Before opening the door, I made sure my two masks were secure and adjusted the anti-dust glasses over my eyes. There was no need to dwell on the exasperated look Hayashi gave me when she saw my getup.
It couldn't be helped.
I was a rather delicate man.
"Listen, Hayashi."
"……Yeah."
"Alright, let's go in."
I turned the key she held and opened the door.
For some reason, the room beyond the threshold looked a bit cleaner than it had before.
"……Huh."
I pulled off my masks and glasses.
I didn't sneeze. As I suspected, the apartment was in better shape than during my last visit.
Why, though?
Had Hayashi been coming here to clean without telling me?
She was surprisingly conscientious, so it was a possibility. I stole a glance at her face.
Hayashi stood beside me with a stunned expression. Apparently, this wasn't her handiwork.
……In 그 case.
"It might have been your ex-lover's parents."
Their son had lived here, and they had probably been involved in the apartment's upkeep at some point.
If they were people of common sense, it wouldn't be strange for them to clean the place while processing their feelings after their son had committed such a grave mistake.
"……I wonder if they hate me. His parents, I mean. For what I did."
"Are you scared?"
"Of course I am. Terrified."
Hayashi gave a bitter smile.
"But back then, I had to do what I did to survive."
Her face looked more at peace than it had the last time we were here.
"Come to think of it, he always looked so happy whenever he talked about his mother."
"……I see."
"She must have been a mother he was proud of. He always spoke of her with such joy. ……Which reminds me, you never talk about your parents at all."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
"Well, it's not like you'd actually want to know about them, right?"
"That’s not true. If anything, I want you to tell me more."
"……His parents might show up. Let’s finish this quickly before we have a run-in."
With that, we began searching the room, filling the silence with small talk.
The apartment had likely been scrubbed by the ex's parents, but just like before, the lingering scent of daily life remained.
Occasionally, Hayashi would cast a lonely, nostalgic gaze around the room where she had spent several months. Even so, she kept working in silence.
Since I didn't know the layout of the place, I followed her lead and handled the heavy lifting.
That said, Hayashi didn't have many belongings for someone who had lived here for months. Most of her daily necessities had been provided by her ex-lover, which only served to emphasize how little of herself was actually in this space.
We checked several spots, but all we found were a few items of clothing.
"Here."
Eventually, Hayashi stopped in front of an inconspicuous storage space in the corner of the living room.
"……This might be the last of it."
"Can I open it?"
"Yeah."
I pulled open the door to the storage space.
Inside sat a small rack.
"Why is there a rack in a place like this?"
Normally, a rack was the kind of furniture you kept in a corner of a room so you could easily access whatever was stored on it. Stashing it inside a closet like this felt bizarre.
"It used to be out in the living room, you know?"
"Then why move it in here?"
"He bought a huge TV. He said the rack was in the way."
So he’d just shoved it in here.
Looking back at the living room, the TV was indeed massive—probably a 50-inch model. If they’d originally had a smaller set and a different shelf, a rack of this size would have certainly been an obstacle.
"He moved it behind my back while I was out. Then he refused to tell me where he’d put it for the longest time. When I finally got angry about it, he suddenly hit me."
Hayashi recounted this so indifferently that it was painful to listen to.
"I didn't find it until about three days later. He was always nagging me to do the housework, so I didn't have much time to go looking. At first, I thought he'd just thrown it away."
……I used to tell myself that I had no right to be angry at her ex-lover since I was an outsider, but in this moment, a cold fury took root in my chest.
It was all I could do to keep my voice steady.
"So, what's on the rack?"
"……Well, basically, it was my stuff."
Hayashi began rummaging through it.
"My medication notebook. The contract documents from when I got my smartphone. My university admission letter. Some self-help books. ……A lot of things that seem important but really aren't."
"What about that cardboard box at the bottom?"
"Eh? What was that again?"
I stopped Hayashi as she tried to lift the heavy-looking cardboard box. I stepped in front of the rack and pulled the box out myself.
"……Whoa."
Inside the box were several thick, heavy volumes.
I recognized one of them immediately.
"A graduation album, huh?"
"……That brings back memories."
Elementary school. Middle school. High school.
Three graduation albums were tucked away inside the box. Beneath them were several high school textbooks.
"So you kept the things from high school that you thought you might still need in here?"
"Yeah. That’s right. I remember now."
"Are you taking them with us?"
"Yeah. I think so."
As she flipped through the high school graduation album, Hayashi suddenly burst out laughing.
"I look so young!"
You're still young. You're not even twenty yet.
I decided to keep that thought to myself.
"……Ah!"
Stopping on a specific page, Hayashi began looking back and forth between the album and my face.
"What is it?"
"You haven't changed a bit."
"Mind your own business."
"Ah!"
I snatched the graduation album from her and tucked it back into the cardboard box.
Hayashi pouted, but she soon went back to work.
Ultimately, there were no other hidden treasures. We prepared to head home, carrying only the clothes and the single cardboard box.
"……Well, I guess there’s no reason to ever come back here again," I said.
"Yeah."
"Be honest."
"Eh?"
"If you're feeling lonely, you can just say so."
"……That’s not it."
"Don't act tough."
"I’m not acting tough."
Hayashi gave me a faint, soft smile.
"It’s just that, right now, I have you."