Chapter 255 - Episode 32. The World After the Fall (5)
Chapter 255: Episode 32. The World After the Fall (5)
──────
The Teacher wore a serious expression. His eyes turned toward the charts crammed into the bookshelf beside the table. Jaehwan followed his gaze.
“Lately, I often wonder whether my treatment was wrong. I am no god. Who would dare treat or correct another person’s world?”
“Did you watch another moving story somewhere?”
With a look that said here we go again, Jaehwan shook his head and took a sip of the green tea on the table.
But the Teacher’s expression was unusual. Jaehwan asked, “Are you serious right now?”
“I am. Perhaps it is because of your influence, Jaehwan.”
“My influence?”
“Yes. It may not have been you who was persuaded by those ten years, Jaehwan. It may have been me.”
Why was he saying something like that now?
Dizziness washed over Jaehwan. He had only just managed to adapt to this world, so why was the Teacher trying to confuse him with words like that?
Wasn’t what you wanted for me to forget that world completely? Didn’t you spend the last ten years for that alone?
“I mean it. I believe in that world, Jaehwan.”
“Why all of a sudden? The Tower of Nightmares has not even appeared yet.”
Once the Tower of Nightmares appeared, everything would be proven. He would finally be free of the diagnosis of delusional disorder.
Recently, though, Jaehwan had nearly given up on that hope. Partly because he had grown accustomed to life here, and partly because he thought this world might be better off if the Tower of Nightmares never appeared again.
More than anything, Jaehwan liked attending school with Yoonhwan and Seoyul. He liked having quiet meals at home with his mother. He liked trading pointless jokes with the sly Teacher sitting before him.
It was the result of ten years of steady counseling.
Even if the Tower of Nightmares never appeared, even if he did have delusional disorder, it was no longer much of a problem to Jaehwan.
He could function normally in society. He could make ordinary friends and feel joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure. Old nightmares sometimes stirred him up, but he was no longer as unhappy as he had been before.
Yet the Teacher smiled quietly, as if denying all of Jaehwan’s efforts.
“I have begun to think it does not matter much whether the Tower of Nightmares appears or not. I believe in that world now.”
Watching that smile, Jaehwan felt the ten years he had lived through begin to sway dangerously.
No. Don’t say any more.
I can’t listen any further.
The Teacher kept talking.
“As I recorded and read the stories you told me, a thought came to me. Perhaps the Tower of Nightmares you are waiting for is...”
Without realizing it, Jaehwan covered his ears with both hands. Yet some words could still be heard even with his ears covered.
「“Jaehwan-nim, do you think a day will come when everyone can see that ‘eye’?”」
「“Kid, your world is truly far too lonely.”」
「“I like the Fortress Lord, but it is still frightening every time I see that.”」
Words he had forgotten burst through the surface of his memories. Voices he had barely managed to forget.
“Jaehwan?”
His breathing gradually grew ragged, and a vicious ringing swept through his ears. Jaehwan lost his balance and fell, grabbing the edge of the table. The impact jolted it hard, and the charts piled on it scattered across the floor.
They were charts containing Jaehwan’s medical records.
With the creak of a chair, Jaehwan sank to the floor. The Teacher reached out toward him, buried beneath the charts. His voice sounded muffled, as though it were coming from underwater.
“Jaehwan! Are you all right?”
Jaehwan reflexively brushed away the Teacher’s hand.
His eyes were fixed on the charts.
Numbers showing the severity of his depression. Line graphs showing his suicide risk, bar graphs showing his degree of social maladjustment...
Jaehwan stared blankly at them.
Numbers and graphs. Metaphysically warped data surrounded Jaehwan, spinning around and around him. They spun and spun, mocking him.
Those numbers were the life he had lived for the last ten years.
He had never been properly proven, not even once. He had been proven only through those numbers.
The dizziness worsened. He felt as though he might vomit.
「“That is why you are weak.”」
With the sensation of his body floating into the air, Jaehwan began to retch. The Teacher continued speaking to him, but Jaehwan could hear nothing. Just as the Teacher was about to call for an employee, Jaehwan grabbed one of the charts.
With a ripping sound, a sheet of paper fluttered as it tore.
“Jaehwan?”
Jaehwan began tearing the paper compulsively. Like the day he had torn apart a world with Stab, he ripped one page after another.
In the gaps between the torn numbers and graphs, unprecedented voids wavered.
There was an emptiness there that no number in the world could reduce.
Jaehwan glared into that void.
He had once been there.
A space that had seemed like an illusion, perhaps a hallucination.
Jaehwan had forgotten the name of that space.
「“Your world will not be popular in the 《Abyss》. It is a truth too cruel to learn as the price of losing hope.”」
「“Wouldn’t it be better to change the name of your Unique World? To my ‘Naked World,’ after all...”」
Jumbled memories stabbed through his mind, then vanished again. Still, Jaehwan knew.
He had once lived in that space.
And now, he could never return to it.
“Jaehwan! Jaehwan?”
The Teacher grabbed both of his arms to stop him from tearing any more charts.
But Jaehwan was no longer ten years old.
