Projection Novel (Completed) - Chapter 73

He was a doctor, and it was his duty to assess a patient’s condition. It was natural for Cheon Sejoo to judge Hyein’s condition as hopeless. Nevertheless, Cheon Sejoo could not shake the thought that she had ultimately not been revived because of him. No hope, he thought. Instead, what if he had thought she would live? What if he had believed he could save her? Couldn’t he have truly saved Hyein then? Cheon Sejoo had not been able to erase that thought for a single moment in six years.

But now, finally, he could acknowledge that it wasn’t his fault, that he had merely done what he had to do. Hyein had wanted him to be a doctor, and so he had simply made a judgment as a doctor; he hadn’t wished for her death when he thought that… He could acknowledge it…

“If you thought that, others would have thought the same. Cheon Sejoo, you just did what you had to do. So your sister won’t resent you for it.”

Sejin whispered to him, embracing Cheon Sejoo, his eyes brimming with tears. Those sentences seemed to stitch his torn heart back together, little by little. Gasping for breath, Cheon Sejoo hugged Sejin back. He clung to him desperately, as if his life depended on it, pouring out all the regrets of that day.

It was a long time before Cheon Sejoo stopped crying. With red eyes, the two looked at each other, then smiled silently at some point. Cheon Sejoo gripped Sejin’s hand tightly, conveying his gratitude through the action, then turned his gaze. Looking at Hyein’s memorial altar, touched by someone’s hand, he bid her farewell, then took Sejin and left the place.

The story that terrified him was just beginning. What happened after this was something Hyein didn’t need to hear. Feeling his heart grow heavier, Cheon Sejoo spoke quietly as they returned to the parking lot.

“…I only learned Hyein committed suicide during the funeral. I thought it was a fall, but the police told me. In the CCTV footage I saw then, Hyein was crouching in the hallway for hours… just like you were when we first met.”

“…”

Only then did the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit. In the early days of their meeting, Sejin had been frustrated more than once, utterly unable to understand why Cheon Sejoo meddled so much in his life. He had thought there was some hidden agenda behind his kindness and had doubted his intentions countless times.

Now he saw that such circumstances had been hidden beneath it all. Cheon Sejoo had seen his sister’s image in him, crouching in the hallway, and unable to simply pass by, had taken him home.

“You might not think so, but one reason I helped you was to relieve my guilt about Hyein. …Because Hyein died because of me. I thought that if I helped you and saw you become a healthy adult, I might be able to escape that guilt. Thinking about it now, it was complete nonsense, though…”

Sejin subtly furrowed his brows. He had heard she died because of bullying, so why was it Cheon Sejoo’s fault? Unable to contain his doubt, he grasped Cheon Sejoo’s arm.

“Your sister… why did she die because of you? You said she was bullied. Then it’s the perpetrators’ fault, why is it yours? Are you saying it’s because of what you thought in front of the emergency room…?”

At that question, Cheon Sejoo quietly shook his head. He looked down at the floor and mumbled.

“Hyein and I grew up in an orphanage, and I was the one who took her out before she was even an adult. When I went to college, I wanted to live with Hyein in our house, so I took her out of the orphanage. So while I was at school, Hyein was neglected at home, and I…”

Should he say he didn’t know? Or that he pretended not to know? Cheon Sejoo closed his mouth, confused. Sejin watched him with a frown.

“Anyway, because of that, I felt a great deal of guilt that Hyein died because of me. The attempt to get revenge was probably an attempt to alleviate some of that guilt. Letting you into my home was the same. I saw Hyein in you, and I was kind to you with the sole aim of making you happy in Hyein’s place.”

“…”

Sejin silently bit his lip. Seeing his expression, Cheon Sejoo felt as if his insides were shriveling and cracking. No one would be angry at the confession that a hidden intention lay behind the kindness shown to them. Since Sejin’s affection stemmed from that kindness, it was not unreasonable for him to doubt his own feelings. Sejin might, at this very moment, even regret having fallen in love with Cheon Sejoo.

Again, a stinging fear welled up, and Cheon Sejoo clenched his fists, leading Sejin out. Following Cheon Sejoo, who walked silently, Sejin was lost in thought. It was because Cheon Sejoo’s words were utterly incomprehensible to him.

