3. Between Anguish and Instinct
2017.11.10.
Despite the desperate pleading of the man next door, Hawon strode straight into her own home.
And as she eagerly tore into the chicken she’d ordered, she thought:
There’s no way he’d actually die from a fever, right?
Well, even if he did die, he brought a different woman home practically every other day, so it’s not like he’d have any lingering grudges.
“Whew, it’s spicy… *munch munch*, *cough*.”
Hawon, who had been eyeing the spicy chicken heavily advertised on TV lately, had called the chicken place to order the moment she got home.
For Hawon, who ate raw fish and naengmyeon with extra mustard, the chicken that was so spicy it felt like molten lava erupting from her mouth was just perfect for her palate.
“Guuehh…”
‘…D… don’t go.’
As Hawon cleaned up, the voice of the man next door pleading earlier echoed in her head.
“Why does he normally act so sleazy, then suddenly grab me with a voice so pathetic it could melt my heart?”
…From what I could tell, he seems to live alone.
Then is he just going to stay sprawled in the entranceway like that?
Should I go back and check on him?
“No, no. This isn’t something I should stick my nose into. I did my duty as a neighbor. I got him home safely. What more does he want?”
That’s right, that’s right… I helped him as much as I could.
Then a horrifying thought suddenly crossed her mind.
[Man in his 30s found dead inside home]
No way…?
Hawon took out her phone and searched for articles about fevers or death, and soon found an article stating that one could actually die from a high fever.
“Sigh… seriously.”
Apparently unable to let it go, Hawon took Eojju and went next door, ringing the bell.
*Ding-dong*, *ding-dong*
She planned to bolt back home the moment she heard any sign of movement from inside, assuming he’d regained consciousness.
*Ding-dong*, *ding-dong*
She waited for a while and even knocked, but no sound came from inside.
‘Did he really die?! He got drenched in the rain earlier…’
“Sigh, should I go in or not?”
After agonizing in front of the door for a while, Hawon began punching in the door lock password.
“Argh, seriously!! Why is my memory so annoyingly good at times like this!!!”
She hated her own useless memory for still remembering the number the man next door had told her earlier.
As the door unlocked, Hawon pulled it open and discovered the man next door sprawled in the entryway just as she’d left him.
“H-he couldn’t actually be… dead, right?”
As if she’d seen this somewhere before, Hawon brought her finger to the tip of the man’s nose.
She faintly felt hot breath coming and going.
‘Thank goodness, he’s alive.’
Although everything was oriented in the opposite direction from her own place, the overall layout was the same, so Hawon walked skillfully to the living room and turned on the lights.
“Eojju, wait a minute.”
She set down the Eojju she’d been holding and went to the man next door, shaking him.
Of course, she put all her pent-up emotions into it, shaking him as. hard. as. possible.
“Hey! Wake up!”
Though his face turned red, the man next door didn’t wake up.
Seizing the opportunity, she slapped his cheeks with loud cracks.
“Hey!! Get a hold of yourself!!!”
But the man next door showed no signs of waking.
“Ah, seriously…”
The spot where the man next door lay was drenched from his rain-soaked clothes.
Still, thinking she couldn’t just leave him like this, she hooked both hands under his armpits and began dragging him.
The room she assumed was the bedroom was locked for some reason.
After opening this room and that, she finally found what appeared to be a guest room.
The moment she saw the bed, Hawon dragged the man she’d abandoned on the floor over and, grunting, heaved him onto it.
“Huff, my back…”
It was a back she didn’t use much, but it was still her precious back…
The man lying on the bed was breathing hot, labored breaths through slightly parted lips, clearly in distress.
To make matters worse, the bed quickly grew damp from the wet clothes he was wearing.
“He’s really something else… ugh.”
Hawon went to the walk-in closet she’d passed earlier and began rummaging through the drawers.
‘I’m not doing this because I want to!’
As if representing the man’s meticulous and flawless personality, every article of clothing in the drawer was folded neatly without a single crease out of place.
