Chapter 2
Part 1
“Ajushi, What is your name?”
Heeyoung immediately asked the man who was eating ramen.
“By knowing my name… what do you want to do with it?”
Three days had passed since that incident. The [aunts] in the other room said, “It would be better for you to quit this unprofitable accounting job and earn some money by selling yourself,” but Hee-young pretended not to hear them.
My dead mother came here when she was young. A young widow with a young daughter. That was my mother.
My mother said that because she had a pretty face, there were quite a few people who would pester her. It would have been much better to receive a bribe than the money received from women for doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning, but my mother did not give in to the temptation.
Was it because of her young daughter? Was it because she didn’t want to raise her daughter as a prostitute? Her mother never told Hee-young anything. She never told her who her father was, or why she had to come to a place like this and live.
After her mother died, Hee-young found a diary-like notebook while sorting through her belongings, and only then was able to learn a little about her mother. A faded photo of someone who looked like her father, a military ID tag, and a few letters from the military. The last death notice.
It was just those things, but I could guess roughly. It must have been a melodrama. Didn’t her mother have a family? Did she not have a maternal grandmother or grandfather, or siblings?
She gave birth to me and raised me all by herself, and ended up in a place like this.
Did she want to be a mother who wouldn’t be ashamed of herself in front of her daughter while doing the dirty work of women selling their bodies, or was she unable to sell her body because she couldn’t forget the dead man? Only her mother knows the reason.
But Hee-young won’t live like that. If she were in place of her mother, she wouldn’t have given birth to a dead man’s child. She would have just gotten rid of the child and chosen an easier life. Even if she gave birth to a child in that situation, it would only end up like this.
“People don’t have names.”
“What? Everyone has a name. Do you want to know my name? I’m Hee-young Yoon.”
“Are you going to make a public statement out of it? Or are you going to ask me to date you, why do you want to know my name?”
“Is it that hard to tell me your name?”
“Lee Jong-woo.”
“Lee Jong-woo. It’s an ordinary name.”
“Why?”
“No, I thought you would have a weirder name.”
“What’s that weird name?”
“It’s just… … a scary name… … . A name that’s scary and creepy just to hear it.”
At those words, the man frowned and smiled, then put down his chopsticks and picked up his glass of soju.
“Sir, you have a lot of money.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“You have so much money, why do you live in a place like this?”
“None of your business.”
“You can’t get caught, right? You’re hiding? Did you kill someone?”
“What if I killed someone? Then are you going to report me?”
“If I report you, then will they give me a reward… … .”
This was Hee-young’s true heart. In fact, Hee-young has been looking at the wanted posters on the walls of the supermarkets these days. To see if this man’s face is on them. If she reports him and receives the reward, she will leave right away. But unfortunately, this man’s face was not on the wanted posters.
“Report me and leave this place with the reward money?”
“Yes. I could leave if I had ten million won.”
“Just keep staying here. It won’t be any different if you go outside. It’ll be better for you to stay here.”
“You saw that shit last time too? What’s the big deal about this place?”
“That’s why I taught you. How to deal with those guys. If you get known to others as a bad bitch, no one will mess with you.”
The man emptied his glass of soju and filled it with more.
“Live like a hawk. Bite first, then put venom in their eyes. Then no one will touch you.”
“How long are you going to live like that? I want to live comfortably.”
“Comfortably? How?”
“Just comfortably. I don’t want to have to wear earplugs every night, I don’t want to hear drunk people trying to open my door in the middle of the night, I don’t want to run into perverts chasing me down an alley where the streetlights are broken. I want a house that gets some sunlight and where the rain doesn’t leak in, with a washing machine and a refrigerator that’s just for me.”
The man just listens to Hee-young muttering as he empties his glass of soju.
“I would like to eat out sometimes, and on rainy days, I like to sit by the window at a cafe and drink coffee while listening to the sound of the rain. I want to take the bus to and from work, and on days when I come back very late, I want to take a taxi. When I take a taxi, I want to give the change to the taxi driver.”
“Its nothing much.”
“But I can’t enjoy such trivial things by staying here.”
“Clean up after you’re done eating.”
“Sir, can you give me some money? Just lend me some and I’ll pay you back later.”
This man has money and Hee-young knows it.
“Can you lend me some money? Just ten million won. No. Just five million won… .”
“Have you finished eating?”
“Sir… … . I’ll really pay you back. I’ll pay it all back.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll work hard to save up and pay you back first.”
But the man pretends not to hear her and gets up and goes out.
“Where are you going?”
“To meet people.”
“Mister!”
A man who rarely goes out is suddenly going out now? This is probably because he doesn’t want to lend me money. After the man left, Hee-young searched the man’s room.
‘Where did you hide the money?’
But no matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find a bag full of money, let alone a wad of cash.
‘There must be money… … .’
That man spends tens of thousands of won a day without any worries. If he spends that much money for over a month, it means he has at least a few hundred dollars on hand. And if he is really hiding from someone, he may have even more money as his escape funds.
‘There isn’t any… … .’
In the end, Hee-young, who couldn’t find the money, had no choice but to leave the room in despair.
* * *
I thought the rainy season was almost over, but it started to rain again. In the early evening, Hee-young jumped into the iron gate as the rain started to pour down.
‘Why is it raining so suddenly… … .’