“…I’m sorry.”

Getting into the car, where the warmth had vanished, Cheon Sejoo looked at Sejin and apologized. At the sudden apology, Sejin raised an eyebrow.

“What are you sorry for?”

“It feels bad, doesn’t it? That I projected my sister onto you all this time…”

At those words, Kwon Sejin’s face twisted further. He stared at Cheon Sejoo, who was spouting nonsense with a seemingly indifferent expression, then sighed softly and shook his head. Soon, Sejin mumbled in a sulky voice.

“It doesn’t feel bad at all. I’m glad you saw your sister in me. If the kindness you showed me with that in mind brought you peace, then I’m satisfied with that.”

“…”

Suspicion spread across Cheon Sejoo’s handsome face, and Sejin’s mouth twitched in dissatisfaction. There was more he wanted to argue, but not now. Sejin simply reached out and grasped Cheon Sejoo’s hand, which was clenched in a seemingly nervous fist. He forced his hand into Cheon Sejoo’s palm and urged him.

“More. Tell me more. I told you before. I’ll be by your side no matter what. So don’t be afraid of how I’ll react to what you say…”

At Sejin’s firm and gentle voice, Cheon Sejoo finally realized his hand had been trembling. Feeling the tremor slowly subside, he swallowed the surging emotions within. He took a deep breath, looking out the window, then continued speaking.

“After the revenge was over… I had to do as Shin Gyoyeon ordered. You might vaguely know, but DG is a company that was corporatized by a crime syndicate called Daegampa. Shin Gyoyeon is the successor to Shin Gyeongju, the head of Daegampa, and I’m under him. The person who brought me into the organization wanted to put me in the clean-up team he ran. What I do there is…”

Sejin recalled the damp, suffocating basement. As he carried the unconscious Cheon Sejoo upstairs, Sejin had also seen a room like an office in that building. Cheon Sejoo had probably done a lot of work there. Everything he wanted to hide most from Sejin was related to those things. Kwon Sejin gripped Cheon Sejoo’s hand tightly as he struggled to open his mouth.

“You don’t have to say anything if it’s difficult for you. I know without you saying it. Everything, all of it.”

At the softly spoken words, Cheon Sejoo, who had been moving his lips, stopped. Sejin silently looked into Cheon Sejoo’s eyes. His pupils, filled with confusion and fear, and the courage and will to defy them, were far from the strong man Sejin knew.

He had told Moon Seonhyuk that he didn’t know Cheon Sejoo, but in truth, Sejin didn’t fully know him either. Only now was Sejin learning everything about Cheon Sejoo. He was just now discovering his vulnerable, self-destructive side.

He never dreamed Cheon Sejoo had such a side. He never knew he was so consumed by guilt. Sejin struggled to choose his words, then spoke.

“…If I say this, you might think I’m being insincere, but honestly, whatever you’ve done with your life, it doesn’t matter to me.”

How could he not love this man? He had opened his arms and embraced Sejin so that he could lean on him completely, but now Sejin knew that he had been bleeding, with countless wounds on his back… How could I not love you?

Sejin was simply grateful to Cheon Sejoo. Whatever his intentions, Sejin had been saved by the hand he extended, and thanks to him, he had endured difficult times. It was true that Cheon Sejoo had solely borne his own weight during that time. That alone was enough. He wished for nothing more.

Sejin slowly blinked. Droplets clinging to the tips of his eyelashes scattered like raindrops. He looked at Cheon Sejoo with moist eyes and said,

“That’s just… proof that you’ve endured diligently. Everything you’ve done so far… to me, it’s nothing but proof that you endured those difficult times so well.”

It was a miracle he was still alive after letting his sister go like that. Just the fact that Cheon Sejoo was alive and breathing beside him at this moment meant he had done his best.

“You did it to live, didn’t you? You did it because you were sorry, didn’t you? Who would blame you?”

At Sejin’s question, Cheon Sejoo shook his head. With his eyes once again reddened, he looked at Sejin and denied his words.

“No. I, I just…”

He endured out of stubbornness. Even while killing countless people, removing their organs, feeling disgusting self-loathing, Cheon Sejoo stubbornly endured, thinking that if he gave up now, even his revenge for Hyein would lose its value.

