Avoiding Jung Hyun-wook’s gaze, I cleanly emptied my ramen bowl.
***
Actually, human prejudice might be quite solid. Just because the shell surrounding him had changed, I began to reevaluate Jung Hyun-wook’s essence as well.
If you looked closely, Jung Hyun-wook had aspects that made it strange not to notice he was like a rich family’s young master.
What he handed to me after I finished eating ramen was underwear and socks still in their packaging. When I glanced at his drawer, one corner was stacked with unopened underwear and socks.
“Wash up and come out. The size won’t fit, but it’s better than nothing.”
I felt it from the first time I entered the rooftop room. It was a narrow and shabby room, but the blankets and clothes were creased as if measured with a ruler. He was obsessively neat.
Probably in Jung Hyun-wook’s real home, new things were always supplied before he even needed them.
I thought this while watching him crouched in the bathroom with broken tiles, washing the pants, t-shirt, underwear, and socks that had gotten dirty in the filth last night.
When I was little, I had a habit of biting my nails. Mom would give me chocolate or candy if I held back from biting for a whole day. She tried to fix the bad habit that way.
Looking back, that habit was a sign of my anxiety. So whenever I let my guard down even a little, my hand naturally went to my mouth. It was difficult to break.
Stressed about breaking my promise with Mom, I cried one day. Mom stroked my head and said.
‘You can develop new habits. But people can’t break habits they have even if they die trying.’
It meant that’s how hard it was for people to change. That particular saying remained vividly in my memory. Mom probably meant it as words of comfort, but it remained as fear for me and made me stop biting my nails right away.
“What was your original home like?”
Veins rose on the back of the hand beating the laundry.
“It was very big. There was a garden too. Actually, when I was young, those things were so natural that I didn’t really know. I never thought about wanting something. Before I even wanted it, everything I needed was already prepared.”
The young master who would destroy all the household items just to boil one ramen, who lived without ever getting his hands wet, is now doing everything with his own hands.
Mom’s words that had frightened me in the past came to mind.
“My mom once said this. People can develop new habits, but they can’t break habits they have even if they die trying. But you abandoned everything you had and chose a completely different life. That takes more than ordinary resolve.”
Fear was the mast of my life. I didn’t want to live like Mom, and I always guarded against myself with my father’s blood flowing through me. The habit I couldn’t break despite loving candy and chocolate, I threw away like dumping dirty trash under a telephone pole because I became afraid of the words that bad temperament was hard to discard even unto death.
But Jung Hyun-wook was different. He was a person who changed for something better. That’s why he calmed the nameless fears inside me.
When we hung the laundry in the space barely big enough for two people to lie down, there wasn’t even a place to stand. We packed our bags and left. When coming down the narrow, steep stairs where two people couldn’t even stand side by side, my phone rang. It was Jong-hwa.
“Yeah.”
Creak— The stiff iron door made an unpleasant sound.
“Where are you?”
I thought he’d be angry, but this was… well, he was angry but trying hard to hide it. That guy isn’t the type to hide and hold back.
“I’m on my way to school.”
No response.
“You sure you’re going to school?”
“Why.”
My mind worked quickly.
“Are you bringing a girl over again?”
Silence fell. This is bad. I seemed to have made him angrier.
“Ha! Fuck, here he goes spinning his head again. If you stayed out and went somewhere else, you’re dead to me.”
“I said I’m on my way to school…. It’s true.”
When I spoke in a subdued voice, instead of pressing further, he shouted.
“Eat before you go. There’s no sign you ate!”
“Okay. I’ll definitely eat…!”
The call was roughly cut off. At this level, he was pissed…. When I sighed softly, Jung Hyun-wook stopped walking and asked.
“Have you brought girls home?”
Is he curious about that? The story behind it was long but not one worth telling Jung Hyun-wook.
“Yeah.”
“A girlfriend?”