I only got hit for a moment, but I got completely wet from my head to my shoes.
‘But why is it so quiet?’
The inn, which should be noisy at this hour, was quiet.
‘What’s going on?’
It is the first time that the inn has been this quiet at this hour of the evening. And not only is it quiet, but the yard and the rooms are in complete chaos. The doors are all open and things are strewn about the yard as if a typhoon had passed through.
“Is Heeyoung here?”
At that moment, the door opened and an older woman stuck her face out. When she was young, she had sold her body here, but now that she was older and had no customers, she lived off by washing the innkeeper’s dirty dishes.
I heard that she is already over 60 years old, so you could call her a grandmother. She is sick all over and there is nothing she can do. It would be correct to say that she is just waiting for the day she dies.
“Heeyoung, please bring me some water. I’m dying of thirst, but I don’t have the energy to go all the way to the fridge.”
“Auntie, what’s wrong?”
“The crackdown has begun.”
“A crackdown?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was chaos. The crackdown came 30 minutes ago, so the customers ran away, and all the bitches hid and ran away… … It was chaos. I’ve never seen such chaos before.”
“Do they crack down on places like this? They’ve never cracked down on this place before.”
At least as far as Hee-young knows, the police have never been out to crack down on this place. Who would come out to crack down on such a run-down, shabby place?
“No way. The police suddenly came and arrested everyone. They arrested the woman who was the pimp and the owner. It was chaos. If you were there, you would have been arrested too.”
“Why me?”
“You live here, so would they look at you any differently?”
“Yeah…….”
That’s right. Even if you tell the police officers who came to crack down that you are not a prostitute, that you are an accountant who works in an office, and that you are a different person, they won’t listen.
‘It’s a good thing the crackdown is over. But the old woman… … .’
Hee-young, who was about to go to the kitchen to get water, turned her gaze to the last room. What would have happened to that man if the police had come? It was obvious that he had done something and was hiding, but if the police had come, wouldn’t he have been caught?
“Sir, are you inside?”
Hee-young, who brought water to the old aunt, knocked on the door of the last room. But there was no answer. There were no shoes outside the door.
‘Have you been caught?’
“Auntie. Was the Mister who lived here arrested too?”
“That bachelor? No, I didn’t see him leave before.”
“is that so?”
Hee-young felt a little relieved when she heard that the police hadn’t caught him.
‘Why am I feeling relieved? Whether that guy gets caught or not. He’s a guy who doesn’t even lend me any money… ‘
Hee-young quickly went into the room. First, she had to change out of her soaking wet clothes. As Hee-young was about to close the door, the iron door opened and Lee Jong-woo came in. Lee Jong-woo glanced at the messy yard for a moment and then walked straight into the room.
“You don’t have an umbrella?”
“It just poured out all of a sudden.”
Lee Jong-woo, who said such things, had an umbrella in his hand.
“By the way, did you see me coming?”
When I think about it carefully, there is only one way to get to this guesthouse. There is one way from the bus stop to the supermarket, and another alley from the supermarket to the guesthouse. Now that this man has come in, he must have seen me on the way up to the supermarket.
No, even when I entered the alley, he would have seen me. But even though he saw me walking without an umbrella, he didn’t call me to share it with him.
“I saw you. I saw you getting rained on.”
“So you have seen it? If you saw me getting drenched then shouldn’t you call me and share your umbrella?”
“Should I do that?”
“You have to.”
“Why? Who are you anyway?”
Hee-young was speechless at Lee Jong-woo’s words.
“Well, well… … .”
“Who are you to have me hold an umbrella for you?”
“Its because you are someone I know.”
“Do you know me?”
“Mister.”
“Aside from my name and the fact that I live here for a while, what do you know about me?”
I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him other than his name, Lee Jong-woo, and that he lives here for a while.
“You don’t know me, right? So there’s no reason for me to hold an umbrella for you.”
The man glanced at Hee-young before folding his umbrella and going into the next room.
“Boil me some ramen. I’m hungry.”
“Do I look like the kind of person who would offer ramen to an old man if he asked for it?”
“I’ll give you money.”
Lee Jong-woo said something like, “If I give you money, you have no choice but to boil it and offer it to me,” and went into the room and closed the door. Hee-young’s insides were seething. But the man was right. If you give me money, I have no choice but to boil it and offer it to you.
‘Money…….’
Money is her enemy.
‘If I sink into a sea of money and die, then I will have no regrets… … .’
If there was a sea made of money, I would be happy to suffocate in it and die. How nice it would be to die while smelling money.
‘Let’s change my clothes first.’
I still feel dirty because the wet clothes are still sticking to my body. I can’t even take them off easily.
“… … .”
Heeyoung was about to take off her panties that were wet and stuck to her butt, but instead she looked at them intently. There were holes in them. The panties that she had worn for so long had several small holes in them.
“ha…….”
Hee-young sighed and bit her lips tightly. There was a thought that had been lingering in her head for several days. A thought that kept lingering in her head, but that it couldn’t get out of her head.
‘There’s no way, now.’
Of course, I don’t know yet whether this will work or not.
‘I’m going to get out of here, no matter what.’
Hee-young took off her wet panties. Then, instead of wearing dry panties, she put on a comfortable pleated skirt that she wore at home. Then she went out.
* * *
