While I was getting the cigarette, he scanned under the counter with his eyes, then put up a strawberry-flavored lollipop. A condom and a lollipop. Really incongruous. Jung Hyun-wook tapped the counter. A gesture asking what I was dawdling for. Beep! I quickly pressed the button. I selected middle-aged male. It was petty revenge.
This time too, he left after placing bills and coins with the exact amount. There wasn’t even time to stupidly open and close my mouth with words that wouldn’t come out in front of him. It was rather fortunate.
Jung Hyun-wook lit a cigarette in front of the convenience store. A red light flared up at the tip of his lips. Thin smoke split the darkness of dawn. I stared at the cigarette held between his thick finger joints for a long time. It was strange. A scene I always saw felt unfamiliar.
Without realizing it, I kept looking at him when a woman approached from the alley corner. The woman carrying a large violin case on her shoulder was a beauty. Jung Hyun-wook immediately put out the cigarette. The cigarette was still long. He extinguished it without regret.
When Jung Hyun-wook took the woman’s violin case, she linked arms with him. They were a well-matched couple to anyone’s eyes. I was curious about Jung Hyun-wook’s expression hidden by the cap. The expression of Jung Hyun-wook, who never once met my eyes the entire time he was in the convenience store.
***
On Ahn Jong-hwa’s bare back, white pain relief patches wandered without finding their way. The awful patch smell stung my nose.
“Hey hey, not there—a bit higher.”
“Here?”
“No! A bit more to the side. Yeah yeah, there.”
A few days ago, Jong-hwa crashed his motorcycle into a utility pole trying to avoid a child that jumped out in an alley. Fortunately, he wasn’t seriously injured, but there wasn’t a single intact spot from his side to his back.
“Ah, fuck, it hurts like hell.”
Jong-hwa grimaced while exhaling cigarette smoke. His bare ribcage and abs were bruised all over.
“Didn’t you even break a bone? Let’s go to the hospital.”
“If I broke a bone, could I be running package loading and unloading so fine like this?”
“What’s fine about you? You came home early because it was hard.”
“Thanks to that, we got to eat breakfast together for the first time in a while.”
Jong-hwa started clearing the table he’d eaten at. He put the side dish containers in the refrigerator and put the dishes in the sink. With the shortened cigarette butt crookedly in his mouth, he did the dishes.
“How’s school?”
“Just…”
“What do you mean just? Did you make some friends? Even if weird bastards come talk to you, pick your friends carefully. You know, the ones who seem to have something. There should be a lot at that school.”
Smoking a cigarette, he roughly washed the dishes with one hand. A loud noise rang out. I’d be fortunate if the dishes didn’t break. I let out a small sigh while packing my bag.
“No one’s talking to me. They probably don’t even know who I am.”
Saying that, I felt a bit strange. Jung Hyun-wook didn’t recognize me either. I put the philosophy of law textbook in my bag. It was a liberal arts class I took with Jung Hyun-wook.
“There you go with that shit again. There aren’t two people with a face like yours at that school. Stop being picky and hang out with kids from rich families.”
I don’t know about kids from rich families, but I know a kid who does early morning work like me.
“In my department… I think there’s a kid similar to me.”
“Similar?”
“A kid who does early morning work. I ran into him at the convenience store.”
A dry dishcloth flew over. Jong-hwa, who abandoned the dishes, grabbed my head and shook it.
“Fuck, you gonna act pathetic as a set? Hyo-kyung! Please. You idiot moron!”
“Let go of this…”
He stuck his fingers in my hair and messed it up. I shrank my shoulders as Ahn Jong-hwa’s fingers crawled on my scalp.
“You fucking—all you have is this head of yours. Didn’t I tell you to live putting power in your brain? Let me be the end of empty-headed broke bastards around you. Got it?”
“He’s… not empty-headed. He’s smart. Top of the class.”
Jong-hwa’s eyebrow tips rose. He immediately pressed the cigarette he was holding onto the floor. I urgently snatched the cigarette away. I hit his shoulder.
“You’ll make a hole in the floor!”