Even the black underwear was lined up in a row, straight and perfect.
Socks and handkerchiefs too, all in neat rows.
“Sigh, it must be exhausting living with a man like this.”
Hawon took out a pair of comfortable-looking sweatpants and a white cotton shirt.
And though she wasn’t keen on it, she went to the bathroom to fetch a fluffy towel and returned to the room where the man lay.
“Now… I just need to take them off, right?”
In dramas, it’s always the men who wipe down and take care of drunk or sick women.
Why does it have to be me… tending to this rotten jerk of a man… sigh.
Hawon began removing the man’s upper clothing.
Once she removed his tie and shirt, an unexpectedly magnificent upper body was revealed.
‘Wh-what the… His personality is trash, so why is his upper body so amazing? I want to touch it.’
He must work out every day—his chest muscles were firm, his abs were firm, and his deep collarbones were so sexy she felt like pouring wine into them right then and there.
After wiping his upper body with the towel, she shifted her gaze to his pants.
‘I must look like a total pervert doing this!’
She managed to undo his belt, but then hesitated for a long while at the hook closure of his trousers.
If she didn’t take them off, they’d stay damp, but if she did, she’d feel like a lecherous pervert…
‘Why must I suffer such agonizing anguish…’
At least his body makes up for it.
“I’m going to strip them all off at once. I can do this. Gu Hawon!”
Hawon unzipped and unhooked his pants, then grabbed them from the foot end and pulled them straight off.
Then his underwear suddenly sprang into view.
‘Ugh, I shouldn’t look. I shouldn’t…’
Let’s just leave it. I can’t take that off too.
She squeezed her eyes shut to keep her wandering gaze from going there.
Then she wrapped the towel around his waist to absorb the moisture and cover that area.
After some time had passed and the man’s underwear had mostly dried, Hawon unfolded the white shirt she’d taken out earlier.
“Ugh, is his head full of iron ingots? Why is it so heavy?”
Though Hawon was second to none when it came to physical labor anywhere else, the weight of the man’s head was too much for her.
“Lift your head! So I can put your shirt on!”
Hawon said, slapping the man’s shoulder with a sharp smack.
But the man lay as still as death.
Thanks to that, Hawon had to use her knees and arms to barely manage getting his head through the collar.
Now it was time to get his arms into the sleeves.
But faced with the high-level difficulty of having to bend his joints to force them in, Hawon eventually surrendered.
“This is impossible! It’s not like he absorbed the rain into his body, so why is he so heavy? Is his body made of cotton?”
Having failed to get the arms in, Hawon just pulled the shirt down over his torso as best she could.
“Top half is roughly taken care of.”
Hawon’s gaze shifted to the man’s legs and the sweatpants.
“Should I at least get his legs in?”
She stuffed both of the man’s legs into the pant legs and began pulling them up toward his waist.
Before long, the pants got stuck at his hips.
Thanks to that, the man ended up in an ambiguous state where he was neither wearing pants nor fully undressed.
“Sigh, this is good enough. It’s sufficient. His underwear still seems damp anyway.”
Hawon comforted and rationalized to herself.
“Ah, seriously… I’ve already digested all the chicken I just ate?”
Feeling the emptiness in her stomach with regret, Hawon got up.
“…C… cold.”
When the man curled up, Hawon replied.
“It can’t be helped even if you’re cold. If you cover up with a blanket while running a fever, your temperature will rise even more.”
Hawon removed all the blankets.
“Are you coming to your senses now?”
When Hawon asked, the man seemed still delirious and gave no answer.
Just then, the man’s lips moved slightly.
“Wa… ter”
“…? Are you asking for water?”
Even without fully regaining consciousness, he seemed thirsty, his mouth working.
Having somehow understood him, Hawon glared at the man with eyes that looked ready to pop out.
She considered pretending she didn’t hear and going home, but instead got up and headed to the kitchen.
“Is he faking this just to order me around?”
