Dry Drowning

Chapter 24

It had been such a hellish two weeks.

Ian, who was given the punishment of words, had to memorize the words every hour of the day from waking up in the morning until falling asleep.

It was a tighter schedule than most test-takers, all because of Kyle, who was next to him with a smile all day long. It was not enough to knock on the door every day at exactly 8 o’clock, on top of that Ian had to realize the madness of giving a word quiz by giving him a fountain pen even during a short mealtime.

This b*st*rd is having fun right now.

“Huh? There is a misspelled part.”

The walnut pie, which Ian had only taken a bite of, rolled around his mouth like pebbles.

Shyu, who had been idly by his side, was also gone as he must have been running an errand again.

Ian looked up as he placed the pie on the plate that he was holding in his left hand. His appetite had already fallen off.

Even when he was adopted to a foreign country and learned English, he was not quite as spartan as this much. Schools in Korea have made it compulsory to learn English since childhood, and Ian was an excellent student enough to be popular in the entire school. It was not very difficult because he didn’t speak much and was able to interpret roughly.

However, Shetier was different.

As he memorized hundreds of words a day while barely learning the spelling, he felt like his head was going to explode.

It was funny to fall in a place that he had never heard of, but it was even funnier to memorize words such as dogs, knives, and food. If possible, they would give you all of their listening and writing skills. It was a revelation from heaven that you should try using it tightly when you see that half-function is broken down to the neck.*

[*T/N: Probably some saying in Korea.]

Unlike Ian, whose wrists were sore, Kyle grinned at him and ripped the paper in front of him.

Kyle, who tilted his head, reached out his hand as he crumpled a piece of paper on which he had written something quickly with a fountain pen that drowned in an ink bottle and tossed it onto the table.

Mold, centipede, darkness, fog, death.

There were five poorly written words.

Blinking at the random letters, Kyle asked Ian.

“What’s this?”

It was Ian who had yet to memorize nouns. In Shetier he had to memorize the words first because the predicates were very complex. That was how he learned it, so he was somewhat sure. He followed him better than he thought.

Is it a category?

Kyle’s conjecture seemed meaningless, so he began to examine it, but Ian simply collected and wrote down the most negative words he had memorized.

Ian wanted to say something harsher, but there were no swear words among the words he was taught.

“…….”

Something caught Ian’s eyes, who turned his fountain pen once out of regret. It was Kyle, looking intently at the paper with his chin clenched.

Come to think of it, what does that even mean?

None of the letters engraved black in jagged size was learned by him.

Ian, who was thinking of something, straightened the fountain pen he was turning. He could see from this angle because he was bending down his head. There were many crushed letters like graffiti, so Ian wrote down on the torn paper the letters that seemed to be relatively intact. Kyle, who suddenly raised his head at the sound of the nib, and his eyes met.

“Why?”

There were two dots at the end of his eyebrows.

It was so small that you wouldn’t know if you didn’t look closely, but the fact that they were side by side as if it had been stamped out, he wondered if that’s a tattoo too.

Somehow it was an unfamiliar face because he had never looked into it with interest. It was a problem because every time he opened his mouth, Ian wanted to beat him up, but to appreciate all of that, it was a cold impression overall. Looking at Kyle’s ripped-up eyes without double eyelids or his smooth nose bridge, Ian recalled the time he saw Kyle’s face without a smile.

It was rare, so he couldn’t remember it very well.

“What? When did you learn such swear words? Is it Fred?”

Kyle, who lowered his gaze, muttered wondering if Ian’s reaction was bland, who only looked at him silently. It seemed like he was reading a paper with different letters on it.

“But does Fred know how to write Gore?”

“…….”

I copied your cheek.

I didn’t expect it to be a good word, but still, you wrote a swear word on your cheek.

Although there were such men in modern times too, most of them were engraved on the body, but rarely on the face in such a way.

Kyle, who burst into laughter, opened his mouth when he shook his head thinking he was a crazy man.

“Did you copy the letters on my cheek? Oh my god, you’ll be in trouble if you go somewhere and write things like this. It could be dangerous.”

So why do you write down words that could be dangerous on your cheek?

Kyle, who gave warning rather than advice, could not see if Ian’s face turned cloudy as he just kept laughing.

After a hectic day, Ian could barely find peace only after returning to the room and closing the door. It was also a challenge to memorize hundreds of words, but recently, a few humans were snooping around there, which had been more annoying.

He wasn’t dull enough to miss his eyes glancing at him pretending to talk to Kyle.

At first, he was busy avoiding them like insects, but after meeting him every day for more than two weeks, Ian seemed curious.

In a way, things went as Claude intended, but Ian, who was curious and didn’t need it* at all, walked towards the bed with his head in a tangled mess of words.

[*T/N: Ian didn’t need those things like learning a new language.]

