TIN 139

It was such a serious question that I wondered what she already knew before asking. If that person was already dead. Though it was an assumption I didn’t want to make, I already knew the answer to the question.

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“…”

“Then we have to stop looking.”

What else could be done? As Lee Yuna once said, dead people don’t come back. Since I wasn’t Joo Do-hwa, I couldn’t engage in such meaningless acts as searching for someone who had already departed.

“…Really?”

Lee Yuna examined me with surprised eyes for a moment. She probably found it unexpected that I answered so promptly.

“You said it was someone you wanted to meet…Can you give up that easily?”

“Even if I don’t give up…”

Since expectations stemmed from hope, if even that hope crumbled, naturally one would give up. It wasn’t something I could control even if I didn’t want to give up.

“We can’t meet anyway.”

“…”

Lee Yuna’s mouth snapped shut. Perhaps remembering someone, her eyes suddenly grew heavy. After all, she too had someone she could never meet.

“…You’re different from Joo Do-hwa, I see.”

Lee Yuna muttered briefly and clicked her tongue. She roughly brushed back her hair flying in the wind and turned to stare quietly into empty space. Soon, while rummaging through her pocket, she spoke to me.

“Actually, I have something.”

What she pulled out was a paper folded like a card. It seemed she had been carrying it for quite a while, as the edges were tattered.

“The last letter Yoon Ji-soo left.”

“…!”

I couldn’t help but react. Though I hesitantly took a step forward, fortunately, Lee Yuna didn’t seem wary of me. Instead, she just held out the paper toward me and offered it up.

“It seems to be written to Chairman Joo…Want to see it?”

“Why…”

I was about to ask why she would show it to me. It was also my habit to be suspicious, wondering what made her trust me with such a thing.

“…Show me.”

However, I swallowed my rising questions and took another step forward. Right now, I was the one who would lose out if I questioned such things, not her. If she withdrew the offer because she didn’t like my questions, I would be the one at a loss.

“Here.”

When I took two more steps forward, Lee Yuna handed me the letter without hesitation. Now there was only enough distance between us that I could grab her gun if I wanted to. Of course, neither I nor Lee Yuna paid attention to such things.

“Open it.”

“…”

With trembling hands, I slowly unfolded the crossed sections. The crumpled paper, when opened, appeared to be a scanned copy of the original. I gripped the edges tightly as I read the contents written in familiar handwriting.

“To you.”

That’s how the letter began.

***

“To you.

“If you’re reading this letter, it means you’ve come all this way looking for me. I pray this letter never reaches you. I hope you haven’t crossed an endless ocean, and that your reason for doing so wasn’t to find me.

“Hey, do you remember the last goodbye I said to you? I didn’t want to show weakness, but I ended up crying anyway. I was so scared to say those words, and afterward, I worried so much that you might come looking for me.

“We haven’t known each other for that long, you know. Compared to the years you have ahead of you, our time together was just a fleeting moment. I think it would be too wasteful to ruin your life over the few years we spent together.

“It would be a lie to say I wasn’t happy when I met you. Since we left unforgettable memories, it’s okay to think we loved each other. But there are too many things in this world that can’t be achieved with love alone.

“This paper is too small to explain why we had to part. But by now, you must know that my words were a farewell. I hope you can accept that it was our last goodbye.

“I have no intention of looking for you or meeting you again. No, I don’t want to meet ever again. I wish no one knew about our relationship, the time we shared.

“You might call our parting a farewell, but I want to call it freedom. I’ll go somewhere you can’t find me, so let’s never meet again. Just as I let you go, the day has come for you to let me go too.

“Don’t look for me. Leave this place and go somewhere else. Forget about someone like me completely and find your own life.

“And live happily somewhere I’m not.”

It was the last letter Yoon Ji-soo left.

It took quite a while to read through the neatly written words. Though the content wasn’t particularly long, I read each word carefully, savoring each one. By the time I finally read the last sentence, the once-blue sky was turning into a sunset glow.

