His friend’s father had come to him asking to borrow money, and his friend — assuming something terrible must have happened — had apparently emptied his pockets and lent a significant sum. Not a few hundred thousand won. Several hundred thousand. The father had promised to pay it back within a few days, then took the money and vanished. When contact was finally made, he brazenly claimed he had no memory of borrowing anything and told them to bring a written loan agreement if they wanted proof.
Finding out about it after the fact, Yuhyeon had cut down on sleep and worked to pay it back in his friend’s place. It was a humiliation so acute it made him sick, and for the first time in his life he felt the kind of despair that made the ground feel like it was caving in beneath him. His father had trampled his pride into the dirt. He’d managed to repay the money somehow, but the friendship that had grown distant in the aftermath couldn’t be undone. And now — what on earth had he done to the landlady? The tips of Yuhyeon’s fingers trembled finely.
I’ll have to go up and apologize to her tomorrow morning….
Gyeongjin’s bruised face surfaced in his mind and fear crept in that something might have happened to the landlady as well. Even after Gyeongjin had gone, Yuhyeon stood motionless for a long time, staring out into the corridor. Until the sensor light went out. The eyes that had been brimming with rising emotion were swallowed by the darkened hallway. The heat that had risen to his face made his eyelids burn. Yuhyeon exhaled a damp breath and turned his steps toward the bathroom.
He splashed cold water on his face. He wiped the dripping water from his chin with the back of his hand and looked at himself in the mirror. He tried to smooth his expression as though nothing had happened, but inside he was a mess.
Should I give him a million won or something….
He came out of the bathroom, changed out of his damp clothes, and thought. His biological father was still, to him, an enemy. The fact that the man had trampled his pride and left him rotting inside hadn’t changed, and he had no intention of forgiving him or resuming any kind of contact. But turning a blind eye when the man had gone to the landlady rather than to Yuhyeon directly — that stuck. Had there been some reason he’d needed to get his hands on money that badly?
He’s not out there getting beaten by loan sharks again, is he.
The loan sharks who kept lending money to a father with no means of repayment — he was so sick of them he could scream. If his father had been a pathetic, contemptible person from the start, he wouldn’t be agonizing over it like the fool he apparently was. Before the gambling started — going to work like everyone else, spending his days off with his son — it was a memory so faint now it was little more than a blur, yet it surfaced and left him aching. The place where he’d quietly held out hope that his father might one day come to his senses had been filled with nothing but wounds.
No — it might be because I keep giving him money that he keeps running up more debt….
He knew going back to how things had been was no longer possible. The depth of the wounds his father had left him seemed to be clouding his judgment. Yuhyeon told himself to get a grip and slapped both cheeks lightly, without much force.
Above all else, I’m barely getting by as it is right now….
His pay at Glock was two million eight hundred thousand won a month. The hourly rate was decent for rotating shift work, but it was nowhere near enough relative to his outgoings. The money he’d borrowed from the bank to pay off his father’s debts came out on a regular schedule. Add to that the rent, phone bill, utilities, insurance, and transportation costs, and more was leaving each month than coming in.
Recently he’d taken out a savings plan to build toward the future, tightening his belt even further. He didn’t want to repeat the wretched chapter in his past where he’d ground himself down just to pay off someone else’s debts. The version of himself from back then was too bleak and aimless to want to revisit even in memory.
Should I pick up another part-time job.
He’d considered finding additional work, but the rotating shift structure at Glock made it an impossibility — that was the only conclusion he ever reached.
“…I don’t know anymore.”
Yuhyeon finished getting ready for bed and flopped down onto the mattress. With no TV and no wi-fi installed, there wasn’t much to do at home once work was done. He’d barely surrendered his body to the reasonably firm mattress before a drowsiness crept over him. His eyelids, heavy with sleep, felt like they weighed a ton. He’d been staring blankly up at the ceiling when he felt a vibration near his head and reached out an absent hand.
The phone in his grasp showed the contact name Glock Floor Manager. The person who handled the part-timers’ schedules occasionally called at late hours. Yuhyeon answered and brought the phone to his ear.
“Hello.”
— Oh, Yuhyeon. Is now a good time to talk?
“Yes, of course. What is it?”
— It’s just that there’s a grocery delivery scheduled for the morning, but Byeongju had something come up.