Grumbling, she opened the refrigerator door and froze with her mouth hanging open.
“…What the? Is this guy the male version of ‘I live on dew alone’?”
The refrigerator was packed with all kinds of liquor bottles.
And they too were arranged in perfect formation without a single misalignment.
“Ugh, he really lacks any human warmth. Is it fun living like this?”
Hawon filled a cup with water and came back, shaking the man.
“Hey. Here’s some water.”
“Ugh… m”
His face looked so feverish it seemed about to melt.
Perhaps due to the fever, the man could only moan without properly responding to Hawon.
“Sigh, how much bad karma did I accumulate in my past life…”
Do I need to bring a spoon and feed him?
Or, like in dramas, mouth-to-mouth?
No, that’s absolutely out of the question.
Hawon brought her mouth close to the man’s ear and spoke in a firm voice.
“I’m not nice enough to hold your head and feed you by hand, so drink it yourself.”
Leaving him lying there motionless and moaning, Hawon came out of the room and called for Eojju.
“Eojju~ baby~! Where are you!”
She’d brought Eojju along as a guard dog in case of any unexpected situations.
But no matter how desperately she called, Eojju was nowhere to be seen.
“Eojju! Eojju!!”
Then, a regular rhythmic sound drilled clearly into Hawon’s ears.
“Krooooh, krooooh—”
“This sound…”
It was a very familiar rhythm.
Following the sound, Hawon’s steps stopped when she reached the living room.
“Sigh, I can’t live like this.”
Eojju seemed to think this was his own home, lying sprawled out comfortably and snoring thunderously.
Ah, of course, he wasn’t forgetting to sleep with his eyes rolled back and his four legs twitching.
Hawon found Eojju’s appearance utterly adorable.
Eojju was a being who made her happier with more love than she gave him.
And he was the one and only warm existence who would never betray her love.
‘Ah, so pretty…’
Careful not to wake him, she tiptoed over, rested her chin in her hands, and gazed at him with a content expression.
His soft pink jellybean paw pads, his moist little nose bridge.
She planned to watch him for a moment before picking him up and taking him home.
But after a long day of grueling office work and having lifted, dragged, and tossed around a grown man by herself…
Combined with the food coma after eating chicken…
Her body grew languid, reaching a trance-like state where she felt like she was melting into the floor.
‘I shouldn’t sleep, I can’t…’
She forced her increasingly heavy eyelids to stay open.
But her body had apparently already entered rest mode, and she felt her strength draining away.
And before long, Hawon’s fluttering eyelids closed firmly and didn’t move again.
* * *
*Splash.*
Before he could do anything, his body plunged into the water.
He flailed his arms, struggling to reach the surface, but the more he struggled, the further he sank.
In the dark depths where he couldn’t see the bottom, he couldn’t breathe.
He felt like his face was being toasted like bread in a toaster, it was so unbearably hot.
“Hurk, hah, hah…”
Gasping for breath, he snapped his eyes open.
Something fluffy and bulky loomed before his eyes.
And it smelled musty.
‘What is this…’
To push away the mass covering his face, Sejun lifted his arm—which felt as heavy as a lump of iron—and grabbed it.
Feeling Sejun’s touch, the mass twitched, then something fist-sized shot up and looked at Sejun.
It was dawn, before the sun had risen.
In the dark room, Sejun locked eyes with two round pupils staring at him.
“…Huh!”
The mass he’d grabbed was a small puppy.
To be precise, the puppy had been pressing its butt onto his face, and Sejun had grabbed the puppy’s butt to push it away.
‘Where did a puppy come from?’
He soon realized he was strangely dressed in a shirt and sweatpants.
‘What on earth happened.’
The shapes visible in the dark looked familiar—it was indeed his house.
But he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten home.
‘I went to Seongbuk-dong… yesterday…’
On the way back, rain had suddenly poured down like a waterfall.
But he hadn’t particularly wanted to avoid it.
So he’d just started walking…
His whole body and face were still burning hot.
