# Chapter 113
I had made it to the main road, but going to a hotel seemed like a waste of money just to sleep. Gye Minho lived with his parents, so barging in at this hour would be impolite, and while Ban Hajun would gladly tell me to come over, he would inevitably give me strange looks and be curious. But after what had happened, I couldn’t even talk about it easily to my closest friends, so I couldn’t go to Ban Hajun’s officetel either.
From tomorrow, I planned to impose on Jang Jiha for a while. Jiha lived alone but had three guest rooms with beds, and he liked having people stay at his home. He’d mentioned that writers sometimes stayed there to prepare their new works, so asking to stay for a few days wouldn’t seem strange, and there was no worry about being refused. However, it was too late to contact him now.
With no other choice, I decided to spend just one night at a motel, but then my phone rang in my hand. Ban Hajun’s name was displayed as the caller.
“Hey. What’s up at this hour?”
“Mo Eunje. Don’t think about going anywhere suspicious and come to my officetel.”
Judging by how he called me personally instead of sending a message to the group chat at this late hour, and jumping straight to the point without any explanation, it seemed he had already heard from Tae Igyeol. I didn’t know if Igyeol had told him we’d had a fight and I’d left, or if he had revealed something of the truth.
But Ban Hajun was the one who knew about Tae Igyeol’s long-term unrequited love before I did. So the probability that he also knew the identity of that love interest before me was significantly higher. That’s why he might have tried to pair us together as a joke. If that was true, I was upset with Ban Hajun too.
“No thanks. I’ll just stay at a motel.”
“What motel? You’re going to ignore your friend’s place that’s open 24 hours?”
“I think it’s better for me to be alone. I’m almost at the motel anyway.”
If anyone needed someone to be with them, it was Tae Igyeol, who was having difficulties in daily life because of his casted right arm. Moreover, Tae Igyeol didn’t have many friends besides me, Ban Hajun, and Gye Minho, so Ban Hajun might unintentionally be caught in the middle.
“Hey, you could get here quickly if you took a taxi. Do I have to bring my car out to pick you up at this hour?”
“I’ve already had it out with Tae Igyeol, and I don’t have the energy to deal with you too.”
“Not curious. I won’t ask anything, so stop talking and hurry up. I’ll order some late-night food.”
He hung up on me unilaterally. The claim that I was almost at the motel was a lie. I couldn’t even see where the motel was and would have needed to check a lodging app to find one. Thinking this might be for the better, I sighed, thought for a moment, then hailed a taxi and headed to Ban Hajun’s officetel.
Since I’d be staying at Jang Jiha’s house from tomorrow, I figured I could borrow Ban Hajun’s place for just tonight and ask him to look after Tae Igyeol a bit. It would have been nice if I’d brought my laptop, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to write a single character due to lack of concentration. My head was already overloaded with Tae Igyeol’s confession, and I had to decline the latest writing request anyway since I had no new ideas, so I didn’t mind.
I got off in front of the residential complex where Ban Hajun lived and went to the residents-only entrance. The communal entrance password was the same as Tae Igyeol’s villa, so without calling Ban Hajun, I opened the door directly and took the elevator up to the 10th floor. Standing in front of unit 1002, I rang the doorbell, and Ban Hajun quickly opened the door.
“What’s this? Why are you empty-handed? When I said I’d order some side dishes, you should have brought alcohol.”
Ban Hajun looked no different than usual. It was hard to tell whether he really didn’t know anything or if he was pretending not to know. If it was the latter, it was truly outstanding method acting. If he could act like this in front of the camera, he would have made it big long ago.
“You said you’d order late-night food, not side dishes.”
“Late-night food ordered at this hour is obviously meant to be a drinking snack, isn’t it?”
“So what did you order?”
“To soothe our Eunje’s upset stomach, I ordered an insanely spicy chicken feet set with broth and a nuclear spicy tteokbokki set.”
Hearing the thoughtfully ordered menu—one that Tae Igyeol would never eat, always asking why torture your stomach—I did feel like having a drink. But it seemed better not to drink today. I needed to maintain my rationality to avoid making mistakes. Even a single slip of the tongue would still be a mistake.
I took out my phone and wallet and placed them on the living room table, then sat down on the sofa, leaning back as if I was going to lie down. Ban Hajun stood next to me with his hands on his waist.
“Are you really not going to buy alcohol? There’s a convenience store on the first floor.”
“I’m so exhausted that I can’t walk another step. And I don’t want to drink.”
“That can’t be true. Trying to maintain your dignity and rationality at a time like this will only make it harder on you. Today, just shut down your brain, have some drinks, and go to sleep.”
“I thought you said you wouldn’t ask anything.”
“Did I ask you anything? You’re being weird. Why are you attacking an innocent person? I’ll go buy some alcohol, so receive the delivery when it arrives.”
Ban Hajun opened my wallet on the table and held it in front of me. Among the several cards inserted, I took out the debit card that had this month’s living expenses and gave it to him.
Unlike Tae Igyeol, who had several credit cards, I didn’t have a single credit card issued in my name. It’s not that I’d never used a credit card—I had, but I found myself overspending and got rid of it after two months, returning to a debit card. Setting a monthly allowance and living expenses, transferring them to my account, and then living strictly within that budget allowed for reasonable spending management and peace of mind. Knowing my parents had struggled when I was young because our circumstances weren’t good, I believed in saving as much as possible when I had money.
