텅 빈 속에서 (Into the void)

Yoon

The alarm rang at 5:30.
Ha Yoon opened his eyes without hesitation, as if sleep were only something psychological and not an actual physical need. He got up, washed his face, and for a moment stood looking at himself in the mirror, congratulating himself on being born "so perfect."
Afterwards, he took a quick shower and went for a run.
His runs always lasted about an hour. The morning run was something his friends never understood, but it helps him to take his mind off things and relax for the rest of his day.
As soon as he got home he washed again, took some clothes and wore them in random order, without taking into account how they matched.
He went down to the kitchen, turned on the coffee machine, which coughed twice before recovering.
On the counter were two glasses, one dirty and the other clean, since the night before he had set the table for two, without thinking, accustomed to always having someone around. He put the clean one back.
He turned on his phone but there was no new message from Ji-Won after the cold goodnight that had been sent to him in response to his message. A subtle shiver crept under his skin. Not because he really wanted to feel it-or at least, that's what he kept telling himself-but because that distance was a constant reminder: He wasn't a part of his life. Not anymore. But he knew he should be happy about that, because he knew full well that he wasn't in love with Ji-Won at all, he liked him, yes, he had always liked him since they met at the agency, but he had never fallen in love with him and, somehow, Ji-Won knew it.

When he recovered from his thoughts and finished his coffee, he put on his white coat and went out.
The city was still bathed in a soft, dark light. For him, Seoul was breathing intermittently, like a patient in intensive care.
At the hospital, his day began as usual: pre-operative check-up, briefing with the team, and paperwork to sign.
In operating room 3, a complicated operation awaited him-an aortic dissection on a 56-year-old man.
The kind of case that kept him alert, engaged, and alive.
"Hemostasis ready?" he asked, without looking up.
"Ready, Doctor Ha."
The steady beat of the heart monitor reminded him of a rhythm he knew all too well.
Every cut was precise, clean, and controlled.
And yet, amid the silence of surgery, his mind took him back to a few nights earlier.

That night Ji-Won was sitting on the edge of the roof, he had approached and, after an argument about the fact that he was drunk and unable to realize the danger of his action, Ji-Won, with a trembling voice, asked him to love him, but he replied that he couldn't, but he didn't abandon him. He brought him back home, to his everyday life.

When the surgery was over, four hours later, he walked out of the operating room, exhausted.
He took off his gloves and washed his hands longer than necessary. The hot water couldn't take away the feeling of not being able to wash away the blood, which made him shiver slightly.
In the late afternoon, as soon as his shift ended, he received a message.

Min Joon: You're not working tonight, are you? I'll kidnap you.

Ha Yoon: I'm dead tired.

Min Joon: Perfect. So... beer and ramen like old times? I won't take no for an answer.

Min Joon had been his best friend since kindergarten. They'd always been neighbors, always played together, and had never been apart since.
Min Joon wasn't a surgeon. He worked as a lawyer in a court and was the best lawyer in all of Seoul, as well as the only person who knew how to cheer up Ha Yoon, even when it seemed like the world was falling apart around him.
even when it seemed like the world was falling apart around him.