‘By the way, where did this…’
The puppy looked at him, wagging its tail.
But Sejun coldly ignored it and got up.
Momentarily dizzy, he staggered but managed to steady himself and head toward the kitchen.
Perhaps because of the fever, his mouth was so dry that even swallowing was painful.
As he tried to pass through the living room to the kitchen, he sensed an unfamiliar presence and narrowed his eyes sharply.
He quietly went to the study and came out holding a wooden sword.
‘A thief?’
He was prepared to strike with the wooden sword if necessary.
Sejun approached the wall, fumbling for the living room light switch.
Soon finding the switch, he gripped the wooden sword tightly in one hand and turned on the light.
*Click!*
As the lights blazed on, his vision went black for a moment from the brightness, but soon returned to normal.
As his vision gradually brightened, Sejun discovered someone lying face-down on his living room sofa.
The long hair made it clear it was a woman.
Sejun quickly racked his brain, thinking of women who might be in his house.
But there wasn’t a single woman who knew his front door password.
‘Then who is this woman?’
Sejun approached the woman and poked her back with the wooden sword.
“Mmh…”
Apparently deep asleep, the woman even raised her arm and made a shooing gesture in the air.
With a deep furrow between his brows, Sejun poked her back with even more force.
“Damn it, stop bothering me, Eojju…”
The woman lifted her face from where it had been buried in the sofa.
Seeing Hawon’s face, Sejun jumped in surprise and instinctively stepped back.
“Uwhaaa!!!”
“Mnya, mm…?”
A man’s voice?
Hawon snapped her head up and opened her eyes.
She rubbed her eyes with both hands and blinked.
But one of Hawon’s eyes seemed to have been possessed by Gungye—the upper and lower eyelids stuck together and wouldn’t separate.
“Damn, what the…”
She rubbed her eyes even harder until finally the eyelid separated and both eyes opened properly.
The surroundings in her field of vision were not her familiar home.
“…? What on earth is this place…”
Still groggy and half-asleep, a man with a fierce impression entered Hawon’s vision.
A face she’d seen somewhere before…?
Who was it again…?
Huh? The… the man next door?
“Uwaaack!!!”
“Uwhaaack!!!”
Her sleep vanished instantly as Hawon screamed and bolted upright.
Hawon’s voice was so thunderous that Sejun also shouted and stumbled back.
“Who are you?!!”
While sizing each other up, Sejun asked first.
“Who am I? Please, it’s not even our first meeting and you’ve already forgotten my face? I’m your neighbor. Next door. Unit 405. It’s not like I’m that forgettable…”
Hawon possessed a unique personality while also having a pretty appearance.
“You’re right. Once seen, you’re definitely not easily forgotten.”
“What did you say?”
Was that a compliment or an insult??
At Hawon’s muttering, Sejun took out a large hand mirror from the living room drawer and handed it to her.
“…?”
Why was he suddenly giving her a mirror?
At Hawon’s expression asking why he was suddenly handing her something so random, Sejun’s face scrunched up like crumpled foil.
“Look in this first before you speak.”
What’s so wrong with my face?!
Hawon snatched the mirror from Sejun’s hand and looked at her face.
“Huck!!!”
Is this me?
There had been a checkered cushion on the sofa where Eojju was sleeping, with thick seams stitched roughly in a grid pattern.
She had apparently used that cushion as a pillow, and half her face was covered in bumpy vertical and horizontal marks, a perfect mirror image of the cushion.
And that wasn’t all.
Remnants of the spicy chicken she’d eaten for dinner were densely stuck around her mouth.
And because she’d been greedy trying to stuff an entire bite of spicy chicken into her mouth, her mouth was smeared with red sauce…
It was downright horror.
“H-ha ha…”
Hawon let out a hollow laugh, trying to gloss over the embarrassing situation.
Why do I always end up like this whenever I get involved with this man!!
Were we enemies in a past life?
“When did my face become like this… hahaha,”
“Before that, shouldn’t you explain why you’re in my house? And what is this dust bunny?”