However, as there might be times when I’d need a large sum at once, like when I bought Tae Igyeol a hundred roses, I kept a certain amount in another account and used the connected debit card for emergencies. I did have a credit card that my mother, Han Seola, had given me to use in emergencies when my parents went down to Busan alone, but I’d never have occasion to use it in the future either.
“Want to come with me?”
“Why would I come? Didn’t I say I’m too exhausted to walk another step?”
“I need to buy a toothbrush and underwear too. I left with just my wallet and phone.”
“Alright. I’ll buy them. Since I’m going out to smoke anyway, I’ll stop by the convenience store too. You just rest.”
Ban Hajun naturally picked up his phone and went out. Though it seemed suspicious that he was going alone—usually, he’d ask Tae Igyeol to come out and smoke with him, or drag me or Gye Minho along even for a quick trip to the convenience store—I decided not to think too deeply about it. I didn’t have the mental space to worry about Ban Hajun too.
“…”
Even though I’d visited Ban Hajun’s officetel many times before, being alone made it feel awkward and unfamiliar. It was a sensation I’d never experienced when alone at Tae Igyeol’s villa.
Thinking back, it’s natural to feel a subtle awkwardness and unfamiliarity when staying alone at someone else’s place, even a close friend’s, but I’d stayed at Tae Igyeol’s place like it was my own without any sense of discomfort. It wasn’t just because we practically lived together before officially moving in, frequently visiting each other. It was because Tae Igyeol had made invisible considerations so that I could stay there comfortably without feeling any inconvenience.
As I sat blankly in the silence-filled house, I heard a message alert sound.
[Web notification]
Song Yeon Check (0705)
Mo*je
06/17 01:33
71,800 won
Checking it, I saw it was a card usage record. I was bewildered that Ban Hajun had spent over 70,000 won—how much soju and beer had he bought? Still, since I was saving on accommodation costs and he had ordered extremely spicy late-night food considering my mood, I was willing to bear the expense even if he had spent more.
After about 5 minutes, the chicken feet in broth arrived first. After setting it up on the living room table, another 5 minutes passed, and the tteokbokki arrived, but Ban Hajun still hadn’t returned. I thought about waiting quietly, but leaving the rice cakes to soak would be disrespectful to tteokbokki, so I called him.
“Yeah.”
“How long has it been since you swiped my card, and you’re still not back? All the deliveries have arrived.”
“I’m coming up.”
What Ban Hajun brought wasn’t soju or beer but two bottles of sweet white wine. It seemed like it would go well with the insanely spicy chicken feet. The plastic bag also contained the new underwear and toothbrush I had asked for.
I sat next to Ban Hajun on the sofa and lifted the table with adjustable height. This officetel had a spacious living room but a narrow kitchen, making it awkward to place a dining table. So Ban Hajun always ate with food on the lift table while watching TV, and when the four of us—including Tae Igyeol and Gye Minho—gathered, we would push the sofa back and all sit on the floor to eat.
“Did you decide to do the advertising model job? You mentioned having a photoshoot before.”
In the ambiguous boundary between whether the spiciness was beating me up or I was devouring the spiciness, I combatively ate the late-night food and brought up something I’d heard in passing before. I needed to direct the topic toward Ban Hajun to get my mind off Tae Igyeol, even a little, and avoid unnecessary conversation. Though Ban Hajun had promised not to ask anything, words might slip out unintentionally if we talked aimlessly, so I was being cautious in my own way.
“There’s a story behind that.”
“What story?”
“I went to a movie audition and got caught by my dad. When I saw my dad sitting right there as a judge, my heart really dropped.”
“Damn, that’s terrifying just to imagine.”
“All my cards were suspended that day, and I became a beggar. What choice did I have? They said they’d pay quickly for the advertising model job, so I just did it to cover urgent expenses.”
We hadn’t shared everything with each other, but each of us was making appropriate choices in our respective places, enduring difficult times, and living day by day.
“But your dad was at a movie audition?”
“Are you crazy? I might act first and think later, but I’m not that thoughtless.”
“Then how was your dad on the judges’ panel? Isn’t it rare for other directors to be invited as judges for film auditions?”
“It is rare. But it turned out that film director’s mentor was my dad.”
I didn’t understand well. I don’t really know how that industry works, but something seemed off, and the explanation didn’t make sense. I’d heard about investors or producers having influence, but I’d never heard of another director sitting as a judge alongside the director who wrote the screenplay, even if they were a mentor.
“…What are you saying? There were two directors as judges because of the mentor relationship?”
“Ah, so there was this competition that selected rookie directors, and they have a mentor-mentee system where they create a project with an active director. As luck would have it, the mentor for the audition I went to was my dad.”
To summarize, the film audition Ban Hajun attended was for a project selected through a competition, which had a system where mentor directors and mentee directors were matched for production. And unfortunately, the mentor director happened to be Ban Hajun’s father.
“How can your luck be so consistently terrible?”
“Tell me about it. The decision power seemed to be with the rookie director, and my dad was just lending his name and sitting there as a mentor, but I was still busted.”
“At least you didn’t lose your officetel.”
“It’s fortunate that my mom is too busy with her drama to pay attention to me right now.”
Soon Ban Hajun might end up homeless like me. Suddenly, I missed when my parents lived in Seoul. If they hadn’t moved to Busan to fulfill my mom’s dream, I would have had somewhere to go on a hopeless day like today. If I at least had my family home, I wouldn’t have to burden my friends and could hide in my room to escape reality.
