60 – Haerin Kang (60)
Haerin Kang (60)
It rained for a while, followed by sunny days.
The view of the city from the hospital sky lounge on the 20th floor was very small.
A sharp-looking hotel was strutting on one side, but the rest were all quiet.
Colored cars littered the roads.
“It’s already been a month since the New Year.”
Harin sat across from me, resting her chin on her chin and smiling.
She looked very happy.
“Should we eat abalone porridge and stir-fried octopus?”
She looked at the menu intently and finished ordering.
Tied up in her mouth to tie her hair back, she glanced over and our eyes met, and she smiled bashfully.
“Why do you keep looking?”
A cute whining voice.
“happy.”
she said suddenly.
“It feels like there are only two of us in the world.”
“……..”
At Harry’s words, I smiled bitterly.
Recently, she has been visiting the hospital every day, and every time she comes, she basically stays by my side for several hours.
She refused to visit her in the hospital because she wanted to avoid encountering other people.
Naturally, only Harin was by my side.
Certainly, it is not strange to say that there are only the two of us.
‘Originally, I would have had an older sister.’
Now, Harin is guarding that position.
It’s not a matter of who is better.
Perhaps it was to make sure I didn’t feel my sister’s absence, but Haerin was genuinely concerned about me.
I sincerely thank you for that.
Although she even said that the fact that she doesn’t actually share blood with me like her older sister is her complex.
If you put it that way, Harin is everything to me, the existence I created by replacing my soul.
Her appearance, her three sizes, her home environment, personality, and abilities were all given to me by me.
Of course we communicated well.
He laughed at my words and always listened.
When he talked about literature, he showed knowledge that was superior to mine, and he sympathized with my taste.
What I set for Haerin is, at best, that she likes French literature, and especially poetry.
That I like the trend of decadence.
Putting those few sentences to shame, she actually knew everything from the history of literature to the theory of actual writers.
The subject of conversation was non-stop.
She was a creature superior to me, the Creator.
But I doubt her.
The happiness that Haerin and I are enjoying comes from the fact that our surroundings have become empty fields.
My older sister, who always stood by me, is missing, and my new friends are nowhere to be found.
Even though I accepted it with a feeling of desperation, I was afraid that all of this might be Harin’s plan.
I still dreamed of my sister waking up in a cold cellar, on a metal bed, or in a chair.
‘There’s no way my sister went on a trip.’
Missing suitcases and empty drawers.
There is no way that someone who said he would bring Haerin with me would suddenly go abroad.
In fact, the detectives confirmed it.
There is no record of my sister’s departure.
With these facts in mind, no matter how cute Haerin is, you can’t help but feel uncomfortable.
“Are you thinking of your sister?”
And she was quick-witted.
The setting of an asthenia patient is colorless, and my every move and my expression are quickly captured.
Even the slightest emotional change.
As if they read my feelings and thoughts.
It’s like you never take your eyes off me.
“I’ll try hard to find it. So cheer me up.”
Haerin Kang said.
Perhaps because of her satisfaction with the present, she no longer threatened or pressured me.
That rather aroused my doubts.
‘Does he consider himself a winner?’
Haerin Kang gulped down her drink and looked at me.
I felt both doubt and guilt at the same time.
I am an ugly lover.
The heart that likes me is pretty, but I can’t shake the thought that my sister’s kidnapper is Kang Hae-rin.
“I prepared it simply.”
When the food she ordered came out and she pretended to eat something she didn’t like, Haerin said.
“I think I’m going to get tired of hospital food.”
She opened her bag and took out a lunch box.
A warm lunch box contains several side dishes.
From simple things like round peas to japchae, etc.
The quantity itself is not much, but the composition is clear.
The taste is undoubtedly adequate.
It’s neither salty nor greasy, like someone who knows exactly what tastes best for me.
I was eating it and I was in tears.
This is what my older sister did.
From nob le mt l. co m
Just as Haerin was with me through my difficult times, she was with me as well.
“… sorry.”
Harin stroked my hair without saying a word.
“Something got in my eye…”
“Looks like something went into it.”
“……..”
She said with a small smile.
“… If you don’t find your sister, you can’t be happy, can you? Then I will do my best.”
“… huh.”
“Then keep your promise this time.”
“……”
“If I find you, you will really be happy with me.”
Haerin collected the side dish container with a refreshing motion, as if trying to revive the sunken atmosphere.
“I’m better at cooking though, right?”
I laughed at her joke, but soon felt a sharp bitterness near my heart.