Sejun said, pointing at Eojju.
“Dust bunny? Are your eyes in your soles? How can such a pretty puppy look like a dust ball?”
Hawon quickly picked up Eojju and covered his ears with her hands.
“Look closely! Does this really look like a dust bunny?”
“I am looking closely.”
“These perky ears, these eyes that melt people’s hearts, this cute little tail! Isn’t he adorable?”
Hawon asked, pointing at Eojju’s face and tail.
But Sejun’s dry answer came back.
“Anything that sheds fur is a dust bunny. Anyway. Why are you here?”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“What memory?”
“You said ‘Don’t go…’ whimpering like a drama protagonist.”
“Whi… mpering?”
Sejun’s eyebrows twitched.
“I whimpered?”
Sejun asked again, as if he couldn’t believe it.
Seeing his reaction, Hawon spoke even more exaggeratedly out of spite.
“You were like a five-year-old. Sniffling in a soft voice, telling me not to go.”
“….”
Unable to remember, Sejun couldn’t refute it.
“Do you remember me finding you collapsed in the hallway and telling you to get a grip?”
“…Vaguely.”
He vaguely remembered someone shaking him and speaking even in his delirious state.
But to think it was the woman next door…
“I asked for your door password and dragged you inside with great effort. Thanks to that, my precious back is completely wrecked.”
Hawon said, quickly sticking out her tongue and wiping her mouth.
“You should be grateful to me. If you’d been left in the hallway all night, you’d have ended up paralyzed.”
“Then don’t tell me you were the one who took off my clothes…”
“Of course it was me. Who else would it be? You were soaked like a drowned rat, whining ‘don’t go’ and ‘I’m cold.’ I had no choice.”
“Sigh…”
Sejun ran his hand down his face.
No matter how he thought about it, it was absurd.
How on earth had things come to this.
“And you think I only stripped you? I even kindly took out clothes and put them on you.”
As Hawon boasted, her eyes fell on him in his underwear.
What happened to the clothes he was wearing, and why was he only in underwear again?
Unable to bear the sight, Hawon spoke.
“But can’t you put something on? It’s really embarrassing to look at…”
Her gaze kept drifting toward Sejun’s underwear.
The clothes that had been draped awkwardly on his neck and legs were cumbersome, so Sejun had taken them off.
Actually, his body was so well-built it would make David weep.
And that wasn’t all.
His muscles twitched and exuded masculinity every time he sighed or moved.
The sight kept swaying the heart of a mature woman like a windblown reed.
Only upon hearing Hawon’s words did Sejun realize he was undressed, and perhaps embarrassed, he quickly disappeared into the room.
And soon came out wearing shorts and a shirt.
“Now you’re somewhat decent.”
Hawon nodded.
“Why are you still here?”
Sejun asked with a frown, seeming displeased that Hawon was still in his house.
“I was just about to leave, you know? Can’t you see I’m wearing shoes?”
Hawon retorted, wiggling her shoe-clad feet at Sejun.
“But shouldn’t you at least say thank you, even if it’s just for show?”
If your personality were even half as good as that handsome face, would it kill you!!!
What a waste of a face on that personality! Really!
Despite Hawon’s rebuke, Sejun’s mouth remained firmly shut.
He can’t say thank you to the end, can he?
Hawon grumbled inwardly and hugged Eojju, preparing to leave.
But the water from Sejun’s wet clothes had apparently pooled in the entryway, and her shoes slipped, sending her falling backward.
“Uwaack!!!”
Unable to flail her arms because she was holding Eojju, Hawon squeezed her eyes shut, about to hit the floor headfirst.
Seeing this, Sejun reflexively reached out and snatched Hawon’s waist.
Perhaps because of the fever still enveloping his entire body.
Though he’d caught Hawon safely, Sejun lost his balance and stumbled, falling to the floor together with her.
*Smooch.*
A short, intense sound echoed by her ear.
#Private collection