Paranoid Love Affair 109
Paranoid Love Affair chapter 109

109
‘It’s true that the room is empty.’
‘You don’t have any clues, right?’
In the stillness, Yun-woo breathed a sigh of relief.
At the very least, the possibility that Hyerim, who had a scary expression like before, jumped out and spit swear words, was slim.
After knocking twice, Yun-woo hesitated in front of Hye-rim’s locked door.
In Yun-woo’s opinion, it’s almost certain that no one is on the other side of this door, because Ji-eun asked Yun-woo to enter a password to open the door.
Ji-eun said that Hye-rim would hide behind this door and hold her breath, waiting for Yun-woo to return.
But what the hell is the reason Hyerim is like that?
If it was Hyerim, whom Yun-woo met during the day, wouldn’t he have opened the door as soon as he heard the knock and shouted to Yoon-woo to get out?
‘no one is here. Obviously in this… … .’
Entering an empty room where the owner is absent without permission would not be done by an ordinary person with common sense.
That is the problem Yun-woo has been worried about and feared for the rest of his life.
How will Yun-woo’s words and actions appear to the general public?
Could it be that Yun-woo’s thoughts or actions deviate from the general social norm and be criticized?
Such concerns always suppressed Yun-woo’s actions.
So, one last time, Knuckle and Yoonwoo clenched their fists and knocked on the door with only the middle finger protruding a little.
Maybe some people are smart and knock on the door only twice.
Those with a more urgent heart than Yun-woo may knock on doors 4 and 5.
But still, about 5 times would be the limit in terms of social norms.
smart trick… … .
If you add more ‘tok’, it looks very strange.
6, 7, 8, or more bangs look like a dangerous person with bad intentions.
Everyone would think so.
Could it be that you are in debt?
Could it have been someone who came to protest with a lot of anger over the noise between floors?
Hit strength is also important.
It must be ‘smart’. It shouldn’t be ‘bang bang’.
Relax your wrists and make a sound loud enough for the landlord to notice, but so low that a neighbor who might be sleeping doesn’t wake up… … .
In addition, the frequency of knocking on the door is also important.
If the other person didn’t notice the first tick, wait for a while and then tick again.
If there is still no response, wait a while and then again.
After that, it would be a social norm to accept that there is no other person and to turn around.
With a reasonable interval, Yun-woo has already finished all three tricks.
It would be the right thing to do to turn around thinking that no one is there… … Here, Ji-eun’s demands and social beliefs collide.
If I stand longer than this, won’t someone report Yun-woo?
Would you think of me as a stalker?
Robbers, murderers, robbers… … .
Such worries have always dominated Yun-woo’s life.
Even if it was Yunwoo from just a few months ago, no, even if it was Yunwoo from a few weeks ago, no matter what Jieun said, she would not be able to overcome her anxiety and would have turned around and escaped from this demonic castle right away.
But now, even after knocking three times, Yun-woo was still standing in front of Hye-rim’s door.
‘No one is there anyway.’
‘Let’s just go back before anyone comes. That’s the right decision.’
‘Can I just tell Ji-eun noona that there was no one there?’
Yoon-woo thought so in his head, but… … I couldn’t get my feet off the floor.
Somehow it didn’t seem like that.
I felt like I shouldn’t have turned my back on the door of this house and turned back the way I came.
It feels like you have to open the door right now and look inside.
Why?
A part of Yun-woo’s heart that he gave to Rabbit, Hye-eun, and Hye-rim has already become ruins.
The floor is filled with the claw marks of a huge and ferocious beast, and the crushed fragments of the heart become dust and float in the air… … .
But at this moment, the dust was making a fuss.
Now, in a voice that was smaller than the sound of mosquito bites, they were all shouting all at once with the maximum voice they could make.
this room… … Yes. this is the room
Hye-eun, who used to say warm words to Yun-woo every night, was definitely in this room.
On that long and scary night, the noise of Hye-eun’s life that reassured Yun-woo, the sound of water in the shower, and the pleasant rustling of the blanket, they belonged to this room.
