My Bloody Valentine - 103

Chapter 103

“Don’t you find this disturbing?”

Instead of understanding, Taeshin asked with an annoyed expression. One of the employees from the headquarters, who had been standing behind Jiwoo, wrapped his arms around himself, as if he had heard some terrifying story.

Jiwoo cautiously stepped forward and asked in a soft voice.

“Umm… Director? What is the sound you’re hearing?”

Taeshin, who was about to ask irritably whether they couldn’t hear the sound, was suddenly blocked by Myeongseop.

“It’s really hot today. Let’s take a break and continue later.”

Myeongseop quickly stepped in and guided Taeshin to the other side. Behind them, the Cheongsong Construction staff murmured among themselves.

“Is Director Jang… isn’t he crazy or something? What if… there are ghosts here? I’m scared to death.”

“Come on, Supervisor. Ghosts in the middle of the day?”

“Don’t you know what used to be here? There was an orphanage building here.”

“An orphanage?”

“Yeah. And suddenly, they say they hear children’s voices! It’s seriously creepy.”

“This place used to be an orphanage?”

“Yeah. I mean, really… It’s so scary. What if we’re seeing the ghosts of the children who died here?”

“No way…”

As they shared ghost stories, trying to cool off from the early summer heat, Myeongseop forcefully guided Taeshin under a large tree to get some shade.

“Director, are you feeling okay?”

Myeongseop handed him a cold bottle of water and looked at him with a worried expression. He hadn’t seen Taeshin eat properly or rest in a while. On the other hand, he had witnessed him rubbing his temples in pain, massaging the back of his neck, and taking medicine repeatedly. If Taeshin was hearing hallucinations, it didn’t seem too surprising.

“It must be because it’s so hot today, Director.”

Taeshin barely listened to Myeongseop’s words and instead scanned the area around him. The building and the yard, which looked like a long-abandoned rural school, strangely caught Taeshin’s attention.

He suddenly looked up and saw the thick branches of a tree stretching out. The glossy, thick leaves were a vibrant green.

At that moment, Taeshin was struck by an inexplicable, strange feeling.

It seemed like he had seen this tree before. He placed his palm on the thick trunk and asked,

“What kind of tree is this?”

“This? It looks like a persimmon tree.”

“A persimmon tree?”

“Yeah. Look at the green fruit growing on it. It seems like a pretty good-sized persimmon.”

“…”

“It would be a shame to cut it down. It must be several decades old.”

Taeshin continued to look up at the persimmon tree, as if hypnotized. A sense of déjà vu gnawed at his nerves. The shape of the sprawling branches felt incredibly familiar.

When he lowered his head, Taeshin was confronted with a small child’s apparition. A child, around ten years old, was looking up at something in the tree.

The child’s face, lacking eyes, nose, and mouth, was as white as an egg-shaped ghost.

“Ugh…”

“Director! Are you okay?”

Myeongseop quickly approached and supported Taeshin, who was staggering. As he wiped his cold sweat away from his face, the apparition vanished. However, the sound of a child’s laughter still clung to his ears and wouldn’t go away.

“Can you… not hear the child’s voice?”

Taeshin, with bloodshot eyes, lifted his gaze and asked Myeongseop. Myeongseop shook his head with a somber expression.

“Damn…”

With a groan, Taeshin, who had been laughing deliriously, straightened his body. He then resumed his inspection of the area while receiving reports from his staff.

“This used to be the site of a facility called the ‘Dream Center Orphanage.’ After the orphanage director was arrested for various corruptions, the facility closed down. The land, which had returned to state ownership, was sold off through a public auction. The problem is the land below, where the residential area is.”

“…”

Taeshin’s gaze swept over the two buildings standing side by side. He also looked at the empty lot in front of them, which seemed to have been a playground. Everything seemed oddly familiar.

“What was the name of the facility here?”

“Uh? Oh, it was the ‘Dream Center Orphanage.’”

It was strange.

Why did this place feel so familiar?

That night, after finishing his inspection of the townhouse site, Taeshin was struck by a headache so intense it made him feel like he wanted to pull his own eyes out.

He had undergone various tests at the hospital, thinking it might be an issue with his surgery site, but there was nothing to find, and the diagnosis was always the same.

“Cause unknown.”

The pain, which felt like a hot ladle stirring his brain, had become a familiar companion, like a shadow stuck to the soles of his feet.

Taeshin grabbed a few extra pills from the ones he normally took and swallowed them. As expected from the strong medication, he soon felt his head grow heavy and his whole body becoming lethargic.