Later, he joined him at a small club in Hongdae.
The lights were bright, the music was too loud, but strangely, it didn't bother him.
"You don't look as shabby as I thought." Min Joon teased.
"Have you slept at least four hours this week?"
"Five, if I count the car stop on the way here."
"Great! You're getting better!" He smiles, still teasing him.
They sat at the counter. Min Joon talked about a new case he was working on, one in which he had to collaborate with a lawyer with whom he argued every now and then, while Ha Yoon listened to him distractedly but smiling.
"You know, it would be good for you to find someone. I'm not talking about a relationship, but someone who can take that funeral look off your face.""You know, it would be good for you to find someone. I'm not talking about a relationship, but someone who can take that funeral look off your face."
"And you should stop being my psychologist. At least get paid, no?"
"No, I'm a natural when it comes to you; I read you deeply. Anyway, jokes aside, you're carrying too much shit inside you, Yoon, and not sleeping doesn't erase it."
Ha Yoon rolled his eyes, but didn't respond.
When the beers arrived, they toasted like the two classic twenty-year-olds they were.
"To us, to the tired living and the still-breathing dead!" said Min Joon.
"What the fuck does that mean?" Ha Yoon replied, confused.
"How can I know? Let me philosophize."
Ha Yoon laughed, a real laugh this time.
Later, they went out and walked through the brightly lit streets.
Seoul was pulsating with life, and for a moment, Ha Yoon could almost feel part of something normal.
Min Joon told him about a girl he liked, but every time she looked at him, she made him forget her name.
"You're sick." Ha Yoon commented, watching him as his friend lit a cigarette.
"And you're a heart surgeon who can't even take care of his own. I'd say we're on the same level."
"Asshole." Ha Yoon snapped at him.
"I'll take that as a compliment." Min Joon replied.
They walked for a while longer, then stopped in front of a vending machine.
Min Joon inserted a coin, took out two cans of iced Americano and handed one to Ha Yoon, knowing it was his favorite.
"I don't see you laugh often, Ha Yoon, you're scary."
"Then don't look at me. At least you can convince yourself I'm smiling and not get used to my dull face."
"No, I hope I get used to it, it makes you feel alive."
There was a moment of silence. Ha Yoon looked at the can and then at his friend's amused look.
"You don't know how much I need you around, Joon..."
"I know. That's why I'm always there to bother you!"

By the time they said goodbye, it was almost eleven in the night.
Ha Yoon walked home, the echoes of Min Hoon's laughter still ringing in his head.
It was when the front door closed behind him that the silence returned to weigh on his shoulders.
On the table was a file from another patient, but his eyes drifted to his phone.
He had written and deleted three messages.

>Did you sleep?
>How is doing Hae-Jin?
>Are you better?

He put the phone on the table, pushing it away.
"You can't keep going like this..." He muttered to himself.
He ran a hand through his hair, sighing, and leaned back, closing his eyes.
He knew he was a man who saved lives, but with Ji-Won he always felt helpless and incompetent.

Having been alone for an hour now, Ha Yoon took off his shirt, dropping his tie onto the sofa. He looked at his hands for a moment - tired, still; hands that cut, that sewed... the same hands that had caressed Ji-Won without ever trembling.

He poured himself a glass of water and leaned against the counter, letting the cold glass slip through his fingers.
It was then that he felt it again, that little knot in his chest, not from pain, but from the memories that came flooding back to him.
Ji-Won's face came back to him as a clear image the night they had parted.

It was raining.
He didn't remember what they had eaten, nor what they had talked about before, but he remembered having closed everything that evening.
"I don't want you to feel bad and feel obligated to be with me." Ji-Won said, his eyes shining and his voice breaking.
It took Ha Yoon a few seconds to understand. Then, almost sweetly, he replied:
"I'm not the one who feel bad..."
It was that paradox that had stuck with him more than anything else. Ji-Won had convinced himself that leaving him was a way to protect him, when in reality it was him, Ji-won, who was collapsing under the weight of something he wasn't receiving.
Ha Yoon had never loved him. He knew it, from the beginning. But he liked the calm he brought to his life, the way he looked at him as if he understood him completely.
And for a while, he thought that was enough for him.

He put down his glass, running a hand through his hair.
He could have ignored that thought like he always did, but not that night.
Not after he'd distractedly scrolled through his phone and seen a notification from Ji-won:
"Are you asleep?"
A simple message, two days old, to which he had never responded.
He wrote to him only now, after minutes of hesitation that didn't represent him:
"I hope you're sleeping... at least tonight."

He pressed send, then left the phone on the table.
It wasn't a gesture of nostalgia, it was a lucid, rational concern - the natural one you feel for someone you've always loved deeply. And he waited.