On the day Hye-eun made a wound on her arm, how many times did she shout to Yoon-woo to trust her?
If there is a possibility that the venomous Hye-rim that laughed at Yun-woo is the truth, wouldn’t it be possible that Hye-eun’s appearance on the day she shed tears for Yun-woo was the truth?
Those hearts that have become pieces of dust still have such expectations.
‘no. I will not.’
‘It would be naive to believe that.’
‘However… … .’
In the end, Yun-woo decided to open Hye-rim’s door.
If you think about it, the relationship between Hye-eun and Yun-woo was already outside the social norms from the beginning.
‘Tick tock, can I come in?’
People do that by carefully knocking on the heart of the person they want to get close to many times,
If you get a positive response like ‘Yes, welcome,’ or
‘No, I don’t like the knocking sound. You can’t come in.’
However, the reason why the rejected people don’t hurt so much is because they have only knocked on the other person.
It’s because he hasn’t given his opponent a piece of his own yet.
So, ‘Okay. Bye bye.’ Say that and go knocking on someone else, and that’s it.
‘It has to be you. No one else can take your place.’
Who would have thought of that before they even knocked?
But Yoon-woo thought so.
He believed that even rabbits thought so.
So, Rabbit’s room had been connected to Yun-woo’s room from the beginning, without even going through the process of knocking on the door or showing the inside properly.
Yun-woo gave too much heart to the rabbit.
As Hyerim said, she was careless and naive.
Perhaps, when the debris left in Yun-woo’s heart cries out to open this door, it means to retrieve the remaining fragments of Yun-woo’s heart, which Yun-woo handed over to her but was shattered by Hye-rim on the night she spent with the rabbit.
Yun-woo thought that there would be nothing in this room.
The rabbit is just an illusion, and only the traces of that arrogant Hyerim I met during the day will fill this room… … .
Nevertheless, Yun-woo decided to open this door, not to find the fragments of himself lost in this room, but to throw away the dust in his heart filled with useless expectations to this room.
If you check the empty room, the rabbit dregs in Yun-woo’s heart will never make a sound again.
‘Let’s see it soon and go eat cake with Ji-eun noona.’
beep beep beep
chuckle
The room was filled with only darkness, as Yun-woo thought.
The moonlight that had crept in through the cracks in the curtains was only faintly illuminating the floor.
‘Look.’
‘The author’s older sister is wrong.’
‘There is no one… … .’
“… … uh?”
In the meantime, the reason Yun-woo shed his voice without knowing it was because, in the moonlight, something rolling on the floor caught Yun-woo’s eyes.
It was strange.
It’s impossible to be in this room.
What Hyerim couldn’t have.
To confirm it, Yun-woo quietly closed the door, took off his shoes, and walked into the room.
He fumbled for the wall to turn on the light switch, but couldn’t find it, so Yun-woo ended up using the flashlight function of his cell phone.
How many days have you had lunch and dinner in this room? Nevertheless, Yun-woo doesn’t even know where the light switch is in this room.
Because Yun-woo could only see the lights in this room turned on.
That’s because they only know the bright side.
There are things that cannot be seen in bright places.
There are things that can only be found when darkness falls.
And only now, Yun-woo entered the darkness that had fallen into Hye-rim’s room.
“this… … what.”
After finding the light switch, turning on the light, and looking at the scene unfolding in front of him, Yun-woo, who stood there for a while, barely uttered those words.
It was a torn medicine bag that was rolling on the floor, sparkling in the moonlight.
But when I turned on the light, there were not one or two medicine bags scattered on the floor.
“… … why?”
“why… … Why are you?”
“What is it that I regret… … .”
It was an unexpected sight.
It was a completely different look from his usual tidy appearance.
Medicine bags scattered haphazardly on the ground, bottled water with the lid open about a third of the way, blankets and black hoodies scattered roughly in the corner of the room, two large and small cell phones lying on the floor… … .
“At the airport… … I’m going… … I did… … .”
As Ji-eun said, there was Hye-rim in the room.
