Chapter 1

“You were born to be loved~♬”

An awful song was being played.

A song full of lies and hypocrisy.

Yoon-woo’s room was not soundproofed but still he couldn’t hear every word of the lyrics clearly.

Yoon-woo has never had a good night’s sleep in this cramped studio.

At dawn, I woke up early because a drunk Chinese guy next door was shouting at someone on his phone. Later that week on Sunday morning, the singing of children in a nearby church could be heard from a small window which irritated me, making me feel like my ears would bleed .

Adults would have taught children that song with a pleasant smile.

“You were born to be loved in this world.”

Who the hell is to blame for that?

Those children will realize in less than 10 years that the content of those lyrics is nothing but a lie.

For better or worse, Yoon-woo seems to have realized this a little earlier than those children.

Ever since he was born, Yoon-woo has never been loved by anyone.

When I was in 4th grade, my homeroom teacher was a young female teacher.

But one day, I didn’t know if she came after reading a self-help book filled with some wonderful words or from watching some educational broadcast, but she said these things to the children.

“Everyone, you must be a person who knows how to love yourself. How can someone else love someone who doesn’t even love themselves? Respect and love yourself first before you expect others to love you.”

Although Yoon-woo was still young, he instinctively sensed that it was a lie.

For example, the class president, Hye-rim Cho, who is popular with everyone, had a pretty appearance and a lively personality, he didn’t think that the love she received had anything to do with how she thought of herself.

And if the teacher is right, is it because Yoon-woo doesn’t love himself that all of his classmates don’t like him?

Yoon-woo was an ordinary child. However, after someone pointed out that Yoon-woo’s voice sounded like a woman’s, there was laughter every time Yoon-woo opened his mouth.

They even teased Yoon-woo for being a gay bastard. So, Yoon-woo became scared of talking.

He couldn’t make friends because he was afraid to speak to anyone.

Is it because Yoon-woo doesn’t love himself? Even before Yoon-woo hated himself, others hated him first.

Cho Hye-rim, the class president and the only classmate who did not tease Yoon-woo for his voice, told Yoon-woo.

“Yoon-woo, did you hear the teacher? Yoon-woo must love Yoon-woo too!”

Yoon-woo knew that the teacher had asked Hye-rim to take care of Yoon-woo as he didn’t get along well with others in class.

So sometimes, out of the blue, she would give one-sided advice that could not be called conversation.

He abhorred her as she was Ms. Perfect Class President who is loved by everyone and even asked by teachers.

In addition, Hye-rim’s words were not only based on the premise that Yoon-woo was not loved by others, but it was also filled with a tone that blamed Yoon-woo.

Yoon-woo scoffed at her and said, “Really? I like myself so much already. Since I already love myself, can Hye-rim love me too? Do you want to go out with me?”

What the teacher said was that you should love yourself before being loved by others, not that if you love yourself, others will love you on their own. But for young children, that sort of logical leap was a good one to listen to.

Hye-rim’s eyes flashed with embarrassment several times, and then she soon burst into tears.

And Yoon-woo became the target of everyone’s criticism.

When I tried to explain, no one listened to me.

When pretty Hye-rim is crying and Yoon-woo is standing next to her, it’s Yoon-woo who did something wrong.

Yoon-woo realized how meaningless it was to open his mouth.

So even when he was in middle school and high school, Yoon-woo kept his mouth shut.

Regardless of whether he opens his mouth or not, Lee Yoon-woo is not loved by anyone anyway.

I don’t have a good memory of my childhood. My parents often fought, and when they fought, they turned their anger on me.

‘Why did I have to have a child and go through this hardship… ….’, ‘If it wasn’t for him, the situation would be… ….’

Yoon-woo felt guilty. Eating rice, drinking water, turning on the heater.

He questioned himself whether it was worth it to breathe and live this life.

He studied hard but when Yoon-woo got low grades, the parents fought with each other saying, ‘That child resembles you.’

But even if I got good grades, there were no days when I was praised or taken out to a restaurant for a treat.

Since his parents spent a lot of money on Yoon-woo, it is only natural for Yoon-woo to get good grades in school, and it is not something to be praised for.

