80
The front was dark. He could see a blanket laid out below a window where faint light came in, but that was all. There was nothing else. Like being in deep sleep. Only a room filled with darkness was before his eyes. Taein unconsciously made an “ah” sound and stepped backward. In that moment, light from the corridor stairs shone into the room.
“Hyung, what are you doing?”
“……”
Taein, who looked down silently, saw Eundo standing there with a blank expression and frowned. He seemed to have been so close that he couldn’t distinguish whether this was darkness or not. Taein immediately knelt down and met eyes with Eundo.
“Kang Eundo… how did you get home?”
“I came home with ajumma.”
“Ajumma?”
“Yeah. And hyung, Eundo slept at 9.”
He meant he had slept at nine o’clock. At kindergarten, Eundo had learned numbers taught like play in one day and received much praise from the teachers. Not long after that, he even started reading clocks, but he still didn’t know how to say “what hour, what minute” like that. Looking at the child who held up five fingers and four fingers respectively to express nine o’clock, Taein closed his eyes deeply once and opened them.
“Yes. Good job. You slept well even when hyung wasn’t here.”
“Eundo has to sleep for hyung to come.”
“……”
“But you really came…!”
Recently, since he had been home more often, he had been seeing Eundo’s face to his heart’s content. Yesterday too, he had come home in the evening and gone to sleep together at night. Today, Eundo seemed to think his hyung had gone out to work at night like before, so he had tried his own incantation of “sleeping quickly.” Looking at Eundo who was happy on tiptoes, Taein turned his head to the side.
He had turned his eyes with complicated feelings, but he saw someone standing by the stairs. A man had followed him at some point and was quietly staring at him from the dark stairway area. Perhaps feeling that his gaze was directed toward him, the man changed the direction of his leaning leg and stood again. At that movement, the automatic light turned on with a click. It was the only light coming into the building. Everything else was broken, but only that had survived like that.
The man who had been looking this way without expression only raised his eyebrows once. Then his face became one of thinking about something. Taein, who was watching his eyes become narrow, slowly got up.
“……”
And almost simultaneously, he bowed his head. Anyway, hadn’t he given him a ride here? He was also grateful that he had taken him, who was just a customer, to the hotel. Although he had seen him being harassed in the same space, the man had no responsibility for what to do with him. It must have been purely out of kindness, or perhaps he had cared for him because he was a company customer, but either way, his grateful feelings were the same.
“……”
The man seemed awkward at suddenly receiving thanks. His lips pointed exaggeratedly downward and he raised one hand. He seemed to be saying “not particularly, not really” with his face. No other words were exchanged. Only the sound of taking off shoes and coughing “hmm” could be heard occasionally. It wasn’t the two adults who made proper speaking sounds. Eundo, whose head was much lower, opened his mouth.
“Hyung, who is he?”
At those words, Taein, who had bowed his head, pulled Eundo’s chest toward him. It meant to just be quiet. Even with his head trapped in Taein’s arms, the child said something more.
“Ajusshi, are you our hyung’s friend?”
“…Uh, well.”
He could see the man touching his ear and saying “Uh, well.”
Eundo grabbed his hyung’s arms and looked up.
“Really?”
“…No.”
Taein, who quietly murmured, stepped back one step. The child also followed those steps and walked two steps backward.
“Ajusshi, why are you lying? Our hyung has no friends.”
“……”
When innocent Eundo honestly spoke facts that didn’t need to be said. Taein didn’t know what reaction to have. The anxious emotions he had felt because of the child were being erased by this embarrassing situation.
Taein, who stepped back and grabbed the door handle, pushed Eundo’s small back inside. He was thinking of letting the child in first and then talking to the man about today’s events. He felt like he should say things like thank you, sorry.
“Go inside for a moment.”
“Hyung.”
“Yeah.”
“Come quickly.”
“…Yeah.”
While closing the front door, Eundo, wearing only one small slipper, didn’t know to leave that spot. He would probably still be like that until he finished all his business and opened the door. He should finish quickly. With that thought, Taein, who headed toward the stairs, met eyes with the man who was getting closer. The moment the lights turned off, the entire corridor was covered in darkness.
Only after taking one more step did the lights turn on.
Taein immediately bowed his upper body at a deep angle toward the revealed man.
“Thank you for today. At the hotel earlier… I’m sorry. The situation was urgent… I was a bit out of my mind.”
The man looked down at Taein and only made a “tsk” sound.
Then the man, who brushed his hair up with one hand, checked the corridor once and opened his mouth.
