Dieu 2

Chapter 2

In Paris, France, during midsummer, the sun didn’t set until after nine at night.

I’d never been conscious of the lengthened daylight before, only realizing it was summer at the end of August. Seeing the sky still bright after seven in the evening made me feel somewhat stifled.

During this season, Paris bustled with tourists and locals who came out to enjoy the extended daylight until late.

For someone like me—from a rural village where even buses rarely passed through—this city was a harsh place.

Being jostled around by people on all sides, I felt an unconscious pressure building up that made me think I needed at least one cigarette.

I reached into my pocket for my pack, but it was empty.

I wasn’t a frequent smoker, but feeling anxious without cigarettes made me think I might already be addicted.

Just then, I noticed a half-broken cigarette in the pack. I remembered absentmindedly putting it back inside.

While contemplating whether to smoke it as a last resort, I noticed the noise around me growing louder.

Walking without much thought, I seemed to have arrived at an unfamiliar place.

“Where am I…?”

I couldn’t tell. Looking around for anything familiar, I saw a few people gathered in an unfamiliar square, dancing to soft music.

It wasn’t ordinary dancing—not anything I knew. Unfamiliar movements flowing slowly like water. Some kind of contemporary art dance, it seemed.

As if enchanted, I turned my steps toward it. The cigarette had long been erased from my memory.

Street performances were common in Paris, but perhaps because I’d never experienced one, I felt I couldn’t leave without watching.

A few spectators stood silently, observing their dance.

I joined them and became just another audience member watching the performance.

But perhaps because I was watching from the middle, unfamiliar movements and content were quickly passing by.

In truth, I didn’t think I would understand even if I’d watched from the beginning, but still, their dance was quite interesting.

The dancers casually threw themselves onto the cloth-covered ground or formed bizarre poses with their partners.

Perhaps because the content was unusual, the surrounding audience soon lost interest and left.

But somehow I couldn’t take my eyes off the scene. As if something was binding me, my legs wouldn’t move.

Especially among the many people, there was one person who stood out, and I found my gaze drawn to that man.

An Asian man with a somewhat indifferent face.

He seemed different from the surrounding dancers. Watching him move incessantly with that seemingly carefree, indifferent expression somehow made sweat form at my fingertips.

While most of the dancers performed in pairs, the man stood alone and moved his body.

His movements were both fast and slow. The man—who seemed to engage with others yet drift away—somehow looked a bit lonely. I couldn’t tell if it appeared that way just because it was a performance, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him for a moment.

Just as I had no place to stand in this city, that man also looked extremely precarious standing here.

As if in this square, only that man and I were people with nowhere to place our feet.

That was the feeling.

The man’s peculiar movements and expressions made me feel a sense of melancholy that I’d never consciously experienced before gradually creeping over me. I couldn’t even guess how long it had been since I’d felt such a negative emotion. Was that dancing man also moving with such a negative sensation? I couldn’t tell.

Shortly after, the music faded from the speakers, and the dancers stopped in place, forcibly exhaling their pent-up breaths. I stared at the man breathing deeply without blinking once. Somehow it felt like even my own breath might stop.

Several audience members responded enthusiastically, and some threw tips.

Only then did I come to my senses and, as if entranced, fumbled in my pocket and took out all the bills I had.

The man who’d been so passionate earlier seemed uninterested in the audience and tips, simply wiping his sweat with a towel and standing blankly in place.

At that moment, I don’t know where such confidence surged from, but I wanted to speak to him.

Somehow, it felt like I had to.

So I slowly approached him. I cautiously addressed him as he stood there blankly.

“Um, excuse me…”

“Ah.”

When I spoke to him, the man blinked in surprise and gave a brief greeting.

“Hello.”

“…Hello.”

Surprised by his quite natural French pronunciation, I stood there blankly before giving a short reply, then hesitantly offered him the bills I was holding.

The man just stared at them with an expression that suggested he didn’t understand.

“I enjoyed your performance. This is all I brought with me today. It’s… it was so good that I wanted to give you everything I had.”

After saying this, I was surprised by my own words and lowered my head. It somehow felt like I was making a confession.

Did I find this performance that impressive?

I didn’t think I’d been that deeply moved, yet such words came out of my mouth.

After contemplating for a while whether to accept the money I offered, the man carefully took it.

His fingertips touched the back of my hand, and I startled as if my hand had caught fire. Having moved his body so much in this summer heat, the man’s body radiated an alarming warmth.

When I raised my head to look at his face, the man thanked me, looking somewhat at a loss.

“This is too much money to receive for a street performance…”

“No, I wish I could give you more, but I just came out for a casual walk, so this is all I have.”

I waved my hands frantically, fearing he might return the money.

Seeing my reaction, the man must have thought it would be difficult to return it, so he put the money in his back pocket and hesitated for a moment.

“If you don’t mind, could you leave your number?”

“Pardon?”

“There’s an official performance nearby soon. Today we came out to promote that performance. If you have time, please come see the show. I’ll consider the money I received today as your ticket price.”

The man spoke calmly and held out his phone to me.

I wondered if this was okay, hesitated briefly, then left my number on his phone. It was the first time I’d exchanged numbers with someone in this city. Actually, it had been a very long time since I’d even held a conversation like this.

Due to my profession, I didn’t normally keep in contact with anyone, so I hesitated, but thought one person might be alright.

“Can you tell me your name as well?”

I looked up at his composed tone and met his eyes, noticing that despite his nonchalant tone, there was a strange tension visible on his face.

“I’m Teo. And you?”

“I’m Usang. U, sang. Thank you for watching today. Um… goodbye, Teo.”

Usang. It was a difficult name.

The man seemed to know this, so he intentionally repeated his name a few more times. I nodded, also silently repeating his name several times to myself.

Usang gave me a brief smile before heading toward his colleagues.

He held out the tip he’d received from me to them, glancing at me as he spoke. They approached Usang with excited faces and put their arms around his shoulders. But unlike his colleagues who were laughing loudly, Usang stood among them with little change in his expression.

Somehow, that expression of his kept lingering in my mind. Had I met this person somewhere before? I searched my memory but nothing came up.

I silently repeated his name to myself again and took out my phone. There was a short message from Usang.

[Goodbye.]

I recalled his tone of speech and softly whispered “goodbye” after him.

It was a mundane conversation with meaningless content, yet strangely that man kept lingering in my mind.

It was an odd feeling.

The man’s seemingly resigned face seemed to follow me.

Even after returning home, I kept recalling that brief performance and the man. Since it was rare for something to capture my senses like this, I didn’t want to erase this moment from my mind.

So I blinked and lightly scratched near my heart, which was trembling slightly.

Somehow it felt as if the man had soothed my loneliness.

***

I live in Paris, France, but I’m not French.

However, my hometown was a place that used French, which made it easier for me to blend into this city compared to other foreigners.

Of course, there were big pronunciation differences between my hometown and France, so after coming to France, I struggled with pronunciation for a long time.

Still, once I became accustomed to the pronunciation, it helped conceal the fact that I was a foreigner.

Whenever I moved, I blended into the city with a new name and identity.

Actually, I rarely moved to big cities. It was possible because my profession basically wasn’t one where frequent meetings with people were beneficial.

But recently something happened to me, and because of that incident, I thought it wouldn’t be bad to try living in a big city for once.

That’s how I came to Paris, and it’s already been two years.

The name I started using when I came here was ‘Teo.’ Perhaps one or two out of ten men in this country are named Teo.

The name I’d used before coming to Paris was the one I’d used the longest among all the names I’d adopted.

Not many people had called me by that name properly, but now using the common name ‘Teo’ after letting go of a name I’d grown attached to still felt awkward.

But names weren’t really important. I’d never introduced myself to others while living here, and I’d never questioned that.

But that was only true until yesterday.

Today I exchanged names with someone for the first time, so now there was one person in this city who knew my name.

I usually earned money by killing people.

But that didn’t mean I thought I shouldn’t meet people because of this job. It was fine to socialize with others, and fine not to; there were no particular restrictions for me.

I didn’t feel the need to meet people to that extent. In this world, neither others nor I were important. So they were unnecessary things.

I’d saved enough money to quit this job if I wanted to.

So it wouldn’t matter when I quit, but I didn’t know how to do anything else besides this job.

Sometimes after returning home from a job assignment, I would spend days just reading books at home. I felt that such a solitary life was the most stable.

The person who raised me before I came to this city told me to look for something new.

That’s why I impulsively came to Paris, but it was still a place where I didn’t think I needed to meet anyone.

And so, two years had already passed. I thought nothing would change, and that nothing could change.

That’s why meeting Usang was quite a significant event in my life.

I went to Usang’s website and read his name.

[Woosang Yun]

“Usang. His surname is Yun.”

With the unfamiliar name I rarely encountered, I finally realized he was someone who didn’t belong here.

The black and white portrait right below his name resembled the first impression I’d had of him.

A somewhat tired expression. Pale skin without a single wrinkle, as if he didn’t smile often. But his eyes shone brilliantly.

Looking at his profile picture and performance information, I looked forward to the performance I would see in a week.

“But should I wear formal attire when going to the performance…?”