Isn’t he past the age for acting spoiled? Go Seok-jun hung up the phone with an unenthusiastic face. The car leisurely exited the winding parking lot, and when he stood at the crosswalk, his mood improved again. Streets where he couldn’t speed because of speed limits, scenery of brand-name apartment buildings standing like matchboxes. It was the smell of the city he was breathing in after a long time. He hummed the mart’s jingle for quite a while.
By the time he got tired of the jingle, he sang along to old ballads. How long had he driven on the national highway? As soon as the administrative district changed, the sky turned pitch black and clouds gathered thickly. The coast always had unpredictable weather. It was a sky where it wouldn’t be strange if rain fell immediately.
Not long after, rain started to fall with plops. The wipers moved frantically at the fairly large raindrops. The sea wrapped in thick sea fog was so hazy you couldn’t see an inch ahead.
He barely parked the car in the parking lot, and Go Seok-jun was bending his waist toward the back seat to look for an umbrella. At the sound of knocking on the window, he hurriedly grabbed the umbrella with a grunt.
The long umbrella unfurled wide. Go Seok-jun carefully got out of the driver’s seat so as not to ruin his clothes. Next to the passenger seat stood Baek Sang-eun with a gloomy face.
“What?”
As soon as their eyes met, Go Seok-jun was startled and stepped back at Baek Sang-eun’s steps coming around the hood. He staggered, making a groaning sound.
“Sang-eun-ah! Uncle’s getting all wet!”
Baek Sang-eun, who had thrown the umbrella on the ground, hugged Go Seok-jun. To call it a hug was insufficient. A sad beast pounced on Go Seok-jun. The weak human had no choice but to pat the beast’s back. It was cold and soggy.
When Go Seok-jun tilted the umbrella toward Baek Sang-eun, the pouring rainwater soaked his back. Baek Sang-eun’s umbrella rolled around on the ground. Thick raindrops fell plop plop inside the umbrella, and water quickly pooled.
“If anyone saw, they’d think it’s a separated family reunion…”
“Today isn’t your work day. You said you weren’t going anywhere. You promised me.”
“Oh my… What should I do? Should I do something like ‘Sang-eun-ah, Uncle’s going somewhere’ every single time I go somewhere?”
“Yes. Do that. Definitely.”
The arms hugging him tight were so firm there was no way to escape. His clothes were all wet and damp, but where their body heat touched was warm. Go Seok-jun raised his eyes and looked at the distant sea. The rough waves made the boats tied to the dock not just sway but stagger. Is a typhoon coming already?
“It’s cold, let’s go in.”
Only then realizing Go Seok-jun was getting rained on, he hastily handed over the umbrella. Baek Sang-eun shouldered a box on his soaking wet shoulders. Then he strode ahead and entered the house first.
What is all this commotion? He stood there and took out a cigarette. His hand was wet, so he flicked the cigarette pack to get one in his mouth. Sizzle, he sucked on the filter while listening to the sound of the cigarette tip burning. He also picked up the umbrella Baek Sang-eun had thrown. From his fingertips to his whole body was soaked wetly with rainwater.
The beast with completely wet fur ran over this way again. Baek Sang-eun came under Go Seok-jun’s umbrella with a smile that could only be described as wide open, truly wide open. He had no choice but to flick away the cigarette he’d been enjoying so deliciously. Not knowing what was on his mind, Baek Sang-eun met his eyes and grinned.
“Are you laughing right now?”
“Yes. A lot.”
Has Sang-eun gone crazy?
His body soaked in rain felt chilly, so Go Seok-jun quickly showered in hot water first. Only after pouring water did he realize he hadn’t bought the body wash he meant to buy.
When he came out with a towel on his head, as soon as he stepped foot in the living room, he quickly stepped up onto the bathroom threshold. You’re not supposed to step on the threshold carelessly because it’s the ancestors’ neck… Begging I’m sorry ancestors, but please forgive me just this once, he called for Baek Sang-eun.
Baek Sang-eun, with a towel tightly wrapped around his forehead, came running quickly. His cheeks were reddened. From the work gloves he was wearing, it seemed he’d come from tending the fire.
“The house is boiling?”
“Because you said you were cold.”
They say if you hit an empty head it sounds hollow—is he really a bit lacking? He thought he’d entered a vocational high school with a clear goal, but it seemed he probably just couldn’t study.
“Don’t you have any middle ground? You act like a rude landlord, and now you’re acting like a servant.”
“Isn’t being a servant better than being a rude landlord?”
He walked on tiptoe and sat cross-legged on a dining chair. Then he brought slippers from who knows where and placed them at his feet.
“Ah, my head…”
When he muttered to himself, Baek Sang-eun’s eyes widened again. He waved his hand to chase away the guy trying to put his palm on his forehead and put his feet in the slippers. They say you give one more rice cake to a hateful guy, but you have to feed a hateful guy.
Sizzle. The sound of garlic sizzling in olive oil was similar to the sound of rain. He added shrimp bought at the mart and put in the noodles he’d boiled in advance to coat them with oil. Go Seok-jun skillfully made pasta.
Since he’d never cooked for a young man, he failed spectacularly at controlling the portions. Will it be too little? As he thought that, the amount kept increasing. In the end, he filled a stainless steel naengmyeon bowl full of pasta. It was a table setting his ex-wife, who had excellent aesthetic sense, would have fainted at if she saw it.
“I’ll eat well.”
