Chapter 64

Episode 64: Bonds of Dreaming Eyes (3)

The words I had heard from my dad lingered in my mind as I decided to meet Siwoo and play on the holiday.

When I thought about what two boys could do together, I realized that we would just meet at the playground, swing for a bit, and eventually end up at the PC room.

I arrived early at the playground we had agreed to meet at.

The playground was a small one located near an elementary school in an apartment complex.

It was modest but sufficient for basic play like slides and swings.

In fact, there wasn’t much interest in playing at the playground aside from swinging.

We were probably too old to find joy in sliding down.

Even the snow that fell from the sky seemed to carry a magic, making it hard to stay outside for long.

Every time the snow touched my skin, every time I stepped on the piled-up snow,

…it felt like my lifespan was rapidly dwindling with every breath of the winter wind.

Still, I waited for Siwoo.

We had agreed to meet and play together.

– ‘But where does Siwoo live?’

I muttered to myself.

From the time he was a kindergarten student to a sixth grader, I had no idea where he lived.

Even during the parent observation classes, I had never seen his parents’ faces.

I thought I should at least have a rough idea of where he lived.

In truth, I still didn’t know.

Siwoo, where do you live?

What do your parents do?

These were personal details about someone I considered a close friend.

On the road to the afterlife, those thoughts didn’t seem like such bad gifts.

I waited for an unknown span of time, completely unaware of how long I had been waiting for Siwoo.

Then suddenly, a man who appeared to be the apartment security guard rushed up to me.

– ‘Hey, kid! What are you doing here instead of getting to safety?!’

The guard looked extremely exhausted.

I asked him what was going on.

He backed away from where I was standing, his face paling.

– ‘Eek! I… I still need to live!’

Leaving those words behind, the guard hurriedly turned around and fled.

He seemed so in a hurry that he almost stumbled, trying to get as far away from me as possible.

As a child, I thought.

Why is that?

When is Siwoo coming?

Why is that security guard acting like that all of a sudden?

I learned the answer to my questions from the situation I was about to experience.

Suddenly, my vision blurred, and I felt a hot sensation from behind me.

The moment I regained my senses, my body was flung towards the wooden bench at the playground where I had been waiting for Siwoo, crashing into it like a piece of paper.

At first, I didn’t know how to express that sensation accurately.

If I had to use my vocabulary to describe what I felt from this situation…

It was painful.

I struggled to maintain my balance at such a young age.

Most of all, the ground was slippery.

I barely managed to grab the backrest of the bench and stood up.

When I looked back… there was a monster I had only seen in a game world.

A monster.

At that time, I couldn’t understand why there was a monster radiating such dangerous energy here.

But now I knew the reason.

It was simply because the gate had been left unattended for a long time, allowing the monsters from inside to spill out.

With green skin and a massive club in its left hand,

A spiked whip in its right hand.

To add, the club had several sharp spikes embedded in it, just like the whip in its right hand.

In the game, they called such a weapon a ‘mace.’

Looking at its appearance, it was likely an ‘Orc.’

Was the guard fleeing after seeing that Orc?

…If he was going to run, he shouldn’t have approached in the first place.

– ‘Did Siwoo… evacuate in advance?’

Ah, now I see, this memory… wasn’t about when Siwoo and I played at the playground.

I wished I had been taken along too.

That day, I realized human selfishness.

I realized that living selfishly in this world made life easier.

I thought I should live that way from now on.

– ‘Minseong!’

Until someone called my name.

In the midst of my heavy eyelids and fading consciousness, I heard a calm voice.

It sounded like someone was calling my name.

The mere fact that someone came to rescue me kept me from sinking deep into selfishness.

And that someone was the friend I had first talked to in kindergarten.

Siwoo came to save me.

In truth, he had just gathered the nearby hunters.

But that didn’t matter.

This moment, with the snow falling heavily… I felt like I wouldn’t forget it until I died.

This memory… was of when Siwoo came to rescue me.

And then my vision faded completely to darkness.

Tick—

Tick—

Tick—

I felt tension in my fingertips.

I instinctively realized I was in a hospital.

Then, the ticking sound I was hearing was from the ECG machine measuring my heartbeat.

This ticking sound oddly began to soothe me.

I suppose it was because I had been listening to this sound since I was younger than 13.

My parents clung to me as soon as I opened my eyes.

Though what they said was predictable, they seemed genuinely worried about me, so I didn’t mind.

