At my father’s furious order that I should stop talking back and come to the matchmaking meeting no matter what, I rebelled saying I absolutely wouldn’t, and my father shouted that if I didn’t come, he’d cut ties and exclude me from inheritance. I was heated up too and yelled back to go ahead and do that, and I ended up hastily running out of the house to avoid my father who was looking for his golf club in great anger. Because I left in a hurry, I didn’t even grab my phone.
Behind me as I kicked open the front door, my father’s voice shouting like a whale that anyone who lets that kid into the house will all be fired stuck into me like thorns.
***
A few days after leaving home like that, I became homeless.
I realized anew that becoming homeless wasn’t such a tremendously big event. The moment you let go of what’s in your hand without regret or without a plan, it could happen to anyone inadvertently without deliberately choosing it.
On a day in August, I was sitting on a park bench in front of a convenience store, sweating and deeply worried about global warming. It was well past 9 PM at night, but the mercury temperature showed no sign of dropping. The news said the steaming heat and tropical nights had been continuing for days, with no sign of letting up for a while. Saying it was cooler outside than inside, ordinary people poured out to the Han River.
Watching that, I thought that for a homeless person, summer’s scorching heat was still better than winter. At least while homeless, I’d have to donate blood to mosquitoes, but I wouldn’t freeze to death.
My pockets, which had been light from the start, reached a state where even after the jjimjilbang a week ago, I could no longer afford lodging with a roof no matter how thoroughly I emptied them. After that, I’d been holding out for days splitting my remaining pennies to buy one small cup of ramen per day.
At first I ate triangle kimbap and cup ramen together, but before long I reached a point where I had to choose only one of the two, and eventually from yesterday I hadn’t been able to eat anything but water. My pockets had finally become completely empty. On a hot day like this, I desperately wanted a cup of iced Americano packed with ice, but I didn’t have money left to buy even a piece of ice, let alone an iced Americano.
Still, like the Little Princess staring at bakery bread, I habitually came to the convenience store and sat looking at the display window overflowing with bright light. I desperately craved the taste of salty, spicy broth and fried flour noodles. Just two days ago, I’d tasted brief heaven-like happiness, not wanting to miss even one drop of broth as I turned the cup upside down and shook it all into my mouth.
Why had I lived an ignorant life looking down on convenience store food, calling it instant food and whatnot until now? I looked longingly at the convenience store shelves and regretted it bitterly. Convenience store foods I would have flatly refused even if offered money to try before now looked more appetizing than any high-class restaurant’s banquet. Once I got money, I would definitely, without exception, taste every single lunch box, instant food, and retort food sold at all the world’s convenience stores.
I was someone who naturally proclaimed that food should have quality ingredients and healthy cooking methods as basics, and who ate even high-class restaurant cuisine while constantly scrutinizing it. My considerably picky eating habits had changed 180 degrees in a not-even-long period. I realized for the first time that humans are such that even habits ingrained for over twenty years can change completely if you don’t eat properly for just a week, to the point where you’d gratefully eat even dog food if offered.
When I’d impulsively run out of the house, all I had on me was an ID and two cards in a thin card wallet, plus some cash clipped in a money clip. I only managed to save even that because I’d pocketed them for a brief outing in the evening; otherwise I would have become homeless that very day I left home. If not that, I would have had no choice but to return home unsightly within a few hours after putting up such a grand rebellion.
The first day, I stayed at a hotel without much thought as usual. Thinking back now, it was insane. There was no fool like that fool. But in my own way, seriously, I racked my brain on a soft bed drinking wine about how to become independent.
Since I didn’t know when my enraged father would cut off funding, I made various plans like securing cash by withdrawing money as soon as the bank opened the next day, and looking for work immediately at the hotel business center. If necessary, I could ask hyung for help. Since I’d left without my phone, I needed to buy and activate a phone first.
But the next morning, when I woke up a bit late from drinking and leisurely visited the bank, all bank transactions were suspended. Just as I’d feared, the two cards were also suspended. My head spun for a moment. I didn’t expect Father to handle things lightning-fast like this.
I hurried back to the hotel to check out, and more than half the cash I’d had disappeared. And hyung, whom I barely managed to contact through a pay phone, hung up without much deliberation, saying to go home and apologize to Father and do as told, and not to make him suffer because of me.
Standing blankly on the street where sunlight blazed, I was dumbfounded. My head went completely blank. Suddenly I had no idea what to do. Though I hadn’t received much attention, I’d grown up like a hothouse flower and hadn’t experienced being without money much.
Father was a nouveau riche who’d become wealthy by making his basic fortune in land speculation and then jumping into the construction business. Whether for that reason or not, he had something like an inferiority complex toward multi-generational wealthy people, the so-called chaebol. To me it all looked the same, but still.
Anyway, as an expression of that inferiority complex, Father wanted to make his children do whatever the so-called “upper-class children” did. Whether the person in question wanted it or not.
Of course, we couldn’t compare to the top-tier second and third generations who collected cars and watches worth hundreds of millions, but compared to peers in similar circumstances, hyung and I lacked nothing in what we ate, wore, learned, or did for fun, and always had plenty of allowance. By my standards, the few pennies remaining in my pocket weren’t enough for even one day’s living expenses.
