back on him. Hearing that, Sejin’s expression became triumphant. He doesn’t even know, and he’s calling me names? His cheeks puffed out sullenly, and he was about to mock Cheon Sejoo. Cheon Sejoo let out a short sigh and opened his mouth.