“There’s nothing to be sorry or apologetic about.”
“……”
The man’s eyes scanned the building interior again.
“You’ll have to work hard to live.”
“…Yes.”
Although it was hurtful to his pride to hear such words from a man of the same age, that was the truth and reality. There was nothing to hurt his pride about. He heard much worse things outside. Taein, who nodded obediently in response, lowered his eyes downward. He just stood there for a while with his gaze fixed on the man’s shirt buttons.
“The loan.”
At the sound heard then, Taein’s head lifted.
“You seem urgent, should I take care of it first?”
“What do you mean by taking care of it first—”
“Yeah.”
Before his words could even finish, the man added his voice. He was still saying something with his hands in his pants pockets.
“Just, well, I’ll take care of your situation first with money that’s going around.”
“…Why?”
After being severely burned by Jang Ihwan, Taein didn’t trust money that could be easily obtained. Moreover, no one had ever made such an offer, so he was first suspicious of the man’s words saying he would take care of his situation first.
“Actually, I don’t handle miscellaneous tasks like yours. But we met for the first time that day, and when we went to work, we couldn’t do anything. And what I saw was today… I’m having a lot of thoughts. Seeing you in that state with that bastard, it seems like you’ve built many bridges with loan companies. You’re borrowing to cut that off, right?”
His tone was more delinquent than when he occasionally mixed in informal speech. Most of it was informal speech. Taein looked at the man and just closed and opened his eyes once.
“Isn’t that right?”
“…That’s correct.”
“Yeah. Honestly, looking at your face, I thought you were a punk kid.”
“……”
It felt strange to hear such words from a man who looked exactly like Gu Wanjae.
Yet wondering if he was still thinking of Gu Wanjae, Taein’s lips shut tightly. The guy he had erased from his life—even in front of a man who resembled him so much, it seemed time to stop thinking about him. Taein, who organized his thoughts that had momentarily strayed to the side like folding paper, looked at the man with calm eyes.
“I misunderstood a bit. That’s also, well, I’m sorry about that.”
“No. It’s fine.”
At the man’s forced apology, Taein shook his head first. He didn’t seem to really want to apologize, so he didn’t know why he even brought up such words.
“It’s good that you think simply. Having a kid is advantageous too, right?”
“He’s not my child.”
“What?”
“He’s my younger brother.”
“Who said what? Isn’t my younger brother still a kid?”
“……”
For no reason, thinking something would be found out, he had reflexively responded like outside. Taein was startled by the man’s words but showed no change in expression. Anyway, if he worked in the loan business, he would have customers’ situations in the palm of his hand.
The man showed innocence on his face as if he hadn’t bothered to have people do such things.
Taein added excuse-like words.
“I’m sorry. There are just so many… people who try to strike up conversations about such things.”
“Oh, oh,” the man who raised his chin sent his gaze to Taein’s smooth nose bridge. With his head slightly bowed downward, his seemingly closed eyes and nose bridge were clearly visible. During the day, he had only felt that he was brazenly handsome, but seeing him at night was different again. His features were so outstanding that they seemed to evoke different feelings depending on the light. The man repeatedly stretched his arm forward until a phone call came. It was to turn on the automatic lights.
Each time the surroundings became dimly bright, Taein raised his head and met eyes with the man. No important conversation was exchanged. When the man complimented his face in a teasing tone saying “Did you get prettier?” Taein only bowed his head once. After about 5 minutes, a short time passed and the man said he was leaving first, put his phone to his ear, and went down the stairs. “Yeah, hey, got it, yeah,” simple words could be heard even after leaving the building.
* * *
Taein couldn’t sleep that night. Even while having conversations with Eundo as if nothing was wrong, his thoughts were elsewhere. He couldn’t bear that Eundo had become dangerous because of him. Since it was late at night, he couldn’t check in detail, but it seemed an ajumma passing by the front of the building had discovered Eundo standing in front of the door and brought him up to his home. She had said she always passed by this building when she visited the neighborhood because she thought of her baby and bachelor. This time, luck had helped it pass like that, but there was no guarantee there wouldn’t be such incidents again next time.
Taein hugged sleeping Eundo’s head and breathed in.
Will greedy people eventually be punished?
There’s only one thing I’m greedy for.
But that one greed was also his everything.
Eundo’s cotton-like hair that filled one hand tickled his skin.
I’m being punished.
For someone like me to know such feelings, God is punishing me.
He thought it was appropriate.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