Children can’t easily hate their parents. So, Yoon-woo would blame himself for every bad thing happening in his life.

Before falling asleep, he always painted the world in his head without his presence.

It was a world where parents who didn’t spend much money and didn’t fight each other, they enjoyed talking and eating because of Yoon-woo.

However, such a world was not one in which Yoon-woo could live in. If Yoon-woo dies inside this house, his hideous body will dirty the house and his parents have to spend some money to clean it up again.

In addition, his parents would have to take responsibility for Yoon-woo’s death and it would adversely affect his parents’ social reputation.

‘Social reputation’ is one of the most important values of Yoon-woo’s parents, who are university professors.

Therefore, if you want to die, you have to be careful not to pollute the room and not to make a situation where your parents will get the blame for your death.

Otherwise, even Yoon-woo’s dead body could be pointed at for the blame.

“Yoon-woo is a much more valuable person than I thought.”

That’s what the psychiatrist said.

It was a few pills called diazepam and Seroquel that made Yoon-woo’s mind feel peaceful, who was getting exhausted in a small studio.

I don’t know if it has a positive effect on the mind, but after taking the drug, the amount of time I slept increased to about 11 hours.

In fact, I didn’t go to a psychiatrist to get rid of my gloomy mood which had been hovering around me for 20 years. Since the waking time is always a time of pain, it would’ve been better if the sleeping time increased for me.That’s the only reason to go to a psychiatrist.

But it was hard to listen to the useless words the doctor had to say every time I went. Every time we met, he said things like, ‘You are a talented person, haven’t you gone to a place that is difficult for others to even enter’ or ‘Value yourself, you are a worthy person’.

It sounded like he was making fun of him.

That doctor would give everyone who comes to him a good reason, and for that reason, he would motivate everyone to live and prescribe medicine.

Even if a broken clock comes to him, the doctor will praise him by saying, “Didn’t you work hard in the past?” and “Don’t you still hit twice a day?”

University? Both Yoon-woo’s parents were professors at Shun University, but Yoon-woo failed the entrance examination and entered the Department of Economics at an old university, which was one level below that.

The entrance exam was a failure. My parents didn’t congratulate me or console me.

Yoon-woo is a failure. Yoon-woo shouldn’t have been born.

Everything in Yoon-woo’s life was a failure. A broken watch should be discarded.

-Tofu, are you sleeping already?

It was 9 o’clock in the evening. I woke up to the children’s cacophonous singing and felt bad even after I went to the gym in the morning, so I was lying down and looking into the air without eating anything.

The friend who sent the kakaotalk message is a complete stranger who knows neither his face nor his name.

I met him in an open chat room, and Yoon-woo’s nickname was “Tofu Soft Tofu” and the other person’s nickname was “Sandok”.

The other person called Yoon-woo Tofu, and Yoon-woo called him Bunny because it was too troublesome to type in the weird name of Sandok.

“I’m going to sleep now.”

-Why? I just woke up. Let’s have a drink together.

When she asks you to drink together, she doesn’t mean to meet you.

The idea was to take a video of each other’s bottles and send it to each other to make us feel better.

At first, Bunny wanted to meet and drink together, but Yoon-woo refused, saying he didn’t want to meet anyone and that he didn’t want anyone to see him.

So that’s why Bunny suggested this.

Yoon-woo was not a good drinker, but he was very happy when he held a can of cheap beer and played the rhythm a few times.

Bunny seemed to drink almost every day.

“If you drink now, you can’t get up early tomorrow”.

-What if I can’t get up? I heard you didn’t take the first class on Monday anyway.

“But if I wake up late because of alcohol, I’d feel ashamed.”

-Why don’t we just get it over with? I’m good any time.

“Not yet… I think I’ll feel less sorry if I die after receiving my diploma. To my parents….”

-Why do you care so much about others when you are going to die anyway?

“But I told you it was after graduation from the beginning.”

-You did. I just wanted to make you feel comfortable. I’m gonna go get a leaf of algae.

“Yeah, I only drink on Fridays or Saturdays, so let’s talk about it then.”

