Chapter 1

The colours that spread on the sky through the window were dazzling. As the sun was setting, I thought that the blowing wind was quite cold, and a white hand reached from somewhere skillfully closing the open window.

I admired the man for a short while, he was tall and had great proportions, the man’s head, which was only showing his back, slightly turned around and stared my way.

His face was slowly revealed with the swaying of the curtains.

Am I dreaming?

Lee Ha-Jin looked at the man in front of him and blinked. What a beautiful face, he seemed somewhat familiar. The man who had a smile on his face approached him at a quick pace.

Oh, he’s going to bump into me.

Even before he thought so, the man lightly passed through his body, with that empty feeling Lee Ha-Jin clicked his tongue this time. I guess I really am dreaming huh.

The man who passed right through him sat down in a simple chair beside the bed, and then he started mumbling about something quietly.

As he got closer, a little girl, who was hidden from his view by the man’s body, popped out. She had a pale face and dazzling round eyes, she was so pretty that you could see at a glance that she would be a beautiful woman when she grew up.

As Lee Ha-Jin stared at the little girl, thinking that her small mouth and her whispering resembled a canary bird, he realised that the bed, IV, and a room covered in white paint everywhere was clearly a hospital room.

It was a lonely sight because the one bed in the room was exceptionally big.

Why am I dreaming about something that I don’t even know?

Replaying my memories from earlier today, I’m sure I was definitely on my way home after making a deal.

But strangely enough, after that, all I could see was pitch black. Did I pass out? Lee Ha-Jin looked down again at the man and the little girl.

The man’s fingertips were gently brushing the girl’s hair. It was a careful and tender movement that felt like it was meant to touch something precious, that was what he felt when he saw those two for the first time.

The conversation was calm and full of mundane things. The little girl was smiling when their eyes met, blushed and pretended to vomit at the man’s jokes that she occasionally heard.

A soft silence, a gentle touch. The hospital room, where there were only the two of them, was full of such things, and there was something so distant that he felt as if it was a different world.

It was quiet, and Lee Ha-jin was just staring at the two without saying a word from the opposite side of the hospital room. Then, like an illusion, time went by.

The man would return home and would come back a few days later late at night, and as soon as he opened the door of the hospital room and came in, Lee Ha-Jin could tell right away how important the child was to him.

The way his face changed, from an expression of wandering somewhere in hell aimlessly and finally returning home.

The tired man’s face softens at the girl’s voice calling out to him; ‘oppa’.  He looked relieved.

The peaceful time passed by slowly, and Lee Ha-jin was just staring at the two without saying a word.

I don’t know when it will end, but I think it’s not a bad dream.

The wait wasn’t very long. When he stirred at a certain feeling that ran through his head, the door of the hospital room that had been closed became transparent as if it was announcing that it was time to wake up.

It was an unbelievably delicate dream; it took him a moment to dispel the magic and he woke up in his usual seat with a gentle smile on his face.

‘Please protect this child,’

It was the man. Those words came out from his mouth while he was staring at him with a gaze full of desperation.’ I am so weak that I have no confidence to live any longer, ‘

With a quiet voice, the man’s gaze fell on a corner of the bed that was now empty. He looked tired.

‘She doesn’t know the world in which she must now live alone, so please

She is unaware of this hellish reality. So, I wanted you to protect that child…’ he could see the wet streaks on the face of the begging man.

Every person who fell into despair always made the same face. Thinking that he had a similar face to that, Lee Ha-jin turned around and tried to leave the hospital room.

The end of those who knew despair was always the same, and he was not the kind of person who sympathised with it or felt sorry for it.

‘Yeah, I’m sure it was.’

Stopping dead in his tracks, Lee Ha-Jin looked down at the man who was crying silently. The hazy memories were slowly flooding into his mind.

I was on my way home from the deal. Dae-joon, who was driving, glanced at the rear-view mirror anxiously. ‘Boss, The car in the back isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.’

I opened my tired eyes, told him to let it pass us, and then closed them back again.

I had a premonition that something stil was amiss. And at the next moment, ‘Fuck!’ When I opened my eyes reflexively to Dae-joon’s loud voice, the car drove through the guardrail and crashed seemingly because it had been hit hard from the back.

Oh, this is how I’m going to die.

Lee Ha-jin remembered the last part of his dream. Closeby, the man, who had clearly crashed into his car, was crying sadly with a bloody face. The man from his dream was identical to the man who is crying in front of him now.

Get out of here!

His head flooded with thoughts of danger. Yeah, I have to go. Then he tried to move slowly, but he couldn’t move as if his foot was stuck to the floor, as he heard the sound of the man’s voice again.

‘I am so weak that I have no confidence to live any longer, but still someone,

someone please protect this child.

 Please, somebody… Please please….’

It resembled a prayer. The flow of tears showed no signs of stopping, and the man’s cheeks were soaked. When he felt that he couldn’t wait any longer, the legs he could not move previously finally left their position.

The man’s cry grew louder as he walked without hesitation toward the closed door. In the afternoon in the hospital room, by the window where the sun shines, where only the two of them spend time together.

His hand stretched out.

***

His palms were soaked in tears, not knowing that they were actually mercy for the rest of his life.

‘I got it. Don’t cry.’

Lee Ha-jin’s hand headed to the man’s cheek instead of the doorknob in the hospital room. The man, who was crying, raised his head at his awkward voice as he clumsily wiped his wet cheeks.

Their eyes met, and looking at Lee Ha-jin, the man smiled with a wet face as if he had witnessed kindness for the first time in his life. The man smiled sadly and his face started to slowly fade away.

Everything began to spin dizzyingly as if the space around them was breaking, and in between, a man’s cracking voice could be heard over and over again. ‘Thank you, thank you. And….’ his vision is getting darker. The sound is gradually disappearing.

‘And… I’m sorry.’

After those words, everything went black.