“What the hell? Why is the door locked?”
As always, I parked the black sports car in front of the real estate office and got out. I had something to say to Du-seon, so I grabbed the office door handle—but it wouldn’t open.
I peered inside Du-seon’s office, which was closed up with the lights off. It had been locked earlier too, and it was the same now. Not understanding what was going on, I called him. But after a long ring, it just went to voicemail. I couldn’t reach him.
Just then, the owner of the hardware store next door was sweeping in front of his shop and our eyes met. Aside from running errands there a few times back when my parents were regular customers, I’d never really interacted with him.
I gave a slight nod in greeting, and he shyly raised a hand in return. As I continued peeking inside, he approached me.
“Why? Got business at the real estate office?”
“Yes. But I guess he stepped out—he’s not here.”
“Stepped out? Looks more like he didn’t open at all.”
When I checked my watch, it was already past 11 a.m. I told him I understood and turned to head toward my building.
Ever since I’d suddenly seen “hyung” in the game yesterday, I’d needed Du-seon’s touch. I needed someone’s control—something solid to anchor me.
The dust that had barely settled at the bottom stirred up again in the wind, clouding my head. If I stayed still, it would settle back down, piling quietly on the floor—but it wouldn’t disappear. I didn’t want to remain in a dust-filled room. I wanted to find a new sanctuary. But whether my heart would truly move there… that was another matter.
“Hey, landlord.”
At that moment, Namgung Bin approached, raising a hand in greeting. In his other hand were two takeout cups of latte piled high with whipped cream.
The sixth floor was still undergoing interior construction; the noise was pretty intense. Because of that, I’d been going out more often in the afternoons. Well, I’d rented it out knowing that, so it wasn’t like I could complain.
“What is it, tenant?”
“Want one?”
“I’m good.”
“I bought two to give one to Mr. Du-seon. Why didn’t he open today?”
“How would I know?”
“Should I try calling him?”
I wondered how he had Du-seon’s personal number, but he was dialing the phone number written on the corner of the signboard across the street.
Just because we had a dominant-submissive contract didn’t mean Du-seon belonged only to me. I had no right to stop him from calling. Anyway, he probably wouldn’t pick up. I was about to head inside when I heard Bin’s voice behind me.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Du-seon, why didn’t you open the real estate office today? Ah… I see. No, it’s nothing serious…”
When I approached, Bin covered the receiver with his hand and stepped slightly away.
“Don’t hang up. Let me talk to him too.”
I held out my hand, demanding the phone, but Bin cleanly ignored me and continued speaking in a sympathetic tone. Just as he was saying, “Oh man, then you should rest. I’ll see you tomorrow,” and trying to hang up, I quickly snatched the phone.
“Hyung! …What the—he hung up.”
I felt irritation surge up, but Bin was staring at me expressionlessly. Then he took out one of the lattes, stuck in a straw, and sipped loudly before asking, “Hyung? Why is Mr. Du-seon ‘hyung’? Didn’t you call him Yoo Du?”
“Mind your own business.”
“Can’t. We’re neighbors.”
Unbelievable. Seeing my displeased expression, Bin slurped his coffee.
“You know, back in the day, once neighbors got acquainted, they practically lived like one big family.”
“Stop talking crap and finish your construction already.”
“What does the interior work have to do with Mr. Du-seon?”
I hated the way his mouth kept slurping obnoxiously, so I forcibly yanked the straw out of his mouth and threw it onto the ground.
“You like neighbors so much? No matter what, you’re just a stranger.”
“…Me? You don’t know anything.”
Bin smirked and shook his head. Then he pulled out an extra straw he’d brought inside the takeout bag and stuck it back into the latte.
“You know, a person should always prepare extras for just in case. Yeah? For just in case.”
As he slurped again, he saw my hand lift slightly and quickly took a step back. He talked big, but that straw was clearly his last one, judging by how careful he was. Embarrassed, he merely shrugged and slipped inside the building.
I pulled out my phone again and tapped on Du-seon’s contact. I was about to call—but my pride wouldn’t let me. Even in this kind of relationship, I couldn’t lower my pride. No wonder I could never find someone ordinary. I felt like something in my life was fundamentally twisted.
Other people seemed to fit together like interlocking gears, spinning smoothly. But I couldn’t mesh with anyone. Things wouldn’t even start. No matter how much the other person tried, my heart wouldn’t move. Even if I tried, it wouldn’t align.
I needed something that could force me to turn, even against my will. I glared at Du-seon’s number on the screen, growing angrier. Why wouldn’t he answer my call, but he’d pick up that bastard’s?
“Should I just bite him?”
I must’ve said that louder than I thought, because the tteokbokki shop owner next door, who had been stirring the food, hurried inside the store.
I walked toward my car, which stood like a trademark in front of Du-seon’s real estate office. I opened the door to get in and noticed cigarette butts scattered on the ground beneath the car.
