Chapter 65
“I’m not scolding you. …Ah, shit. This is driving me crazy.”
Joo Kwon-oh gritted his teeth and rubbed his face with his uninjured hand, looking frustrated. But after a few seconds, he looked directly at me as if he had made a decision.
“I’m sorry, Jeong-ha. I was wrong.”
At those words, I pressed my lower lip with my upper teeth, overwhelmed by emotions I had been suppressing until now. Otherwise, I felt I might burst into an unsightly, loud cry.
From that moment, Joo Kwon-oh began to ramble on, not knowing what to do.
“Really. I’m not scolding you. There’s nowhere good for you to stay here, and the hospital room is a four-bed room full of men. They all smell and snore, so it’s not a place for you to spend the night. There’s nothing for you to do here… That’s why I told you to go. It’s absolutely not because I find you annoying or dislike you.”
“……”
“And I didn’t want to show you me fighting with the factory worker. Honestly, I only want to show you my good and cool side, but… Haa. Given the situation here…”
Joo Kwon-oh trailed off, rubbing his cheek and avoiding my gaze.
The more I listened to his explanation, the more bewildered I became.
“Who said you’re not cool?”
“What’s cool about being in a pathetic state because of an injury?”
“No. That’s not it, what I’m talking about now is…”
Feeling frustrated, I suppressed my tears and spoke as clearly as I could.
“I want to take the time to see with my own eyes, directly confirm that you’re really okay, and then feel reassured. I don’t want to hear you unilaterally telling me to leave because you’re fine.”
“……”
“Whether you’re cool or not… is a completely separate issue from why I came here. It’s as different as… Vermeer and, ah, Henri Matisse.”
Wait. What… did I just say? Why did I use painters as a comparison here?
My face flushed at the absurd expression that had spontaneously come out of my mouth.
But Joo Kwon-oh nodded seriously as if he understood.
“I see.”
“So, I…”
“……”
“……”
“Then let’s go back to the hospital together for now.”
“…Huh?”
“I have some tests to do again tomorrow, so will you feel reassured if you stay by my side until I talk with the doctor?”
I stopped rubbing my stinging eyes at Joo Kwon-oh’s words.
“Is that okay?”
“You said you weren’t going back to Seoul, right?”
“Y-yeah, I’m not going.”
“Then there’s no choice. You’re saying you absolutely won’t go.”
“……”
“I knew Ryu Jeong-ha was stubborn, but it’s worse than I thought. You’re really living up to your face value.”
“That’s not it…”
“I know. It was my fault. Even I think I said things too strangely earlier. I didn’t think about how you’d feel hearing it… So now, please stop being angry and forgive me.”
Joo Kwon-oh knelt down and carefully took my hands. His warm touch was so gentle that it seemed to melt away my frozen heart.
“And it’s okay for you to live up to your face value. It’s fine to do it as much as you want.”
“Wh-when did I…”
“But are you really okay with staying in a four-bed room? The guardian’s bed is really uncomfortable.”
Joo Kwon-oh still couldn’t shake off his worry. But I didn’t care about the discomfort of the bed.
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“And there are only men in the room, so the other guys smell. It’s too dirty for someone with downy hair like you to sleep there.”
“That’s fine too.”
“Ah, wouldn’t it be better if you stayed at a nearby accommodation…”
I shook my head before he could finish speaking.
“No. It’s fine if I’m in the hospital room with you.”
Finally, Joo Kwon-oh nodded and wiped the remaining tears from my cheeks. Then he stood up and held out his hand.
It’s strange. Just a moment ago, when I was sitting here alone crying and eating a muffin, it felt like the world had collapsed. But from the moment Joo Kwon-oh came to get me, all the sadness I had experienced today evaporated instantly.
“Alright. Let’s go then.”
“…Okay!”
I took Joo Kwon-oh’s hand and stood up without hesitation. Our clasped hands were warm, making me want to hold on tighter.
Belatedly worried that I might have made too much of a fuss, I looked around.
The part-timer was either uninterested in our business or tired of listening to our conversation, dozing off at the counter. They didn’t even seem to notice us leaving.
My footsteps, which had been heavy when I left the hospital, now felt much lighter.
Then, Joo Kwon-oh, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped and turned to look at me.
“Jeong-ha.”
“Yes?”
I stopped walking, following Joo Kwon-oh’s lead.
“I’m sorry.”
“……”
“And thank you.”
I felt his grip tighten on our clasped hands again.
*
Joo Kwon-oh’s Diary
As soon as I entered elementary school, red notices started appearing on our house. I was too young to understand what they meant. But inevitably, after a red notice was posted, we had to move.