The guy who bowed in greeting ate the pasta with chopsticks like bibim noodles. He got completely soaked in rain, and the weather is chilly, so at this time it would have been better to have a bowl of udon from Aunt Bong-seon’s place. Nevertheless, Baek Sang-eun ate the entire bowl in an instant without a sound. Go Seok-jun’s bowl still had half remaining. The pasta looked like a mountain and he was sick of it just looking at it.
“Is it edible?”
“Yes. It’s the most delicious food I’ve ever eaten.”
“I’m sick of it and don’t want to eat. Want to eat more?”
As soon as the words fell, he took Go Seok-jun’s bowl and started eating as if it were his first time eating the food. Go Seok-jun blankly watched the eating capacity of someone in their twenties. It was my mistake to take a guy like this and feed him pancake scraps.
Rain fell frighteningly on the hanok roof. The damp wood smelled humid. Baek Sang-eun took care of both the dishes and cleaning up, then led Go Seok-jun by the hand outside.
City people would have only seen houses that heat fires in furnaces in textbooks or period dramas, but there are still many houses with furnaces remaining in the countryside. Because city gas doesn’t come in. Houses that removed their furnaces mostly laid panels on the floor or used LPG gas.
Wolseon Guesthouse stuck to the method of heating fires in the furnace. Perhaps because the regular customers who visited the guesthouse were of older age, they liked it scorching hot.
Go Seok-jun also sat in front of the furnace after a long time. Baek Sang-eun sat Go Seok-jun on a wooden chair shaped like the Korean letter ‘ㄷ’. He squatted down for a while, then settled on top of a rice sack.
“This house is wooden, so when it rains you have to tend the fire.”
“How do you know that? You said you haven’t been back long.”
“Grandmother made me do it.”
Baek Sang-eun answered strangely and tossed in firewood. The flames blazed up. Heat waves rose in front of his eyes from the heat. From somewhere, Baek Sang-eun wrapped sweet potatoes one by one in foil. His frozen body melted in an instant. It felt like he’d melt away completely.
His eyes met Baek Sang-eun’s. Red flames also blazed in his pupils. Pushing up the corner of his mouth slightly, Baek Sang-eun scratched the back of his head.
“Did you wait outside for long?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you have too severe anxiety?”
Go Seok-jun blinked his long eyelashes slowly and pondered what problem inhabited Baek Sang-eun’s mind. But the pondering didn’t last long either. The flames swallowed even the thoughts of the watcher in one bite.
“I wish we could keep living like this together, Uncle.”
Go Seok-jun, blankly absorbed in watching the fire, didn’t properly hear what Baek Sang-eun was saying.
#03. Contact Accident
The sunset after the rain stopped was beautiful, like it was colored with watercolors. Orange waves rippled over the sea. Go Seok-jun parked his car in his usual spot and smoked a cigarette while watching the sunset. White smoke rising hazily left a trajectory in the red sky.
After briefly getting lost in sentiment while looking at the scenery, he shook off the embers and opened the gate. As usual, Go Seok-jun came home like the head of household saying “Sang-eun-ah, Uncle’s home,” then covered his mouth.
“Hey…”
He quickly gathered the underwear hanging all over the clothesline and held it in his arms. The colorful underwear was also flashy. It was because a shaman once told Go Seok-jun that he should wear flashy underwear to succeed.
“Baek Sang-euuun!”
He called loudly for the guy who hung out his underwear like it was an exhibition. Baek Sang-eun didn’t come when called, and only the puppy came running over and fawned on Go Seok-jun. His hands were too full to give affection to the puppy.
“Hey, you go over there. Where did Sang-eun go?”
Naturally, the dog who didn’t know its owner’s whereabouts just barked. Go Seok-jun quickly went into the main house holding the bundle of underwear. The texture of the underwear dried in the sun all day was crisp.
Only after neatly folding the underwear did he realize it wasn’t something to get angry about. Anyway, the country house only had a top-loading washing machine, and since there was no dryer, it was natural to hang things in the yard. Though there was no need to hold an underwear exhibition.
Still, why are you rummaging through someone else’s laundry basket? Absent-minded guy.
He spat out curses and stuffed the underwear into his suitcase. After putting it in, he thought there was no need to use the suitcase like a drawer since he wasn’t going up to Seoul right away anyway. While he was at it, he decided to organize the drawers. Inside the dresser were still the tacky clothes Go Seok-jun wore when he was young.
“She should have thrown some away—what did Ms. Choi live holding onto all this for? Clothes she can’t even wear.”
While taking out all the clothes in the drawer, he found a red envelope wedged in a corner. Inside the matchbox-sized envelope was a talisman worn to the point of being worn out. It was surely a talisman Grandmother had put in for her youngest grandson to be safe going to Seoul.
He knew Grandmother missed her youngest who went to Seoul. But he had no intention of returning to the hometown he’d once left. He had to attend school, get a job, get married. After completely settling in Seoul, he only visited his hometown during holidays. Probably those who left their hometowns are all similar. Especially countryside natives like Go Seok-jun.
If he’d held memorial services, he would have visited regularly, but after enshrining her at a temple, he just quietly thought of Grandmother on her death anniversary instead. The extent of the performance being setting squid and such on a table with his wife and pouring a glass of beer saying ‘Grandmother, have a drink too.’
He’d heard you shouldn’t just throw away talismans. Deciding to burn the clothes and talisman together in the yard later, he stuffed the talisman among the clothes.
“Oh, Uncle. I’m a little late. You just got here, right?”