“…”

Lee Yuna waited for me to finish reading the letter without rushing me. Her steady gaze toward me wasn’t even noticeable halfway through. Though I was conscious of her presence at first, at some point I became lost in that person’s written words.

She said it was written to Chairman Joo. These words saying goodbye and asking not to look for them anymore.

Yes, others might think that way. That Yoon Ji-soo disappeared after leaving a final goodbye to Chairman Joo, tired of his pursuit. That they were trying to peacefully persuade him to let them escape that wearisome relationship.

But even after finishing the letter, I couldn’t take my eyes off the last sentence. That sentence which appeared particularly dark, as if written with extra pressure.

“Live.”

It felt like my breath was caught. The emotion surging from deep within my gut wasn’t anger toward Chairman Joo. It was just a powerful realization, like being hit from behind.

“…Ah.”

It was a letter to me. Not to Chairman Joo, but to me who would come all this way looking for that person. To me who couldn’t forget that single teardrop on my cheek, who had bound my entire life to the time spent with her.

‘Don’t make a sound.’

‘Don’t get caught, no matter what…’

‘Live.’

Only now did I understand that person’s goodbye wasn’t promising a reunion. They never once told me we’d meet again. Without saying to wait, without promising to come find me, they just sent me away to a distant place.

“This…”

I barely opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. My throat kept choking up, feeling as if someone was strangling me. Only after catching my breath once, twice, could I barely manage to ask a question.

“Where…did this come from?”

“They say it was found on this island before.”

That meant two things. That this place had been Yoon Ji-soo’s residence, and that Lee Yuna wasn’t the first person to find this island.

“Someone from our family came looking for that person…and well, found it then. Chairman Joo took the original, and this is probably a copy of a copy?”

Judging by the printed appearance, the original was probably written on a roughly torn notebook page. You could even see the faint traces of where it was tornt.

“Take it if you need it. I can make another copy.”

“…”

I couldn’t say I understood. I just bowed my head for a moment with my eyes tightly shut. I didn’t think about Lee Yuna being in front of me, or that I should act composed. Like the dark clouds that had covered the sky, a terrible emptiness crept in.

‘What would you do if that person was already dead?’

I wondered why she asked such a thing. It was obvious where they would go—a place I couldn’t find, a place we shouldn’t meet, a place they would go alone after hurriedly sending me away.

“…No.”

“…”

“I don’t need it anymore.”

She was dead.

Yoon Ji-soo, the person I was looking for, was no longer in this world.

“I’ll return it.”

I forced out words through my constricted throat. I carefully folded the letter I had just read back into its original shape and returned it to her.

“Thank you for showing it to me.”

“…”

When I bowed my head in thanks, Lee Yuna’s expression subtly changed. Her gaze examining my face intently was sharp like before.

“I should…go now.”

But I no longer had the presence of mind to care about such things. My mind was too quiet for any thoughts to form. Just as I was about to take a step, Lee Yuna suddenly grabbed my arm.

“Wait…wait a moment.”

I stopped walking and turned to look at her silently. It was meant as a signal for her to speak, but instead, Lee Yuna let go of me with a surprised face. However, she did grab the edge of my clothes again right after.

“Where are you going?”

“Where else?”

I roughly pulled my clothes free from her grasp. I could see her hand trembling in the air after it fell limply.

“Now that I’m done here, I need to escape, without Joo Do-hwa finding out about my whereabouts.”

That meant I couldn’t tell her either. How would I know if she might tell others where I was going?

“You said it yourself, Yuna. That there’s no way I could be real.”

“…Ah.”

Those were Lee Yuna’s words from before. That dead people don’t come back, and others can’t fill their empty spaces. That irritated comment about how I couldn’t possibly be real since the hyung Joo Do-hwa was looking for was already dead.

“You were right.”

I let out a thin breath and showed a faint smile. I felt refreshed, as if everything was finally over.

“Dead people don’t come back to the living.”