Delusive Fate

#005

We’ll die the moment we stop. It will definitely happen. You saw it too, didn’t you? That thing with its eerie eyes glowing at the bottom of that huge, endless pit? You saw that monster, that ghost, chewing, crushing, and crumpling something in its horrific form, didn’t you?

If we stop, that ghost will rush at us with its mouth wide open, as if it had been waiting. They won’t disappear just because we chant “pomade” three times a second. We will surely be dragged into the hole. We’ll be buried deep in the pit like corpses, torn apart not just by the mouth but by the whole body. We’ll become meat and be swallowed in one bite. If not that, we’ll be kicked to death by the feet of adults who no longer protect us. We’ll be flattened under the crowd. The moment when voracious death comes to us, the weakest and most incompetent beings here.

Remember. That’s the moment we stop running.

So no matter how tired and exhausted you are, don’t stop. Run to the end, Baek-woo.

I kept desperately reminding myself of this as I led Ki Baek-woo. I desperately hoped.

Let’s escape from the ghosts. Let’s not get eaten by the ghost that ate our mothers. Baek-woo, let’s live together. We must live…

What is the desire to live for those who are alive? I really didn’t want to die. Although I was a pathetic child who could barely get five out of ten right in dictation and had nightmares about mere red masks, I still wanted to live. My only thought was to live, to survive together with Ki Baek-woo.

And we really did survive. The process was miserable, exhausting, and a desperate struggle just to stay alive, but somehow, ten-year-old elementary school student Lee Han-sol and seven-year-old kindergartener Ki Baek-woo tenaciously survived and became adults.

That was the nature of my relationship with Ki Baek-woo.

We were like insects crawling on the bottom to survive, with only each other as a hiding place. We were so close, enduring those times when every day was both despair and a miracle, struggling to breathe with all our might. We were the only warmth each other knew. In a world of surviving beasts, we were the only ones who could be human in front of each other…

I would have died without Ki Baek-woo. Really. I persevered tenaciously because I had to live with Ki Baek-woo. It was my only desire, my only spring. As long as that desire kept turning, I could struggle like a wind-up doll until my body wore out. Since it had come to this, I decided to just live for Ki Baek-woo. Ki Baek-woo felt the same.

‘I would have died without you, hyung. I wouldn’t have wanted to live in this crappy world without you. I would have died long ago, either from hating my inadequate and weak self, or from the horror of this insane world, or from unbearable loneliness. So, hyung, what I want to say is… My life is yours. Since there’s a soul in life, that’s yours too. Since I’m in that soul, in the end, I’m yours. I exist for you. I’m living for you… Really.’

Ki Baek-woo said that, so it must have been true…

I’m not sure.

I know a lot of things now. I clearly know the identity of that ghost that devoured our mothers forever and still writhed in hunger. It was the apocalypse that struck humanity, who had been living too comfortably. Gates that open suddenly, the dungeons inside them, the monsters that pour out if left alone. ‘Apocalypse’.

The apocalypse was something that ten-year-old Lee Han-sol, who ran around holding seven-year-old Ki Baek-woo’s damp hand to survive, didn’t know. The apocalypse and the world it brought were full of unknowns. Ten-year-old Lee Han-sol knew nothing.

The Han-sol of that time was a serious idiot who confused word spellings and spacing, a fool who could only distinguish between what was normal and what wasn’t by instinct. But since the world struck by the apocalypse was all abnormal, Han-sol at that time was no different from an imbecile. The only thing that was clearly and properly engraved in Han-sol’s empty head, the only thing I knew when I knew nothing about everything else in the world. That was Ki Baek-woo.

Ki Baek-woo’s existence. Ki Baek-woo’s kindness and Ki Baek-woo’s promise. The belief that Ki Baek-woo would definitely keep his promise. The desire to survive to the ends of the earth with Ki Baek-woo.

Young Han-sol simply knew only that. Only Ki Baek-woo was clearly embedded in his mind.

But the current Han-sol knows everything.

The realization is so great that I think I might soon reach enlightenment like Buddha and enter nirvana. I knew all the truths of this world that the foolish mortals, no, the pitiful characters in this tedious game, didn’t know even a speck of. Now it seems there’s really nothing I don’t know. I knew so much that it was exhausting.

But if there’s one thing I don’t know, it’s Ki Baek-woo.

Ki Baek-woo, that fucking unlucky traitor bastard…

I felt like I didn’t know Ki Baek-woo at all anymore. I couldn’t believe or be sure of anything related to Ki Baek-woo.

If ten-year-old Han-sol flew to the future and saw twenty-five-year-old Han-sol now, what would he think? I wondered. Would I, who had become like this, look normal or abnormal to my younger self’s eyes?

It was a reality that wasn’t even funny.

