Chapter 1
Part 1.
Even though it’s already July, the rainy season is not over. When the rainy season comes, Heeyoung’s 2-pyeong room turns into hell. It’s the worst pain to survive the humid summer with just a small fan. Winter is easier to endure.
It would be better if the door was open, but Hee-young didn’t want to leave the door open. She didn’t want strangers to peek into her room, and she didn’t want men to come in thinking there was a prostitute in her room.
“Hey, Hee-young. Do you want to go and buy a bottle of soju and a pack of cigarettes?”
The door opened wide and the woman in the next room immediately handed me a ten thousand won bill. Hee-young, who had just gotten off work and was just getting dressed, closed the book she was reading.
“What are you looking at?”
“It’s a book.”
“I know it’s a book, but what kind of book?”
“It’s a workbook.”
“You don’t go to school though.”
Hee-young furrowed her brow at the woman’s words.
“Is there a law that says if you don’t go to school, you can’t look at workbooks?”
“You little girl, you’re being so mean. Buy me some soju now, go.”
The woman threw the ten thousand won bill away and went back to the room. Hee-young picked up the ten thousand won bill she had thrown and counted it out as usual. Hee-young quickly counted the remaining change after buying a bottle of soju and a pack of cigarettes, went outside, and put on her shoes. Hee-young stopped trying to open her umbrella and looked towards the end of the room.
There are quite a few rooms in this inn, and among them, Hee-young’s room is at the end of the yard, and next to it is a room called the [end room]. Originally, that [end room] was empty. Two years ago, a woman committed suicide by cutting her wrists with a razor blade in that room.
Hee-young also remembers that day vividly. The bright red blood overflowing into the basin. And the pale woman’s corpse. That scene didn’t leave her mind even after two years. She didn’t know why the woman died, but she thought that she might have taken her own life out of pessimism.
Anyway, after the woman died, no one tried to enter that [end room] because there was a rumor going around that the ghost of the dead woman was there.
Of course, Hee-young, who lived in the room next door, never saw the ghost of the dead woman, but not long after that woman died, another woman who had been living in that room came running out in tears in the middle of the night, panicking, saying she had seen a ghost two days later, and after that, no one tried to enter that room.
The room, which had been empty for nearly two years, was finally occupied last month.
[He’s not going to live there for a long time. They said he paid the rent in advance and said he’d only be there for three months?]
Hee-young also heard the women gossiping about the man who got the last room. The man who got the last room was a man whose name she didn’t know, but who looked quite rough.
He is about 190 cm tall, has a stocky physique, and wears long sleeves even in the middle of summer. Judging by the tattoos visible outside his long sleeves, he was clearly a gangster or something. He has a scar on his upper lip that remains from a torn wound, and there are scars that look like knife marks on his right eyebrow and above his eyelid.
It was hard to guess his age, but he was definitely older than Hee-young. So Hee-young just called him [Mister]. They lived right next door, so they often met face to face, and that [Mister] often asked Hee-young to run errands for him.
The difference between the women of this inn and that [man] is the difference in the amount of money the women give her for errands and the amount he gives her for errands. The women give her at most one thousand to three thousand won for errands, but [the man] gives her two to ten thousand won bills even for one cigarette errand.
And he sends me on an errand to buy cigarettes at least once a day. She gives him two packs every time she goes. It would cost me a few thousand won, but he always gives me two to ten-thousand won bills, and the rest goes to Hee-young.
In addition, the man rarely goes out. He lives with his door closed, and only opens it when he smokes. No one comes to visit him, and he never goes out to meet anyone. His only meals are the food that Hee-young buys for him as an errand, and sometimes Hee-young cooks him ramen for the ten thousand won he gave her.
He said he signed a three-month contract, but Hee-young hoped the man would stay here for a year. That’s mainly because of him coming in here, her extra income has increased significantly.
[Isn’t he some wanted person? It’s strange that he lives in hiding.]
[He must be a fucking idiot. Otherwise, he would have crawled into any bitch’s room here and fucked her already. But since he is not even coming out of his room, he must be a fucking idiot. There are a lot of crazy bitches here who would spread their legs for ten thousand won with a face like that.]
The women who call themselves [aunts] have a lot to say about that man.
But Hee-young doesn’t care about that. What does it matter if he’s a wanted person or something?
“Sir, are you sleeping?”
Heeyoung called for the man from the room next to his door.
“Sir, I’m going to the supermarket right now. Do you want to order anything?”
‘Are you sleeping?’
His shoes are outside. So he probably didn’t go out. He’s a guy who doesn’t go out much anyway.
‘How can you sleep with the door closed in this hot weather?’
“Sir, I’m going to the supermarket now… … ”
Then the door opened.
“Buy a bottle of soju and some ramen and boil it.”
A man with only his face visible threw two ten-thousand won bills at Hee-young.
“What about cigarettes?”
“I’m hungry. So boil me some ramen.”
“Yes.”
Heeyoung quickly picked up the money that had fallen on the ground.
“Have you eaten?”
“No, not yet.”
“Then buy three more packets and boil one for yourself too.”
