At my words, the man made a blank face, then gradually showed a smile. I couldn’t understand at all where the emotion similar to joy that this man was feeling originated from.
“This is my business card.”
Cha Inhwan. The man seemed to be Eorin’s secretary.
“Please definitely contact me. Definitely.”
“Yes.”
I put the business card I received into my wallet and left my seat. But the man… Mr. Cha Inhwan inevitably followed me and took me home before returning.
When I got out of the car, he definitely said thank you. Why? Just as I had that question, the car quickly left. I watched its back and went into my house.
Eorin’s house was in Gyeonggi-do. Was Eorin at a hotel because he had come out briefly on a business trip? Surely he hadn’t come all the way here to meet me.
It wasn’t a commutable distance. While I was worrying, contact came from Mr. Cha Inhwan. Thinking I might need it, he had looked for a place to stay nearby, so if I just said the word, he would help—that was the content.
Move. Actually, I had been worrying because the monthly rent kept going up. I had disposed of the house I lived in with the teacher before and was moving from studio to studio now, and when I thought I had found a good place close to the daycare, the landlord had recently conveyed that they needed to raise the rent. I decided to move. It would be going up for the first time in 11 years.
When I conveyed that circumstances had arisen at the daycare so I had to quit work, the teachers and children held a farewell party together. The young children didn’t seem to know well what a farewell party was, but I smiled, grateful for the embrace of the children who hugged me tightly. My last time at Garam Daycare was greeting the director with thanks as she made a tearful face saying she was sorry for only making me struggle.
I finished organizing by visiting the place where I had enshrined the director and greeting her. Am I doing something wrong? I asked like that, but the teacher’s photo inside the columbarium said nothing. A small bear doll that the teacher had given me one Christmas long ago, which I had placed in the columbarium together because I couldn’t bear to look at it after the teacher passed away, silently looked at me.
A few days later, I contacted Secretary Cha. Before the ringtone could sound several times, the call connected, and the secretary who realized it was my call said he would come pick me up right away. Even calling it a move, I didn’t have much luggage so one car was enough. The place he had arranged was a quite decent studio—neither narrow nor wide, with good windows, and a place I could sufficiently afford with the salary written in the contract Eorin had sent. I bowed my head to the secretary, showing that he had chosen carefully. Since I didn’t have much luggage, I roughly put it away and got back in the car.
I had made a resolution while coming here. Don’t close the distance. Don’t let my feelings be discovered. Because I didn’t want to be hurt anymore.
It wouldn’t be easy to be calm in front of Eorin, but…
While having such thoughts, the car arrived in front of Eorin’s house gate. It was quite a large house with even a garage attached to the yard. As I approached the gate and looked back, Secretary-nim who had been leaning against the driver’s door showed a grin. I almost reflexively smiled back, but suddenly came to my senses in the middle and turned around.
I pressed the doorbell and waited for a moment, then sound came from the intercom.
—Chiwon-ah, you came?
“Yeah.”
—Come in.
Click, the gate opened. At the same time, I heard the car door closing. Startled, I looked toward where Secretary Cha had been, and the secretary had driven away without regret. I rubbed my cold hands and slowly walked inside through the opened gate.
When I stepped on the stone path between the lawn and stood in front of the entrance, the door opened.
“Welcome.”
It was Eorin. When I saw him last time, he was in a suit, but perhaps because it was a holiday, today he was in comfortable clothing. He had a much better complexion than then, so I was greatly relieved. I couldn’t see any passionate emotions. I had been inwardly scared that I might be swept away again.
“…”
There was no conversation to exchange between us. Awkwardness hung in the air. I followed behind Eorin with my head bowed. Before long, along with the song from a TV program that was popular with the daycare children, I heard the toddle-toddle of a child’s running footsteps. There was a rich baby smell.
I came to my senses clearly. This was a house where a child was growing. A warm home inside a sturdy fence. I too, with the teacher, had once formed such… And the fence of this place was Eorin. Just as the teacher had become strong for me, Eorin had shouldered the fence and had truly become an adult.
“Dad.”
A young child who came up to a little above my knees tightly grabbed and clung to Eorin’s leg, then discovered me standing behind Eorin and hid behind him. Worried the child might be scared, I stepped back a little.
“It’s okay, Jiwon-ah. Dad’s… friend. He’ll be with Jiwon starting today.”
“…The child’s name is…”
“…Yeah. It’s Jiwon.”
I kept my mouth tightly shut. Worried some sound might leak out.
Chiwon, Jiwon.
…I had a strange imagination. Self-loathing suddenly assailed me. Hope really was nothing but cruel. It felt foolish to find traces of me in such a trivial thing as the name being similar. When in the end it was only unrequited love on my part.
