# Chapter 8
* * *
“I had to succeed. To show them all.”
To his maternal grandfather who only provided food and shelter, to his father, to his mother who sent her child away and was reportedly living well after getting married in France. He wanted to show them all that he could be loved more than anyone. That’s why he started. But things didn’t go as planned. Maybe it was because he began with such selfish intentions.
“Your voice is too quiet, you’re not putting effort into the dancing. Is that even acting?”
He filmed a music video for two days without sleep. Then the very next day, he memorized his script in the car on the way to an early morning shoot. Everyone said not to worry since he didn’t have many scenes anyway. But after that, the “bad actor” label followed him everywhere. He couldn’t move forward, nor could he go back. When his maternal grandfather found out he was meeting Sangwoo, the old man pushed a complete stranger on him as a marriage prospect. The old man, determined not to repeat the mistake his daughter had made, was incredibly stubborn.
“I loved Sangwoo, but my grandfather opposed it. Because Sangwoo was a Beta and poor. With my panic disorder and insomnia, I simply couldn’t fight back. No, maybe these are all just my excuses. In the end, I just gave up, letting whatever happen.”
At the man’s confession, Hwiseo tried to imagine himself dating Ko Sangwoo. It gave him goosebumps. Sangwoo was handsome, but even holding hands, let alone kissing, felt wrong. Then Hwiseo noticed a term in the man’s words he couldn’t understand.
“What’s a Beta? When you say Sangwoo was a Beta, do you mean like his education or family background?”
The man responded as if Hwiseo had asked a strange question, “A Beta is just a Beta.”
“And I’m an Omega.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Omega, heat cycle… you’ve never heard of these things?”
“First time hearing them.”
The man looked shocked and was about to ask something but closed his mouth.
“So there are no Alphas or Omegas here, just Betas. So only men and women exist?”
“Well, it’s not exactly just men and women, but generally yes. But what’s an Alpha? And Omega?”
The man held his forehead as if thinking. “I’ll tell you when my thoughts are organized. I’m a bit confused right now.” Hwiseo looked at the confused man. Just then, Hwiseo’s phone rang. The man quickly raised his head. Hwiseo checked the caller and waved his hand at the man.
“It’s the landlord grandfather.”
Hwiseo stood up as he answered the phone. It was time for him to sort out practical matters too.
* * *
The paperwork was easier than he expected. The insurance company employee said they would visit the site once. Hwiseo just had to wait. The scenery visible from the bus heading home was familiar. Sometimes he had looked at it without much thought, and other times he had viewed it with the joy of returning home. The sunset was beautifully setting.
There was no place for him here without his father. Hwiseo’s hometown was his father himself. The location didn’t matter. On his way to the guesthouse, he stopped by the sea. The man was there. Hwiseo told him to follow and led him to where he had found him. There were many rocks and stones. It was amazing that he had been found unconscious but without any major injuries.
“Do you feel like going back a little?” Hwiseo asked.
The man shook his head firmly. Hwiseo said what he might have prepared in his heart.
“Then I’ll go.”
The man looked directly into Hwiseo’s eyes. The sun that had been burning the sea red sank below the water, and darkness settled. The man twisted his lips and said:
“There’s nothing there but what I threw away. I threw it away, and what’s thrown away is trash.”
Hwiseo silently listened to the distorted words coming from the contorted face.
“It doesn’t gain a different meaning just because you pick it up. It’s just trash.”
The man understood why Hwiseo wanted to go. Every night, Hwiseo cried while looking at photos of his father. Lee Sunwoo was just Lee Sunwoo, not his father. Hwiseo must know this. Yet he couldn’t give up. Just like how the man himself wanted to see this world’s Ko Sangwoo.
“A few months ago, a $10 painting from an American flea market sold at an auction for $100 million. Someone had picked up what someone else had thrown away, put it in a $2 frame, and put it on the market. No one knew it was a $100 million painting except the person who bought it. Not even the person who threw it away.”
Well, they wouldn’t have thrown it away if they had known. Hwiseo put his cold hands in his pants pockets.
“Depending on who picks it up, the value of trash can change. Just because it’s trash to you doesn’t mean it’s trash to me.”
His fingertips caught a rustling plastic bag. It was the plastic bag the grandmother had given Hwiseo when he went into town, which had contained boiled eggs. He had forgotten about it, and now only the shells remained. It was trash. Hwiseo put his phone into the bag and twisted it around. The shells stuck to the phone. Being with trash wouldn’t make the phone useless.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to do with my life now. You left something behind there, but I don’t even have trash here.”