“By any chance, that thug bastard who gave the freshman oath? The top student is from your department.”
The finicky landlord who called about rent every day might see this and demand payment for the floor.
“No wonder. I wondered how a delinquent punk with an unlucky face got into that school. A dragon from the gutter, huh. Hey! A bastard who only has his brain is the most dangerous. Don’t associate with him at all. Those ruthless bastards backstab the people around them without any blood or tears!”
“Are you talking about me?”
“Not you, you idiot!”
Ahn Jong-hwa always told me to make lots of friends when I went to college, but he had a lot of conditions—this person won’t do for this reason, that person won’t do for that reason. According to him, why would kids who grew up in wealthy families being loved with good natures hang out with me?
“He’s just living diligently. Because he has nothing, more diligently than others.”
I pointlessly pouted my lips and put on my bag. Ahn Jong-hwa hurriedly pulled on the T-shirt that had fallen on the floor and followed me out. The narrow alley densely packed with old multi-family houses was quiet. Jong-hwa kicked the cigarette butts piled in front of the semi-basement window with his slipper soles and got irritated. The butts scattered all over the neighborhood floor.
“Those fucking bastards! Smoking in front of other people’s houses and not even cleaning up. Shitty bastards!”
Jong-hwa shouted loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear on purpose. Curses echoed through the quiet alley. I took out tissue from my bag and picked up the butts.
“Why the fuck are you picking that up!”
My wrist was yanked and the tissue fell to the ground. When I bent down to pick it up again, Jong-hwa yelled.
“Anyway, fuck. Can’t be stopped, angel disease. Just go to school! I’ll clean it up.”
Jong-hwa, crumpling his large body, picked up the butts from the ground one by one. My toes stuck out beyond my slippers that I’d put on in a rush. I rubbed the back of his disheveled head.
“Want to come in front of our school today? Let’s have dinner together after class. Then I’ll go to the convenience store and you go to delivery work.”
“Don’t wanna.”
Jong-hwa said, holding tissue full of butts rolled up. It was a blunt face.
“Why.”
“Your friends will see.”
“I don’t have friends.”
“No! Fuck, anyway. The kids taking classes with you might see.”
Jong-hwa still didn’t meet me well outside. The reason was that if a thug like him followed me around, unnecessary rumors would spread. Of course, Ahn Jong-hwa had a face that looked like trouble to anyone.
“Then we can’t meet outside?”
It’s a face asking what kind of absurd question is that.
“Why should we meet? We can see each other at home. I decided to take a break from morning work until the day after tomorrow, so let’s eat breakfast together tomorrow too. Is there anything you want to eat? Should we have pork belly for the first time in a while?”
Pork belly from the morning… When I grumbled, he pushed my butt with his bare foot telling me to stop talking nonsense and go to school.
“Hurry and go! Will being late work? Won’t it?!”
Checking the time, I ran through the alley and said:
“Not pork belly—pork neck!”
***
In the last class of the afternoon, all the students were typically a bit tired. So when entering the lecture hall, a quiet atmosphere usually hung about. But today was strange. The area around Jung Hyun-wook’s usual seat was noisy with students.
“Hyun-wook-ah, are you okay? How did this happen? It must be really inconvenient since it’s your hand.”
Jung Hyun-wook’s left hand was wrapped in bandages.
“Then you’ll rest from work today, right? Want to have a drink today? I’ll treat!”
“Crazy bastard! He’s injured and you’re asking him to drink first thing?”
“That’s not what I meant! It’s just that Hyun-wook is always busy with work…”
“I have to go to work today too.”
When ten questions fell, Jung Hyun-wook barely answered one. The female students all pretended not to listen but had their interest focused.
“Wow shit! He injured his arm at work like this and they still make him come in? It’s a sweatshop.”
Looking closely, he wasn’t that kind, didn’t smile well, and only answered questions briefly at best—so why do they all gather around Jung Hyun-wook like that? It seemed strange that Jung Hyun-wook, who seemed uninterested in anyone, was someone who received interest from everyone.
