The morning sunlight is unusually gentle.
Not sharp like the midday sun, not cool like the hour before sunset. I settled quietly onto an old bench. The wooden bench was so worn that it creaked with even the slightest shift of weight, but even that sound felt soft.
I tore open a triangle kimbap and put it in my mouth.
I’d finished it in two bites before I’d even had a chance to taste it, and out of reluctance, I picked off the grains of rice stuck to my fingers and ate those too. I shoved the wrapper loosely into my pocket, then pulled out a roasted egg. There were two inside — I took one, peeled the shell, and popped the whole thing into my mouth.
There was a mild eggy smell and a faint char to it, but I finished that in an instant too. I was just in the middle of peeling the shell off the last remaining egg when —
A dog crouched not far from me caught my eye. It was skinny to the point where its bones showed, and its dull, patchy fur was falling out in places. Sickly at a single glance.
I tried to ignore it and was about to put the rest of the egg in my mouth when —
The dog and I made eye contact. Unusually blue, pretty eyes.
“…….”
In the end, I tossed the egg I was holding to the dog with the pretty eyes. The dog slowly got up, buried its nose into the fallen egg, and then ate it in a frenzy. One egg must not have been enough to fill its hollow stomach — when it was done, it lifted its head and looked at me. Looking at me like that won’t get you anything more.
I quietly stood up.
And trudged on my way again.
I passed through the Slope and was heading down the stone steps when I stopped abruptly and let out a sigh.
“Haa….”
This is why I shouldn’t have bothered sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong.
The skin-and-bones dog was following me.
I turned around to face it and said —
“Go. Don’t follow me.”
I waved my hand once. For some reason, I felt like even just that would get through to it. And sure enough, the dog stopped following and simply sat there, watching me.
It must have been around five in the afternoon when the gentle morning sunlight vanished without a trace, and rain began to fall — first one drop, then two — before it poured down in full. I didn’t think there had been any rain in the forecast, and it wasn’t a passing shower either.
Any other time, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought whether it was raining or snowing outside. But for some reason — I couldn’t explain it — a strange, uncomfortable feeling gnawed at me and I stepped out through the front gate.
I climbed back up the stone steps and came out of the alley, and sure enough… the dog that had followed me all the way here was still sitting right where it had been.
“…….”
We made eye contact again. The curled-up dog lifted its head and looked at me.
I stood in silence for a moment, then slowly bent down and reached my hand out toward it. The dog walked over slowly, touched its nose to my fingertips, and then quietly came into my arms.
And that was the first time I lit the coal briquette since coming to this place.
In the room that was hot to the point of scorching, the sickly dog lay flat and didn’t move. I kept watching it, wondering if it had died — but it seemed like it had simply fallen asleep, exhausted from a long life on the streets.
The rain had stopped at some point.
I got up and looked down at the dog, still unable to wake from its sleep. The dog hadn’t even shaken out its wet fur — it had climbed up onto the blanket I’d tossed out carelessly, curled itself into a ball, and gone still. The narrow single room filled instantly with the smell of dog, and the blanket and floor were caked with muddy water — but it didn’t feel dirty. I just looked at the dog, indifferent.
A coal briquette lasts six hours at most.
“I can’t take responsibility for you.”
As if it had heard me, one of the dog’s ears flicked — but it didn’t open its eyes. I looked at the dog pretending to sleep and said:
“So go somewhere. Anywhere.”
At least it would be better than being with me.
When I left for work, I kept the front gate open.
For anyone, anything.
To leave whenever it wanted to.
* * *
Second day at West Hollywood.
Out of habit, I came in through the back door. I smoothed out my disheveled hair, and like changing into a work uniform, I switched into the clothes the boss had given me. And of course, the mask pressed onto my face as well. The mask that covered half my face was still uncomfortable.
West Hollywood, which had opened its doors a while ago, was beginning to fill with customers in earnest. The same unhinged world from yesterday — as though completely severed from the outside.
Blinding lights, a mix of music, the nauseating smell of cigarettes and perfume.
And —
The boss, loud as ever.
“Oh, you scared me! What are you, a little rat? Why do you keep sneaking in through the back, you pain in the ass!”
“…….”
“How’s the cough?”
“Gone.”
“You went to the hospital, right?”
“Yes.”
That was a lie.
I said yes because saying no felt like it would drag the conversation out.
“You do look a bit better than yesterday, I’ll give you that. But what on earth are you wearing? Where did you dig up those out-of-fashion rags!”
“…….”
He hadn’t even recognized that the clothes were the ones he’d given me yesterday.
The boss grumbled but still ran his eyes up and down me.
“But then again, you’ve got such a nice body, so it doesn’t look too bad….”