‘Sorry, I can’t trust you yet.’
The day before yesterday, I remembered a meaningful text message from my sister with the end cut off.
Whether that’s really your sister or not.
I haven’t been able to openly talk to Harin yet.
#
Between Haerin and I, topics that are difficult to imagine for a normal couple in their twenties often came and went.
“Haven’t you read The Sorrows of Young Werther?”
“… Yes, it’s embarrassing.”
“What about Faust?”
“… That too…”
“But I mentioned everything in the novel!”
Harin was surprised without malice.
I said, feeling my face turn red.
After eating, I finished brushing my teeth and lay down on the bed while Haerin came to my side and was cutting fruit.
The other day, the club members gave it to me.
Watching the red apple peel making its way under her delicate fingers reminded Baek Yu-ram of being right there.
She was also peeling apples like that.
“That is so amazing. right?”
Haerin didn’t even stop peeling the skin off the apple and fixed her gaze on my face.
If it’s an awesome skill, it’s a skill.
Even so, the blade did not fall into the side road.
“what?”
“I know everything about the novel. Isn’t it possible because all of the literary works I remember now have been described that way by myself?”
“… yes.”
At the time of writing 『Journal』, I liked to exaggerate and exaggerate my poor literary knowledge.
For some reason, quoting a lot of works seems to make you a smart person, so I secretly boasted while mentioning works or writers I hadn’t read.
From nob le mt l. co m
Just as a person who has nothing bluffs, I also wanted to pretend to have something I didn’t have.
In fact, there were not a few cases in which Kang Hae-rin was ‘executed’ by quoting some famous lines.
Even though I processed it into sentences so sloppily, it is implemented properly for Haerin in reality.
I asked for the synopsis of any literary work I had searched on the Internet just in case, but she knew it all.
He even quoted specific lines.
“… ‘For the sake of goodness and love, let’s not give death control over our thoughts!’ Thomas only.”
She put down the knife and held my neck.
“… Me too!”
At times her body seems to be that of an ectothermic animal.
Sometimes it’s cold, but when it’s happy and excited like now, it’s very warm and comfortable.
… Does the sentence Haerin quoted mean not to give up control of thinking ‘because of love and goodness’?
Or to ‘keep’ the dominion for them?
What is important to her?
Dominion of thought.
If you are Kang Hae-rin, who experiences an ego crisis every time because of 『Kang Hae-rin’s Murder Diary』, this is a worthwhile thought.
Recently, she has become more affectionate.
Sometimes, I would even fall asleep next to him.
I didn’t feel s*xual at all anymore, but I got a strange thought when I saw her sleeping face.
“…Haerin, aren’t you sleeping well?”
“… huh? Oh, it’s okay. If you are by my side!”
Haerin Kang said and buried her face in my chest.
I was hungry again.
This is also due to the setting that I set her up to suffer from insomnia and past trauma.
In 『Journal』, Kang Hae-rin committed the murder of an elder.
The second generation of the crazy chaebol and the lowly stepmother.
It’s terrible, but without that background narrative, it’s not easy to make a crazy psychopath.
Even though it may not be a ‘real’ event, Kang Hae-rin had all those memories vividly.
The proof was that he still suffered from insomnia.
Perhaps because of the setting that anesthesia and insomnia would disappear if she was next to me, she clung even more.
Even because of the responsibility, I can’t push her away.
“… When he was hurt, it was painful because he felt something he couldn’t feel. I didn’t know being stabbed could hurt that much. A few years ago, I couldn’t blink an eye enough to cut my fingertips with a knife.”
The whisperer corrected her words.
“… No, I wonder if I don’t have years ago.”
“For me, I’m sorry.”
I still felt uncomfortable and painful at the surgically sutured area, but Haerin wouldn’t have to feel it.
‘Because he likes me so much that he feels it.’
I felt guilty for some reason and apologized.
“…But, even if it hurts like this, it’s better to be by my side than to wander the world like a ghost. Feeling more of yourself, indulging yourself…”
sweet push
Even though I doubted Haerin, I continued to swim amidst her voice and whispers.
Tung.
The door to the hospital room opened and a nurse entered.
Seeing us lying in the same bed, she hesitated.
“Parents, you shouldn’t be so close to the patient. You may injure the wound while doing an arm pillow. Patients also need to be careful.”
“… ha, noisy.”
Harin said.
“… I’ll take care of you, so don’t interfere.”
“…Hey, guardian!”
The nurse exclaimed in embarrassment.
