“This is….”
The man felt as if his eyes were about to go blind. His head stiffened like a stone as if he’d seen Medusa, and dizziness pierced through his brain as if he’d swallowed poison.
“It’s Managing Director Gi’s….”
birthday soon, so….
Lee Woonghee muttered in a tone as gloomy as storm clouds. Pinned beneath the man’s body, he hunched his shoulders. His transparent eyes, like glass beads, rolled around aimlessly here and there. Exactly like a child waiting for punishment.
Watching that sight, the man’s chest began to pound fiercely—thump, thump. As if the toxicity had finally pierced through to his heart, it felt like his heart would burst out from between his thick ribs at any moment.
“Those shoes you gave me must have been expensive….”
The poisonous red lips moved. Everything except that was dyed pitch black. Time seemed to have stopped. It was as if everything was perpetuated in those lips.
A frozen world. Within the man’s world, only Lee Woonghee moved with color and rhythm. Only he was alive and breathing.
If he were to return to being thirteen years old and receive the question from an art therapist to draw the world, that face would fill the man’s entire white canvas….
Lee Woonghee, like a mermaid blushing with shame as if revealing his face to this world for the first time—the man stared at him in a daze, as if he’d discovered a treasure from the deep sea.
“Your feet have a lot of wounds.”
“Ah, that, well….”
Lee Woonghee looked up at the man and wriggled his toes. His bare feet curled inward as if unbearably embarrassed. Those small movements revealed his heart before words could.
Lee Woonghee’s eyes, which had been wandering anxiously in all directions, suddenly fixed firmly on one spot. Then his large eyes filled with shock.
“Whoa…!”
Soon those red lips parted wide. The man’s eyes, which were trying not to miss even a single moment of Lee Woonghee or the view he was seeing, followed him as well.
The onlookers were standing far away. But among them, a small child was running toward them, wobbling on unsteady limbs. With only large round eyes open wide on a small face, both gazes were directed precisely at Lee Woonghee. Small palms flailed in the air as if calling for Lee Woonghee.
Soon, unable to properly control that body, the child wobbled and then—whoosh—fell over. It was because shoes that were too big for that small frame had been put on.
The clothes were torn here and there, and the face showed signs of poverty. But only the shoes were excessively luxurious.
[Tanya, come here!]
From behind, a woman who appeared to be the mother rushed out and quickly picked up the child.
Those shoes were none other than the ones Lee Woonghee had been wearing.
The man couldn’t help but know. From Lee Woonghee’s head to his toes, everything he wore, ate, and filled himself with had to pass through the man’s hands one by one.
However.
While putting everything into Lee Woonghee’s grasp, scraps of bills were the exception. In case he might run away, in case that money would become the foundation for it. So Lee Woonghee had exchanged those shoes for a lighter. For a trashy lighter like this.
“That, you see, Managing Director Gi…. I didn’t have any money.”
Lee Woonghee was watching that child with a face full of embarrassment. His face was flushed with worry. He looked as if he might approach and check on the child at any moment.
The man grabbed that chin and pulled it sharply back toward himself.
“Don’t look away.”
Then he lifted Lee Woonghee’s body up. The man took off the dress shoes he was wearing and kicked them away with his foot—swoosh.
The sleek dress shoes rolled across the dirty ground, getting filthy. Then the man turned his back sharply and headed toward the cruise ship.
Following his movements, the crowd parted like the Red Sea.
“Ma-Managing Director Gi…!”
Managing Director Gi, who would immediately throw used blankets into the trash and wouldn’t use the same cup twice because it was unsanitary, walked barefoot on the streets of a country without proper paving.
‘The obsession and compulsion with excessive cleanliness intersects with sociopathic tendencies…. Though there may not be a clear causal relationship.’
There was an essence underlying it. A controlling tendency. One that was only satisfied when other things were made to kneel at his feet.
But right now, hygiene—such a trivial thing—wasn’t important to the man. The system of priorities in the man’s head was breaking down. The priorities he’d established all this time were crumbling.
Emotions were no longer something to be learned.
