It was better to come in early than to face the awkward situation of having lost someone else’s belongings. Between the bus fare alone — today’s spending already came to roughly twenty thousand won. Strawberry cake, 7,000 won. Bus fare, 4,000 won. Taxi fare, 5,000 won. Even if he managed to get the taxi fare back from Seongjun, the spending was still spending. He really needed to stop being so pathetic about money. Yuhyeon lightly slapped his own cheek, trying to shake off the heaviness settling in his chest.
❄ ❄ ❄
But… is it okay to ask someone who nearly died for money right away…?
When he actually pictured it, something about it felt off. With injuries that bad, he’d probably spend weeks bedridden at the hospital. Even if he tacked on a word of concern asking how he was doing, the moment he demanded payment it would come across as unbearably cold. But he couldn’t just sit and wait, either. Seongjun had destroyed his phone, and the inconveniences were piling up one after another. Yuhyeon had made his way out to the main road to catch a bus, and he deliberated over the matter as if it were some momentous decision he had to make.
Right, it’s not like I’m making anything up… It’s fine to at least bring up compensation for the phone.
His head was loud with the back-and-forth going on entirely on its own. The state of the shattered phone was, to put it plainly, devastating. It felt a little harsh, perhaps — but photos, contacts, things like that might be completely unrecoverable. There was no reason to hold back.
He hadn’t been out of the house long. Someone grabbed his shoulder hard, then turned him around to face them.
“Yuhyeon!”
He knew from the voice alone who had grabbed him. In an instant, a chill ran down his spine and cold sweat broke out on his skin. His pulse shot into a frenzy at the wave of terror that crashed over him, and his breathing grew short. His biological father had appeared.
“Why haven’t you been answering my calls? Do you have any idea how worried I was?”
His father’s voice carried warmth in it. The man tilted his brows downward and peered at his face, and it was enough to make Yuhyeon’s stomach turn. Just how long had he been waiting out here for this encounter to happen?
“Dad….”
The word fell from Yuhyeon’s lips weakly, without strength. Both bewilderment and confusion coexisted in his voice. Bracing himself in case the man raised a hand against him, Yuhyeon squeezed his eyes shut — but no pain came. Instead, something warm simply pressed against his cheek.
“Are you eating properly? Why are you so thin — it’s upsetting.”
When he opened his eyes slightly, what he saw was the man gently cupping his cheek. It was so different from everything he knew that Yuhyeon’s expression slowly stiffened. He intended to keep silent and go on his way. But his gaze, not yet pulled free, took in the sight of his father.
His father was limping — his leg was hurt — and the skin visible beneath his clothing showed dark bruises. Had someone beaten him? Yuhyeon’s brow furrowed.
“…Don’t touch me. How did you even find out where I live.”
He didn’t ask why he’d come. Even without asking, he knew the man had shown up in front of him to hold out his hand. Yuhyeon pressed his lips together as he watched his father flounder without an easy answer. The thought came along with it — he needed to get him inside before he caused a scene. He’d already made enough of a spectacle; Yuhyeon didn’t want another commotion.
“Don’t do this out here. Let’s go inside.”
“You’re taking me in?”
Why was he being like this? His father scratched his cheek like a man asking for permission. It was almost hard to believe that the person who had gone on a rampage yesterday demanding the deposit was the same man standing in front of him now. He feared the man might turn on him again and raise a hand against him. Part of him wanted to scream and ask what scheme he was up to this time. Yuhyeon closed his eyes and opened them again, trying not to be aware of the burning heat prickling at the corners of his eyes.
“I have to go to work soon, so if you have something to say, say it quickly.”
Pushing his father through the open entryway, Yuhyeon made himself act even more brusque than he needed to.
“Still, seeing that you’re living somewhere decent puts my mind at ease.”
His father, whom he had expected to come right out and ask for money, looked around awkwardly and offered a gentle smile. For a moment, the face of the man before gambling took hold of him flickered over the one in front of him now. Watching his expression, Yuhyeon felt as though all of his insides had knotted together and a stone had lodged itself in his throat. Had he really only come to check that he was doing alright? Then why had he demanded the deposit? Countless questions turned his mind inside out. Yuhyeon exhaled a heated breath and steadied his voice so it wouldn’t shake.
“If you don’t have any business here, please leave.”
Each word scraped across his vocal cords on its way out, barbed. If the man had raged and lunged at him instead, he wouldn’t have had to feel like this. It felt like turning away a father who had come to check on a son living alone.
