Carpe Noctem

Chapter 10

Him
At Hergiswil
About a year ago

 
What does a person feel upon learning that a loved one has died?

There’s shock—the kind of surprise that stuns you like a bucket of icy water poured straight onto your head, or the first strike of a fist to your gut. It’s strong enough to incapacitate you for seconds, minutes—hours, even—before you double over.

But to Jeong Hyeok, the stupor that beset him after hearing the news of his brother’s passing has been lasting for days already. He’s running on autopilot; he’s sane enough to function although he knows deep inside that he is barely breathing. Maybe, it’s his form of denial, or his way of coping—he isn’t sure. And to be frank, it is quite pointless to know for certain when grief has devastated one so much.

Now, as he stands by himself on the patio after his turn on stage, he realizes that he must have pushed his luck merely by showing up for this performance. It’s a mystery, he thinks, that despite his current state of lethargy, he is able to play a decent piece—let alone, Valse Sentimentale. That waltz by Tchaikovsky was Mu Hyeok’s favorite, so it was practically torture from the moment he hit the first key.

Except that he cannot feel anything.

And apparently, that indifference somehow translated in his final performance according to the stranger who is on the other side of the pillar he is leaning on.

“That encore was a bit… uninspiring,” he hears her say in their vernacular. “Was it really supposed to make us feel worthless? It’s like a cry for help.”

Her reaction renders him speechless. He initially assumes that she is mocking him for his poor renditions earlier that evening. However, he figures soon afterwards that she probably isn’t. For one, it’s already past sunset; it would be difficult to register someone else’s face unless the lights decorating the small garden were switched on. And her subsequent comments prove that she’s likely guessing that he is a visitor just like her.

“You see, I was under the impression that the purpose of the concert was to uplift us, to make us reconsider our decision to pull the plug on our own. I was expecting to have a change of heart—or something to that effect,” she continues musing to herself. “But why do I feel more depressed than ever?”

A dry chuckle escapes her before she proceeds to grumble, “Seriously—are they trying to get rid of us faster? Is that a brand new suicide method they’re introducing? Have they run out of lethal injections to give us?”

“Are you listening?” she slyly asks him. “Do you even understand Korean? Probably not—or else, you would have reacted.”

Her random ramblings and morbid sarcasm oddly amuse him, and he decides to go along with her speculation by keeping quiet. Nevertheless, the humor eventually fades away.

She sighs aloud, then tells him, “All my life, people around me made sure that I was aware of how unwanted I was. My eomoni took me out for a long drive on a winter evening to abandon me on a beach when I was a kid, my jageun oppa practically waited for me to die on the floor of the bathroom a couple of years ago…”

“And my abeoji… Well…” by the tone of her voice, it’s easy for him to visualize her smirking bitterly. “Let’s say that having the great Yoon Jeung Pyeong as a parent only looks good on paper.”

“I need some sort of consolation tonight, not another justification for this suicide trip,” she rants out him—or the dark void before them, rather. “I need something to make me believe that even though it’s impossible for the people I care for to ever love me back, I must keep on living. And that somehow—by some freaking miracle—I actually could.”