-I don’t even look at the calendar anymore, so I don’t know what day it is. You tell me first.

“Okay, I will.”

I met Bunny in the 1:1 open chat room.

Although searching for “suicide” as the subject of the open chat room was prohibited, there were still various bypass words.

Yoon-woo, who was overwhelmed by the urge to stop living after entering college, wanted to know the fastest and cleanest way to die. However, all information on this topic was blocked.

Why? Wouldn’t it be better if someone tried to kill themselves to the point where they knew how to die easily?

Wouldn’t that be enough to let him die? The world that forces us to live is so cruel.

Still, many people gathered in the open chat room who wanted to die regardless of gender or age to the point they could not even care to censor the chat room.

Yoon-woo wandered around such chat rooms in case he could get information about a comfortable and clean death. But most were not serious.

The most difficult case Yoon-woo has seen is those who persistently hurt their bodies and try to show them to others.

Somehow those who hurt themselves really wanted to show their wounds.

It didn’t seem to matter to anyone. And they didn’t really want to die.

Yoon-woo had a hard time seeing such pictures, so he was disgusted by them.

They try to draw attention, making a fuss about death only with their mouths. In the end, it only makes people around you fall in trouble.

“The desire to get attention from others is natural but these guys want it so bad that they are hurting themselves for it.”

Yoon-woo talked about them to a psychiatrist, an expert in good words.

Of course, I didn’t say I was looking for a way to die. I was looking for someone to talk to because I was lonely, and I met them.

I know. Everyone wants attention. But it takes qualification to get attention.

It is to be as extraordinarily lovely as the class president Cho Hye-rim when you were young, or to succeed in the entrance examination to Shun University, or something like that to be given to some special people.

Otherwise, he will not get the attention of his family like Yoon-woo.

But these guys were not qualified and yet begging for attention? What a naïve bunch of people.

Come to think of it, it’s clear they’re victims, too.

“You were born to be loved~♬”

That song is what ruined these people. Because of the song, if you really grew up expecting that you were born to be loved, you’d be very disappointed.

So they said, ‘Look at me. I heard I was born to be loved?’ He’s complaining that he’s innocent.

Adults instil fantasies in children without responsibility.

But when those children grow up and complain about those fantasies not coming true, they laugh at them for being immature.

In that case, it should have been taught from an early age.

“There are only a few people who were born to be loved in the world,” he said.

Anyway, while looking for someone seriously thinking about dying, I met Bunny.

Bunny was not looking for a way to die, but for someone to die with.

As long as we die together, it doesn’t matter if we do anything else.

Bunny was really lonely.

Nevertheless, when I saw her staying alone in her room without forcing herself to find someone to meet, I felt like she was not born to be loved.

There was a time when Bunny asked Yoon-woo to meet and have a drink, but she didn’t recommend it anymore when Yoon-woo refused it once, probably because she wasn’t really suggesting it either.

Bunny didn’t try to attract attention or harm herself, so Yoon-woo and Bunny quickly got to know each other.

So, I tried voice chatting with the app a few times, but one time Bunny kept crying and I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

Bunny said that she wakes up every night and drinks as soon as she wakes up.

And she said she endured every day by getting drunk.

When I asked if she drank a lot on the day we chatted while crying, she said it was the day she didn’t drink even a drop of alcohol.

That was probably a good thing. Because I have a partner who will seriously die with me.

Even if we talk about love or interest in the face of death, it quickly turns into nothingness.

So, we decided not to ask about useless things about each other whenever possible.

I found out because of the voice that Bunny was a woman, but it was a good thing.

Even Bunny didn’t say anything about Yoon-woo’s voice. She is a very nice and understanding friend as a companion of the underworld.

The purpose of Bunny is to die with others in any way possible, and Yoon-woo’s purpose is to disappear cleanly without harming his parents’ reputation.

If I die with Bunny, leaving a silly suicide note that seems to have admired romantic companionship, it will be less likely that my parents will be caught up in the scandal of whether they are responsible or not for my death.

Therefore, the interests of Bunny and Yoon-woo were perfectly coherent.

At least…… it seemed so at that time.