***

There’s no end to explaining how unfortunate my life was after the apocalypse struck. It’s obvious without seeing how shitty the journey was for a ten-year-old kid to not only take care of himself but also raise a seven-year-old kid in a situation where it’s hard to even manage oneself. It was just a series of hardships, child abuse where the world was the perpetrator.

To be honest, I think people like me should be the ones writing autobiographies. How much inspiration can you get from people who were just a bit poor when they were young and somehow became rich later, rambling on in their books?

After reading it all, you’re left with thoughts like, “What’s this? They said they’d tell us the secret to success, but in the end, isn’t it just saying you need to be as persistent, competent, sensible, smart, and sociable as them to naturally build connections and do well in politics? Yeah~ If I could do that, I’d already be filthy rich~ Sorry, trees.” Stories that are nothing more than self-praise, go away now. To gain the sympathy and inspiration of the world and readers, you need to be at least like me.

The life-and-death hardships and adversities that marked my childhood. Lee Han-sol, an unremarkable human who overcame them solely with instinct, endurance, and luck. This kind of combination is necessary to touch the hearts of readers and give them hope.

“Ah! Even a child whose life was ruined like this endured all the hardships and finally saw light in life! He was lucky enough to awaken as a hunter, and although he became gay, he got a handsome virgin younger boyfriend, and moreover, that boyfriend is amazingly good at sex, learned from who knows where, and is even insatiable, making him cum at least three times without fail once they start rolling around…!

A child who couldn’t read the situation and showed off by giving his rationed bread to the younger boy who would become his future boyfriend. A pathetic child who eventually couldn’t stand the hunger and got caught stealing someone else’s bread, getting beaten up by adults. A hungry and miserable child, just a poor neighbor, became a somewhat decent adult without really doing anything special… Life is indeed about endurance!

And I’m really a happy bastard… No matter how hard life is, it’s better than this person who was always hungry and beaten while wandering without parents. Ah, I feel good! Let’s not commit suicide! I was about to commit suicide, but thanks to this helpful book, I feel revitalized and the world starts to look beautiful. After all, the best way to forget my pain is to see someone else’s greater pain. Hahahahaha.”

Readers will surely react like this after reading my story. Isn’t it really beneficial? It’s clear that it will be a story that can greatly contribute to national happiness and even national development. What are the publishers doing? If you want to make money, call me quickly.

Anyway. Although I want to ramble on about what kind of hardships I went through over three days and four nights right now, that’s not what’s important at the moment. What I need to do right now is think about how I’m going to live this life, so I’ll have to postpone the nostalgia for later.

“But even if I think about it, will I come up with an answer? I’ve already lived so many times that I’ve tried everything I could do long ago. I’ve clung on, I’ve threatened to die, I’ve even cheered on Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam from the sidelines later on.”

Thinking about it again, it’s really nothing short of a farce. When your boyfriend cheats, the current boyfriend cheers for the cheater and the other person to have a beautiful love. Isn’t it a miserable story that would only earn pity and not laughter even if you told it as a joke somewhere?

At that time, I acted like some kind of love manipulator, spouting all sorts of nonsense. The crazy things I did back then were roughly like this:

Deliberately making way for Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam to freely exchange feelings when they passed by each other, or praising Jung Yi-dam to Ki Baek-woo every day, babbling things like ‘I’m just trash while Jung Yi-dam is a human diamond, I’m a parasite that just consumes the Earth’s oxygen while Jung Yi-dam is a messiah who delays the climate crisis and solves income inequality just by existing, so I can really give up anything for someone like Jung Yi-dam’, or eventually decorating the house like a party room by hand, preparing all kinds of food, inviting Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam, and even saying this directly:

‘Actually, I… know about you two. I’ve been pretending not to know and couldn’t say anything because it seemed a bit funny for me to step up first… You know, I think you two really suit each other well. And of course, it seems like Baek-woo is much happier being with Yi-dam than being with someone like me… and that’s the right thing. Honestly, as others say, someone like me doesn’t suit Baek-woo, haha… Well, Yi-dam is about fifteen hundred, no, fifteen billion times better than me. So, what I want to say is… Anyway, I hope you two can meet comfortably without worrying about me. I really don’t intend to interfere in your relationship. I don’t intend to shamelessly make things difficult for Baek-woo either… I’m sorry for saying this so late.’

I said this while desperately holding back tears that were about to burst. I was overwhelmed with shame and could hardly breathe. But I endured it somehow. I could do anything as long as I didn’t have to die miserably anymore. So I even blessed the two of them in such a pathetic state. Thinking that if I stepped back early for the two of them, it would be the same as dying for them.

“Even after doing all that crap, I still died, so what more do you want me to do? I’m really getting annoyed all over again… I can’t stand it… I need to curse a bit for my mental stability…”

Fuck the game and everything else!!!!!!!!!!! Just let everything go to hell like my life, fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!