Chapter 11: Co-habitation Contract (5)

The phone made a cracking sound. Before Minjoo could argue, the student hurriedly ran away. It looked like the phone had been badly damaged.

As Minjoo picked up the phone, she realized she hadn’t properly arranged anything with Gihyun. The phone wouldn’t turn on, and she had no idea where to wait since Gihyun had said he would come to pick her up. Her thoughts were a mess. She considered borrowing a phone or using a payphone but couldn’t remember Gihyun’s number.

When she was on antidepressants, she sometimes forgot trivial things. Now that she wasn’t on them, she still couldn’t remember the number. Given the situation, she decided to quickly walk back home. She planned to buy an umbrella at a nearby convenience store, use it, and carefully limp home….

As she thought about what she needed to do, her mood suddenly sank. The return journey felt incredibly difficult. On the one hand, she felt she had become too accustomed to Gihyun’s kindness. Now, without Gihyun, without his help, she felt incomplete every time.

With the rain, her depression poured down. Her emotions felt shattered as if she had been in a traffic accident. She couldn’t bear it. Minjoo went out into the rain aimlessly. Her body quickly became soaked from the downpour. The steps were slippery, and her foot occasionally twisted. Driven by stubbornness and spite, Minjoo headed for the convenience store. By the time she arrived, she was drenched from her head to her eyelashes. Her shoulder, where the metal bar was, throbbed.

It turned out to be meaningless. The student working part-time at the store, lamenting that all the umbrellas had been sold out, expressed sympathy. Minjoo bitterly opened the store door and left.

The reality of not going as planned felt stifling. The way back home seemed bleak. She thought she should at least call a taxi before her body got any wetter. Now, it seemed like she couldn’t even get a taxi, and they probably wouldn’t let her in if the seat was wet. Her ankle hurt, leaving her too exhausted to walk.

She felt self-reproach. She should have made the right judgments from the beginning. Or, she shouldn’t have met Gihyun at all. Or, when she met him again, she shouldn’t have accepted the pregnancy contract. Or, she should have never given Gihyun even a little chance….

Her thoughts spun oddly. She barely realized she was being consumed by depression. Minjoo stood there, waiting for the rain to stop and the clouds in her mind to clear.

She stared vacantly at the scene before her. Due to the sudden downpour, students were running around. She kept watching the meaningless movement of people.

At some point, someone who seemed meaningful for the first time caught Minjoo’s eye. A man in a suit was turning his head this way and that. As if he had lost something and was desperately searching for it.

Gihyun’s body stopped. Seeing Minjoo standing there blankly, he looked straight at her. As soon as he confirmed her, he ran through the rain. His neat appearance was now pitifully soaked as he faced Minjoo. His face looked as if he was about to cry.

“Why couldn’t you contact me! Didn’t you want to call me even once?”

“…….”

“Why make yourself suffer like this! You could have stayed inside the building! I would have found you! Wherever you were, I would have found you!”

“…….”

“I was worried. Then I got scared! Later, I was choking up! I was afraid you’d fall somewhere else! I was afraid you’d fall into something! I was afraid you’d run away from me forever!”

Gihyun screamed like mad. The raindrops on his head flowed down his face. At the same time, tears poured down from Gihyun’s eyes.

Tears fell from Minjoo’s face as she looked at Gihyun. She needed to say something, but her throat was choked up. Minjoo took out the phone she had put in her pocket. As soon as Gihyun saw the cracked screen, he reached out with both hands and grabbed Minjoo’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry….”

“……”

“It’s all my fault….”

Unable to control his agitated emotions, Gihyun embraced Minjoo tightly. Then he held her more firmly. Minjoo couldn’t push away Gihyun’s hands that kept apologizing.

As soon as they returned home, the caretaker was horrified. She brought towels, covered Gihyun and Minjoo with them, and made warm ginger tea, which helped settle the atmosphere.

Gihyun, however, locked himself in his room. Minjoo, who felt vaguely tired, sat on the sofa covered with a blanket. After the caretaker left and as the night grew late, she still did not move from that spot. Sleep didn’t seem to come. It felt like a precursor to depression. With only a single light on, she gazed at the rain-streaked window and the night sky.

“Can’t sleep?”

Turning her head at the sound of a man’s voice, Minjoo saw Gihyun, who had come out of his room. He was wearing a T-shirt and long cotton pants, a comfortable outfit but with a disheveled look today. Minjoo answered quietly.

“…I can’t sleep.”

The sound of footsteps echoed as Gihyun sat down under the sofa. Without looking at Minjoo, he spoke.

“I lied.”

“…What about?”