He stepped forward, closing the distance. Despite the way he talked, he was a big man, and with his rough hands, he buttoned my collar all the way up to the top again as he spoke.
“Hey, you didn’t forget what I told you yesterday, did you?”
“To watch out for the crazy bastards?”
“No. You just need to watch out for all of them.”
“…….”
The boss gave a light smile and patted my chest a couple of times, now neatly done up.
“Now go on. Same room as yesterday.”
I nodded at his words and made my way through the lounge toward the floor with the VIP rooms. I was cutting through just as casually as yesterday — but something felt off.
Players and customers alike — for a moment, everyone’s attention had turned to my movements.
Nothing about me was particularly different from yesterday. Even with the mask on, it wasn’t like I was the only one wearing one. And yet, a sticky gaze seemed to follow me, persistently and unmistakably.
I quietly took stock of those stares.
The players’ gazes were cold. The customers’ gazes were filthy.
…Doesn’t seem like I’m imagining it.
Figuring it was better to get up there quickly, I picked up my pace — and just as I was about to head up —
Someone stepped into my path.
“You new here?”
He was a man who looked slick on the surface — but with that pungent mix of cologne and alcohol, something about him came across as sordid.
The VIP room was on the 4th floor.
Customers used the elevator; players used the stairs — which meant I inevitably had to pass through the 1st floor hall to reach the staircase visible from there. The 2nd floor required a membership; the 3rd floor took members but still screened customers based on conditions. And the 4th floor was VIP-only. The players assigned to each floor were ranked accordingly, in what could only be called tiers.
So when they saw me heading toward the stairs, stares had burned into the back of my head.
Who the hell is that, and why is he going up there — that must have been the thought.
“Strange. If you’d just arrived, there’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed you.”
The man blocking my path was wearing a decent-looking suit, but the buttons were crooked, and his trousers weren’t even buckled. On top of that, his shirt was soaked through and reeked — and I finally understood how the people who’d gagged and bolted the moment they put on the rotting mascot costume must have felt.
“With a face bad enough to hide behind a fucking mask, how ugly do you have to be? Huh?”
An unexpectedly accurate read — my head nodded on its own.
“A little shit who can’t even show his face….”
The difficult customer trailed off and narrowed his eyes. Then he looked me up and down. This was only my second day on the job, and the feeling of being a raw mackerel at a fish market kept creeping up on me at regular intervals.
“But the body doesn’t look too bad.”
Then he licked his lips like he was performing it for show, and a raw, visceral revulsion surged up in me. At the same time, a question rose in my mind.
How did he get in?
The 2nd and 3rd floors were membership-based, and to some extent, even troublesome customers were tolerated — but the 1st floor hall was different. The boss had been strict about screening the clientele, saying that if the lower level was decent, even if the upper levels were sewage, at least the stench wouldn’t travel as far.
How many bouncers had he stationed at the entrance.
This difficult customer in front of me — from his face to his personality. He was the type I’d have needed to avoid most urgently back when I was handing out flyers in a mascot costume.
A loach that slipped through?
There were the occasional ones who somehow made it past the bouncers. But the boss, calling their persistence admirable, never bothered throwing them out. He’d just strip them clean, not leaving so much as a speck of dust, and send them off broke.
Looking at the state of him, it seemed like he’d already been stripped.
If he’d carried on like this among deep-sea fishing crews or day laborers, he’d have been surrounded and beaten first. But this was West Hollywood. A gay bar catering to VIP clients, exclusionary to an almost bizarre degree.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m actually —”
“If you just started, you should’ve come straight to me — a Gold member — and reported in first thing. Fucking hell, no discipline around here.”
The difficult customer cut me off before I could finish.
From what he was saying, he seemed to be a 2nd floor Gold Class member rather than a 1st floor hall customer. So not a loach after all. That explained why a customer like this was wandering openly through the 1st floor hall. Why he’d come down from the 2nd floor was another question entirely.
“I apologize, sir. I have a reserved room I need to get up to.”
“Yeah, let’s go up.”
And with that, he grabbed my arm. I frowned and stared at the arm he was holding. Thank god for the mask.
When I didn’t budge, the difficult customer smirked, then suddenly flipped open his wallet.
“You little shits. Only act right when there’s money involved. Here, satisfied?”
He shoved a few fifty-thousand-won bills into my front pocket — and for a split second, I wondered what he was doing with such small change. It was easily several hundred thousand won — and then I realized with a delayed jolt of surprise that my sense of money had already gone numb. Having handled stacks of checks, even fifty-thousand-won bills no longer registered as real money.
I think I understood now why people lost their minds so quickly in this world.