And when they asked me if I was okay 4 or 5 times,

My mom said, “I’m glad you have a good friend.”

It made me happy to know that the scene right before I fainted, when Siwoo gathered the nearby hunters to come save me, wasn’t an illusion.

I was glad to know that there was someone I could trust even without blood relations.

…That was about all.

I got hurt, collapsed.

And the emotion that always pressed in at the end of that cycle was ‘joy.’

It was strange, but I merely spoke the truth of what I felt.

My parents said they rushed over after receiving a call while they were working.

– ‘Did Siwoo call 119?’

I was piling up more debts again.

I told my parents not to worry and insisted there was no need for them to be near me for nursing.

I persuaded them several times.

If I was going to live a limited life anyway, I couldn’t be a burden to my parents until the end.

My parents left the hospital room with a distant smile.

I pulled back the curtains of the place I was lying down in.

Looking around, it seemed I was in a double room.

Questions began to fill my head about who the patient sitting directly in front of me was.

The curtain of the bed in front of me seemed tightly drawn.

But shortly after, the curtain in front of me opened with a ‘whoosh!’

Revealing the face of the patient sitting directly across from me.

The patient seemed to be around my age.

But looking at that face, I thought, ‘Is this hospital room shared between boys and girls?’

The patient in the bed right in front of me was a girl with striking snow-white hair.

She was with her eyes closed.

…As if she were someone who couldn’t see at all.

I just stared blankly at the girl who was hospitalized in the same room.

Then she started to speak first.

– ‘…You’re lucky, aren’t you? I’m envious.’

It was a statement I couldn’t understand.

…I might understand it now, but what would I have thought back then?

“You’re lucky, aren’t you? I’m envious.”

“…You mean me?”

Suddenly talking to someone whose name I didn’t even know.

‘Does that girl find me interesting?’

“…It’s a nice thing, you know? To be in a position to be loved. After all, giving love can be exhausting.”

The girl, who appeared to be of my age, kept speaking as if she were an old soul.

‘What is she saying?’

Even with her eyes closed, I felt a gaze on me from the girl in the bed in front of me, which gave me an involuntary chill.

Her hospital attire was white, but her hair stood out as a brighter pure white.

“Speak in a way I can understand… please.”

“It’s strange… was I lacking distance?… The director said that if I spoke politely, I would be remembered as a good person in every situation…”

The girl with white hair muttered to herself, barely loud enough for me to hear.

I felt strangely annoyed to the point that my patience was about to run out, so I irritably asked her.

“Why are you talking to me?!”

The girl with white hair seemed startled at my words.

‘Did I make too much noise?’

I immediately tried to apologize.

But since I wasn’t used to talking with girls, I ended up saying something entirely different.

“Um… by the way, you know what? My dad once said that when it snows, it whispers to living beings in this world that it’s time to sleep.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

The girl with white hair answered in a vague manner.

“So, what was that you said earlier…?”

Since I originally intended to smooth over the situation from the start, I asked to return to the main subject.

I thought it was perfect deflection.

I was sure she would respond kindly again.

However, much to my surprise, the girl in the bed opposite me covered her mouth with her hand.

It didn’t seem like her little hand fully covered her mouth, as I could see her only raising one side of her lip.

“Pfft, ah, did you not understand what I said earlier? Well then, let me explain it at your level. It seems you’re getting excessive love from your parents, and I’m envious because I don’t have any parents to care for me. Would that be easier to understand?”

At this point, I suspected she might have a double personality.

“…Isn’t the difference in your tone a bit too extreme?… You, judging by your appearance, seem to have a visual impairment, but if you speak so rudely, you won’t be popular with boys.”

The mysterious girl with white hair shivered slightly.

“I’ve already given up on marrying, you know? Who would love someone with this white hair… I know better than anyone that my way of speaking is rude. That’s why I tried to be polite at first… but you didn’t have to go that far… it’s harsh.”

– Whoosh!

The girl with striking white hair seemed to have lost interest in talking to me and drew the curtain closed again.

‘This wasn’t it.’

My attempt to make things better ended up making it worse.

Now I can’t even remember the girl’s face.

The girl with striking snow-white hair somehow closed the curtain again.

I wonder why she did so? I can hardly recall that situation now.

In any case, that’s not important.

I considered it just one of the past happenings.

Ah, there was something I wanted to tell Siwoo.

…

What was it?