“I said I’d stay out of sight until you got better.”

The yellow light from the lamp made Gihyun’s three-dimensional face appear even more shadowed. Gihyun swallowed and poured out the feelings he had been holding back.

“How can I live without seeing you? Even if you disappear for a moment, I imagine the worst.”

“……”

“I know it’s crazy. I know I’m talking nonsense. But….”

Gihyun clenched his fists. The words he had prepared with resolve came out weakly.

“Can’t you stay here?”

The words came out ungracefully, representing his impatience. Gihyun dropped his head at Minjoo’s silence.

“…Seeing you tears my heart apart.”

When Gihyun looked up again with the words, his face was sadly contorted.

“Even if I want to do something for you, you don’t seem to want it. The only way I can do something is by setting conditions. And imagining when this moment will end.”

“……”

“If I see you getting hurt or your body deteriorating… I feel this is pain. Even if you have no intention, it feels like I’m being worn away. I can’t do anything properly for someone I love, I can’t even gain their heart. I wonder why I struggled so hard, and it all seems meaningless.”

“……”

“Do you remember the snow from last winter?”

Minjoo remembered the heavy snow, like today’s rain. There was another reason she remembered it. She recalled what Gihyun had done.

“Cha Minjoo put her swollen hands into her pockets and climbed up the snowy hill.”

He spoke as if it was still vivid.

“She slipped, and sometimes fell. I had to watch that from behind.”

“……”

“I tried to clear the snow because I hated it. But you can’t stop snow from falling.”

“……”

“Winter will come again after we part.”

Gihyun turned his face away. He looked at Minjoo’s hand draped over the sofa. Once he tried to solve things with money. Now, he was afraid of losing her even by accidental touch.

“Can’t I live my whole life begging?”

Even if he could get just a piece of love, a handful of affection, he would eagerly pick it up.

“You can hit me whenever you remember the past, curse and hate me. You can treat me like an invisible person….”

“……”

“I won’t ask for anything. I won’t make you work, won’t make you manage the household. If you can’t trust me and don’t like it, you can live separately. You can change the name of this house to yours, and I’ll leave. I just want to make you a little more comfortable, so you can focus on your studies. If you want to do something other than studying, I want you to be able to do it without worrying about anything….”

“……”

“Does it sound insincere coming from someone with only money? I don’t know how to express sincerity. No matter how much I try to speak sincerely, it seems trivial. For over a year, I just waited and followed you. Of course, I can continue to wait and follow you….”

In what seemed like intoxication from alcohol, Gihyun poured out his inner feelings. The sincerity he had constantly delayed and hidden came out only in the extreme anxiety.

Minjoo, who had only been listening, revealed her true feelings for the first time.

“…Do you remember the hallway in front of my house?”

Gihyun must have stayed there every day.

“When the streetlights are out due to a malfunction, it gets dark. Dark enough to make walking difficult.”

She recalled times when, on nights when even the streetlights were off, she had to rely on the light from her phone or feel her way along the walls.

“It feels like walking that hallway every time depression comes.”

Alone in the quiet darkness.

“I want to go home and rest, but suddenly that hallway appears. No matter how many times I walk through that dark hallway, it never ends.”

“……”

“Eventually, I get drained and exhausted. I start wishing for death over trivial matters. They say it gets better with medication, that it comes and goes like a cold. But that’s scarier. It might disappear someday…. But it could last a lifetime.”

Minjoo looked at Gihyun with a steady gaze.

“You said your mother struggled with depression. Maybe I’m the same. Things that seem trivial to others suddenly sink my emotions. It can also burden those around me.”

Even if it weren’t Gihyun, she had avoided forming deep relationships with others.

“But… does it have to be me?”

At Minjoo’s question, Gihyun laughed wearily.

“If it weren’t for Cha Minjoo, I wouldn’t be alive, nor would I have lived this long.”

It had to be her.

“Even if Cha Minjoo walked that hallway for a lifetime, I’d want to be with you.”

Gihyun held Minjoo’s fingertips. Seeing Minjoo not pulling away, he grasped her hand tightly.

“What does it matter as long as you’re alive.”

“……”

“If it truly becomes too hard to handle your feelings… if you want to rest too much, you can die.”

He asked her to let him know if that moment came.

He said he would rest with her then.

Having said that, Gihyun stood up. He gently cupped Minjoo’s face. This time, Minjoo did not avoid him. Gihyun did not come closer, just quietly looked into Minjoo’s eyes. More than a hundred words, his sincerity was conveyed. Then, Gihyun held one of Minjoo’s hands with both of his. He placed his forehead against her hand and spoke as if praying.