“I am speaking for the sake of the patient. In order for your condition to improve, you must follow our words. And you don’t have to come here often. Me and the other nurses every day…”
“… what did you just say?”
Kang Hae-rin slipped out of the blanket.
“Every day… what? you don’t have to come? What are you? You come between us and me?”
Haerin Kang said in a low voice.
“… a woman who is nothing special.”
She went to the nurse’s front and stopped.
“……”
The nurse, who was trying to refute, looked pale as if she saw something in Kang Haerin that I couldn’t see.
Kang Hae-rin’s fingertips were close to the transition.
“Haerin, stop.”
I got in between the two.
I sincerely apologized to the nurse.
“Ha, indeed!”
She burst out with a guttural laugh.
“Too many bugs…”
Haerin Kang murmured.
“Harryn.”
“… sorry.”
“… are you okay. But I don’t think it’s necessary for the nurses who are suffering…”
Haerin, who stood there for a while, kissed my forehead as if she had suddenly remembered something.
“… Darling, I think we should go out again tonight. You may be lonely, but cheer up.”
she left the hospital room.
“…Today, too.”
A quiet hospital room.
I wiped my face and lay back on the bed.
It was getting dark outside, but the hospital and the neighboring shopping malls were emitting a brighter light.
And I have to move from now on too.
Exactly, though through someone else.
I took my phone out from under the pillow.
In case Kang Hae-rin would appear again, I called Park Se-young while listening to the hallway.
“…Seyoung-ah, sorry for the late contact. I’ve been thinking about it, but there’s a place to speculate. But since I’m like this, can I ask you a favor? I’m really sorry.”
Fortunately, Park Se-young readily agreed.
Time to find a ‘real’ laptop.
The day before yesterday, I was concerned about the last text from my sister.
[What is a laptop?]
“…it must have been broken.”
I muttered.
Wine red laptop.
It couldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.
Of course, he wouldn’t have noticed anything odd.
#
Park Se-young, who commutes by bus, has never used a subway locker.
Still, experiencing new things was always a pleasure for her, and above all, it was good if someone asked her to do it.
Especially if you are a person who usually keeps a distance from her!
It feels like your heart has been recognized.
“… Um, Dongmin-senpai, what are you thinking?”
She stayed in the class until late in the evening to prepare for the department’s event for the upcoming midterm exam.
It didn’t mean anything else, and I was glad that the person who had always been wary of her had given her a ‘mission’.
Will you finally trust her?
I was surprised at first.
That Lee Dong-min asked her for a favor!
Lee Dong-min, a senior who looks so unfortunate and anxious that it is difficult to watch from the side.
To make matters worse, a recent misfortune overlapped him, and his sister went missing.
Park Se-young, who had always been caught in his eyes, wanted to help him somehow.
Then, at the moment, I was asked to stop by my missing sister’s house and collect the laptop.
This time, something similar but different.
[I need to find something in the locker. I don’t think I can go find it myself because of my condition.]
Being polite and not wanting to cause trouble, he apologized several times, but Park Se-young was rather happy.
It’s nice to be helpful to someone, isn’t it?
Of course, I was puzzled.
Park Se-young, who also likes mystery novels, guessed that Lee Dong-min must have been caught up in something.
I also confirmed last time that he was present at the scene where ‘Ban Yi-hyeon’ was arrested.
How surprised I was when I was told that I was admitted to the hospital.
I almost fainted when I heard that my palm was pierced.
Strangely, the subject, who has a timid and innocent personality, keeps getting entangled in various incidents-
“…is it related to Kang Hae-rin?”
Park Se-young hardened her expression a little.
Kang Hae-rin, who has the same name as the main character in Lee Dong-min’s work 『Kang Hae-rin’s Murder Diary』, and even other characteristics are surprisingly similar.
But that’s just as dangerous.
There must have been some way to find out that Lee Dong-min was the author of the novel and imitate the main character.
In other words, she must be a stalker.
It is realistically impossible to say that a novel becomes a reality, so that is the only case.
‘Stalking.’
How hard is Lee Dong-min?
Since he requested it, I won’t do a useless background investigation on her, but I also confessed that I would be the limb of my senior if it was helpful at any time.
Park Se-young energetically headed to the storage room.
Although he didn’t elaborate, it was clear that there was an important clue to his sister’s disappearance.
“… uh?”
Park Se-young, who was heading to the locker at the promised station, noticed an unexpected person walking in front of him and stopped.
She instinctively hid behind a pillar.
Their voices were heard.