From a spacious house with five rooms, to a small apartment with two rooms. To a villa. Then to a semi-basement.
In just a few years, our family, after being chased from place to place, had to move to a small room less than a quarter the size of the house we first lived in.
In the last semi-basement we moved to, all four family members slept in one room.
Dad would come home with a tired face every few days. There were times when I didn’t see Dad’s face for weeks because he was being chased by debt collectors.
My brother, who was in middle school, would leave for school in the morning and not return until late at night.
Everyone was struggling, but Mom seemed to have the hardest time adapting to poverty.
She would sit blankly all day staring into space, or sigh while watching me do my homework from behind. The days she cried silently increased.
That day too, Mom’s eyes were red, as if she had been crying while I was at school. I, who could now write in a diary and do multiplication and division freely, disliked seeing Mom like that.
“Haa. Life is so hard, Kwon-oh…”
I didn’t know how to respond to Mom’s habitual lament. I was too young.
Crying, getting angry, or sitting listlessly. I disliked all three of Mom’s states, but I hated it most when she sat blankly.
The Mom from before used to have frequent tea gatherings with neighborhood ladies, cook, and quietly draw pictures when she had spare time.
But on the day we moved to the semi-basement, Mom finally had to throw away all the drawings she had made since college.
One day, I felt really sick. I caught the flu that was going around, with a fever and a swollen throat. As soon as I got home, I sat at my desk to do homework without even greeting Mom.
I didn’t tell Mom, but I was dizzy with a high fever. As I was barely concentrating on solving problems, I suddenly looked back.
My eyes met Mom’s, who was watching me. Mom smiled awkwardly. She was drawing on paper placed on the table, holding a pencil.
I was certain that was why Mom was sad. The thought that Mom was doing something again that made her sad made me furious to the tips of my hair.
So I jumped up, went to Mom, and snatched the paper away.
“Don’t draw!”
The paper had a black and white sketch of my back view as I sat at the desk doing homework. Mom seemed a bit surprised.
“…My head hurts.”
Feeling sorry for shouting loudly, I added an excuse at the end. Mom didn’t respond.
I threw that paper carelessly on the floor and went back to my homework. I think I faintly heard a sigh from behind me.
A few days after that, Mom left home.
“Joo Kwon-young, Joo Kwon-oh. Listen carefully. Mom and Dad have decided to divorce, so from now on, you’ll live with Dad.”
Dad sat us down, my brother and me, and said that.
My brother nodded calmly, but it took me a bit longer to understand those words.
At that time, I was still not fully recovered from the flu, so I could only think about how sick and cold I felt.
Mom disappeared as if she had never been in the house at all.
So we went from a family of four to a family of three. Dad, my brother, and me.
After Mom left and Dad was left alone to take care of us, he threw himself into work more desperately than before. Seeing Dad come home, put pain patches on his back, and take medicine, my brother matured early and started working part-time jobs.
Since Dad and my brother were always busy, I was often alone at home. Tired of buying lunch boxes outside or going hungry every day, at some point I started cooking one or two dishes.
By the time I got used to cooking, I entered middle school.
The all-boys middle school was a jungle. It was closer to an animal cage than an educational institution.
The school district wasn’t great either, so if you seemed even a little bit weak, you’d immediately be bullied.
“Joo Kwon-oh. You don’t have a mom, right?”
“What? He’s an orphan bastard.”
After I endured it a few times, the noisy group in my class started bothering me whenever they had a chance.
At that time, I had a similar build to my peers, so of course I was on the defensive when several of them picked on me. There was no chance of winning, and I didn’t want to fight, so I tried to ignore them, but
“Your mom abandoned you, huh.”
Hearing those words, I saw red.
“Aaagh!”
“J-Joo Kwon-oh! Stop it right now!”
“Hey, someone stop him!”
When I came to my senses, all the kids in my sight were beaten to a pulp.
As my reason returned, I stared at the blood on my fists for a while before being dragged to the teachers’ office.
Dad came to school, and I had to go back and forth to the teachers’ office several times due to school violence issues, but after that incident, no one bothered me for a while.
The group that used to pick on me was now bullying another weak kid.
From this incident, I learned that if you’re weak, you can’t survive.
People dislike weak individuals. Maybe that’s the same reason Mom left me when I was sick back then.
And when I entered the all-boys high school,
“Ah. I want to have sex.”
“I want to have seeeex.”
I learned that all these male bastards were disgusting beings.
These bastards were hosts of lust, their heads always full of ‘mating’.