Thinking about it now, it was nothing. Who would understand taking the lives of the living for the sake of those who had already died and faded away? But Cheon Sejoo could not stop dirtying his hands because he had made a deal with Shin Gyoyeon.

Shin Gyoyeon had once given Cheon Sejoo this answer when he asked why he had chosen him: he was curious to see how much he could endure, throwing away his future for his sister, and he wanted to know how deep that heart was.

So whenever he wanted to give up all of this, Shin Gyoyeon’s voice naturally came to mind and tormented him. “You said you’d do everything I asked in exchange for revenge, and now you want to quit? So it was nothing more than a shallow feeling after all.” Cheon Sejoo was afraid that Shin Gyoyeon would say that. He was afraid that all his efforts for his sister, everything he had done so far, would turn to nothing.

“I… I…”

It was Cheon Sejoo’s greed that had made her lonely. Cheon Sejoo had a profound influence on her taking her own life. The only thing Cheon Sejoo could do for her was that: exact revenge, and faithfully carry out the duties incurred as the price of obtaining that opportunity for revenge. After Cheon Hyein died, that was all Cheon Sejoo could do.

Since he couldn’t apologize to the one who had already left, he chose to push himself to the brink. Because even then, he wanted to show Hyein that he truly regretted it, and that he loved her.

But from the moment she died, Cheon Hyein ceased to exist in this world, and no one recognized Cheon Sejoo’s efforts. From the day he realized that, he simply endured out of stubbornness. That’s how it happened…

His rambling words were entirely stained with self-loathing. Sejin listened to him, then finally could not bear it and embraced Cheon Sejoo. He felt his shoulder become thoroughly soaked.

Sejin found it so regrettable that such sorrow and anguish lay dormant in the heart of that strong man. Why hadn’t he realized it sooner? He felt like he would go mad with pity for Cheon Sejoo. The most agonizing thing was that he was blaming himself. It was so sad that he had spent six years loathing himself, even though he wasn’t that kind of person.

“Don’t think such foolish thoughts.”

Sejin suppressed his sobs and stroked Cheon Sejoo’s back. He soothed the man who couldn’t even cry out loud, only shedding sad tears, and firmly corrected his thoughts.

“Why is that your fault? You didn’t take your sister out knowing it would turn out that way. Your sister must have been happy to live in the same house as you. You’re a proud older brother. She never resented you, not once. The ones who did wrong are those people. The ones who bullied a good person like your sister, and ultimately made her make that choice. You didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t die because of you.”

Cheon Hyein was exactly like Cheon Sejoo. Her appearance was similar, and even her fragile personality, to the point of harming herself after intense suffering, was the same. If Sejin had been in Cheon Sejoo’s shoes, he would have cursed the perpetrators and their parents to death. He would have poured out his resentment and evil words on them.

However, Cheon Sejoo, even though he took revenge, ultimately turned the arrow of blame for Cheon Hyein’s death back on himself. Cheon Hyein was the same. Instead of fighting and tormenting her tormentors, she chose to take her own life. Why were these siblings so foolishly kind? Sejin swallowed the surging resentment and cried out,

“You didn’t do anything wrong! How can a medical school graduate act dumber than a 21st grader? What happened after that is the same! You didn’t do it because you wanted to! Shin Gyoyeon, that old man, made you do it! You just kept your promise. There’s nothing disgusting about it. How can acting responsibly be something to criticize?”

At that question, Cheon Sejoo slowly pushed Sejin away. His heavily wet eyes held complex emotions. Cheon Sejoo took a difficult breath. Relying on the warmth of Sejin’s fingertips, he gathered his courage and, after a long moment, opened his mouth.

“…You don’t know.”

It wasn’t something to avoid out of fear. Whatever Sejin had seen in the basement, Cheon Sejoo instinctively knew he wouldn’t overcome this mountain of fear without telling him directly. He bit his trembling lip, hesitated, then continued speaking.

“I… I… killed more people than you could ever imagine, and…”

“Cheon Sejoo.”

