When he came to his senses, 3 hours had passed.
Crazy bastard.
He’d been clutching his jacket and handbag and even wearing his backpack while passed out. His back was stiff and his fingers were numb and tingling. And yet he laughed. Every time he laughed, a wheezing sound came from his throat. What’s so funny about that? He giggled and rolled around on the bed.
After a moment, he felt a terrible hunger. First, he put the handbag inside the backpack and covered it with the blanket.
He crawled to the kitchen, and with no energy to even cook rice, he ate standing up straight from the rice cooker. After scooping in three or four spoonfuls, he felt like he might live. His appetite came roaring back like crazy.
He boiled two packets of ramen. Without even thinking to add eggs, he devoured them like he was possessed. After completely emptying the broth, his head finally cleared.
It felt like he was alive for the first time in a while. With a smile spread across his entire face, he went back to his room and took out the handbag from the backpack.
He counted the number of bills in each bundle of money.
Exactly 50,000 won bills, one hundred each. Two bundles. Ten million won.
Even though he had nothing in particular to do with this money, the corners of his mouth kept rising. It wasn’t because of the money, but because of the kind of achievement he’d accomplished, but it still felt good. Since it was money only he knew about anyway, there would be no problem even if he just spent it.
Jiwon divided the two bundles of ten million won into four bundles of fifty bills each, then set aside just one bundle and put the rest back in the handbag. Then he changed into a tracksuit. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but it felt awkward to throw away a sanitary pad in a goshiwon bathroom where only men lived, so he just left it attached to his underwear for now.
He threw the sweat-soaked suit pants and shirt to one side of the room, planning to take them to the dry cleaner, and rolled the handbag into the jacket that had become wrinkled from holding it so much.
Since he kept most of his clothes in the storage drawer under the bed, he hid the jacket among the old clothes. Even if someone searched the room, it didn’t look like anything special. Still, it was a lot of money to keep in a goshiwon like this, so he decided he’d have to disperse it later.
Jiwon lay down on the bed with a light heart. He belatedly thought of the cold storage warehouse, but since work hours had long passed, he decided to just skip a day.
Should I call? I’ll do it later.
Everyone would be busy right now anyway, so there wouldn’t be anyone to answer the phone.
Then he thought of “Fucking Bastard.” He sat up abruptly.
Where’s my phone?
No matter how much he searched, it wasn’t there.
Did I leave it at the interview site?
No. He’d definitely gotten all his belongings back. He’d even collected his resident registration card from the guard.
Jiwon carefully retraced what happened after that and remembered his hand putting down his phone on the convenience store counter. He’d been so distracted by the water that he’d done that. Normally he would have been angry at himself for acting carelessly, but today he was lenient. He thought he might as well eat a delicious dinner while going to find his phone.
He stored forty 50,000 won bills in the zippered pocket of his sling bag and put the rest in his wallet. Then he left the goshiwon.
As soon as he arrived at Gangnam Station, he went to the bathroom first. In an empty stall, he checked the sanitary pad. Seeing that the blood had completely dried, he just peeled it off and threw it away. The pad was gone, but the foreign sensation from his torn anus remained.
After that, Jiwon went to the convenience store, found his phone, checked his texts and missed calls, then hurriedly sent a text to “Fucking Bastard.” Texts arrived in succession as if they’d been waiting.
[Do you want to see me die?]
[So when can you get the money?]
[You can give it today, right?]
He must be shitting his pants.
[Not today]
The other person paused for a moment, then wrote,
[Tomorrow morning 8:30, Gangnam Station Exit 7]
and sent it.
Son of a bitch. The curse burst out without him realizing it.
8:30 in the morning was when Jiwon would just be falling into a deep sleep, and it happened to be the most sensitive time. And yet, he was going to the trouble of taking a risk to meet at that time.
Why not just meet as a designated driver and customer like we always do?
Of course, someone who knew Jiwon’s schedule well enough would have a reason for making an appointment at that time, but he still couldn’t help being irritated.
Really a fucking bastard.
He needed something to calm his sensitized nerves. Although Jiwon had no appetite for food, today he felt like he absolutely had to eat beef. He marked a beef restaurant he’d seen before on his map app and walked there. It was closed for break time, but he waited.
Eventually he went in as the first customer and heartily ate three servings of beef plus cold noodles. He ate so ravenously that he finished the meal in just 30 minutes after entering.
Gangnam Station was already starting to get crowded with vehicles and crowds leaving work.
Where should I go?
He had no desire to work today. But he didn’t want to go back to the goshiwon either.
After thinking for a while, he decided to go to a nearby amusement park. He wanted to ride rides and taste the thrill for the first time in a while. He wanted to blend in among strangers laughing and chattering, and more than anything, he wanted to return to being an ordinary young man, at least for this time.
Without hesitation, he got on a bus heading toward Jamsil.
The amusement park he arrived at after breaking through traffic was quiet on a weekday. It seemed there were almost no people who came completely alone like him, but he saw one or two comrades riding rides alone.
Jiwon played to his heart’s content for the first time in a while. He screamed and cheered. At first he was conscious of others’ gazes, but later he was too busy enjoying himself to have time for that.
