But i wasn't a liar ✔️[ENG ver]

Part 43

Part 43

Leeknow wiped his tear-stained face with trembling fingers. He reached for his phone, pausing to compose himself. For the camera, he managed one final smile - not the bright grin Hyunjin knew, but a fragile, bittersweet curve of lips that didn't reach his sorrowful eyes. The recording ended with a soft click.

Five minutes passed as he sat motionless on the floor, the phone heavy in his lap. When he finally dialed, each ring pulsed like a countdown.

"Hello mom." His voice sounded foreign to his own ears - too calm, too measured.

Mrs. Lee's warm tone crackled through the speaker. "Hello, my son! How are you?" The ordinary question nearly shattered him.

"I'm fine." The lie tasted more bitter than the blood. "Mom... there will be something coming to you from me. Today or tomorrow. Please—" his breath hitched "—don't open it. And give it to Hyunjin... when the time is right."

A beat of silence. "Why can't you give it to him yourself?" Her cheerful confusion was a knife twisting in his chest.

"Please, mom." The desperation bled through his carefully constructed calm.

"Okay, okay," she relented, her maternal instincts softening her voice. "Don't worry about it."

"Mom?" His voice was suddenly small, childlike.

"Yeah, sweetheart?"

"I love you so much." The dam broke - hot tears spilled over as his throat closed around the words he'd never said enough.

"Me too, my precious boy." Her voice wrapped around him like the embraces he'd taken for granted.

"Now I'm going. Goodbye." The finality of the word hung between them.

"Goodbye!" She replied with motherly ease, completely unaware this wasn't their usual casual farewell but an ending.

After hanging up
The phone slipped from his grasp as he curled inward, silent sobs wracking his weakened body. Outside, the first stars appeared - the same constellations he and Hyunjin used to name on late study nights. The cruel normalcy of the world continuing while his was ending.

A white-hot iron spike of pain drove through Leeknow's skull, the weight of his crumbling world pressing down until his vertebrae threatened to crack. His fingers clawed at his temples as if he could physically hold his fracturing mind together, but the agony only deepened - each pulse like a hammer strike to an already shattered vase.

Staggering forward on unresponsive legs, he collapsed onto the couch in a graceless heap. The fabric swallowed his limp body as the room tilted violently around him. His eyelids grew impossibly heavy, each blink lasting longer than the last, the darkness between them spreading like ink in water.

*No. Not yet.*

With the last of his strength, he fought against the creeping unconsciousness, his nails biting into the couch cushions. A single tear traced the curve of his hollow cheek as he whispered into the void:

"Please... my God..." His voice was barely audible, the words slurring together like a child's desperate bedtime prayer. "Don't let me die now... not until... I can say goodbye... to Hyunjin... one last time..."

The plea hung in the air, unanswered. His trembling fingers went slack. As his eyes fluttered shut for the final time, the last thing he tasted was salt - from tears or blood, he could no longer tell.

The second hand on the wall clock continued its indifferent march as the golden evening light stretched across his motionless form, gilding his still face with false vitality. Somewhere beyond the window, life carried on - birds sang their dusk songs, neighbors laughed on the street below - while in this quiet room, time itself seemed to pause, holding its breath for a goodbye that might never come.