“…How much do you need.”
No matter how much he resented him, he was still family. How many people could truly turn away after hearing that someone might die? His father disgusted him, and yet something in him ached — it was too much to hold.
The landlady told me not to go soft…
It seemed that even the best advice in the world wasn’t something you could act on overnight.
“Around ten million won…”
Yuhyeon’s face, already drained of color, fell further as he heard the answer. There was no way he had that kind of money. He exhaled a hot breath and turned away. He was going to get his bankbook from the drawer.
If I can’t pay back the principal, they’ll take my organs. The words surfaced with every step and dragged at his body like a weight. His legs were heavy and his stomach turned. He shouldn’t have gotten himself into something he couldn’t handle. The words circled bitterly on the tip of his tongue.
Between the envelope of tips he’d been saving every time he received one at Glock and his bank balance, he should have around eight million won. Money he’d scraped together by cutting down on meals, every bit of it set aside for his future.
The fingers gripping the edge of his bankbook tightened. Of course it hurt to let it go. He couldn’t stand it — the thought of handing over money he’d bled for to a father who’d gone into debt over gambling — but if not, the man would die, and there was nothing to be done. He no longer even felt the urge to push his father away. Watching him abandon all pride and grovel like that had just been too pathetic.
“I only have eight hundred too.”
“Thank you, I mean it, thank you! I’ll live right from now on, so you won’t be seeing me at your door again…”
His father said he’d figure out the remaining two million on his own — but no matter how quickly he picked up work, there was no way a paycheck would come in that fast. He’d clearly be going around begging relatives for money. Bitterness coated the inside of Yuhyeon’s mouth. He swallowed, trying to get rid of that taste somehow, but it only felt like a sharp thorn pressing against the back of his throat.
“If you’re done here, please leave.”
His father said he was heading out anyway and brushed past Yuhyeon’s shoulder. The spot where he’d knelt and groveled just moments ago was suddenly empty. The time had been too short for any warmth to linger. The strength left Yuhyeon’s body all at once and he swayed, then sank down onto the floor. His chest felt hollow and the bridge of his nose stung.
What he’d given away was money he had earned with his own sweat and blood. Every tip he’d received, even the ones that came from customers who had harassed him, had gone straight into that man’s hands.
This is really it now… I don’t have to live like this anymore.
His father had declared he would live properly — so if he meant it, nothing like this would happen again. Yuhyeon had hit rock bottom, and from there, he scraped together what little trust he had left and decided to believe in him one final time.
He walked out of the house and wandered aimlessly down the street, his mind adrift, when raindrops began to fall from the sky. The rain introduced itself by spotting the back of his hand first, then quickly thickened into heavy streams. He hadn’t brought an umbrella. He’d seen people carrying them that morning and still hadn’t thought to grab one. Why was he so useless? The unsettled feeling inside him, now compounded by rain, turned into something bleak all at once.
His listless footsteps came to a sudden stop. He looked around, but there was nowhere nearby to take shelter. His hair, beaten down by the rain, hung flat and clung to his forehead. He was sick to death of this relentless downpour.
Yuhyeon wiped the droplets trailing down his jawline with his hand and stared ahead in silence. There had been a few people around just moments ago, but the rain seemed to have swallowed them all up somewhere. The street felt as though it had turned grey.
What was money, really. What was it, exactly, that made it capable of wearing him down like this? He knew all too well that without it you were miserable, and yet no matter how stubbornly he held onto it, it slipped from his hands in no time. He walked on, hoping that he wasn’t the only one fighting a battle this exhausting. The raindrops stung against his skin, but he had no energy left to dodge them, so he let himself be hit.
Even so… Dad said he won’t touch gambling anymore. That’s something, at least.
The fact that his father had remembered his favorite food without being told had softened him — made him want to believe, just this once. Even if anyone else would have called him an idiot for it.
“Young man!”
He was about to head down a sloping road when the landlady’s voice rang out from behind.
“Goodness, you don’t have an umbrella? You should’ve asked to borrow one.”
She had been closing her windows as the heavy rain had started bleeding into her room. That was when she’d spotted Yuhyeon standing on the side of the road and come out with an umbrella. In the short time it had taken, Yuhyeon was already thoroughly soaked — and the landlady handed him her spare umbrella without a word of fuss.
“You’re a grown adult, not a little kid. What are you doing standing out in the rain like that.”
The moment Yuhyeon took the umbrella, she turned and walked back inside without a moment’s hesitation, as though her business there was finished. Yuhyeon’s gaze dropped to the sturdy umbrella now in his grip. A warmth that hadn’t yet faded came through it. His fingertips, chilled from the cold rain, were soothed. He pushed his wet hair back from his face and couldn’t find a single word to say.
