“Wait, wait — this shirt. No way. Hey, what the hell, did you win the lottery?”
He made a fuss, even checking the brand label on the shirt Munyeong was wearing.
“No. There were circumstances. I have to give it back.”
“Oh, you borrowed it? I mean, even if you borrowed it — when would you ever wear something like this.”
Shin Juho asked, flat and suspicious. The underlying dismissal in his words was obvious, but Munyeong answered the same as always, as if it were nothing.
“Right.”
Shin Juho wasn’t wrong. Munyeong had never once imagined a situation in his life where he’d be wearing something like this. Not the cheap hundred-thousand-won suit he’d bought from an outlet for a job interview, but a suit with actual worth — the kind that transformed a person just by putting it on. But it wasn’t his.
“Ugh…. Hey, can’t I wear it out just once tomorrow?”
“It’ll be too small on you.”
“No, what if I squeeze into it somehow?”
Shin Juho eyed the suit with the look of a man staring at fruit he couldn’t eat, making no effort to hide his longing.
They’d known each other since the orphanage, but the reunion had happened five years ago. Munyeong had been doing delivery work in a busy part of the city when he ran into Shin Juho getting beaten up by gang members in the street. Whatever had gone on, Shin Juho was in rough shape — his face wrecked from the beating, with no home to his name, drifting from place to place. At the time they met, Shin Juho had been working as a host at a host bar in one of Seoul’s busier entertainment districts.
Munyeong had assumed Shin Juho would pretend not to know him. Shin Juho had always been good at reading a room — back in the orphanage, he’d run with the group of kids who had power. So he’d never gone hungry, always slept somewhere decent. The orphanage director and the staff had been fond of him, so he’d even gotten new uniforms. Outside, he’d kept himself so clean-cut that no one would ever have guessed he’d come from an orphanage.
Even so, Shin Juho had occasionally looked out for Munyeong. When asked why, he’d said that Munyeong — always yielding, always the last in line for meals, year after year — had seemed pitiful at first, but eventually started getting on his nerves in the way that made him actually care. So he’d secretly slipped him food now and then, and sometimes lent him manga from school to read. Kindness. Shin Juho had been a rare kid back then, one of the few who’d shown it.
That was generally how it went. Orphanage kids you ran into out in the world would avoid you — like the one he’d met at a warehouse job. To hide how low they’d fallen, and because they didn’t want to dredge up that wretched past. But Shin Juho had greeted him the moment he saw him, battered face and all, with an enthusiastic “Hey, Im Munyeong! You bastard, it’s been forever!” — the way you’d greet an old friend.
After that, they’d stayed in each other’s lives. Shin Juho’s living situation kept shifting as he worked the host scene and latched onto various women, and whenever they turned him out, he’d end up pulling all-nighters at a PC café — so Munyeong opened his place to him. It was a place that was just right for one person. Under thirty square meters, but it had a living room and a kitchen, and a small bedroom. It was a place he’d barely managed to scrape together with money saved from working as hard as he could. Not a full lease, just a partial deposit arrangement — but he’d told himself it was a place he’d earned through honest living.
Seeing it, Shin Juho had been genuinely envious. After that, Shin Juho started coming and going like it was his own home. Munyeong had told him to — it was the whole reason he’d let him know about the place. He’d just wanted to help. Life was hard for both of them the same way. They’d both been thrown away by their parents the same way — and if he could help, he wanted to. And it was the first time. The only person who had ever treated him like an actual friend.
“Hey, but can’t you go around looking like this more often?”
Shin Juho looked at Munyeong with his hair neatly pushed back and let out an admiring groan.
“You look so much better. You’re always walking around with your hair hanging down all dark and gloomy. Hm?”
Shin Juho fiddled with Munyeong’s hair and carried on, clearly pleased with himself — and Munyeong found it so absurd he could only smile faintly. Just then, the thing he’d been tidying slipped from his hand. His fingers, which cramped out of habit, couldn’t hold the grip.
“Starting again.”
Shin Juho said it casually, as though it were a familiar sight.
“Sorry.”
Munyeong apologized out of habit and hid his hand.
“Oh, shut up. What are you sorry for?”
“No, I just…”
“God. Every time you do that it drives me insane. What’s the big deal, why are you always sorry.”