Looking for work was also daunting. Work isn’t something where you just show up saying “I’ll work hard, so please let me work” and they say “Alright, I like your look. Start today.” You’d have to go through the process of submitting a resume formally and being interviewed.
But I didn’t know how to look for work and submit resumes in my current situation. It would have been better if it were England. I could inquire through school and even contact around Europe. But in Korea, I’d never done even common part-time work or internships. My plan yesterday was to go to the hotel business center today to get information online and write a resume, but that was now water under the bridge. Moreover.
I looked down at the clothes I was wearing. Though I didn’t remember when or where I’d bought them, since they were mine, they were naturally expensive. But so what if they were designer brands? Because of dinner with Father, I was wearing long cotton pants and a shirt, but what I’d hurriedly put on were sneakers. Better than shorts and a t-shirt, but no matter how I looked at it, it wasn’t an outfit for interviews. I naturally didn’t have money to buy new clothes.
I had no one to ask for help. Everyone within the boundary of blood relations was under the power of Father the dictator. No, even if that weren’t the case, they weren’t people I particularly wanted to ask for help. We didn’t interact much normally, and on the rare occasions we met, they always pretended to worry about my late manifestation to Father while trying to put me down. Father’s decision to send me to England was definitely greatly influenced by them.
Perhaps the situation would have been better if I’d continued living in Korea. I would have at least made friends who could let me crash for a few days, feed me, and lend me clothes for interviews. But I was sent abroad before finishing the first semester of high school freshman year and had only lived there. Even when I occasionally returned to Korea, I’d never stayed more than a month. I was unfamiliar with Seoul life and had no network, however thin.
Even in that somewhat dazed state, I needed to find a place to spend the night and was hungry. The second day, I slept at an inn and ate meals at ordinary restaurants that normal people go to.
The inn room I stayed in looked fishy from the outside in many ways. The soap and lotion they’d left to use gave off a nasty chemical smell. I regretted belatedly that I should have at least brought the hotel amenities I wouldn’t normally have glanced at.
The blanket smelled musty and felt unpleasant, so I just lay on the bare floor to try to sleep. The soundproofing was poor, so even when I’d barely fallen asleep, I’d wake up startled at sounds from outside the door multiple times. To spend money and still lose sleep. Come morning, I somehow felt wronged. But it was already done. I had to find meaning in being able to wash with warm water.
Restaurant food was the same. The ingredients were low in freshness, and the taste was just salty, spicy, and sweet. It was so stimulating my insides burned, and the greasy seasoning taste lingered on my tongue for long. I left the restaurant without eating even half. I thought I’d rather starve than eat that stuff. I soothed my ruined stomach with a cafe latte from a nearby coffee shop, though the aroma was inferior.
While spending a few days like that, even the little money I had started slipping away like sand grains in a fist. Getting anxious, I hesitated but went in a couple times to ask when I saw papers posted saying “Part-timer wanted” at coffee shops or chain restaurants.
But they looked me up and down once and asked if I was okay with the hourly wage being like this. It was a pittance that wouldn’t even pay for a meal. I let out a hollow laugh and left the store without looking back. Do I look that naive? Should I report them to the police? Scammers were teeming everywhere.
Before long, I learned about the usefulness of convenience store food I’d hardly ever used before. And I learned that a place called a jjimjilbang could also be used as lodging. It was the cheapest way to live life that I knew of. At least if I slept at the jjimjilbang and bought food at the convenience store, I could somehow survive even on that ridiculous hourly wage I’d heard earlier.
The thought of how I could sleep in a jjimjilbang where people came and went busily was only at first. Anyway, since sleeping at the hotel, I hadn’t slept properly and fatigue had accumulated. Wondering how to sleep in a place like this, how I’d come to this state, I fell into a deep sleep without knowing it.
In less than a week, I realized that just being able to sleep at an inn and eat at ordinary restaurants was tremendous happiness. The restaurant food I’d thrown away after eating less than half just a while ago felt too precious now. If they gave it to me again now, I’d scrape it clean to the bottom and eat every single side dish without leaving anything.
I went back into stores with papers posted saying they were looking for part-timers or staff. Like the places I’d first entered, they looked me up and down and shook their heads. If the owners of the places I’d visited a while ago had shaken their heads with a feeling like “this isn’t work for a young master like you,” this time the reaction was openly cold.
After being rejected for the third time and coming out, I looked at myself in a public restroom mirror—a place I wouldn’t have even thought of entering before due to feeling it was unsanitary.
My hair, which had seemed a bit long originally, hadn’t been properly maintained and disheveledly covered my face. Since it had been dyed, black hair had grown in, making it look even messier. My face had lost so much weight that my cheeks had sunken in hollowly, and under my eyes was haggard, making me look gloomy. On skin that had been smooth without a single blemish, pimples had broken out here and there, whether from the aftereffects of uncomfortable sleep or instant food.
Clothes I hadn’t changed for several days were wrinkled and dirty with grime. While at the jjimjilbang, I’d managed them as much as possible by taking them off to store and washing and drying the clothes that touched my body, but it seemed even that had its limits. In short, if I were the boss, I absolutely wouldn’t accept someone with this appearance as an employee. Come to think of it, from some point on, even jjimjilbang and convenience store employees seemed to show slightly unpleasant signs when I came.