Byeongju was the name of the head chef who always looked out for Yuhyeon. He’d filled in for serving staff before, but filling in for the head chef was a first. On top of that, it struck him as odd that the call had come to him — someone who wasn’t even kitchen staff.
“I…can’t cook, though.”
— No, no. He’s only out for the morning shift. All you’d need to do is sort out the delivery when it arrives.
“Morning — you mean the closing time slot?”
— That’s right. Just check the quantities of the delivered ingredients and put them away in the refrigerators. All the customers will be gone by then, so you can take your time! I’ve called everyone else on the kitchen staff and none of them are available. You’ve just been at Glock the longest out of anyone else I could call, so….
The floor manager let out a near-lament as he asked if there was any way Yuhyeon could make it work. Glock opened at two in the afternoon and operated through to six in the morning the following day. The ingredients for that afternoon’s service were delivered in the early hours after closing, and the request was simply for him to sort those deliveries in the head chef’s place.
— Just come in at six for a bit. Byeongju says it takes about three hours. I’ll add a hundred thousand won to your pay. Hm? Please, Yuhyeon, I’m counting on you.
A hundred thousand won?
He must have been pretty desperate. It had sounded like a job he’d have to handle alone, which had given him pause — but a hundred thousand won changed things. Yuhyeon answered before the floor manager could take the offer back.
“Yes, I’ll be in by six.”
— Great, thank you. The passcode is ‘938211’, and the quantity checklist is in the kitchen drawer. When you arrive you’ll need to turn the lights on, but it’s a bit complicated…. Actually, never mind, I’ll just tell the staff to leave the lights on before they head out.
The floor manager ended the call with one last expression of thanks. Yuhyeon looked down at the screen after the call cut off, then shifted his gaze upward. If he fell asleep now, he’d get roughly five and a half hours of sleep. He lay back down flat and let his eyelids drift shut. Sleep came more quickly than expected, and the ripples of his consciousness grew still.
❄ ❄ ❄
Yuhyeon had crammed on his sneakers and rushed out, stopping briefly at the top of the downhill path to straighten them. The early morning chill bit into his skin more sharply than expected. The temperature felt more like winter than autumn, and it wasn’t easy to get used to. The weather couldn’t seem to find a middle ground — this cold in the morning, yet blazing hot in the sun-drenched afternoon.
Once his crumpled sneakers were back in their proper shape, Yuhyeon broke into a run again. He kept glancing at his phone to check the time as he went. He’d meant to reset his alarm but forgotten, and had slept through — so he was cutting it close. It was moments like this where he felt grateful he’d been jolted awake by a bad dream.
The bus!
Yuhyeon spotted a green bus approaching the stop in the distance and pushed himself faster. Fortunately, the bus caught a red light before reaching the stop, and he narrowly avoided missing it.
Running since before dawn had left his throat stinging from the cold air. Yuhyeon steadied his breath and dropped into an empty seat.
Stupid dream.
He’d dreamed of being chased by a wild animal with a body the size of a house. No matter how far he ran, he couldn’t escape it. The dream had been visceral enough that when he woke, he’d been drenched in cold sweat.
How can a dream feel that real….
Still turning the nightmare over in his mind, Yuhyeon looked down at his left hand. Just before he’d woken, the beast had bitten down on his fingers. It had been so vivid that even now, the breathlessness of the chase and the split-second dread before the bite flooded back with startling intensity. Today was probably not going to be a good day. He made a mental note to watch himself.
— The next stop is Seondae Intersection.
His eyes, which had been drifting shut, snapped open the moment the announcement played. Realizing this was his stop, Yuhyeon pressed the exit button. Moving hand over hand along the overhead handles toward the rear door, he tapped his transit card and looked toward the door about to open. Even at this early hour, the road was busy with cars. The pavement too was full of people in various states of dress moving briskly along, and even he felt a pull to be industrious.
Good — I’m not too late.
He murmured it to himself while checking the clock mounted inside the bus. From the stop to Glock was only a five-minute walk at a leisurely pace, so running would cut it down further. Stepping off the stopped bus, Yuhyeon lengthened his stride. Even if there was no staff member to monitor his attendance, being excessively late was a matter of conscience.
Above all else, there’ll be frozen goods too — I need to get them put away before they thaw.
If he dragged his feet, he’d end up crossing a point of no return. However cool the early morning air was, it was nothing compared to a freezer. If anything spoiled, the responsibility would fall entirely on him. Yuhyeon pushed himself until his thighs ached.
