#076
A few years ago.
On the swaying ship, Lee Yeonwoo vomited up all the lunch he had eaten.
“Should I pat your back?”
The man who had been watching him without missing a beat said. Yeonwoo wiped his mouth and stared at him intensely. His face was gaunt and shadowed.
“Lots of guys quit midway. It won’t change anything if you quit too.”
“It’s just seasickness. Don’t I work well?”
In this place, the guy who worked well was king. Yeonwoo had never once thought he was lacking in that regard. However, the man’s thoughts were different.
“A guy who can’t even adapt, my ass.”
“I adapt well. Except for the seasickness.”
What seasickness, the man clicked his tongue and walked away. Yeonwoo glared at his retreating figure before sharply turning his head.
Something boiled up inside him.
Since today’s work schedule was finished, he headed to his cabin after showering to rest.
Timing was always important on the way. When the waves weren’t hitting, quickly…!
“…Haa.”
Even though he’d come out clean, he got drenched by rough waves on the way to the cabin, making it all useless. He felt a bit annoyed but it was bearable. No, he had to bear it.
“Damn waves.”
His head hurt as if the back of his head was being pulled.
Yeonwoo roughly shook off the water and arrived at his cabin. He climbed onto the bunk bed crammed together in what was called a 4-person room but had no space to step.
The fortunate thing was that there had been a recent vacancy, so 3 people were using the 4-person room.
As he quietly fell into thought, the earlier incident came to mind again.
Get off the ship. It was what the man had been saying to him continuously since he boarded this ship and met him.
He unnecessarily went down and woke up the person sleeping on the bottom bunk to ask.
“Hyung, don’t I work well?”
“Mmmph.”
Kim Minjae, in his early thirties who had been sleeping soundly, tossed and turned at the touch that woke him. Eventually, not getting the answer he wanted, Yeonwoo gave up and laid his head on the pillow on the bed.
A musty smell pierced his nose.
That’s strange. I definitely washed it yesterday.
Yeonwoo, who was particularly fussy about his sleeping area even if he didn’t care about other things, had inevitably washed the pillow and blanket covers despite the limited laundry.
There were clothes he had to give up because of this, but having a clean sleeping area was the top priority.
It was a habit that developed after his grandmother passed away and insomnia visited him daily, to try to make his body as comfortable as possible to seek sleep. Even though the insomnia had improved due to fatigue from his body suffering every day since coming here, habits weren’t easily changed.
But what was this musty smell? He’d definitely dried it on a sunny day, but it wasn’t a stuffy smell but mustiness. Yeonwoo immediately set out to find the culprit.
He smelled the pillows on this bed and that bed, then moved Kim Minjae’s head aside and buried his nose in the pillow, sniffing.
The culprit was close by.
Yeonwoo sighed. Even knowing the culprit’s identity, he had no choice but to quietly return.
Kim Minjae shared precious packages that came once every three months with Yeonwoo.
Yeonwoo, who had no family, had no occasion to receive various odds and ends or food by delivery from land. High school friends had once pooled money to send him something, but he couldn’t ask for that every time.
So he felt grateful to Kim Minjae who shared his packages. He wasn’t in a position to get angry at such a person just for stealing and using his pillow.
His mouth tasted bitter. It felt like his weakness had been caught. Suddenly he felt nauseous. He got down from the bed and immediately ran to the bathroom.
Since he’d vomited everything he’d just eaten, there was nothing to come out, but he kept dry heaving.
‘What seasickness.’
When the vomiting finally stopped, he flushed the toilet and rinsed his mouth.
In the mirror stood one gaunt and emaciated person. Since he vomited everything he ate, there was no nutritional intake to speak of.
This place required eating and gaining strength to be able to work. So the days were of eating more than usual and vomiting more.
Suddenly his head felt like it would split and he couldn’t come to his senses. He felt like he could faintly hear tinnitus too.
Yeonwoo washed his face with cold water and took deep breaths in and out. When he calmed down a bit, he muttered lowly.
“…It is seasickness.”
He missed his grandmother terribly.
***
“Today was the day for reinforcements, right?”
“Yes.”
Yeonwoo watched the helicopter landing here from afar.
The 4-person room was about to be filled to capacity. But since that meant more hands for work, it didn’t particularly matter. Here, money, that is workload, was the first priority over sleeping arrangements.
Yeonwoo checked the person getting off the helicopter.
“He’s young.”
Kim Minjae next to him responded to his words.
“Probably around your age?”
“……”
Yeonwoo pressed down his cap and avoided answering. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. The words wouldn’t come out. Just for no reason at all, instances of being at a loss for words had increased.
Kim Minjae playfully put a light headlock around Yeonwoo’s neck.
“Give me an answer. Hm? So prickly.”
“…Yes.”
The sunshine was bright and the weather was clear. The waves were swaying but not to a degree worth worrying about.
One, two, three.
Now!
Yeonwoo suddenly ran toward his cabin.
“……”
The timing sucked. Was the wave playing tricks on him? Every time he tried to go to the cabin after washing, waves would attack him.
Since he was already hit, he walked slowly with an enlightened mind of getting thoroughly soaked.
“Pfft.”
Suddenly he heard laughter from behind.
He turned around to check who it was, and it was the second mate who had been reinforced this time. Kim Haseon.
They’d had a big fight on the first day because he’d made fun of his name. Kim Minjae just laughed from the side, saying young guys definitely brought energy.
