ROA 2

The wind that blew just then was unseasonably cool for early summer, making Park Dong-ju cross his arms and huddle. However, Shim Seo-woo’s face as he looked back at the empty stairs was endlessly calm.

In fact, the appearance of the person Shim Seo-woo had seen was objectively rather strange. The skin of the man lying straight on the stairs was beyond pale to the point of being blue, his clothes were like rags, and when the underclassman walked up, he even smiled with his mouth torn wide. It seemed like he had reached out and grabbed the underclassman’s leg too.

But Shim Seo-woo recalling that sight was extremely calm and rather answered Park Dong-ju’s words in a tone suggesting it was obvious.

“Well, if he almost got stepped on, he probably moved…”

“No, there was no one there in the first place!”

“Didn’t you come out later than me?”

At the words that he was behind so he couldn’t have seen below the stairs, Park Dong-ju became confused. Since he was speaking so calmly, it really seemed like someone had been lying on the stairs.

He wanted to ask the underclassmen from earlier, but they would probably agree along with Shim Seo-woo if he said he saw someone on the stairs. They’d say something like they only looked at their senior so they couldn’t check below. They already seemed thoroughly enchanted by Shim Seo-woo…

“I hope that person is lying on a bench now. The stairs are narrow so it hurts your back.”

He’s actually this spaced-out, like he’s missing a screw!

It was difficult to follow Shim Seo-woo’s thinking as he casually accepted the existence lying on the stairs in broad daylight, not even a dark night. No, because the sun is bright, it obviously can’t be a ghost, right?

But…

Suddenly Park Dong-ju remembered something from a few days ago and carefully opened his mouth. With a tone trying to convey that he absolutely had no intention of making the other person seem weird, he asked calmly.

“Hey. Do you perhaps see strange things, you know… like ghosts?”

“Just because they were lying on the stairs, isn’t it rude to condemn them as a ghost?”

However, making his consideration meaningless, Shim Seo-woo suddenly countered with a look asking why he was killing the person. Park Dong-ju felt indignant and cried out.

“No, you said last time too that someone was lying on the tree in front of the cafeteria. But a few hours later, the branch you pointed at had broken…!”

It was a very tall tree, but Shim Seo-woo suddenly pointed at the top saying someone was lying there taking a nap. He even said it seemed like there were many people seeking romance as the weather warmed up entering early summer.

But at that time, no matter how much Park Dong-ju looked in that direction, he couldn’t find any human figure at all, and he got chills when he later heard that the branch had broken. So he talked about it quite seriously, but Shim Seo-woo just blinked blankly and answered with a face that didn’t understand what the problem was at all.

“If a person was lying there, the branch would have been strained…”

“…Your ability to accept things is really beyond amazing to the point of being wondrous.”

Park Dong-ju nodded as if resigned. He thought Shim Seo-woo would be at least a little confused or scared after recalling the memory and wondering ‘Could that have been a ghost?’, but not at all. Somehow it’s a calmness that would brush it off as nothing even if it really was a ghost.

Shim Seo-woo had been like this from before.

He’d been calm since his freshman year and reacted composedly to everything. He also caught people’s attention with his neat appearance and characteristic quiet atmosphere, so those behaviors also gained favor.

Back then they marveled at how mature he was despite being only twenty, but in reality he was someone who had infinite acceptance of “that can happen” for all worldly matters. Rather than simply expressing it as high understanding, it should be said he’d reached a state of enlightenment and detachment.

He’d been watching Shim Seo-woo for about five years now, but still couldn’t understand what was inside him. Park Dong-ju shook his head and changed the subject.

“By the way, vacation is coming soon, are you traveling alone again? Overseas perhaps?”

Every vacation, Shim Seo-woo would suddenly leave for somewhere alone. He spent all the money he earned from working part-time hard during the semester on travel, and the destinations varied. It was behavior as if possessed by wanderlust.

“Well, I don’t have any plans set yet…”

“What, you’re not looking for the ‘outside’ anymore? Since this is your last vacation before graduation, you should film the finale of the ‘searching for the outside’ series.”

Park Dong-ju giggled. This was exactly why he was always curious about Shim Seo-woo’s whereabouts during vacation.

“I still sometimes remember and laugh about it. When I asked you in freshman year what you’d do during vacation and got the puzzled answer ‘I’m going to go outside.’ When I asked what outside you meant, you said you were searching for it yourself, so I thought it was really strange, but later I found out it meant going abroad.”