❄ ❄ ❄
A person can fall apart in an instant. The world in front of him went dark, then bleached white, and his legs, unable to hold the weight of his emotions any longer, gave out beneath him. The rage that surged up drove Yuhyeon straight to the edge.
Just before the road opened up onto the main street where the bus stop was, there was an alley dotted here and there with entertainment venues. On any normal day he would never have taken that alley, but tonight he had been walking a loose loop through it, trying to settle the turmoil in his chest. The quiet side street, which wouldn’t fill with noise until the bars opened, felt worlds away from how it looked at night — humble and almost homey in the daylight. Yuhyeon walked along, nudging a discarded can on the ground with the toe of his sneaker. The earthy smell of rain-dampened pavement rising from the street, strange as it was, did something to calm his nerves.
“…Right, …so it’s fine…”
A faint voice drifted to him through the heavy curtain of rain drumming against his umbrella. Something in Yuhyeon told him it sounded like his father’s voice, and he lifted his head.
Where is that coming from?
The sound of the rain muddled everything, making it impossible to pinpoint the source right away. Yuhyeon moved around, tracking the direction of the voice. Soon, he spotted a man crouched at the mouth of the alley, smoking a cigarette. His father was on a call.
“Dad.”
The quiet call was swallowed whole by the pounding rain before it could reach anyone. Yuhyeon moved closer to the man who still had no idea he was there. As the distance closed, the words became clear. That was about when the worst possible conversation began to filter into his ears.
“Ha — you were right. All I had to do was put on a pitiful act and he folded just like that! Tell me, son. You’ve used this trick before too, haven’t you?”
The expression on Yuhyeon’s face, standing stock-still, twisted slowly.
“Either way, he’s a total sucker. Naive like that — how’s he going to survive in this world? He’ll have a real awakening if he ever finds out. I really am a great dad, you know. Who else is going to give their kid a life lesson like this!”
The man cackled for a while before grinding the cigarette out against the ground with his foot.
“How much did I squeeze out of him? What do you care, you little punk. I said ten million to bleed him as dry as I could, that’s all.”
The hand gripping the umbrella began to tremble. Sucker. Ten million. Anyone who wasn’t a complete fool could see it — he had been conned by his own father, and his father was now recounting it like a badge of honor.
No, no… that’s not it. It can’t be.
The defensive thought collapsed within seconds. His father hadn’t stopped gambling. He had simply constructed a convincing excuse to deceive him.
“The way things are falling into place today, I feel like it’s going to be a good haul. Yeah, yeah. What? For f*ck’s sake, it started already? I’ll be there soon — don’t wrap up the game without me.”
His father, rushing to get to the gambling den, looked up — and came face to face with Yuhyeon staring down at him with a hollowed-out expression. Something inside Yuhyeon caved in, and the air was knocked out of him. He strained the muscles around his eyes to keep the tears pooling at the rims from falling. His bloodshot eyes were full of nothing but accusation. The betrayal was so enormous that it left no room even for hatred. He had trusted someone he should never have trusted. All because of something as stupid as dumplings. The memory of how his father used to be — the one who had treated him well — had surfaced and made him do something foolish.
“Yu— Yuhyeon.”
The man seemed to know he was in the wrong — he looked noticeably flustered. Which made sense, given how badly Yuhyeon’s expression had crumbled. His father determined that Yuhyeon had heard the whole conversation and began scrambling for an excuse. Watching his father’s eyes dart around in search of one turned Yuhyeon’s stomach.
“Give it back…”
His voice didn’t come out as strong as he’d intended. Yuhyeon forced open the breath that had been lodged in his throat and let it out along with everything that had been building inside him.
“Give me my money back!”
When Yuhyeon’s voice cracked out loud, the man shrank back for a moment. But the person across from him was his father — a man who had given up on being decent long ago. He shifted into a demeanor that wasn’t even worth a hollow laugh.
“This little sh*t, talking back to his own father!”
“Father? I’m done having a father. I’m just an orphan from now on. That’s what I’ll be!”
The effort to hold back tears became meaningless — they spilled over along with a voice stripped raw. He was sick to his bones of a father who would sink this low for money alone. This wasn’t even a stranger — they shared blood. And that same person had betrayed him and handed him this kind of pain.
He wanted to shake off this unbearable feeling as fast as he could. Yuhyeon made up his mind to cut clean through the tie he’d been letting drag on. He wanted nothing more to do with a father whose only thought was how to bleed his own son dry.