“Why the hell are you assholes smoking here?”
I crushed the cigarette butts harder with my foot, then irritably opened the driver’s door. The black car pulled away smoothly.
***
Beside the place where the loud engine noise had just faded, the hardware store was still open for business. The owner stepped outside again to arrange some items. Just then, an elderly man approached him with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Fix this for me. It won’t make any sound.”
What he handed over was a karaoke microphone. At this rate, he wondered if he should change the sign from hardware store to electronics repair shop. When it really didn’t power on, he asked if maybe the batteries were dead. The grandfather said he’d changed them already and it was the same.
“Let’s see.”
Just in case, he opened the battery compartment. As expected, the + and – were inserted the wrong way. The moment he corrected them, the microphone lit up with a loud burst of sound.
“You put the batteries in backwards.”
“The letters are so small—how am I supposed to see them?”
It wasn’t even worth calling it a repair fee. As he told the old man to head home safely, the grandfather pointed to a box on the ground nearby.
“That one yours?”
Looking closely, it resembled a box he’d seen a few days ago. It was just a delivery package—nothing special. Carefully, he picked it up. The recipient was listed as the real estate office next door.
“Didn’t he take it in back then?”
In case it got lost, he decided to keep it inside the hardware store and give it to him when he came.
***
It felt like someone was hammering inside my head. Like my brain was undergoing tectonic shifts, splitting into pieces. When I barely managed to open my eyes, I saw the bathroom threshold in front of me.
I’d suffered from a hangover all night. Every time I threw up and lay down, nausea would rise again. The last thing I remembered was mixing sugar water to drink because I didn’t have any honey.
“G-gonna die…”
Groaning, I rolled onto my back—and felt something on my palm. When I looked, it was sand.
Sand?
I struggled to prop up my upper body halfway and looked at where I’d touched. Dear God… a whole bag of sugar was spilled across the floor. I must’ve torn it open to mix some and dropped it. Worse, I must’ve stepped all over it, because it was scattered evenly all the way to where I’d been lying. No wonder I mistook it for sand. It was brown sugar, after all.
“Ha…”
I didn’t even have the energy to clean it up, so I lay back down.
I wish I had a house fairy. If a house fairy could clean all that up and cook me some bean sprout soup to sober up, how nice would that be? It wasn’t funny, but I let out a hollow laugh. Then yesterday’s events came back to me, and I felt tears threatening again.
“Ah… don’t cry. If you cry, Santa Claus—no, my head’ll just hurt more…”
This is the downside of indoctrinated childhood lessons. Grab any random Korean person and ask why you shouldn’t cry—99 percent would instinctively say that line. Even my mom, who never once gave me a present on Christmas, might say the same thing.
Yeah. If I thought of it as the Relax skill never having been mine in the first place, I’d feel better. But… how could I have been fooled so stupidly like that?
Bin had called earlier, which was how I realized my phone was lying on the floor. I crawled over like I was in military training, barely answered, and hung up. Wondering if any customers had called, I picked up my phone again and checked.
There were missed calls—most of them from Jun. What did he have to say so urgently from early morning? I was annoyed, but I didn’t even have the strength to question it right now.
I set the phone down somewhere on the floor that didn’t have sugar and lay back down like a corpse. I’d chugged cheap soju straight, and my stomach was wrecked. Would it have been better if I’d drunk the liquor Jun had brought? Maybe I should ask him for a bottle next time, so I can drink it whenever I feel this miserable…
Bang bang bang—!
That wasn’t coming from inside my head.
Bang bang bang—! Ding-dong. Ding-dong—.
The pounding on the door felt like it struck my brain the moment it entered my ears. I didn’t know who it was, but I seriously wanted to kill them. I was holding back now because of the hangover, but once I felt better, you bastard—
Ding-dong—. Bang bang—!
“Gentle! I know you didn’t go to work today!”
Of course. It was that bastard.
If I killed someone in a situation like this, how much leniency would I get? Would it count as self-defense? If I said he’d shaken my brain around and I acted on impulse, would that work? Thinking such thoughts, I crawled on all fours.
The constant banging made it impossible to ignore. If I listened any longer, I might’ve wanted to rip my own head off. I crawled to the front door and, reaching it at last, slammed my fist hard against the door. Bang! The noisy pounding abruptly stopped.
“Gentle.”
Roban called my name softly now, unlike before. I wanted to ask why he insisted on calling me Gentle instead of Yoo Du-seon, but I didn’t have the energy for that right now.
“…Go. Please.”
“Should I really go? I brought information on the kid who scammed you yesterday.”
Right. That’s right. I got scammed out of three million won yesterday.
This wasn’t the time to be crawling around the floor like an animal. Unable to rise because of the headache that felt like someone hammering my skull, I stretched out a hand and pressed the door lock release button. That was the best I could do.
