“…….”
I stood there, mulling over what to do. I couldn’t keep wasting time here like this.
Should I just go home and wash up?
There was no other option, really. In the end, I gathered up the mascot head, stuffed it into a bag, and got ready to head out.
That’s when it happened.
With a loud clatter, the owner suddenly appeared. He hadn’t even answered the phone, and yet showed not a hint of apology for it. He blurted out a question at me right away.
“Oh my, were you in the middle of changing?”
I’d assumed he’d come because I called, but the way he was poking around me suggested otherwise.
He scrunched up his face and pinched his nose shut.
“What is that smell? Did you eat shit or something?”
The moment he stepped in, the owner sprayed the cologne he always carried around — pfft.
Ignoring that, I asked the question I hadn’t been able to ask since he wasn’t picking up his phone.
“The shower room door’s locked. Is there a spare key?”
“Is it? By the way, you haven’t seen one of my boys around, have you?”
The owner answered my question half-heartedly, then sprayed the cologne once more. Still apparently unable to stand it, he even opened the door leading outside.
“Haven’t seen—. Ah.”
I was about to just say I hadn’t seen anyone, but then the escort who’d run into me on his way out came to mind. When I didn’t answer right away, the owner caught on and asked immediately.
“You saw him?”
“He went out the back door.”
“When?”
“About five minutes ago, I think.”
“Ugh. So stressful. I told him not to mess with—”
Not particularly caring either way, I went to change clothes, while the grumbling owner pressed a hand to his forehead like he had a headache.
“Wait, what did you say before?”
“The shower room door’s locked.”
“There’s no separate key for that one — if it’s locked from the inside, we’ll have to call someone tomorrow.”
So in the end, there was nothing for it but to just head home like this. I nodded and went to finish changing, but the owner gasped in horror.
“Oh my god! You’re just going to leave without washing up?”
“I’ll wash up at home.”
“Do you have some kind of shit-smell fetish? One of the fourth-floor rooms is empty, go wash up there.”
“Isn’t that the VIP floor?”
“I just said it’s empty. Here.”
The owner held out a VIP-exclusive card key to me. Pinched between just two fingertips.
“What are you doing? Take it already.”
The owner shook the VIP room key, still holding it only by the very tip with his fingers. It struck me as unnatural, but I didn’t want to stay like this any longer either, so I took the key.
The moment I took it, the owner recoiled with a look of distaste and said,
“Just put the head back on before you go up — wouldn’t look right to the guests otherwise.”
“This?”
I looked down at the rotting mascot head, which seemed like it would look even worse to “the guests.”
Even someone with as strong a stomach as me felt a flicker of resistance at the thought of putting it back on. I was about to say I’d just go wash up at home, when the owner suddenly pulled out his phone and said,
“Today’s payday for you, right? Just deposited it, bonus and all. Where else would you find a boss as generous as me?”
That shut me right up, in the face of money.
“What are you doing, not leaving yet?”
In the end, I did as the owner said, pulled the mascot head back out of the bag, and put it on again. The rank, sour stench hit me all at once, but before long, I couldn’t smell anything at all.
I didn’t mind, being used to it by now, but I eyed the owner doubtfully, wondering if it was really okay to go up to the VIP floor looking like this. The owner just waved a hand, urging me to hurry along.
Something’s off…
For someone who took the place’s image and “quality of crowd” more seriously than anyone, letting me — wearing a rotting mascot head — use the VIP-only bathroom made no sense, no matter how I looked at it. Guards stood at the entrance to the VIP floor. As I approached, they caught the smell and grimaced, but opened the way for me anyway. The owner must have really told them ahead of time to let me use the bathroom.
The VIP floor was clearly different. Even the floor right below felt as chaotic as the middle of a fish market, but up here, it was quiet. I walked down the hallway and found the room matching the key. The largest and most spacious of all the VIP rooms — supposedly used by just one single person, or so I’d heard.
No one knew for sure who the user actually was.
Some said he was a diplomat. Others said he was the president of some country. There were even rumors that it was a room used by royalty from some monarchy.
I’d always assumed it had nothing to do with me, and yet here I was, somehow, opening the very door at the center of all those rumors.
They really blew a fortune on this place.