For snacks, he generally bought whatever he saw kids eating. Corn pops, tanghulu, tornado potatoes. He bought whatever he saw. Since he’d come after eating his fill, he threw most of it away, but it didn’t matter. When he was thirsty, he drank slushies and watermelon juice, and also bought mango bingsu. The drinks and bingsu went straight to the trash after he just put his mouth to them.
Whatever he did was fun. He walked around laughing like a crazy person.
And then he cried alone, sniffling.
‘Want to go to an amusement park?’
‘An amusement park? You can’t ride rides.’
‘Still. It’s fun just watching other people have fun.’
‘Forget it, man. If you’re not even going to ride rides, why bother paying expensive admission? Let’s use that money to eat something delicious. Want to go to a baseball game?’
He’d said it wasn’t rational, that they should go somewhere they could enjoy together instead.
Had he been disappointed? Probably.
Even so, he’d respected my opinion.
Looking back, I was wrong. If it was a cute and charming place like this, it would have been fine even without riding rides. While I was riding rides, you could have eaten junk food, taken selfies in front of cute characters, and wouldn’t have been bored waiting.
Longing for that time that could never be returned, feeling sorry for the past when he hadn’t even granted such a small request, Jiwon hurriedly wiped his tears.
Before he knew it, it was closing time.
He was leaving the amusement park listening to the closing announcement when a loan text arrived. This time it was a real loan advertisement text. He laughed, thinking he’d almost been confused. He immediately deleted the text and went up to ground level.
And he got on a bus heading toward the goshiwon.
He was about to start from there to live Kim Jiwon’s hamster-wheel life again.
*
The MT was postponed by a week.
Just as he was about to go to work at the cold storage warehouse, the Manager sent a text. It was a same-day cancellation, but since Jiwon was planning to join after getting off work anyway, there was no problem with the schedule at all.
Honestly, he was secretly happy it was postponed. His anus torn during yesterday’s interview stung, so there was some restriction in walking, and he felt awkward about facing Han and the room salon staff in that state.
He only saw Han on Friday of that week. For some reason, Han was excessively quiet. He had no desire to discuss the final interview because of the penalty fee, but he was tight-lipped even for that.
It happened to be the day after the interview, and he’d heard that Han was the one who unilaterally canceled the MT, so it naturally occurred to him that maybe something had happened at the interview. But his expression was so dark that he couldn’t ask anything.
Saturday and Sunday, Han was absent without notice twice in a row.
I should have just asked yesterday.
He regretted it belatedly.
“That bastard does that often. He showed up well on the days ahjussi came to work, but on weekdays he’d not show up for two or three days without a word.”
Unlike the worried Jiwon, Kim and Choi didn’t think much of it.
Jiwon, who hadn’t known that fact at all, was secretly relieved after hearing Kim’s words.
Right. If I passed the interview, there’s no way Han couldn’t have.
He laughed, saying he’d worried for nothing.
For the first time since becoming the exclusive driver, Jiwon spent a weekend without Han.
Regardless of Han’s absence, Jiwon’s daily life remained the same. Days of being exhausted from handling explosive frozen logistics continued. He didn’t know how the week passed. If it hadn’t been for the Manager’s text, he would have even forgotten it was the day they were supposed to go on the MT.
That day too, Jiwon, who had to work overtime because the logistics were overflowing, barely escaped the workplace after 9 o’clock. He changed clothes in the locker room and was checking his phone when a text had arrived.
[Driver Kim, MT’s canceled. Come to the shop for now.]
It was the Manager.
It was canceled, not postponed, and content telling him to come to the shop was added after the text that normally should have ended there. Originally Wednesday wasn’t a work day, but since he wasn’t going to run night-time designated driving either, he sent a reply saying he would.
As soon as he arrived at the room salon, the Manager held out the van keys with a shit-eating expression.
“Pick up the girls. Madam says she’ll count today’s work as special pay.”
The atmosphere was brutal, so he did as told.
“Ah fuck, that bastard. Where the hell is he getting wasted with who now?”
Kim, who’d been waiting in the parking lot for the hostesses Jiwon picked up, vented his anger.
Originally they should have been enjoying water activities to their heart’s content during the day, and at this time should have been grilling meat at the pension, but people had come to work, so it was understandable.
Because it was a same-day cancellation, they were going to lose not only the lodging but also the fees for the reserved pool facilities, yet Madam reportedly wouldn’t bend on her decision to cancel. It was solely because Han was absent.
Naturally, the arrow of resentment pointed not at Madam but at Han.
“Maybe he’s sick? Last time he went to the emergency room because of heat exhaustion, remember.”
Jiwon carefully defended Han.
“Ahjussi is naive too. You believe what he said about heat exhaustion? That was a lie he made up.”
He sneered.
“Haa, that bastard is really ridiculous. Fuck, I thought no way, but he really ditched today.”
Kim ground his teeth.
Setting aside being sick, recently Han had been scolded by Madam and the Manager for frequent absences. According to Kim, when he came to work yesterday, he didn’t say a single word of apology. In the midst of that, he was absent without notice on the day of the MT, so Madam must have been furious to the top of her head.
“Ahjussi, try calling him once. You’re close with Seoho.”
He urged Jiwon.
He tried as told, but Han’s phone was still turned off.
“Still? Fuck. I’m going crazy. Madam’s going to totally lose it. Ugh, I’m sick of this.”
Kim left the parking lot with a disgusted expression.