“I’m fine.”
“If you want it then eat it. Here it is, the price for ramen.”
The man threw two more ten thousand won bills.
‘He’s giving me a lot of money today.’
I wonder where the man who stays locked up in his room and never comes out gets his money and spends it so lavishly. I’m curious, but I don’t want to ask. However, in Hee-young’s opinion, the man must have hidden a bag of money in that room. Of course, this was just her guess.
* * *
In this blue iron-doored guesthouse, the kitchen was shared by everyone. The refrigerator is shared, and the washing machine is old and can barely spin-dry. Half of the kitchen is covered with clothes and used as a washing area. As a result, the kitchen is so small that washing dishes, washing hands, and laundry must be done at the faucet in the yard.
When you open the refrigerator, you can see the names of all the lunch boxes that are tightly packed together. People who have lived in this small space for years, face to face, do not share even the smallest thing that belongs to them. Not long ago, they fought over who drank the half-bottle of soju that was left over, and they even grabbed each other by the hair.
That’s the kind of place this is. A place where people live but can’t live like human. A place where people live but can’t tolerate each other. A place where only beasts that have been driven into dead ends live.
‘It’s done.’
Hee-young came out of the kitchen with a pot of ramen, two bowls, a bottle of soju, and a small glass on a tray and walked to the end room.
“Hee-young. Auntie is hungry, please boil me just one bowl of ramen.”
Ignore what the woman in the middle room says. She doesn’t have any customers these days, so she doesn’t have money for soju or cigarettes. She wouldn’t give me money for ramen.
“Are you ignoring what I’m saying? Is she just ignoring me now?”
Hee-young opened the door to the last room, ignoring what the woman said.
“Ramen’s here.”
A man was sitting in a corner talking to someone. Hee-young doesn’t have a cell phone. These days, no one is without a cell phone, but Hee-young doesn’t want to waste money on one.
Even if she had a cell phone, no one would call her or come to her, so it would be useless. If she had to make a call, she could either make it in the office or use the pay phone at the supermarket at the entrance of the alley.
The man was on the phone and motioned for her to come in. Hee-young, who went into the room with the food, left the door open. It was already hot and humid, so she didn’t want to close the door and eat the hot ramen.
“Eat first.”
The man pointed to the ramen with his hand holding the cigarette.
“You still haven’t found that kid?”
The man spoke in a low voice.
‘Who are you looking for?’
Although she doesn’t know, she was still curious. Hee-young’s eyes and ears are constantly focused on the man as he pours ramen from the pot into a bowl and slurps it down.
“You guys have to find that kid to survive. It doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
Heeyoung was so focused on the man’s phone call that she didn’t even notice the taste of the ramen. She couldn’t hear the other person’s voice. But she could feel that the conversation was serious.
“I’m going to live my life, so you guys find your own way to live. Okay. Don’t call me anymore unless it’s to find that bastard.”
That was the end of the call.
“The noodles are over cooked.”
Hee-young spoke to the man sitting in front of her in a tone that showed she knew nothing.
“Just fill your stomach.”
A man holding chopsticks scoops out a large bowl of noodles and slurps them down. Hee-young sometimes eats ramen with this man like this. There isn’t much conversation between them, so she doesn’t know anything about this man.
“Ajushi.” (Mister)
“What?”
“Why do you live here like this?”
“Why are you living here like this?”
“That’s because I have nowhere to go.”
“I have nowhere to go either. Okay?”
“You have a lot of money, Mister. If I had as much money as you, I would go and live somewhere else instead of here.”
“No matter where you go, it’s all the same.”
“I don’t know because I’ve never been anywhere else.”
“Listen carefully, because this is what someone who has a lot of experience of the outside world is saying. Nothing will change if you go somewhere else. So just live here.”
He’s a funny guy. You want me to live here? It’s funny to ask me to live in such a dirty place, a place with no dreams or hopes.
“Sir, you’re not going to live here your whole life… Are you… ”
The man chuckles at those words. Look. If he himself isn’t going to live here for the rest of his life, why does he ask others to live here for the rest of their lives? Isn’t he a really funny person?
“Okay, once I save up some money, I’ll leave here.”
“What are you going to do after you leave?”
“I’m going to study. I’m going to study, get a good job, buy a nice house, and live well.”
“The world may not be that easy.”
“The world is still not easy.”
The world has never been easy.
“Would you like a drink?”
The man glanced at Heeyoung as he poured soju into a glass.
“Okay.”
Why am I drinking that bitter stuff?
A man who ate a few bites of ramen and emptied half a bottle of soju put a cigarette in his mouth. When he lit it, pungent smoke filled the room.
The scar on his lips moves every time he moves his lips while holding the cigarette. The scar across his lips, from the top of his lips to his chin, looks like it was cut with a knife. There are also small scars on the knuckles of his fingers that was holding the cigarette.
A damp room. And the extremely pungent cigarette smoke. The taste of ramen that she had eaten so much that she was sick of it. This room felt so stuffy that Hee-young forced herself to finish the remaining ramen. She wanted to get out of this room quickly.
* * *
