1. Dawn
The cold bit into his knuckles as though early winter had arrived ahead of schedule. Dooyoung gripped the bicycle handlebars with hands curled stiff from the chill. He pushed down on the sluggish pedals and drifted through the quiet predawn streets. The uneven texture of the pedals pressed up through the worn-out soles of his shoes.
A cool autumn breeze grazed his face. Dooyoung scrunched his nose in a futile attempt to coax feeling back into his frozen facial muscles. It didn’t work. He just ended up looking like someone in a bad mood. He puffed his cheeks full of air and picked up speed toward the upscale apartment complex visible in the distance.
Early morning milk delivery was a part-time job Dooyoung had been doing for years. Since he spent many nights awake anyway, he had never once thought of the early wake-up as a hardship. The only thing that got to him was the cold — except in the dead of summer, his hands and feet were always freezing. Other than that, he had no real complaints.
Dooyoung parked his bicycle at the entrance of the complex and looked up at the building. The luxury apartment, five stories at its highest, was a brand-new construction less than six months old — and it had been added to his delivery route only two weeks ago. Every time he came here, he felt a little small.
What would the inside of a place this fancy even look like? He couldn’t begin to imagine. You can only see as far as you know.
Dooyoung gave the security guard a light nod of acknowledgment. The guard, after confirming who he was, unlocked the main entrance door a beat later. They’d been acquainted for a few weeks now, yet the guard never opened the door until he’d made sure it was Dooyoung standing there, even from a distance.
Dooyoung stepped into the elevator, pressed the button for the fifth floor, and leaned the side of his head against the mirrored wall. He watched the red digital numbers change with unusual sluggishness today, absently squeezing the 1,000mL carton of white milk in his hand.
Each floor had two units — except the fifth, which had only one. He had wondered from time to time who lived in the penthouse. Since they ordered milk, maybe it was a family with small children.
Dooyoung stepped off the elevator, crossed the entryway that was wider than his entire home, and stood in front of the front door. He slipped the milk into the delivery bag hanging from the door handle and pulled the string tightly shut. That was today’s delivery done.
He stretched both arms high above his head with a full-body yawn. Then he crouched to rub his ankles with his hands — the cold air had been scraping at them. He hadn’t realized how abruptly the weather had turned and had worn ankle socks. The exposed skin felt rough and dry.
How much body lotion do I have left? I think it’s almost gone. I should stop by the convenience store after school.
At that moment, an unfamiliar sound rang out right above his bowed head. Dooyoung looked up and calmly watched as a heavy front door swung directly toward his face.
Everything about Dooyoung ran about three seconds behind. The door hit him square in the face and he went down without resistance. It hurt so much he couldn’t even cry out. He barely managed to push himself upright and sat there pressing a hand to the lump already forming on his forehead.
“What the—”
It was a voice with weight behind it. Dooyoung startled and, without thinking, instinctively straightened into a posture that looked like he was about to be punished, eyes fixed rigidly on the wall in front of him. He felt the pressure of needing to explain himself to the apartment’s owner, but his nerves had locked his mouth shut.
Footsteps approached. Heavy, deliberate. Dooyoung grabbed fistfuls of his own pant legs, squeezed his eyes shut, and blurted out the first thing that came to him.
“I — I wasn’t trying to steal the milk……”
I’m done for. He wanted to punch himself in the mouth. Stumbling, halting words slurred out like he had water in his mouth. He was pathetic even by his own assessment.
Still pressing his forehead against the wall, Dooyoung scrambled to piece together some kind of defense, however poorly.
“No, I mean — I’m an employee, I came to deliver the milk……”
“What?”
The man’s exhausted voice came from directly above his head, and Dooyoung’s mouth snapped shut like a clam. His mind went completely blank. His habit of freezing up around strangers had kicked in with full force.
Just then, the motion-sensor light went out. Dooyoung, caught off guard by the sudden darkness, slumped sideways onto the floor. That feeble little motion was enough to trigger the sensor again, and the light came back on. And when it did — Dooyoung found himself looking directly into the face of the man crouched in front of him.
His heart slammed violently in his chest. It was Hong Seungpyo — the transfer student who had arrived at school just a few days ago. Confronted with the last person he could have expected, Dooyoung had absolutely no idea how to react.
“Hey.”
Hong Seungpyo greeted him with a languid expression. He had transferred, of all times, in the second semester of their third year of high school — the most awkward possible moment. The day Hong Seungpyo arrived, the entire school had buzzed with talk about him — students and teachers alike.
The rumors Dooyoung had heard: that he was twenty years old, and that he had killed someone at his previous school. The latter was the kind of thing you didn’t dare repeat out loud, and yet every person who passed it on had a slightly different version of it.