“And in the future, if Shin Gyoyeon orders it, I’ll have to do the same thing many times over…”

His voice, as he uttered those words, was hollow. Sejin felt a heart-crushing pain at the sight of Cheon Sejoo whispering in resignation. So what? I said I don’t care. He felt suffocated, sensing that his true feelings weren’t reaching him. Sejin held Cheon Sejoo’s hand tightly and listened to his voice.

“…Do you know what truly scares me?”

Cheon Sejoo asked that, then lowered his head. Unable to look Sejin in the eyes, he recalled Han Jonghyun’s death and spoke.

“At first… it was clearly something I was ordered to do, but now… it doesn’t feel that way anymore…”

He couldn’t bring himself to say what he had felt when he killed Han Jonghyun. He didn’t want to tell Sejin even that much. It felt like burdening him with too much responsibility. It felt like asking, I’ve done all this for you, how long can you stay by my side?

Cheon Sejoo licked his dry lips and looked at Sejin. He was gazing at Cheon Sejoo with an expression unchanged from before. The fact that Sejin’s heart had not been shaken in any way by the words he had confessed brought Cheon Sejoo deep comfort. So now it was time to offer Sejin a choice.

“I’m not as good a person as you think. I don’t know what kind of things I might do in the future… and I might even end up in prison. Or I might suddenly leave home one day and never come back.”

Sejin’s eyes trembled slightly at the words that assumed the worst. Cheon Sejoo grasped Sejin’s fingers tightly and lowered his head. He finally managed to pull out the words he truly wanted to say.

“So… just leave me, Sejin… I’m not the right person for you. You’re… still young, and you’ll be able to meet someone much more ordinary and good than me later…”

His rough, dry voice seemed to crack. At the words Cheon Sejoo painstakingly uttered, gathering all his strength, Sejin finally couldn’t bear it and reached out to his face.

His cold cheek rubbed against Sejin’s palm. Sejin bit his lip tightly at the tears flowing down Cheon Sejoo’s cheek and wiped his eyes with his thumb. At that gentle comfort, Cheon Sejoo closed his eyes firmly. All the words he had just uttered were lies. The tears endlessly flowing down under his eyelids were Cheon Sejoo’s true feelings.

“I’m not stupid, Cheon Sejoo.”

He wasn’t truly telling him to leave. Cheon Sejoo was asking if he could remain by his side even after hearing all this. Out of a sense of shame, thinking he didn’t know if a despicable person like himself had the right to say such words, he expressed himself in such a roundabout way.

You need to be a little more honest.

Sejin said that in a voice filled with tears, then tilted his head and deeply kissed Cheon Sejoo’s eyelids. With the desire to wipe away his tears, Sejin whispered,

“I told you. Everything you’ve done so far… is just proof that you endured those difficult times well.”

Cheon Sejoo collapsed weakly. Sejin embraced him as he buried his face in his shoulder, sobbing endlessly, and comforted him in a gentle voice.

“Tomorrow, or the day after, whatever you do, I don’t care. It’s enough that you’re alive and breathing by my side like this.”

How could he? How could you love me so much? Cheon Sejoo felt Sejin’s unconditional love welling up to his throat. He was enchanted by that suffocating sensation. He wanted to die, suffocated by Kwon Sejin’s affection.

“When I’m… with you…”

Cheon Sejoo opened his mouth in a wet voice, embracing Sejin’s neck. He gasped for breath, crying for a long time, then confessed.

“When I’m with you… it felt like I went back to the past. Like I was an ordinary, good person, like when Hyein was alive… I was so scared of that. Because I can’t… go back to that time, but I was scared of myself, constantly yearning for that time and wanting to be by your side…”

“…”

Tears silently flowed from Sejin’s eyes too. He felt Cheon Sejoo’s fear, his sorrow, and the countless pains he had endured during that long time. Sejin suppressed the urge to cry out loud from his aching heart and said,

“You’ve suffered a lot, Cheon Sejoo. Thank you for enduring…”

That warm comfort, paradoxically, felt like his heart was crumbling. The deeply buried guilt broke through the debris and showed itself. Cheon Sejoo desperately grasped Sejin’s arm and asked him,

“Don’t you… resent me? If I… had told you a little earlier that your mother had collapsed. Maybe…”

She could have lived, couldn’t she? The unspoken words scattered in his mouth. His fingertips trembled. The memory of the day Sejin blamed him was vivid. It was a day he wanted to die. A day he wanted to disappear from the world entirely.