Nothing at all.
“Even if it seems like there’s nothing now, if you think about it, there is. There’s the grandmother who prepares meals for you, and friends, and you said you attended school.”
“Even if they exist, they have no meaning.”
Momentarily at a loss for words at Hwiseo’s firm statement, the man spoke as if he had made a big decision.
“There, even men can have babies if they’re Omegas.”
Hwiseo laughed out loud at the man’s words. He tied the bag tightly and put it in his pocket. The man’s expression was serious for a joke. But then again, what could be more mysterious than this man’s existence? Hwiseo was confident that by now, nothing would surprise him.
“But there’s something we’re greatly misunderstanding. Just because I’ve decided to go doesn’t mean I can go. Just like you didn’t come here because you wanted to.”
The man’s lips twitched as if he wanted to say something, but he just nodded slightly at Hwiseo’s words. The indifferent sea was just calm.
“That doctor person said so, right? That you could be trapped and explode. That means dying. Do you still want to go?”
Originally, the man had tried to die, and Ko Sangwoo had played a decisive role in that. He knew without being told. He thought that maybe their thoughts flowed the same way because they were the same person. But why couldn’t the man understand him?
“Were you afraid of dying?”
When Hwiseo asked, the man slowly shook his head.
“You tried to commit suicide. And you might be the same person as me.”
They looked at each other as if looking in a mirror. In the quiet sea, a cold wind brought by the desolate waves arose. The man turned his head first to look at the sea. Then he flinched as if startled.
“Oh. There.”
The man grabbed Hwiseo’s arm and urgently jumped into the sea. It happened in an instant, with no time to stop him. The seawater that had been lapping at their ankles now submerged their thighs. One of the man’s slippers had come off and was floating away with the waves.
“Look over there!”
The place the man pointed to was an ordinary dark sea. But white foam was forming a small circle, spinning round and round. The spinning speed was getting faster. As it did, the circle grew larger. The floating bubbles disappeared as if being sucked into a round, morning glory-shaped circle. The slipper that had been floating away was somehow already around the round circle. The circle, which had been as large as a big drum, instantly contracted inward again. Hwiseo jumped into it. He heard someone calling him from behind. The man’s hand slipped off his shoulder and fell away.
There was no time to deliberate whether to do it or not. His body just moved. Hwiseo felt the waves wrapping around his body. It was like being inside the large washing machine at the laundry shop. His body, spinning around, fluttered like a leaf in a typhoon. Everything in front of his eyes was spinning dizzyingly. Hwiseo thought that perhaps the place where he could meet his dad might be at the end of death. Like grasping at the last straw, he firmly held onto something that touched his fingertips and closed his eyes.
* * *
Kyungjin and Junho were a fresh college couple. They often dated at the ecological park. The Han River walkway, with Magok Bridge on the left and Banghwa Bridge on the right as a backdrop, was popular with cyclists. If you walked off the main path and took a side road, you would come across a yacht club, benches, or swinging chair. The peaceful scenery of the rippling river water beyond the bushes wetting the narrow sandy beach was serene. The couple headed toward the bench along the trail. As they were about to sit down overlooking the Han River, they saw something in human form near a stake stuck in the mud. The two froze for a moment.
“Call 119, no, should we call 112?”
Kyungjin told Junho, who was nervously pacing and saying the person might be dead, to make the call and bravely approached. If it was a corpse, the trauma would be no joke, but if they left the person as is and something went wrong, that would be terrible too. As she approached carefully, she saw a man lying neatly. Only his lower body was submerged in the river water. When she put her hand near his nose, she could feel his breath. Somehow, the man’s face looked familiar.
“I made the call. What are you doing there! Aren’t you scared?”
“He’s alive. From the outside, he doesn’t seem to be injured. But wait, I know this person.”
Only then did Junho, who had run to Kyungjin’s side, look down at the man.
“Isn’t that Lee Hwiseo?”
“Yes! That’s right! This face isn’t that common, is it?!”
“But why is he like this here? Is he filming something?”
“Wow. This is the first time I’ve seen a celebrity this close. He’s really something. Hey! When did they say 119 would arrive? How long will it take!”
Junho ran to the walkway at the sound of sirens in the distance. Kyungjin paced nervously, then took off her training top and covered the man. Then she noticed the object the man was tightly holding in his right hand and tilted her head curiously.
“Why is he holding that slipper so tightly?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
