CH 51

Act 7

I learned that Yeonseon couldn’t stand being alone with one other person after a long time passed. I already knew that there was something unusual about him. However, I thought he had something like claustrophobia.

* * *

One time, I was supposed to go somewhere with Yeonseon, but Hyehyun joined us. After about 30 minutes of driving, Hyehyun said that he needed to go to the bathroom and parked the car, leaving just the two of us in the car.

Yeonseon was asleep after long hours of practice. I was careful not to wake him and played a simple business simulation game on my phone, where I made carp bread. I had to make and sell carp bread according to the orders of the customers.

I had raised my level to the point where I could sell strawberry cream, Castella-flavored carp bread as a new menu item, but Hyehyun still hadn’t returned. I didn’t think anything could have happened to him, but something did happen to the one sitting next to me instead.

I was focused on my game, but then I heard rough, heavy breathing.

“…” It wasn’t coming from my phone. I was playing it with the volume as low as possible so as not to wake Yeonseon up from his nap. I lifted my head to look at the seat next to me, where Yeonseon was sitting. Yeonseon was the source of the sound.

Yeonseon looked pale and had a hard time breathing. I was so surprised that I called him. However, his hands grasped his throat, and he didn’t seem to hear me. A look of horror covered his face as he clenched his jaw. It was as if all his attention and energy were focused on resisting an invisible, unknown force that was pressing down on him.

I wondered if Yeonseon had some sort of disorder, but I didn’t hear anything of the sort from Hyehyun, so I had no idea what to do. I wasn’t used to emergencies like this. I was hit with the fear that I would make the situation worse by trying to intervene. Yeonseon started to hyperventilate.

Pant, gasp, gasp.

After calling an ambulance from my phone, Hyehyun returned to the car.

Then, something magical happened. Just from returning and opening the driver’s seat door, Yeonseon looked visibly better. Hyehyun looked between the panicked me and the glaring Yeonseon. He said something that I couldn’t understand the meaning of, “Oh, sorry. I thought it would be fine if I came back quickly.”

Yeonseon wiped off the sweat that beaded on his chin and turned to look out the window. Thinking about it now, he must have felt embarrassed, most likely unsure of how to face me. He rolled the window down and said in a sharp voice, uncharacteristic of him, “You didn’t do it on purpose, right?”

“No. God, no. The bathroom just happened to be full when I went.” Hyehyun laughed it off and started the engine. Both of them seemed to be used to this situation because they were blasé about it. I felt like I was the only one overreacting for worrying about the person next to me dying from hyperventilation.

I looked at the back of Yeonseon’s head and carefully asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. Don’t worry about it. I just had a nightmare. That’s all,” he replied, still not looking at me.

Since that was what he said, I couldn’t really pry further. Even though I was sure he was hiding something, I had to settle with mere speculation. Perhaps he was a bit claustrophobic, so I passed it off.

* * *

Come to think of it, until then, I had only seen the sides of Yeonseon when he was with several people. I thought those aspects of him were because of his personality, but it occurred to me for the first time that my assumption might not be the case.

But after that, I saw him riding the elevator by himself and heard that he lived alone. That was when I realized that I was wrong. I only heard about the details of what affected him after we grew very close.

I didn’t know about Yeonseon, but to be honest, Yeonseon was my first.

He was the first person that I liked outside of my family and friends. Well, since I didn’t have any friends, Yeonseon would also be considered my first friend or something of the like. Anyway, the first person that I felt an attachment to was him.

I was a silent person because my voice was liked by ghosts, although that propensity had waned after I hit puberty. When I spoke, I talked as quietly and briefly as possible out of habit, so it was hard for me to grow close to anyone. I also felt more comfortable alone than with others.

Loneliness? Solitude? Ennui? None of those were problems to me at the time. After all, even though I said there was nobody near me, I wasn’t completely alone.