Taeshin let his arm, heavy from the effects of the drug, fall limply over the armrest of the sofa and closed his eyes.

His eyes, as if they had hardened, still throbbed with pain. When he opened them again, the world seemed to spin, and he felt dizzy, almost as if he were drunk.

Then, in front of him, there was a child standing.

It was the same child he had seen earlier that day at the townhouse site, standing in front of the persimmon tree.

Had he brought back some kind of ghost from the orphanage that looked like an abandoned house? He was idly thinking such thoughts when the child’s high-pitched voice reached his ears.

“Taeshin.”

Now the child was speaking. He must be completely out of his mind.

Taeshin let out a small laugh and walked past the child, who stood like a hologram, heading to the bedroom. With a ghostly step, he stripped off all his clothes and crawled into bed. He then let himself succumb to the demon that was dragging him down.

A little while later, he was climbing a tree.

In the direction he reached, there were persimmons, deep in color and beautiful. One fruit floating in front of his eyes seemed to become the goal of his life in that moment. He felt a sense of duty, like he absolutely had to pick it.

At that moment, a worried voice came from below.

“Hey, Taeshin! Just come down! It’s too high!”

“It’s fine. I can do it.”

“Ugh, I told you, come down!”

“No, I just need to reach out one more time.”

He stretched his hand with all his strength, but his fingers only brushed the smooth, red skin of the persimmon a few times. Taeshin gritted his teeth, his molars aching.

He wanted to give it to them. He wanted to see them smile.

Taeshin reached out once more with all his might.

At that moment, a bird sitting on the tree flapped its wings and flew away, and, startled, Taeshin lost his grip on the branch he was holding. He lost his balance and fell. His vision spun, and before he knew it, his body was lying face down on the ground, a burning pain in his knee.

“Ugh… It’s my fault… I’m sorry…”

When disinfectant touched the raw, red skin on his leg, the pain felt like his leg was being amputated. But if he felt pain, he knew they would cry even more. Taeshin clenched his fist, pushing the strength into it. His short nails dug deeply into his palm.

The scene shifted, and they were sitting on a shabby metal bed. His knee itched. The white, slender fingers gently traced the scar on his knee and applied ointment.

“It won’t go away… the scar…”

He thought their sullen face was very cute. The scar, left from where his skin had torn, now shone with ointment. He felt like he had earned a badge of honor for no reason.

“It’s fine. It looks cool. Look, it makes a V shape, right?”

“… Yeah. It kind of looks like a slim heart.”

“Yeah, let’s call it a heart shape.”

At that moment, they heard someone calling them from somewhere. Taeshin stood up and reached out his hand. Then, a small, soft hand came to him and gripped his firmly. The small, soft hand felt smooth, and something inside his chest fluttered.

“…!”

In an instant, Taeshin snapped out of the trance and sat up, looking down at his hand. What was left in his hand was no longer the warm, soft hand of someone else, but only the cool touch of a thin blanket.

Taeshin, breathing heavily with a blank expression, suddenly seemed to remember something. He quickly threw off the blanket he had been covering himself with.

On his exposed knee, there was the same scar he had seen in his dream.

❖ ❖ ❖

“No, what is this…?”

As soon as Junho opened the door to the guest room, he gasped. Despite having installed a large air circulator for Taeshin, a smoker, the room was thick with cigarette smoke as if there had been a fire.

Taeshin sat alone on the sofa, looking lonely as if he had gotten lost in a fog.

“Sigh…”

With a sigh, Junho walked across the living room, opened the window, and let the smoke escape.

“How many times did I tell you about the shareholder meeting today, director? Huh?”

As the smoke cleared, Taeshin’s figure became visible. An empty whiskey bottle rolled on the floor, and the pill bottle on the table was already empty.

“Didn’t Dr. Pyo just leave not long ago? And already an empty bottle?”

“…”

Junho sighed quietly. He should be grateful that Taeshin wasn’t using drugs.

Taeshin didn’t use drugs. Drugs were for people who wanted to forget something. But there were things Taeshin never wanted to forget.

A soft voice calling his name, which no one dared to say, or the transparent brown eyes that had been watching him.

Junho roughly moved the liquor bottle off the floor and looked at Taeshin again.

His appearance, too, had become as wrecked as his mind. The dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced, and the weight he had lost made his already sharp jawline look even sharper.

Among the staff, rumors were already spreading as if it was a fact: Director Jang had become completely addicted to drugs.