However, contrary to Ji-eun’s thoughts, Hye-rim didn’t hold her breath to avoid Yun-woo.
Hyerim was lying on the bed.
With your legs outstretched, your hands clasped over your navel, as if lying on a coffin… … Like Yoon-woo, who was lying alone in his cramped bed and thinking about death… … .
Yun-woo quietly approached, and with a trembling hand, put a finger in front of Hye-rim’s nose.
Fortunately, I could feel Hyerim’s warm exhalation on my finger.
Hyerim is asleep.
“Hyerim.”
However, no matter how many times Yoon-woo called her name, Hye-rim did not wake up.
Suddenly, a terrifying sense of uneasiness came over me.
Yoon-woo hurriedly bent down to find out what medicine Hye-rim had taken right away, and searched for the envelope containing the medicine bags that were rolling on the floor.
It was to look at the back of the envelope and quickly check what medication he had taken.
The envelope was not on the floor, but on the desk, next to the water bottle.
Reading the back, the drugs Hyerim was taking were lorazepam and sertraline tablets.
It was the same with Yunwoo.
“why… … you… … .”
The feeling of wanting to swallow a pill that won’t die anyway, and go to sleep… … .
If Yun-woo doesn’t know that, who in the world knows?
The desire to forget all about this terrible world and the terrible self who lives in such a world and go to sleep endlessly… … .
But, why does Hyerim have such a heart?
Hyerim Yoon-woo knew was a person who lived in a different world from Yun-woo.
He was a man walking on the sky.
So I thought that life would always be full of joy that Yun-woo could not even imagine.
But in the end, it was only Yun-woo’s imagination.
The life of Hye-rim, full of joy that Yun-woo does not know… … Yun-woo had never seen it in person.
When you think about it, isn’t it normal?
Yun-woo is not a person who can walk on the sky.
Therefore, it is appropriate that the heavenly joy that Hyerim enjoys comes from the time she spends with someone other than Yunwoo.
But Hyerim was a rabbit.
After all, Hyerim was always with Yunwoo both during the day and at night, when, with whom, and with whom did she live happily ever after?
“… … Hyerim.”
Yoon-woo wanted to get Hye-rim up right away and ask him.
How did this come about, what the hell is your truth and what is a lie?
That was Yun-woo’s folly.
Words are so light, no matter how much truth comes out of your mouth, it cannot be accepted as truth in itself… … .
It was a mistake to ask the truth only from others, only in words.
Hyerim-do, Hye-eun-do, and Rabbit also conveyed the truth through words several times for Yun-woo, but in the end, it did not become the truth in Yun-woo’s heart.
Those words that I like Yunwoo… … This is the result that Yun-woo did not accept as the truth until the end.
The truth that did not reach Yun-woo had become broken fragments and torn medicine bags scattered throughout the room.
Countless streams of tears flowed sideways along the temples around Hyerim’s eyes, while she was asleep.
And in the earlobe visible at the end of the road the tear marks had made, a small, silver horseshoe-shaped earring was hung.
It was the earring that Yun-woo gave as a gift.
Since when has this been stuck in Hyerim’s ears?
Was there before?
Was this still in Hyerim’s ear when she spit out venom at Yunwoo?
I do not know. No matter how much I look back on my memories, after the day I gave Hyerim the earring, when Hyerim was wearing this earring and when she wasn’t wearing it, Yunwoo couldn’t quite remember.
And Yoon-woo, who couldn’t remember that, was so frustrated that he got angry.
Just in case, I carefully checked Hyerim’s wrist and it was the same.
You say that your right wrist is covered with scars from habitually self-harm? There were two scars on Hyerim’s left wrist, a thin wound she had made when she was young and a knife cut in front of Yunu’s eyes… … The right wrist was clean.
It was a white, smooth, flawless, beautiful wrist.
It was a lie.
Hyerim, whom Yun-woo met during the day, was full of lies!
If that’s a lie, then what is the truth?
Time with a rabbit that has been turned into a shattered fantasy, a clever deception, and a lie… … if… … Maybe they are… … .
Paranoid Love Affair chapter 109

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