It was understandable that his head hurt because he was putting effort into learning a language he had never seen before. The room was filled with only the sound of firewood pounding along with the warm air as if it had been preheated.

He was tired enough to fall asleep right away.

When the candles lit near the bed were extinguished, the light leaking from the fireplace dimly lit up the surroundings.

Listening to the sound of the wind shaking the window, Ian laid down on the bed. He listened carefully to avoid an unknown sound leaking in like last time, outside the window where nothing but the rattling sound could be heard.

Maybe it was because he was in a noisy environment all day? As he lay alone in the quiet room, sleepiness and thoughts flooded like waves.

The most recent memory Ian could recall was around the time he returned to Hong Kong.

The last part of the memory was when he was handed a newly opened old cell phone and had a conversation with his brother whom he hadn’t seen in a long time.

However, he can’t remember exactly what conversation they had.

Even what he had done since then.*

[*T/N: He also couldn’t remember what he has done since then.]

Something seemed to pop out of the foggy memories, but in the end, all he could remember was that there was a gap of about a year after that and only fragmentary information that he had killed someone and then committed suicide.

The light fluttered dimly from the tip of his toes. The shadows on the ceiling seemed to whisper something. Looking at it quietly, Ian muttered to himself. A question that has been revisited over and over again.

Why did I die?

I was determined to live.

He thought it would be too unfair if he didn’t do that, so he came all the way here, trampling on the lives of others instead of himself, purely with that thought.

By the time he felt something was wrong, it* was already muddy. Even if he wanted to go back and look back, there was nowhere to go. He couldn’t find the memories he wanted to keep, the precious people, or even what he wanted to do, so he lost all his life.

[*T/N: His memories.]

I know where the last part is.*

[*T/N: The last part of his memories.]

“…….”

Thinking of those things, he seemed to fall asleep at some point.

I thought I had a short dream, but I couldn’t remember what it was about.

Is it because I feel at ease?

After coming here, I was able to fall asleep quite deeply. At first, I slept deeply because of the medicines, but now I know that nothing is mixed in the food anymore.

He woke up shallowly at the sound of the rattling wind, but his consciousness subsided again. It was when the thought of Kyle, who would come to knock on the door at 8 o’clock, came up, he sighed.

Squeak.

It was a very subtle noise.

Ian, who was about to fall asleep with his eyes closed, realized after a few seconds that it was the sound of the door opening.

Thud.

Very slow footsteps crawled into the room. It was a sound that could be hidden but seemed to be intentional. It was close to midnight, so it would be about 3 a.m. by now.

Thud.

Once again, the sound of footsteps was heard. Ian tried to figure out who it was, but no one came to mind.

How many people can enter the room at this time?

He wondered if it was Ed, the butler, but somehow he felt that it wasn’t him. The sound was getting closer to the bed.

“…….”

The moment Ian thought so, he was by his side.

Ian quietly held his breath at the sound of him stopping right next to him.

He was looking down this way.

It was a gaze that could be felt without opening the eyes.

.…Somehow I feel like I shouldn’t wake up.

He pretended to have fallen asleep without rolling his eyes, but he could no longer hear anything after the last footsteps. He couldn’t hear anyone going out either, so he’d still be there.

Nevertheless, there was no sign.

As soon as he realized it, he pretended it to be a lie. There was no movement of going back. Slowly, the sound of bending over was heard. When Ian felt it was getting closer, he could feel a light breath touching his lips. With a breath so cold, for a human…

He was looking down right in front of his nose.

“…….”

Even though he felt it, he didn’t do anything.

Since he had already missed the time to open his eyes, it would be better to stay asleep like this than to make eye contact.

How long has it been?

It seemed to be only about a minute, but it felt to be over 30 minutes.

When he was thinking about whether he should open his eyes, he wondered if this was enough. The sound of footsteps was heard again with a slow withdrawal from the front of his nose.

Squeak.

This time, it was the sound of the door closing.

He tried to open his eyes thinking that he had gone outside, but strangely his back was pulled back. With only a small toss and turn, Ian remained buried in the bed. In no time, with only cold air circulating in the room, he couldn’t even hear the firewood being burned.

Click.

And after 10 minutes,

He heard the door being shut completely.

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

T/N: Ok… so this chapter is one of my favourite chapters of Dry Drowning… I mean… THE DESCRIPTIONS ARE SO GOOD… I LOVE how this author describes every little thing, you can just imagine a whole scenario through those descriptions. And that last part… Did you guys guess anything?… It is MOST probably Logan who was MOST PROBABLY going to… kiss… Ian.｡◕‿◕｡But didn’t ｡◕‿◕｡… Anyways, now I am going on a hiatus FOR REAL.(ㆁωㆁ)…. See you guys again after two months…ಥ‿ಥ (´；ω；｀) Anyways…

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! Hope you all have a wonderful and better year ahead.( ◜‿◝ )♡