“Right… my son has work to get to, and I’m here wasting his time.”
His father held out the black plastic bag he had been carrying all along.
“It’s nothing special — you always loved dumplings since you were little. I was walking by and thought of you, so I had them packed.”
Yuhyeon’s body went rigid for a moment as he looked down at the bag. His lips parted slightly, and his fingertips gave an involuntary tremor. When Yuhyeon couldn’t bring himself to take it, his father set the dumplings down in the living room with an awkward expression.
“Eat them when you get home from work. Don’t go around starving yourself….”
“What on earth….”
Even a single syllable felt difficult to get out. It was as though the father he’d known before gambling and drinking had appeared before him. Yuhyeon, who had been keeping his jaw clenched and his mouth shut, finally managed to push out words.
“What on earth are you doing. You’re not like this. Just act like you normally do!”
It was something close to a cry. When Yuhyeon raised his voice, his father’s throat bobbed quietly.
“I want to get my life together — that’s why I came to see you one last time. I’ve got work lined up in a place farther away.”
“You’re going to work…?”
“Yeah. I can’t keep being a father my son is ashamed of forever. I’m quitting drinking, and I’m done with gambling too — obviously.”
He couldn’t tell whether it was a lie or the truth. The man genuinely didn’t smell of alcohol, and his expression was noticeably different from before. Yuhyeon stared quietly at the dumplings the man had set down, and slowly bit down on his lower lip. When was the last time he had felt anything like the warmth of family? Tracing back to that memory required going a long, long way back.
No — he caused a scene yesterday trying to get my deposit.
The thought surfaced suddenly and poured cold water over Yuhyeon’s tangled mind. He had nearly forgotten about yesterday and been on the verge of believing him. Yuhyeon opened his mouth calmly, his tone considerably more firm now. It was a struggle not to let it show that he’d been wavering.
“…Don’t lie to me. I already heard everything about what you did here yesterday.”
His father’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly, and then his head dropped. The man seemed to be turning many things over in his mind as he rubbed the back of his neck, and then he spoke.
“I figured you’d find out. But it’s even more shameful hearing it than I imagined.”
His answer was entirely outside of what Yuhyeon had expected.
“The truth is I was in a tough spot — there were debts I’d borrowed that I couldn’t pay back right away. Of course it’s all consequences of my own doing, but… when they started threatening to take my organs if I didn’t pay up, I panicked.”
The man acknowledged that, no matter what, he should never have gone after his son’s deposit. Watching him show remorse, a suffocating weight pressed down on Yuhyeon’s chest. He wanted to run out the door that very second.
Yuhyeon looked at the man’s eyes — the kind that wouldn’t look strange brimming with tears — and curled his hand into a fist. The desperation in his voice sat uneasily with him. The situation itself was so disorienting that he couldn’t think clearly about how to handle it.
“I want to make a fresh start, but things aren’t in a position to let me do that. That’s why I’m here — Yuhyeon….”
The man slowly lowered himself and knelt on the floor. It happened before Yuhyeon could even think to stop him, and Yuhyeon stumbled backward in alarm. Every image he had of his father — the cursing, the hitting — had vanished without a trace. The man had never once knelt even when coming to borrow money, and in an instant Yuhyeon’s mind was thrown into turmoil.
“Please. Just help your father.”
“…You said the same thing last time. And I helped you then.”
Of course, back then he hadn’t knelt, hadn’t brought news of finding work, hadn’t brought something like dumplings with a gentle smile on his face.
“I know, I know, but… if I don’t pay back the principal by today, they said they’d take my organs.”
“What…?”
Take his organs — it was far more serious than any script he had prepared himself for. His father’s face, trembling as he spoke, had gone beyond pale — it was white as paper. The memory of the man limping flickered through his mind, and something in Yuhyeon’s throat began to go numb.
“Of course, if you can’t, there’s nothing to be done. I wouldn’t want to hand it over either if I were you…. You’re busy — I’ll be on my way.”
His father looked up at the frozen Yuhyeon and slowly rose to his feet. This was hard. The smell of dumplings filling the room was enough to make him dizzy. His father was someone he could have called his enemy, the bitterness ran so deep. And yet — looking at the man pleading to cut everything off and come back to ordinary life, and seeing his injured body, Yuhyeon couldn’t simply cast him out. And more than anything, the words take his organs were more than enough to short-circuit every rational thought Yuhyeon had.
