Chapter 15
The spoon and chopsticks collided with a clatter. The black bean sauce on the chopsticks stained the edge of the bowl, but I just stared at it indifferently. Across from me, a bear-like figure who had ordered half the menu was moving his mouth non-stop. Even so, he kept his droopy eyes busy. I knew his gaze was fixed on the menu. So I covered the menu and shoved some sweet and sour pork into my mouth.
“I was still looking at that!”
“Kid, look at your eyes. Are you going to kill me just because I blocked the menu?”
“Kill you? I’ve been starving all day, you punk. My mom said she’d even kill me to make me lose weight.”
“Oh, what made your mother become so determined?”
Juyoung chewed his food, moving his cheeks. His nostrils, rounded from the accumulated fat, danced along.
“She found a chicken box in my room. I forgot to throw it away. While I was drinking water, mom went in and—snap!”
He mimicked grabbing his neck and shaking it vigorously. I picked up another piece of sweet and sour pork.
“But didn’t you order food yesterday too?”
“No. I ate something different from yesterday. Yesterday was boneless, today was spicy.”
I had nothing to say. He always raved about chicken and beer, but it seems to have gotten worse. I like chicken too, but this is a bit much… I clicked my tongue and looked my friend up and down.
I had already been getting worried seeing my friend’s body becoming rounder these days. Originally, he had been athletic with a large build, so he had a good appetite and even when he gained weight, it wasn’t noticeable. But after he quit exercising, it was very obvious that he’d gained weight, especially in his face.
“But starving you all day, that’s a first.”
“Right? My mom even signed me up for personal training!”
“Wow. She really must be trying to put you on a diet. Well, it’s about time you cut ties with food anyway.”
“No way, man. I’ll eat till I die.”
Then he stuffed sweet and sour pork into his mouth and chewed vigorously. With his droopy eyes that looked innocent, but overall rough features that made him look menacing, he resembled nothing less than a bear. Juyoung declared he would embrace the fat he’d created till the end, and shoveled the remaining jjamppong rice into his mouth at once.
“At least breathe while eating. Aren’t you choking?”
“Dying while eating is my dream.”
“Bullshit.”
After devouring all the remaining sweet and sour pork, he looked at me with gleaming eyes. His gaze was intensely fervent. I couldn’t bear that greedy look on me. Unable to resist, I leaned forward, fully exposing the menu. When his eyes met the menu, they burned even more brightly.
“What should we eat next!”
“Stop eating so much. Seriously.”
“It’ll be a while before Sangju shows up anyway. Let’s eat more. Do you want fried rice with shredded vegetables or mapo tofu?”
He turned his unsettling eyes toward me. I glared at the clock on the wall and sighed.
“If you’re paying, mapo tofu.”
“Awesome~.”
He excitedly ordered both fried rice with shredded vegetables and two servings of mapo tofu. I had seen him eat countless times, but each time was a series of surprises, breaking records. His appetite kept increasing, but it was also amazing that his body hadn’t gained more weight than this. Was he secretly exercising?
“Where does all the calories you eat go?”
“Didn’t you know? They’re released into the air.”
“You mean farts? Shit, you’re disgusting.”
I threw my chopsticks at his face. After sharing that foul story, he chuckled and bit his spoon.
“But where the hell is Sangsu? Why is he so late?”
When I grumbled, Juyoung’s eyes widened. He took the spoon out of his mouth and waved it around. I scolded him for being gross, but he didn’t stop his solemn spoon-waving.
“You didn’t know? That bastard is dating someone.”
“What?”
“He met a customer while working his part-time job.”
“Well, damn.”
“Really damn.”
I gripped my chopsticks tightly. None of us had forgotten our promise that whoever got a girlfriend first would treat everyone. Song Juyoung gritted his teeth, saying that’s why Sangsu had been running away whenever we had plans, and he was furious about it.
We put our heads together, scheming to empty Park Sangju’s wallet. Then the clock on the restaurant wall caught my eye. Just a while ago it was 1 o’clock, but now it was almost 4 PM. Just then, I noticed movie tickets scattered on the table and checked the time.
“Hey, I don’t think we can wait for Sangsu anymore.”
“Why?”
“Look at the time. Our movie is at four.”
“We won’t be able to watch it anyway.”
“What?”
Song Juyoung put down his spoon and looked at me with a strange expression. He shrugged his thick shoulders once and pointed outside the restaurant. Through the glass door, which had been left wide open for ventilation, pitch-black clouds were gathering thickly. I was startled and stepped back, calling out to him, but Song Juyoung leaned back in his chair casually and said:
“And we won’t be able to watch it either.”
* * *
Droplets of water fell in a shower from the dew-covered leaves. The droplets hitting my face and neck had absorbed the dawn air and were as cold as ice chips. I rubbed my eyes and massaged my stiff hands and feet. My clothes, damp from the rain, were stealing the heat from my body.
It was a blessing that I hadn’t fallen ill after sleeping outdoors in this state. I moved my dry mouth and huddled up. I needed to move my body as much as possible to raise my body temperature, but I couldn’t bring myself to move.