Shaking off the thought, I approached Jiwon, bent my knees, and sat down. Eorin, caught between me and Jiwon, stood still and looked down at us. Jiwon, who had been hiding behind Eorin’s leg, cautiously peeked out. A pure white forehead and rosy cheeks, black eyes, slightly drooping thick eyebrows. He was a cute boy. His face, showing signs of being raised with love, sparkled.
“Hello, Jiwon-ah.”
“…Hello… say.”
“Yes. Hello.”
I smiled quietly. I could see the child’s guard lowering a bit. Jiwon, who had been moving his fingers, peeked his head out a bit more from behind Eorin and looked at me.
At first, Jiwon who found me awkward soon adapted, as he turned his attention back to his toys. While glancing at me sitting on the sofa and fiddling with toys, he would subtly talk to me, and though he was at an age where he couldn’t read Hangeul yet, he would pretend to read a book aloud while looking at me. It was an expression of interest. I was relieved for now that he didn’t seem to reject me.
Since I had come just to let him get familiar with my face, I got up from my seat before long. Jiwon, who approached me as I prepared to leave, said:
“Dad’s friend, goodbye.”
My title seemed to be dad’s friend. I smiled slightly and matched his eye level.
“Instead of dad’s friend, will you call me teacher?”
Teacher. It was a call with deep meaning to me.
“Teacher.”
“Yeah.”
“Teacher. Goodbye.”
“Jiwon, be well too. See you next time.”
“Next time? Teacher come again?”
“Yes. I’ll come again. Because I’m Jiwon’s teacher.”
“…Yes! Come again!”
Toddle-toddle, Jiwon who returned to the baby chair sat quietly and turned his gaze toward the TV. While looking at Jiwon, Eorin called me.
“Thanks for coming, Chiwon-ah.”
I quietly nodded my head. No particular conversation followed. I returned home right away. I also refused Eorin’s offer to call Secretary Cha. I added that he shouldn’t call the secretary in the future since I would take the bus. At my firm tone, Eorin who hesitated for a moment answered that he understood.
I was still wandering a bit about how to treat Eorin. I could absolutely not do it like before.
That day, the day Eorin called me out. After seeing Eorin’s face and being startled by the shadow of the past felt together with unfamiliarity, wanting to hurry and avoid the situation, I immediately brought up the main point. Thinking about it now, Eorin seemed quite flustered at that moment. The gaze felt over the bowed crown of his head, the air flowing with awkwardness, a brief silence. Eorin, who hesitated looking for words to say, fumblingly laid out his past. And soon, seeing Eorin who burst into tears, I pitied him. And I sneered at my own despicableness in feeling relieved that I was in a position where I could pity Eorin, at least not be swept away… then soon returned to sympathy again.
Eorin was always someone who shone prettily. A person for whom words like love or happiness, laughter, suited so well. But the moment I saw that crying face, I realized that those ‘pretty words’ had lost their color inside Eorin.
More than ten years of time. What had the world that had swayed and hurt me taken away from Eorin? Eorin with a crying face that even looked desperate at a glance seemed to be saying something else while asking me to take care of the child. Though he didn’t reach out to grab me, the eyes that glimpsed between the palms covering to hide his tears were desperate. They were terribly tired eyes. I felt déjà vu. Were my eyes like that back then too? If the teacher hadn’t comforted me, wouldn’t I have continued making such a face until now? Then your making such a face now means there’s no one by your side to comfort you…
If I shook my head here, wouldn’t Eorin collapse? Scared of that, I accepted Eorin’s words.
“What was so… to you…”
In the unfamiliar room, on the new bed I was sitting on for the first time, I suddenly muttered. What was so precious to you? What did you lose that you made such a face standing at the edge of a cliff? Haebam? Or… your marriage partner… or something. Having thought that far, I forcibly pulled up my depressed self and returned to the starting point.
What did Eorin really want to ask of me?
I pitied Eorin, and was seized by the petty and arrogant thought that extending a hand to Eorin who was conveying a ‘request’ to me might be able to hold onto Eorin who might collapse. It was a thought so easy and tempting that all those times I had struggled to bury my past stained with wounds felt cruel. My head nodded very lightly.
That’s how I returned to Eorin’s side with my own feet. There was a me rejoicing at that and a me shaking my head saying no more. Eorin had no fault at all in all those things that happened to me. If you think about it, Eorin was also a victim. However, I was scared of meeting Eorin’s world again. The longing that would consume me the moment I reunited with fragments of the past was overwhelming. Though it had become useless now.