“…Out of habit. Sorry.”
“Again. Again.”
Shin Juho pointed at him and put on a serious face, and Munyeong pressed his lips together and smiled awkwardly.
“Ugh, that guy should know about this too.”
Shin Juho shook his head. He was the only one who knew the story behind the hand.
“Why do you keep doing that.”
He said the same thing every time it came up.
“You, living like this — hurting like this and grinding through every day.”
“…That was so long ago.”
“If you save someone’s life, they owe you something for it — instead this person just completely washes their hands of it. Huh? You got hurt and they didn’t even take you to the hospital. When they should be tripping over themselves to repay you.”
Shin Juho scrunched up his face in indignation and grumbled, like he’d been personally wronged. He’d blow up about it like this sometimes, as if it had happened to him. He didn’t know exactly who the other person was, but he had a rough idea of the situation. Munyeong didn’t think of it as a welcome topic and changed the subject.
“Drop it. Have you eaten?”
“Yeah. There were rice balls in the fridge?”
“Good.”
He’d made them that morning while packing his lunch, just in case — apparently they’d been put to good use.
He changed into comfortable clothes and opened the fridge, poured cold water into a cup, and drank it. Finally, a sense of calm washed over him — like he might actually be alive.
When he came out of the shower, Shin Juho still hadn’t let go of his attachment to the suit — he was holding it up against his own body.
“If only the size had been right.”
Shin Juho was five centimeters taller than Munyeong, and had a decent amount of muscle on him. He’d said he’d built the body for the host work, but even after quitting, he’d kept it up. Something about how it helped him attract women — he’d gone on about that at length.
The life Munyeong was hearing about from Shin Juho, meeting again after five years, was unremarkable in the way these things usually were.
He and a friend from the orphanage had started out diligently, working part-time jobs from scratch. At first, Shin Juho had even had ambitions — work hard and make something of himself — but life wasn’t that forgiving. Working himself to death like a hamster on a wheel, then coming home to a five-pyeong goshiwon, the pointlessness would creep in. Other goshiwon residents at least studied to try to get ahead — but no matter how hard he worked, nothing changed for him. A five-pyeong goshiwon reeking of mold. That was the ceiling.
Feeling that honest living would never get him out of that life, Shin Juho and his friend started looking for higher-paying work. One thing led to another until it brought him to the host scene. But the more he earned, the more his ambitions grew, and he kept sinking deeper like something being swallowed into a bog. The friend he’d been living with — wanting to make it big on the little he had — ended up getting into crypto and sports betting, and now his whereabouts were unknown. At least Shin Juho’s own situation — owing a bit of money to the bar owners who ran things — was better than that.
But only better than a friend who’d vanished. His own situation wasn’t much different.
To squeeze in one more client, he’d humiliate himself completely, groveling in whatever way he had to. When clients came in, he’d drink through to the early hours until he was heaving up stomach acid. On top of that, the crypto he’d gotten into because of that friend had left him with advances that turned straight into debt. In the host world, an advance was debt with interest. It got him marked by the bar owners, who started sending him only the worst clients, and wouldn’t hesitate to beat him when a complaint came in — so he walked around with new wounds every day. Then one day, after Munyeong had been working all night and come home, he carefully woke the dead-to-the-world Shin Juho. And then, with quiet resolve, told him he had something to ask.
How much is the debt?
Shin Juho had been genuinely glad to run into Im Munyeong again. Among all the dozens of kids scrambling fiercely to survive in the orphanage, Munyeong had been the most easygoing. To put it badly, he’d been easy to take advantage of — to put it kindly, he was good-natured, and that had caught Shin Juho’s attention from time to time.
…Some.
How much?
Not an interrogating tone. Not a scolding one. A calm, quiet voice asking the question.
Ah, why.
……
Shin Juho snapped back, not wanting to answer — but Munyeong looked at him without any change in expression, just a steady, penetrating stare. That gaze felt like something was being jabbed into him. At himself, living so pathetically.
…About three million.
Shin Juho mumbled it quietly, voice trailing off in embarrassment. Three million — easy to say, but even if he threw in his entire month’s pay, he’d be short on living expenses that same month and end up right back in debt. It was an endless cycle of plugging one hole with another.
If I pay it off… will you quit?