The moment I opened the door, the only thought in my head was how much money had been thrown around in here. It was a room so large it almost felt wrong to call it a “room.” Big, lavish, with a bed and everything — less a room, more like a top-tier hotel suite. I went to take off my shoes and step inside, then froze. It felt like just walking in would make the room dirty.
Already, the spot where my shoes sat was smeared with grime.
The owner would have something to say if he saw this.
In the end, I took off not just my shoes but my socks too. I tucked the bills I kept in my sock into my pants pocket, then crouched down and wiped the floor with the sock.
I figured I should take the mascot head off inside the bathroom, but the problem was how to even get there. If I walked in like this, my footprints would definitely show up on the floor.
Structurally, it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d kept my shoes on, but even that floor looked cleaner than I currently was, which bothered me. Looking down at the soles of my feet, I saw they were caked in something black. My shoes were old enough that grime had seeped all the way inside.
I scrubbed my feet with the same sock I’d used to wipe the floor. They came out a little cleaner, at least.
Since the owner was exactly the type to use a dirtied room as an excuse to pressure me into becoming an escort, I carried my shoes as carefully as I could and tiptoed off in search of the bathroom.
The room was so spacious that even finding the bathroom took some doing, but I managed it quickly enough. Even then, I hesitated again before stepping inside.
A bathroom that looked bigger than the one-room flat I lived in left me feeling small. And it even had a bathtub. Even the toilet looked cleaner than the bowl I normally ate rice out of.
…This is a lot.
I suddenly felt like a carp that had been dropped into clear water. I’d just rinse off quickly and get out.
I fumbled even with how to use the shower before finally getting the water running. Cold water poured out, but it didn’t startle me. This kind of temperature wasn’t even cold, by my standards.
Where’s the soap…
This time I got stuck on something unexpected. There was no soap to be found in the bathroom. Instead, there were three bottles that seemed to be shampoo, all looking nearly identical except for their colors.
Which one’s shampoo?
I picked one up, but looking at it told me nothing. With as little schooling as I had, I couldn’t even read English, and there wasn’t a single word of Hangul written on any of them.
“Hm…”
After some deliberation, I pumped out some of the first one I’d picked. But maybe I’d inherited my father’s lack of luck with gambling, because it was a dud. No matter how much I rubbed it in or rinsed with water, no lather came up — it just left a slick, oily film behind.
I tried pumping another bottle. But this one, too, was no different from the first, just a different viscosity. Only after striking out twice more did I finally find the one that actually lathered.
I washed my hair with the rich foam, then rubbed the suds over my body with my hands and rinsed off.
Because of the nature of my work, I showered every day, so no grime came off me.
But the scent…
Why’s this so sickly sweet?
I already attracted flies as it was — if I smelled this sweet even after washing, wouldn’t that just attract more of them?
Even amid that worry, my eyes kept drifting toward the mascot head sitting in the corner.
“How am I supposed to wash this thing?”
Looking down at the filthy head, almost too dirty to even dip in the bathtub, I sprayed it down with the shower first. Grimy water ran down across the floor. When I scrubbed it with my hands, even more grime came pouring out, but the deep, set-in grime showed no sign of lifting at all.
“…….”
This wasn’t going to work like this.
I could spray water on it all day and it still wouldn’t be done.
Did he leave this thing soaking in actual sewage while I was gone?
At this point, it wasn’t even a suspicion anymore — more like a certainty.
The owner seemed exactly the type to do something like that. It was honestly a wonder my skin had never broken out, wearing something that filthy all this time. I felt a little bad, thinking back, for assuming the part-timers who’d quit and developed hives were just weak.
I glanced over at the shampoo bottle. Picking it up and shaking it, it still felt nearly full, like it was brand new.
Maybe I’ll just use a little more.
I pumped some into my palm and rubbed it onto the mascot head. But the rich lather that had come so easily before got swallowed up by the filthy fabric and refused to rise. No suds came up like before. Thinking maybe it just needed more, I tried a few more times, but each time, the foam would start to rise, then die right back down.
I’ll just buy him a new bottle, whatever.
How expensive could shampoo even be.
With that thought, I unscrewed the shampoo cap and poured it straight over the mascot head in a steady stream. Only once the thick shampoo coated the entire thing did the lather finally start to rise.
I rinsed out the now-light bottle, set it back in its place, and got down to properly scrubbing the laundry.
“Christ.”
What the hell had the owner done to this thing?
This is going to clog the sewer.
