CH 39

The place looked like it had been attacked. Lamps, pots, cups. Anything breakable was shattered and scattered across the floor, and the walls bore the marks of something hitting them. None of the furniture was upright. Even the carpet was stained and hardened with old bloodstains.

The <Portrait of Saint-Germain> was the only thing intact in the mangled room. The taxidermized ‘John’ smiled as he gazed out over the devastation, a strange gap that made the battlefield-like scene seem all the more horrific.

Then, suddenly, he spotted him.

“…….!”

A figure stood in the shadows.

Simeon was dressed too neatly to have left his room for days. But the moment he turned his head in this direction, he froze.

It was a mountain invoice. His pupils were lifeless, and his skin was bloodlessly pale. His cheeks bore the marks of cuts from something sharp, and his hands were already full. Blood stained the sleeve of his white shirt, as if to prove that the spattered blood on the floor belonged to him. He couldn’t speak as a chill ran through his body.

A pair of lifeless eyes darted around the room, then turned to him. They locked eyes. But strangely enough, Simeon didn’t react. He expected him to be angry at him for barging in, but he just stared at him blankly. Finally, he smirked and muttered something incoherent.

“You’re here?”

He stood there, stunned, and Simeon spoke again.

“You’re early today, Brother John.”

The corners of his mouth twitched upward, a hint of resignation.

Brother John. His head pounded as he heard the name he had only heard in his dreams. But when he thinks about his words, it’s strange. You’re here early today, which means you were here yesterday, too…

Raphael’s voice echoed in his head.

‘I think he’s hallucinating…’

Yes. Simeon was hallucinating. He’s seeing the image of John, who no longer exists, superimposed on him. So the hallucination he’s been having, the object that keeps talking to him, the person who isolated him in the dark room, is him……?

All he could do was stand stunned in place, shocked, and as unnatural as it must have been, Simeon didn’t even suspect it. The empty eyes seemed to have reached a point where it was impossible to distinguish what was real and whether it was a hallucination.

“Please just go home today …I don’t want to see my hyung.”

Staggering to the table, Simeon barely lifted the cup with trembling hands and quenched his thirst. A trickle of water escaped his parched lips and trickled down his chin. But he didn’t bother to wipe it away, just stared blankly into space.

“Simeon.”

He said his name carefully, and his hand on the cup twitched. He seems to hear his voice, so we can at least try to talk. He cautiously approaches him, trying not to provoke him.

“Are you okay?”

The sound of a cup being set down broke the silence. He stood frozen in place, the unspoken pressure telling him not to approach any further. Sad eyes, shaped and glowing in the darkness, stared back at me.

“Are you worried about me?”

“Of course…….”

Before he could finish, a cynical sneer tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Huh, you think you have the right to worry about me?”

“That…….”

“You casually ditched me and now you come and feel sorry for me?”

He was at a loss for words.

So, yeah. This is real life. The reunion he had in his dream was just a fantasy that he made up for his own good. There is no such thing as a ‘touching’ reunion, where people are honest with each other and understand each other’s true feelings. That’s right. Simeon’s natural reaction is to resent him and laugh at him, but why does his bitter animosity towards him make him feel like a knife has been slashed through his heart?

He shakes his head and avert his gaze and Simeon snorts in amusement.

“Why does hyung looks hurt? I’m the one being left behind.”

His eyes were sad and distorted, his gaze was full of contempt. He should say that he is hallucinating, but like a prisoner whose tongue has been cut out, no words came out. The longer he remained silent, the more impatient Simeon became.

“Make an excuse. Huh? …Aren’t you here to stop me again?”

He didn’t have to ask what he meant by stop. Simeon stretched out his hand toward him, revealing his wrist, which was hidden by his sleeve. There was a nasty scar where he’d drawn it under the watch strap so many times, he didn’t know how many times.

Simeon frowned as he stared in disbelief.

“Why do you act like you don’t know? Every time I’ve tried to die, you’ve shown up and interrupted me.”

“…….”

“When I tried to slit my wrists, you were already holding the knife, and when I tried to jump off the cliff, you were standing there first …You knew, didn’t you, that even if I was hallucinating, I couldn’t hurt you. That I couldn’t even try if I was going to die!”

A laugh that he doesn’t know if it’s contempt or amusement escapes from his contorted face.

“You’ve ruined everything for me, for one man who doesn’t even know if he’s alive or dead.”

Then, in a voice that struggled to contain its anger, Simeon begged.

“How on earth are you going to let me go?”

He was holding on somehow, but with that one word, everything crumbled. He hadn’t expected the words he’d been dreading to come out of his mouth.

‘So tell me. You’ll let me go.’

In the meantime, he was desperate to get away. He thought his hands were already empty, that Simeon would just have to let go and the relationship would be over, but the threads that had been tangled for so long were not so easily untangled.

Who is holding whom, where is the first knot in this untouchable relationship, where did he go wrong? No, there’s no point in trying to figure it out now, we’ve already broken each other.

“I thought I’d finally…. finally gotten over you, but why do you reappear and give me such a hard time. Why?”

Simeon ruffled his hair roughly and the blood from his hand dripped onto his forehead. Only the sight of it brought him back to his senses. More time would only make Simeon’s condition worse. He took another step forward, reaching for him.

“Simeon. You need to calm down and….”

“Enough!”

A pitiful cry flew into his ears. Then he swiped at his pale face and muttered in a stifled voice.

“Stop…… Let me go.”

“Heo-sang ssi.”

“Get lost!”

Simeon picked up a glass from the table and threw it at him. There was no time to dodge, so he raised his arm to block it. It was cracked in the first place, and the cup shattered with a loud crack as it hit his wrist. The shattered fragments splashed onto his forehead. With a dull ache, something trickled down. It was blood.

“Ugh….”

As he wiped the blood off his fingertips, he heard the sound of a table collapsing. He turned and met a pair of startled eyes.

“…hyung?”

His pale face had lost all colour and had turned leaden.

“Why…… the blood….”

He guesses he thought he was hallucinating and didn’t expect to be hit by a glass. Simeon pushed aside the table in front of him and strode over to stand in front of him. He pulled a crumpled handkerchief from inside his jacket and wiped the blood from his forehead. His pupils fluttered unfocused, like he was on drugs.

“I, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you’re not hurt more than that?”

“It was wrong, hyung. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

The conversation stalled. Simeon fidgeted like a child who accidentally broke a glass. He couldn’t calm down, even though he wasn’t bleeding anymore, and he kept wiping at his wound with a trembling hand. It didn’t matter how much he tried to tell him that he was fine. His eyes, which had been filled with contempt just a moment ago, were now filled with a dark anxiety.

Eventually, he pulled his hand away and said firmly.

“I’m not really hurt, so don’t worry.”

Thankfully, Simeon didn’t shake his hand away. He took advantage of the momentary calm to examine the wound on his hand. Up close, it was pretty bad. The tears and cuts hadn’t healed in time and were now oozing. He couldn’t leave him like this.

He patted him on the arm and spoke in the calmest possible tone.

“I’m going to go get Raphael, you wait here.”

He turned to leave, but he grabbed his arm.

“Don’t go.”

He let out an involuntary ‘ugh’ at the sheer force. The harder he tried to pull away, the harder he gripped. He could see the bones in his hands as he held him. His arm slowly went numb, and as he tried to push him away, he made eye contact with him. His face was contorted in anguish, and he couldn’t find the words to ask him to stop.

“I’m sorry, everything I said earlier was a lie.”