“Why are you saying that?”

Cheon Sejoo’s self-reproach resonated fully with Sejin. He felt choked up at the thought that he was blaming himself again. Sejin wept and shook his head.

“Your mother didn’t get sick because of you. Why are you trying to take responsibility for that too…”

Cheon Sejoo had no reason to take responsibility for his mother’s death. Nevertheless, seeing him feel guilty about it made Sejin’s insides ache.

He felt like he would go mad with pity for him, who tried to find the cause of all misfortunes within himself. And at the same time, Sejin felt at that moment that Cheon Sejoo loved him more deeply than he loved Cheon Sejoo.

The affection and devotion that saved Sejin were things Cheon Sejoo had painstakingly cultivated, gnawing at his own flesh. As a result of such self-sacrifice, Cheon Sejoo was now stuck in the mud, having lost the strength to even stand on his own. He had only ever received from him. Now it was Sejin’s turn to pull him out of the swamp of guilt.

Wiping away his tears, Kwon Sejin looked into Cheon Sejoo’s eyes and spoke. He conveyed the very words Cheon Sejoo had once told him.

“Cheon Sejoo, you told me that, didn’t you? That no matter what happens, or what doesn’t happen, everyone eventually dies. So don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault…”

The words of comfort, returned through Sejin’s lips, seeped into Cheon Sejoo’s life, which had long been overshadowed, like sunlight. And then, he suddenly realized who that brilliant and warm comfort was intended for… Tears welled up in his eyes once more.

Cheon Sejoo, abandoned by his birth mother. Kwon Sejin, abandoned by his birth father.

Six years ago, Cheon Sejoo lost his only sister in the world, and from the moment he realized that Sejin might be left alone because Kim Hyunkyung  was sick, he had been projecting himself, not Hyein, onto Sejin.

Only now did he seem to understand why he had been in such a hurry, why he had lost his composure. Cheon Sejoo had seen his past self in Sejin, and so he couldn’t stand by and watch Sejin be alone. He tried hard to save Kim Hyunkyung , walking into the shadows of the past for her without looking back.

Then, after Kim Hyunkyung  finally passed away, he struggled to ignore and deny the fact that the orphaned Sejin loved him. Cheon Sejoo loathed himself, so he couldn’t easily accept Sejin, who reflected himself, loving him. Because that was different from reality.

Because Cheon Sejoo couldn’t love himself…

That’s why revealing the truth to Sejin was so frightening. Not simply because he loved Kwon Sejin deeply, but out of fear that if the person he saw himself in knew the truth and rejected and loathed him, he would never forgive himself.

It’s okay, everything will be okay.

Dying is like that. That’s how it flowed.

Don’t resent it, everyone dies.

Don’t blame yourself. I’m saying this for your sake.

All the words and actions Cheon Sejoo had directed at Sejin were the very words he had wanted to say to his past self, tormented by the loss of Hyein. It’ll be okay, it’s not my fault, you have to keep living.

Cheon Sejoo had wanted to tell his six-year-ago self that.

At some point, for Cheon Sejoo, loving Sejin became loving himself. Only after realizing that truth did the answer finally appear.

‘Where is the person who can forgive you?’

That was the question Sejin had asked him a few days ago.

At the end of the projection, what he thought was a shadow was ultimately his own reflection, and beyond that was Kwon Sejin. Sejin, shining brightly with blind affection and dispelling the shadow, so that Cheon Sejoo could see the truth.

At that moment, words like a comforting whisper echoed in his mind. Yes, it wasn’t my fault. I… did my best. Until this moment, I endured well… The whispering voice was Cheon Sejoo’s own. The words he spoke for the one he loved dearly returned to him. In the end, it was he himself, and also Sejin, who forgave Cheon Sejoo.

Within the generous comfort, the shadow vanished. As the remnants of the projection, now at an end, scattered, the longed-for life drew a step closer. Cheon Sejoo reached out and cupped his cheeks. Facing the hot warmth that moistened his skin, he gave him the answer.

Sejin, you… me…

His tear-filled voice sounded strangely relieved.

Finally, it was forgiveness.