I recalled the woman in a miniskirt with a pretty smile.
“That… I don’t think so.”
“You’ve been living together since leaving the orphanage?”
“Yeah.”
“He seemed different from you.”
He was saying in a roundabout way that he didn’t like Jong-hwa. But no matter what Jung Hyun-wook thought, Jong-hwa and I were similar.
“If you didn’t like him, then I might have lots of unlikeable corners you don’t know about too…. Because he and I are similar.”
“I don’t like hearing that.”
This time I stopped. When I looked at him as if asking what he meant, he shrugged his shoulders.
“You don’t seem to know this, but you use the words ‘similar’ and ‘I like’ interchangeably. You feel favorable toward people who are similar to you.”
I felt caught off guard. I pondered Jung Hyun-wook’s words for a long time. Meanwhile, he who had been walking quite ahead stopped and turned around, asking loudly.
“Do you feel like we’re different now?”
I don’t know. The face with still-wet hair hidden under a black hoodie, smiling innocently, was just Jung Hyun-wook, a twenty-year-old guy. I didn’t want to think about much.
I ran to him and grabbed his wrist.
“We have to run. We’ll be late.”
Like that, instead of answering, I ran holding Jung Hyun-wook’s hand while facing the morning breeze.
***
My head ached as if it would split all day. It was because I didn’t sleep properly last night. I somehow forced myself to endure at school, but after coming to the convenience store, it truly felt like my head was splitting in half.
Fortunately, there were no customers. I was dozing off like a sick chicken when it happened. After midnight passed, the delivery truck arrived. I jumped up, opened the glass door wide, and moved plastic boxes inside.
Someone snatched the box from my hands. Jung Hyun-wook, who had suddenly burst in, moved the items faster than me. I checked the ordered items against the product list with the delivery driver without even time to be surprised.
“The new part-timer has a good build. I was busy anyway but we unloaded quickly today. Thank you.”
Jung Hyun-wook did the work and I received the thanks. While the driver and I exchanged greetings, Jung Hyun-wook neatly stacked the boxes in front of the display shelves.
“What brings you here?”
“I got fired so I have no work now. I thought you’d be tired so I came to help. Rest a bit.”
He took off his jacket in earnest and rolled up his sleeves. He began displaying items in front of the stacked boxes. Jung Hyun-wook was unexpectedly good at work. Without being told, he found where items belonged and displayed them according to expiration dates.
“Oh, that needs to go back there.”
I sat comfortably at the register and bossed Jung Hyun-wook around. After finishing organizing even the tricky-to-display beverages, he approached while sweating.
I took out cold bottled water from the refrigerator, rang it up, and handed it to Jung Hyun-wook. The bottle of water that looked cold just thinking about it quickly went down his throat.
“You drink cold things really well.”
“Maybe because my body runs hot. Do you like hot things because your hands and feet are cold?”
“My hands and feet aren’t cold though.”
Suddenly, Jung Hyun-wook’s thick fingers dug between my fingers. When his hand wrapped around mine, the protruding knuckles passed as if tracing my fingers. My fingertips tingled for a moment so I moved my hand, but he didn’t release the tightly intertwined handhold.
“Look at this. Your hands are cold. Your feet are cold too. I noticed when I took off your socks yesterday.”
“Why…! Taking off someone’s socks without permission.”
He said mischievously with a smile.
“I didn’t take off your clothes.”
My face turned bright red and I pulled my hand away.
As morning approached, I dozed off openly. My head that swayed intermittently bumped against Jung Hyun-wook’s shoulder. He slyly caught my head and fixed it next to his shoulder.
“Go inside and get some sleep.”
I couldn’t quite leave the register to Jung Hyun-wook. Still, after dozing off with peace of mind, my splitting headache subsided.
But once the drowsiness poured out, it was difficult to control my body, so I left the convenience store after changing shifts in a half-asleep, half-awake state.
“Want to sleep at my place?”