It wasn’t like they’d gotten into a physical fight or exchanged curses. Since they had to see each other’s faces every single day without fail on a ship with nowhere to escape, there was an atmosphere of being cautious with each other.
“Did you just come out after watching for timing? To avoid getting hit by waves?”
At Kim Haseon’s question, Yeonwoo thought for a moment then answered sullenly.
“…No.”
“Yes you did.”
“No. Really no.”
“I think you did? I just filmed all of this?”
Only then did Yeonwoo notice the camera in his hands and furrowed his brow. Kim Haseon rambled as if flustered.
“I was filming YouTube content, going around the inside here, and you just happened to get filmed too. If you don’t like it, I’ll edit it out.”
Yeonwoo turned and walked away without answering. Still, he nodded his head, so he rationalized to himself that it counted as an answer.
However, Kim Haseon seemed to think otherwise. Since they were going to the same cabin anyway, it was the same direction. He turned off the camera and chased after Yeonwoo, asking.
“But how old are you?”
“Same age as you.”
Since we look like we’re around the same age, we’re probably the same age. Yeonwoo, who found it bothersome to answer, said whatever. But he was persistent.
“Hey… hey. What are you doing? Don’t come up. You didn’t wash.”
“I just got washed by the waves.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
It was a bed he’d deliberately chosen on the second level, enduring the inconvenience of climbing up and down because he didn’t like others’ touch.
Yeonwoo looked at Kim Haseon trying to climb onto his bed with rarely panicked eyes.
Strange. Conversation was happening but the talk wasn’t connecting.
Despite Yeonwoo’s dissuasion, Kim Haseon stubbornly struggled to climb onto the bed. Eventually Yeonwoo positioned himself at the entrance going up and sat down to block him.
“Why… why do you keep trying to come up?”
He was genuinely flustered. As if to prove it, Yeonwoo’s pupils trembled finely. He even looked afraid of Kim Haseon invading his territory.
Kim Haseon had no choice but to continue speaking while maintaining his position on the ladder.
“To watch a movie together.”
“A movie? With me?”
“Yeah. A movie about a ship that crashes into an iceberg and is shipwrecked.”
‘Why that? With me? Couldn’t he watch it alone?’
Of all things, he’d chosen a really shitty movie. He projected it onto their own fishing boat that was sailing smoothly. It was best to avoid ominous signs as much as possible…
“Ah, I told you not to come up.”
“Shit, why are you so prickly?”
“You can watch it with someone else.”
“Should I go find the deck chief or the captain? You’re the only one who’s manageable. Let’s watch movies and get along as friends.”
Kim Haseon threw his phone from his pocket onto Yeonwoo’s bed in his struggle to climb up, then pushed against Yeonwoo who was blocking the entrance with force.
Yeonwoo blinked. He was a guy whose identity was unknowable.
“Can I come up?”
Even after pushing Yeonwoo aside, Kim Haseon asked for permission without stepping when space opened up at the entrance.
Even when living with grandmother, it wasn’t such a nice house, so he could somehow compromise with sleeping alongside bugs.
But humans were different. Not washing after hard work and wanting to climb onto the bed? Yeonwoo, who became urgent, moved his body.
“I’ll come down.”
That was a hundred times better.
“Then you come to my bed.”
Kim Haseon said that and climbed down the ladder.
‘How did it come to this?’
This was the first time he’d been swept up in someone else’s pace. Yeonwoo grumbled but dutifully climbed down the ladder.
“Getting a ticket for the Titanic was the greatest luck of my life. I met you here.”
The ship was wrecked, and the male protagonist took off his life jacket and gave it to the female protagonist, speaking sadly.
Whoever had been grumbling was gone, and Yeonwoo was absorbed in the movie that had reached its climax.
“You can’t see me. Turn it toward me a bit.”
Kim Haseon, who was lying side by side watching the movie on one small phone, grumbled when Yeonwoo turned the screen too much toward himself.
Yeonwoo glanced at him and adjusted the phone’s direction.
“Ah!”
“Uh… sorry.”
The phone he’d brought toward Kim Haseon’s face fell straight down and hit his chin before dropping.
His arm had stiffened from holding the phone for so long. It felt numb and seemed like he had a cramp.
Kim Haseon grabbed his aching chin and glared at Yeonwoo.
Yeonwoo conspicuously clenched and unclenched his trembling arm into a fist and said.
“My arm hurts. You hold it now.”
“You’re not pretending to have a cramp on purpose, are you?”
“On purpose? Why?”
He massaged his cramped arm and looked at Kim Haseon with puzzled eyes.
“But why are you smiling?”
“……”
Me? At Kim Haseon’s words, Yeonwoo blankly tried to remember what expression he’d made. Kim Haseon’s face getting hit in the chin and glaring at him seemed quite amusing.
Pfft. A silly laugh burst out.
“Asshole. You were definitely laughing at me.”
“…No.”
Yeonwoo tapped at Kim Haseon’s arm that had put him in a headlock, asking him to let go. Kim Haseon ignored it and applied more force.
The intensity gradually increased, but a slight smile hung on Yeonwoo’s lips.
“This bastard keeps laughing?”
There was laughter in Kim Haseon’s tone as he said that too.
After boarding the deep-sea fishing boat, it felt like the first time he’d had a human-like conversation.
Strangely, he didn’t get seasick that day.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