At twenty, Jaehwan was far stronger than the elderly Teacher. The Teacher tumbled to the floor as Jaehwan struggled, and Jaehwan continued ripping the charts apart.
He screamed like a madman as he tore and tore the paper.
Then, amid the shredded charts, he found a strange document. It was printed in dense Ming-style type.
Jaehwan picked it up.
“J-Jaehwan. Wait! That is...!”
Despite the Teacher’s attempts to stop him, Jaehwan began reading it.
Before long, he realized it was not an ordinary record.
The document contained a story that was deeply familiar to him.
Its first sentence read:
“Destruction is always happening everywhere.”
The sentence felt strangely familiar.
Jaehwan read a few more paragraphs.
“Ten-year-old Jaehwan was one of the victims of that minor destruction.”
The Teacher looked at Jaehwan with slumped shoulders, as though he had given up.
One page, then two.
Jaehwan continued turning the pages and reading. His hands shook more and more.
Pale-faced, he asked the Teacher, “What is this?”
“Jaehwan.”
“Answer me properly. What is this?”
“I am sorry, Jaehwan. I was going to tell you soon. I wanted to get your permission first...”
What Jaehwan had read was a short story.
A neatly written piece of short fiction.
The story was about Jaehwan himself. A ten-year-old child receiving counseling because of domestic violence. A child who denied reality and created a delusional world, then grew into an adult believing in that world.
Something the Teacher had once said flashed through his mind.
“Someday, when you can view that world objectively, people will pay a great deal of money to glimpse your world.”
The Teacher had brought up the New Year Literary Contest. He had recommended that Jaehwan study Korean literature.
His fingertips began trembling again.
All at once, Jaehwan found everything in the world ridiculous. He felt pathetic.
When he slowly raised his head, he saw the Teacher hanging his head, unable to face him.
Jaehwan asked, “Is this the only reason you have met with me all this time?”
“Jaehwan, listen to me...”
“You wanted to write this. Is that why you gave me free counseling and listened to my stories?”
“Jaehwan, it is not that! I only...”
“To you, was my story nothing but a ‘novel’ to sell?”
The Teacher shook his head fiercely. It was such an innocent shake of the head that it was hard to believe it belonged to a middle-aged man well past fifty.
Jaehwan continued to lash out.
“You were secretly writing something like this, secretly planning to sell me off, and now you say you believe in my world?”
The Teacher moved his lips several times, but eventually lowered his head.
Before the Teacher’s eyes, Jaehwan tore the novel he had written into pieces and kicked open the door to the consultation room.
An employee cried out in alarm.
Jaehwan ran from the counseling center without looking back.
He ran and ran. How long had he been running?
Eventually, Jaehwan realized the counseling center was no longer in sight. There was no sign that anyone was chasing him, either. His breath rose in white clouds amid the falling snow. As cold flakes touched his cheeks, the twisted shape of his heart slowly began to return to normal.
Why did I trust someone like that with my story?
Deep regret filled Jaehwan’s chest.
He says he believes my story?
He thinks my world, the 《Tree of Illusion》, exists?
The memories of the last ten years swept through his mind like a storm.
He had not truly trusted anyone. Knowing that trust could come back to him like this, he had been far too naive.
Thinking of the Teacher who had acted so familiar around him all this time, Jaehwan gritted his teeth.
I do not need anyone’s belief. My world exists as long as I remember it. It is naturally proven even without belief.
Looking up at the pure white sky, Jaehwan thought that.
It will come soon. The Tower of Nightmares will appear.
The Tower of Nightmares that will save me from all this deception.
That destruction will come for me.
Feeling more miserable than he ever had in his life, Jaehwan started walking home. The footprints he had left in the alleyway were gradually disappearing beneath the snow.
He would never return to that counseling center.
Jaehwan made that vow.
* * *
Two weeks later.
In the middle of winter, beneath bright falling snow, the fateful day came silently for Jaehwan.
Jaehwan was looking at the sky.
He should have been in the military, but Jaehwan had not applied to enlist. If the 《Tower of Nightmares》 returned, the military would be useless anyway.
Instead, Jaehwan climbed a high mountain and looked at the sky every day.
He watched and watched.
He watched the snow-filled sky. He watched the rain-filled sky. He watched the sky beneath the piercing winter sunlight.
The Tower of Nightmares did not appear. Still, Jaehwan waited.
It is just running a little late. The Tower of Nightmares will definitely appear.
But the next day passed. Then the day after that.
The Tower of Nightmares still did not appear.
At last, the final day of the year arrived.
Stiff and unmoving, Jaehwan looked up at the sky as a new year rose. The scene was unbelievably brilliant and beautiful. Couples held hands, while those who had come with their families cheered and embraced one another.
As everyone welcomed the new year in blessings and joy, only Jaehwan waited for destruction.
He believed the Tower of Nightmares would soon appear and end everything.
But even after people began leaving one by one, even after the hand-holding couples descended the mountain, destruction did not come.
The Tower of Nightmares did not appear.
Jaehwan stood for a long time, looking at the peaceful sky.
Until everyone left, and he was finally alone.
Jaehwan was now twenty-one.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion