「A palace, huh. Don’t you think we can stop going to palaces now? We’ve only been to palaces until now. Besides, they’re all similar.」
It had been over 10 days since I acted as Rashanin’s guide. After realizing that saying our country’s palaces were all similar wasn’t meant to provoke me but was his way of speaking, there were far fewer occasions to bristle. If I hadn’t realized that fact, life in heaven wouldn’t have been enjoyable.
I had gotten used to his way of speaking now, and responding matter-of-factly was nothing.
「You’re the one who gave me full authority and said you wouldn’t care where we went, Rashanin-ssi. Will you retract that?」
「Why do you remind me of what I said every time?」
「Well, to clearly establish where responsibility lies.」
「I didn’t say it was your fault.」
「I also didn’t say that Rashanin-ssi blamed me. If there’s somewhere you want to go other than palaces, say so now.」
I didn’t back down in my response. As if displeased, Rashanin narrowed his eyes. I laughed. Rashanin often wore a smile like a mask, but sometimes he lightly showed emotions outwardly like this. That softened the atmosphere and allowed me to be assertive with him.
「I don’t retract what I’ve said once. But we can’t be chased out like the day before yesterday.」
Rashanin had liked Changdeokgung Palace, especially Biwon. But the problem was that since Changdeokgung wasn’t open to the general public, you had to follow a guide, look around once, and come out. Still, rules were rules, so it couldn’t be helped.
「Deoksugung is fine. And since the weather is nice, there will be plenty of people.」
Rashanin, whose hobby was people-watching, had only one criterion.
「Then it doesn’t matter.」
「Understood.」
I answered with a slight smile. After spending a few days together, conversations usually ended smoothly like this.
I moved my spoon and chopsticks again, which had stopped because of the conversation. On TV, an announcer was presenting the morning news. Because Rashanin didn’t watch TV, Korean broadcasting was playing.
After politics, economics, society, incidents, and accidents, by the time I finished eating, the screen switched to today’s weather. The weather caster explained that the Seoul metropolitan area would be mostly clear with showers in some areas.
With weather this nice, what showers? Thinking as always that the Meteorological Administration’s supercomputer couldn’t be trusted, I picked up the last remaining rolled omelet.
*
Purple eyes were moving following people’s movements.
Due to racial characteristics, the man’s appearance should have looked like a lion crouching in the grass to hunt antelope on the savanna. But because Rashanin himself didn’t think of himself as a lion, and because his beauty made him look like a pictorial just sitting still, he didn’t look dangerous.
Well, I don’t know if he’s not dangerous, but he is strange.
A vampire whose hobby is people-watching. Still, it wasn’t a lie as Rashanin had been doing this for 4 days now. He sometimes spoke to me, but spent most of his time people-watching. And with an expressionless face, absorbed in his own world at that.
Staying beside Rashanin as he properly enjoyed his hobby was, as he said, an extremely boring task. At Gyeongbokgung, I got tired of just waiting and eventually had to sit side by side with Rashanin and people-watch.
Groups of middle-aged ladies with pretty parasols, young ladies wearing flowing chiffon dresses, couples holding hands on dates, guides holding flags leading tourists, nuns, monks, students on group tours wearing baseball uniforms. Really diverse people came into view.
Because I disliked crowded places due to the noise and bustle, watching people leisurely come and go like this was practically a first.
The feeling of sitting in one place and watching people I always just passed by was new. To think so many people lived in such diverse ways. I realized again that I was missing many things while living desperately.
Taking the first day as experience, from the second day I brought books. But I couldn’t read more than a few lines and people-watched with Rashanin.
At Deoksugung, unlike Gyeongbokgung, there seemed to be more families and couples than foreign tourists. Young brothers wearing identical red shirts caught my eye, each holding a hand of a woman who appeared to be their mother as they walked. Wondering if they were twins, I noticed a girl who seemed to be the boys’ older sister silently following behind. A few steps behind the mother and younger siblings holding hands side by side, she couldn’t join their conversation and just walked quietly.
Perhaps it was natural for young siblings to monopolize their mother’s hands. I didn’t actually know how the girl felt either. Still, memories of the past made me feel restless for no reason. Because I had two half-siblings below me, both of my stepmother’s hands belonged to my siblings. My stepmother wouldn’t have held my hand anyway, but there was definitely a time when I envied my siblings who went ahead holding my stepmother’s hands with my young heart.
Watching the family’s backs until they disappeared into the art museum, I had the pointless thought that if I get married, I should only have two children. Even though I’d aged enough, I sighed at the fact that trauma from childhood still remained.
“There’s a saying that when you sigh, happiness disappears by that much.”
At Rashanin’s voice, I came to my senses and glanced at the man sitting next to me. He was looking ahead, not at me.
“What troubles your heart that you sigh?”
At Rashanin’s question, I hesitated briefly whether to refuse saying it was personal and I couldn’t answer, then opened my mouth.
“Just… memories.”
“It’s cloudy because of the clouds, but still, this is a wonderful spring day. Why? Did you break up with your lover on a day like this?”
I was momentarily speechless at the question about breaking up with a lover. Rashanin probably said it without much thought, but I really had broken up with Huijeong around this time a year ago.
It was a raining day, and I was informed of the breakup at a coffee shop we often went to. And about 3 months later, I heard the news that she was getting married. That wasn’t a good memory either.
“I’ll take that as having heard the answer.”
Rashanin changed the subject pretending to have manners. He was properly misunderstanding, but I didn’t feel like correcting him at all. Rather, my chest felt cold. Strangely, bad things kept coming to mind. From the sight of ordinary families, thoughts arising from a single word shook my heart.
Was I getting slack because I wasn’t being worked hard? This is why I didn’t like spending time aimlessly.
As I clicked my tongue inwardly, the cell phone I had put in my front pocket vibrated. When I checked the caller, my brow furrowed on its own. Was the ominous feeling for this? Thinking the timing was quite bad, I gripped the phone tightly in my hand and didn’t answer.
As the phone kept ringing, Rashanin looked this way.
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
“It’s fine.”
While answering, the vibration stopped and soon rang again. This time too I didn’t answer and stayed still, then Rashanin asked seriously.
“Don’t tell me it’s your ex-lover?”
“No. Please excuse me for a moment.”
Asking for understanding, I got up from my seat and moved a few steps away from Rashanin. In the meantime, the phone that had stopped rang again. Really a persistent person.
“Yes. Mother.”
—Is this Unhyuk? Why are you answering so late?
“I was working.”
—Answer faster. What if it’s urgent?
“It wouldn’t be related to me.”
—How can a child be so cold?
“What is it?”
—You never contact us but won’t even ask how we are?
My stepmother’s voice was extremely gentle. She and I weren’t on terms to ask after each other. I pressed my forehead.
“I’m asking what it is.”
—Oh my, you child. Tsk tsk.
“If there’s no business, I’m hanging up.”
—What kind of habit did you learn? Saying you’ll hang up when an adult is talking.
“Then speak.”
When I decided to turn off the power if she said something irrelevant again this time, my stepmother dragged out her words from beyond the receiver, saying “This time…”
—Unyeol got into a motorcycle accident. Fortunately the child wasn’t hurt, but the other car was badly damaged… So we need settlement money, and you need to prepare about 7 million won.
She spoke as if demanding money left in her care. I’m going crazy.
“Mother, didn’t you say you wouldn’t contact me about things like this?”
After Father passed away, my stepmother was sensitive about inheritance distribution, citing that the two younger siblings were still university students and that she had no ability to make a living. I, who had a job and had no attachment to money, gave up the inheritance from Father that came to me in order to avoid conflict, on the condition that I wouldn’t interfere with family matters at all. That was a year ago. In the meantime, I had never contacted them first. But my stepmother occasionally contacted me like this and scratched at my insides.
To the point where I deeply resented not being able to change my cell phone number because of my job.
—What kind of talk is that! It’s your younger brother’s matter, and if we don’t settle he’ll go to prison. Being an older brother!
“It was you, Mother, who said we’re not family but strangers.”
—Are you like this just because I raised my voice a bit over that little bit of money? Aren’t you worried your younger brother had an accident? Huh? You’re a good child.
