Swallow Hunting - Chapter 33.2
In the hallway stood a man with shaggy hair poking out from under a hood and a face that looked like it hadn’t been shaved in days. He was dressed in shabby clothes, and a sour, musty stench wafted from his entire body. It was the kind of foul odor one gets from rolling around with trash in a house that hasn’t been ventilated for a long time. Hae-jun knew this smell well.
“Didn’t… didn’t you see the note?”
It seemed this man was the person who had stuck the paper on his door. The man couldn’t look Hae-jun straight in the eye, and instead, his eyes rolled around restlessly. On the rare occasion their gazes met, the glinting, bloodshot light in his pupils was eerie.
“I… I said you’re noisy. Your cursing, your shouting… I can hear the sounds of you having se-sex through the wall!”
“Excuse me? When?”
“From the start, even now! You, you fucker, you’re cursing me out in your head right now! I can hear it all!”
The man screamed at the top of his lungs, spraying spit. He stared with eyes wide enough to show the whites and began tearing at his own hair. His body trembled so violently it looked as though he might collapse and have a seizure on the floor at any moment.
“Look, don’t do this here… I’ll be more careful.”
Even as Hae-jun tried to calm him, the man continued to shriek. He wailed that he couldn’t sleep because Hae-jun was so loud and asked if Hae-jun was trying to drive him to death, all while clawing at his own face. Even as reddish lines were carved into his skin and blood began to well up, the man did not stop. Due to the commotion ringing through the hallway, one or two people peeked through their cracked doors to see what was happening.
“I said I’ll stay quiet!”
If it were anywhere else, Hae-jun would have argued back out of a sense of injustice since he had never caused such noise, but he didn’t want to cause trouble and get kicked out of the lodging Lee Kang-ju had provided. Perhaps the sudden shout was the answer the man wanted, because he stopped raking his nails down his skin. Soon, he turned his neck like a wooden puppet and grinned, revealing yellowed teeth.
“I… I’ll be watching.”
The man, not forgetting his warning, turned away. The house next door, where the trash was piled up, was where the man lived. Even as he opened his door, he glared at Hae-jun with haunted eyes.
Hae-jun went back inside and immediately muted the TV. He pressed his ear against the wall shared with the neighbor and focused on whether any sound could be heard, but almost no noise came through.
‘Was I really being that loud then?’
He had caused an inconvenience unintentionally. He was especially worried because the owner of the house was Lee Kang-ju, not himself. Thinking he had no choice but to be even more cautious, Hae-jun rubbed his face, which was deeply etched with fatigue.
***
“…Hey, hey!”
Someone shook his shoulder, and his eyes snapped open. It was Yohan. Hae-jun blinked his eyes several times before burying his face in his hands. He had dozed off again.
“Didn’t you sleep last night?”
“Yeah.”
There was no strength in his voice at all. Hae-jun slumped over his bike, swaying like a jellyfish. He needed to pick up a call, but he felt that if he drove on the road in this state, he would definitely have an accident. He was terribly sleepy. Even when he forced his eyes open, they closed again in less than a second.
“That’s enough for today. Go home and get some sleep. You’re going to get into serious trouble at this rate.”
Hae-jun looked at Yohan with hollow eyes. At the mention of home, a heavy sigh escaped him involuntarily. He desperately wanted to catch some sleep himself, but he couldn’t sleep even a tiny bit at the house. In fact, lately, there was no place more uncomfortable than his home.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
Yohan asked, as if it was written all over his face. Hae-jun pouted his lower lip and made a miserable face before touching his hot forehead. His physical condition was a mess because he couldn’t sleep properly.
“I’m really going crazy.”
He couldn’t help but lament. Hae-jun exhaled a deep, feverish breath and shut his eyes tightly.
The man next door was a madman. It wasn’t an insult; it was a simple statement of fact.
The man hammered on the wall at all hours of the day and night. He also let out ear-piercing screams. His excuse was that Hae-jun was being noisy.
At least thunder had the warning of lightning, but the man screamed, beat the walls, and rang the doorbell without any warning of when he would start. Even wearing earphones was useless. Hae-jun would jerk awake at the vibrations shaking the walls.
What made him even angrier was that despite being a lunatic, the man’s sense of discretion was excellent, so he remained silent on the days Lee Kang-ju stopped by. He seemed to hold back not just any sign of presence, but even the sound of his breathing.
“A crazy guy moved in next door. A real lunatic.”
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