A hundred people, a hundred different stories. It was the kind of genre-bending variation that could rival One Thousand and One Nights. They simply needed someone to chew on, tear apart, savor, and be entertained by.
The sensor light cut out again. In the pitch-black darkness, Dooyoung’s shoulders gave a violent flinch. He seized the moment to quickly put some distance between himself and Hong Seungpyo. When the light came back on, one corner of Hong Seungpyo’s eye was faintly crinkled.
“What did I do?”
“……”
“You’re avoiding me pretty openly.”
At his words, Dooyoung flicked his gaze up briefly. Hong Seungpyo’s hair was a mess, like he’d just been rolling around in bed, but his sharp, refined features didn’t look the least bit sleep-rumpled. The lazy drawl of his voice might just be the way he always talked.
Hong Seungpyo looked down at the milk carton that had fallen to the floor with an indifferent gaze. It had slipped out when Dooyoung fell, his knee catching the bottom of the bag on the way down. Hong Seungpyo tilted his chin toward it.
“Have you been the one delivering this whole time?”
Dooyoung opened and closed his mouth a few times, then simply nodded. This was the first time he and Hong Seungpyo had ever spoken. The whole situation made him uncomfortable, and he wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.
Dooyoung had always been an outcast. That was true across the entirety of his twenty years of life. He had no way of knowing how much of Hong Seungpyo’s rumors were true or false — but the instincts he’d honed over twelve years of being an outcast were telling him clearly.
Hong Seungpyo is dangerous. Don’t get involved with him.
On top of that, Hong Seungpyo had fallen in with Lee Juhak’s crew the moment he transferred. That alone was more than enough reason to stay away.
Hong Seungpyo rose slowly to his feet, like an animal stretching after a long rest. Only then did Dooyoung notice that he was wearing nothing but a loose pair of cotton pants. His hip bones were strikingly prominent. He had a build that looked solid in a way Dooyoung’s did not.
Hong Seungpyo picked up the milk carton and caught sight of Dooyoung still sitting on the floor. The corner of his lips gave a faint tug.
“Want me to help you up?”
Dooyoung shook his head and got to his feet with some hesitation. Warmth was rushing to his face for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. Hong Seungpyo regarded him with an impassive expression for a moment, then pushed the closed front door back open and disappeared inside. The sound of the door swinging shut was loud enough to break the predawn quiet.
Dooyoung stood in front of the door for a long moment before suddenly slapping himself hard on the cheek. He was disgusted with himself for not being able to do a single thing right. He left the complex, got back on his bicycle, and rode off. His backside, sore from the fall, throbbed with each movement, and his self-loathing rose right up to the surface.
He returned the bicycle to the office and walked the rest of the way home. His house sat at the very top of the hillside slum — the highest point. On clear days, you could see the city skyline far in the distance. The only thing the slum and the skyscrapers had in common was how close they reached toward the sky. The invisible wall between the two was something he had come to understand, little by little, since he was small.
Dooyoung carefully slid open the old aluminum-framed door and checked for signs of life inside. There were no shoes in front of the bedroom door, which meant his grandmother had already gone out to collect cardboard, and his father hadn’t come home yet.
Dooyoung went to his room with a lighter feeling. Normally after his morning shift he went straight to school, but today he felt worn enough that he’d come back thinking he might catch a little more sleep. Yet the moment he lay down, his mind was wide awake. In the end, he spent a while staring blankly at nothing before changing into his school uniform.
He dutifully packed his bag — even though there was nothing in it but trash — and headed out. His backside ached with every step down the slope. It’ll feel better once I get walking, he told himself, pressing forward. He’d gone to school in far worse shape than this.
A cool breeze cut through his light uniform and scraped along his skin. He had been going on and on about how cold it was, and then promptly forgot and walked out wearing nothing but his school clothes. He lamented, not for the first time, the state of his memory. If your body is this weak, you should at least have a decent head on your shoulders — there wasn’t a single redeeming quality to be found anywhere on him.
Dooyoung stopped and turned to stare blankly up at the winding uphill path behind him. The steps of the hillside slum felt especially daunting today. He gave up on going back and kept walking down, swallowing a sigh.
And then — unbidden — an image floated into his mind: tripping over a stone, rolling all the way to the bottom, getting struck by a truck that came out of nowhere. And never opening his eyes again.
There was no more perfect scenario than that.
Someone knocked into Dooyoung’s desk as they passed. He startled, then slowly peeled himself off the surface where he’d been slumped face-down. Through the curtain of hair hanging over his eyes, he looked around the classroom. Somehow, it had filled up with students who had already arrived for the day.
Unconsciously, Dooyoung scanned the room for Hong Seungpyo. He had no way of knowing whether the guy was the type to run his mouth about what happened that morning or keep it to himself — he couldn’t predict anything about him.