Because that monstrous thing was trying to devour him…. He gripped the lighter tightly in his hand—squeeze.
“Excuse me, Managing Director Gi!”
He heard a desperate voice calling from behind, but the man didn’t look back even once. However, he could tell. That splish-splash sound of wetness hitting the dirt ground. It was certain that Lee Woonghee was following him, trampling the dirt ground with those white bare feet.
He himself was barefoot too. The man unknowingly let out a chuckle—a small laugh. Walking together with Lee Woonghee, even treading bare ground with bare feet didn’t feel too bad.
Ridiculously enough….
Soon he boarded the cruise ship and disappeared into the room, slamming the door shut—bang.
***
Woonghee was staring at the closed door. It had already been half a day since he’d entered that room. The dusky night had come to the window in the corridor, and now the bright afternoon sunlight was beating down.
Woonghee raised his fist, then lowered it again.
“…Shit.”
Where should he even start apologizing for what? For running out like a dog off its leash again after saying so insistently that he wouldn’t run away? For the lighter he’d prepared as a birthday present being too cheap? Was it a gift that didn’t suit him too much, someone whose every eyebrow hair was a luxury brand? Besides, even that had been bought with money from pawning the shoes the man had bought for him….
“…….”
Woonghee wriggled his toes. Inside the slippery sneakers, Woonghee’s toes squirmed. Like the legs of a squid with its head cut off. In the end, he had retrieved those shoes.
Of course, since he didn’t have a single penny, he had to borrow money. From none other than that server.
‘Excuse me….’
Woonghee had cautiously called out to the server, who had been expressing great worry and concern since the man had secluded himself.
‘Yes, if you need anything at all, please feel free to speak. We always prioritize our customers’ convenience first and foremost….’
When had he been spouting such kind words.
‘Could I possibly borrow some money?’
‘Pardon?’
As soon as Woonghee brought up money, the server immediately made a disgusted face. Then he looked Woonghee up and down with suspicious eyes.
‘You’re not trying to run away with that money….’
‘Would that work?’
After buying small shoes like that, he found the child he’d seen yesterday and gave him the shoes along with the money. And he retrieved these sneakers. The shoes the man had bought for him.
“Hah….”
Woonghee let out a small breath.
Originally, he wasn’t the type to hesitate or avoid things like this. If he thought he needed to apologize to someone, he’d act on it right away. He thought avoiding things was what cowards did….
Why was he hesitating so much? An inexplicable fear washed over Woonghee. A vague anxiety about what if, just what if, he were to be rejected by the man.
He was just hesitating, thinking that seeing his face might make him even angrier.
The door suddenly opened from inside.
“…….”
“…….”
Silence flowed for a while. Right, this was the kind of relationship the man and he had. A relationship where they could sense each other’s presence without having to knock on doors or open them.
Woonghee couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes.
That face he’d wanted to run away from so badly, but ultimately couldn’t escape. After seeing the white bird, he remembered the eyes of the man who had yearned for the swan. Because his voice echoed in his head, he couldn’t take a single step further.
It had only been two months together so far….
How much more would he become entangled with this man in the remaining two months? Already the fear of being rejected had taken root in him.
The man blocking the doorway with cold eyes seemed to be warning him with his entire body. Don’t cross the line, and if you have business, spout it from there and get lost.
“Are you still angry…?”
Woonghee cautiously broached the subject. He couldn’t tell exactly what had provoked him, but the man had definitely changed since yesterday.
“…….”
Look at him now, not saying anything. The area under the man’s eyes, visible under the lighting, was red. It seemed like he was trying to hide something, or like he had a cold coming on….
“Are you sick somewhere?”
Why was he acting like this? Wasn’t he the one who always smiled slowly while arrogantly manipulating others’ emotions and thoughts? But now his pupils were shaking. His eyes directed at Woonghee were strangely wavering, and his fingers were futilely gripping the doorframe.
It was as if he himself was confused about how to handle this emotion.
It was hard to believe, but he somehow seemed to be embarrassed.