Park Dong-ju chuckled, saying he was an extraordinary person from then but didn’t recognize it. At the old story after a long time, Shim Seo-woo only rolled his eyes to the side smoothly.

He seemed to think he was joking in the past, but he had only told the truth.

‘Live outside.’

Because the boy’s words from six years ago strangely circled through his mind.

It even kept appearing in dreams, so he was curious where exactly that ‘outside’ was. What place was the outside that he urged while suddenly hitting his eyes, and if there’s an outside there must be an ‘inside’ too, so how are they distinguished, and so on.

Unable to figure it out at all, Shim Seo-woo recklessly headed outside. With money saved from part-time work and military service, he first intuitively went outside the country, that is, overseas, and went around here and there. He thought perhaps he’d find a place that suddenly drew his heart at some moment.

He went to countries full of ancient ruins, stopped by cities with splendid night views, headed to island nations surrounded by beautiful seas. He visited various places and spent quite a bit of time, but ultimately couldn’t find a suitable place.

He also went around various places domestically. He visited all the famous cities and even lived in Jeju Island for a month during vacation, but still Shim Seo-woo suffered from the feeling of not having found the ‘outside.’ No matter what scenery he saw, he was indifferent and felt no particular emotion.

Rather he only felt an emptiness as if he’d left something behind. The more he went outside, the larger that hollowness grew.

“This time I think I’ll just keep doing part-time work.”

Perhaps the ‘outside’ the boy spoke of doesn’t follow physical distinctions? Honestly, he wondered why he was so obsessed with the words of a boy whose face he didn’t even know…

Shim Seo-woo shook his head slightly. Since graduation was approaching, it seemed difficult to spend time only on travel anymore, so it seemed he should face reality now.

“I need to start preparing for employment soon too…”

“What, it’s really strange to hear you say that. You were the type to think about such things?”

“Yes. My dream is to live ordinarily.”

At the calm answer, Park Dong-ju let out a hollow laugh.

“Aren’t you already quite far from ordinary?”

He looked Sim Seo-woo up and down, as if he’d just heard something utterly vague and unrealistic. It was a look pointing out not only his unique atmosphere but also his absurd level of acceptance.

But Shim Seo-woo only tilted his head as if puzzled.

“Why? This is quite smooth and ordinary…”

At his gaze insisting he was living quite ordinarily even now, Park Dong-ju finally chuckled. He had no idea what exactly the standard of ‘ordinary’ he was talking about was, but soon just shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go study like an ordinary college student.”

“You’re cramming now. Hmm, this does fall within the category of ordinary too.”

“I wish you’d realize these harsh words aren’t ordinary…”

*

That night.

There were many people in the library until late into the night. As exam week had begun, it was full of those studying hard one last time and also those cramming.

Park Dong-ju went back before public transportation stopped, but Shim Seo-woo decided to stay longer in the library since he could just walk to his studio apartment. The rule he’d set was to use home only as a space to rest comfortably.

Shim Seo-woo, who’d been studying until late, went outside the building to ventilate as his body grew stiff. The library’s east gate connected to a tree-lined street, good for a moderate walk.

During the day there were many people coming and going, but the tree-lined street at night was very quiet.

“My eyes hurt for a long time today…”

Walking slowly down the quiet street, Shim Seo-woo pressed firmly on his eyelids. Although he felt eye pain every day he had that dream, usually it subsided after three or four hours, but today the pain didn’t lessen even late into the night and rather grew worse.

Was it because his eyes were strained from reading books for so long? No, it was closer to a stuffiness like looking at the world through a dusty window. It was a strange sensation even though he could clearly see ahead.

Shim Seo-woo let out a small sigh and put in the artificial tears he’d recently started using.

‘Hey. Do you perhaps see strange things, you know…… like ghosts?’

Suddenly Park Dong-ju’s words from today came to mind.

He’d asked quite seriously, but in fact Shim Seo-woo had no thoughts at all about such ‘strange things’—that is, ghosts or spiritual somethings. He didn’t consider the people he saw to be illusions, but if they really were hallucinations, rather than thinking he’d gained a mysterious ability, he’d cite just one reason.

Shim Seo-woo had the most rational basis to explain his abnormal symptoms.

“Am I slowly going crazy… Well, I lasted a long time…”