“Damn it.”
I chewed on curses and made angry gestures at no one in particular. The dream, which had been too vivid to think of as just a dream, had made even my will to live feel powerless.
While worrying about my friends’ safety, I had sometimes imagined that they might be dead. I’d shuddered at such unpleasant thoughts, telling myself I was crazy, but once the doubt crept in, it lingered in a corner of my mind.
And now to hear it in a dream, and from my friend’s mouth at that. Both the dream and reality were equally horrific.
My eyes were damp, and the thought that I wanted to cry more made me feel melancholy. I stroked my rough face and rubbed my swollen eyes again. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the consecutive nights of sleeping outdoors, or if I had cried unknowingly in my sleep. Now that I looked, it seemed like it might be from the rainwater. My hair was also wet, tickling my cheeks.
I got up glumly. But my shoulders felt rather padded. My legs were cold, but my upper body seemed a bit less so… As I unconsciously felt my shoulders, my fingertips touched the collar of a suit jacket.
“Oh, this…”
I grasped the edge of the garment, then looked at Kim Doyun, who was still leaning against the tree trunk. Kim Doyun was pressing his eyes as if a bit tired.
“When did you wake up?”
“A little while ago.”
I looked at Kim Doyun with suspicious eyes. For someone who claimed to have woken up recently, he showed signs of fatigue but none of the drowsiness typical of someone who just woke up. No matter how I looked at it, he seemed like he had been keeping watch all night… I took off the suit jacket draped over my shoulders and placed it on his shoulders.
“You must be tired, not sleeping at all.”
“I slept well.”
“You don’t look like it at all.”
Kim Doyun made a slightly troubled expression. Rubbing his face, which had become rough, though not as much as mine, he said:
“It’s true. I guess sleeping outdoors makes it hard to tell.”
I also touched my face. That was true. With consecutive nights of sleeping outdoors, my stamina wasn’t recovering easily, and I was tired all day. Kim Doyun took a fruit from the vine-woven net and tossed it to me. I quickly caught it and gripped it tightly.
“Let’s eat quickly and move.”
I nodded. The place where we were hiding was quite usable, but not enough to withstand the night. Those creatures appear as soon as night falls. Sniffing around for the scent of prey.
Yesterday, they couldn’t smell us because of the rain, but today the rain had stopped. The smell of water was still quite strong even though the rain had stopped, but relying on the scent that had soaked into the ground was too risky.
I bit into the fruit vigorously. Chewing the fruit in my mouth as if to shake off the lingering feeling of the dream and the anxiety about the creatures, I jokingly opened my mouth.
“…Eating only fruit makes me crave meat. If there were animals, and if I had the ability, I’d like to hunt and eat them myself. But that’s impossible, like in the movies, right?”
It started as a joke, but my personal desire slipped out at the end. Even eating a lot of fruit wasn’t satisfying, and I was always hungry. When I was starving, even this was gratefully received, but now that fruit was abundant, I began to want something else. My stomach felt a bit sour too. I grumbled about it, and Kim Doyun, after listening to what I said, nodded his head.
“Meat… Indeed, for storing energy, we need proper food. There are no animals, but there is something that could substitute…”
Kim Doyun fell into thought, and I became curious. There are no animals, but there’s a substitute? We hadn’t seen any animals so far. In primitive jungles, they sometimes roast or steam high-protein larvae instead of meat. But we hadn’t seen any living things, let alone insects, so there couldn’t possibly be a substitute.
“They say carnivores don’t smell good and their meat is tough, but it’s still meat…”
I almost dropped the fruit I was eating at Kim Doyun’s mumbled words. I stared at him with my mouth open, and he asked if I was sick, looking like he had no idea why I was making such a face. I came to my senses and exclaimed in horror:
“I’m fine!”
“What?”
“I just thought about meat, but it’s not like I’ll die if I can’t eat it. Besides, hunting isn’t easy, right? We’d just waste energy chasing after them. Fruit is enough.”
I gripped the fruit in my hand as hard as I could and spoke resolutely. I was truly desperate, and understanding my sincerity, Kim Doyun, who had been tilting his head for a moment, nodded and said he understood.
But I couldn’t be at ease. I stuck close to him and only breathed a sigh of relief after confirming two or three times that he had no intention of hunting. I should rightfully be happy and welcome meat, but the meat of carnivores? There’s only one thing that could be called carnivorous here. Those dark creatures that threaten our lives.
I became afraid of Kim Doyun’s thoughts and doubted his sanity. How could he think of catching and eating those things?
“Doyun-ssi.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t hold back your fatigue, rest well. I can keep watch too… Okay?”
“Ah, should I rest well and then go catch it?”
“No! Don’t catch it! I don’t want that!”
I shouted in alarm and shook my head vigorously. Kim Doyun was broken from exhaustion. How could he think of that? We might die trying to get meat. I repeated my question again, demanding confirmation that he wouldn’t catch them. Kim Doyun seemed not to understand my increasingly intense concern, but he still answered that he understood.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
