ACJY C41

The man who had finished washing his hair reached for the soap. Taeheun only then started washing his own hair, after watching the man lather his entire body, washing his pubic hair, penis, and testicles. He then used the same soap the man had used.

The man finished showering before Taeheun and, instead of drying himself, brought over his boots. He sprayed the inside and outside of the boots with the showerhead and then lathered them with soap, meticulously scrubbing the insides. The naked man washing his boots looked somewhat comical. However, his expression was so serious that Taeheun couldn’t laugh.

The man dried his boots before his own body. Even after Taeheun had dried himself and gotten dressed, the man was still preoccupied with drying his boots. Taeheun looked down at the man, still naked, wearing only beach sandals on his bare feet.

“How long are you going to keep wiping those boots?”

“They’ll smell later if they’re wet.”

“What’s wrong with a little smell?”

“I don’t like it.”

The man replied curtly.

Even though the man had told him to go ahead, Taeheun remained rooted in front of him, watching what he was doing. Had he forgotten he was naked? The man didn’t seem embarrassed at all.

Only after meticulously drying his boots to the point of wear and tear did the man finally dry himself. Although he had watched the boot-drying process intently, Taeheun felt awkward watching the man dry his body from head to toe with a towel, so he left the room.

A text message arrived.

「Chicken coop, task complete」

Taeheun turned off his phone.

The man, now dressed, put on slippers. He walked unsteadily, carrying his sweat-soaked clothes in a black plastic bag and his boots in his hands. Taeheun took the bag from him and slipped his phone inside. The black object disappeared among the wet clothes.

He opened the door to the youth association office. The president of the youth association, perched in front of his desk like a built-in cabinet, was glued to his monitor, oblivious to anyone entering.

The man placed his boots next to the sofa and asked, “Hyungnim, aren’t you going to eat?”

“I have to.”

“I’m going to have kongguksu (cold soybean noodle soup). Want to come?”

“No, I hate beans.”

The youth association president replied dismissively. As if accustomed to this kind of response, the man didn’t ask again, and Taeheun didn’t say a word.

The two left the office together.

“Why didn’t you give us a snack? How are we supposed to last six hours on just two cucumbers?”

Taeheun complained, even though he wasn’t particularly hungry.

“I told them not to give you any because you’re working while moving around. Before, we used to set up a place and provide a meal, but getting there wasn’t easy.”

“Then they should at least pack some rice balls.”

“Rest.”

“What about bread?”

When Taeheun persisted, the man said, “Bread…” and then closed his mouth. He looked like he hadn’t thought of that, a look of realization on his face.

“Ask for bread next time. Without cream or red bean paste.”

“…Yes.”

It was their second visit to the kongguksu restaurant. On the first day Taeheun formally stayed at the man’s house, they had lunch here with the village head and Kwon Yongjun’s group. Back then, he had no appetite and only pretended to eat, poking around a few times with his chopsticks before putting them down and just drinking makgeolli (Korean rice wine).

The restaurant had the same layout as the duck stew restaurant, making it seem perfectly normal if duck stew were served right then. The man and Taeheun stepped onto the floor in their bare feet. An elderly woman led them to an empty table, and kongguksu was served before they could even settle down.

“They only have one item on the menu here,” the man said, placing his chopsticks down, unaware that Taeheun had eaten lunch here before.

The only side dish was kimchi. It was no different from the meals at the man’s house.

As always, the man ate with gusto. Taeheun, who had no appetite at all, suddenly felt hungry as the man began to eat. The kongguksu and kimchi entering the man’s mouth looked incredibly delicious. He gulped, swallowed his saliva, and finally picked up his chopsticks. He wondered if the rough texture would even go down his throat, but it went down smoothly.

The soybean broth, which he had previously found bland, was now rich and savory. The noodles were so springy that the texture was amazing. Taeheun smiled unconsciously, and the man, noticing this, gave him a knowing smile as if asking, “Delicious, isn’t it?”

The man blushed less and less these days. Did he realize it? Even though this was how it should be, Taeheun felt strangely disappointed. He must have really liked the man who blushed at the slightest word.

After their meal, the two returned to the youth association office and settled on the sofa. The man quickly fell asleep. Taeheun casually placed a blanket over him and lay down facing the sleeping man. Even with the fluorescent lights off, the man had pulled the blanket over his face, which was ridiculous. What if he suffocated?

Worried about the man’s life, Taeheun forced himself to try to sleep, but sleep, which wouldn’t come at night, was even less likely to come during the day.

He had developed two ailments he had never experienced before: lethargy and insomnia. If asked which was the most agonizing, it would undoubtedly be insomnia. Perhaps his lethargy was caused by insomnia. Insomnia led to excessive thinking, and excessive thinking led to a sense of futility.

If he had insomnia, he shouldn’t even be dreaming. But nightmares came unbidden. Every time he drifted off, the nightmares would intrude, as if determined to disturb even his brief moments of sleep. The beginning was always the same, and the ending varied depending on the length of his sleep. Sometimes it would end with the thugs defecating. Those times, his already foul mood would plummet to its worst.

Fucking hell. Fucking dream. Fucking insomnia.

Sleep when you’re dead.

His uncle’s words seemed to echo in his ears.

How would his uncle be doing? He would be devastated. Not because his adopted son, Lee Seonjae, was dead, but because Lee Seonjae, who was in charge of Ilkwang Financial’s main business, was dead. He would be devastated and furious. Lee Hyeonjun might have been partying to avoid his father. He was capable of that.

“I told you I’m not doing it!”

Taeheun was brought back to reality by a sudden voice.

“Hey, you brat. You have to go to the matchmaking, don’t you? You’re the eldest grandson, aren’t you ashamed in front of your younger siblings? Your mother and I want to hold a grandchild. You know Youngsu from the next village? He’s two years older than you, and last month he went to Vietnam, got married, and came back within a week. The girl is twenty-two years old.”

“How can you marry a foreign girl you can’t even talk to!”

“What does that matter? Have you ever seen me talk to your mother? As long as she eats well, works well, and bears lots of children, that’s a wife.”

The youth association president and the village head were bickering loudly at the office door.

“They say you can marry a woman twenty years younger than you with just ten million won. That’s unthinkable in Korea. And what about your age? The women you’ve been set up with are all spinsters over thirty-five. Those women can’t even have children. They’ve tasted city life and they’re terrified of farm work. Stop talking back and get on that plane next month!”

“I’ll take care of it myself!”

Under the village head’s one-sided attack, the youth association president retreated to his office. He childishly locked the door to prevent the village head from entering. Bang, bang, bang. The loud banging on the door eventually subsided.

“Damn it, that old man is senile. Why would I marry a Vietnamese woman?”

The youth association president sat down on his chair irritably, cursing his father.

It was the youth association president’s personal business, which Taeheun didn’t particularly care about, but it helped clear his mind. Taeheun chuckled briefly.

The weeding work resumed at 4 PM and didn’t finish until past 7 PM. He had sweated so much that he hadn’t urinated despite drinking so much water. The man drove an exhausted Taeheun to pick up his child.

“Dad, make me doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew).”

“We had it just a few days ago.”

“Make it again, please. I want to eat it.”

As soon as the child got into the truck, he started asking for doenjang jjigae. Just hearing the words “doenjang jjigae” made Taeheun nauseous. It was because he had been exposed to the sun for too long for two days in a row, yesterday and today. And also because he had been drinking a lot.

“Why does the mister look like he’s dying?” the child asked.

“I’m not dying, I’m dead,” Taeheun replied with his eyes closed.

“Geez. Who dies from pulling some weeds?”

“Weeds, you know, they’re not ordinary. They come back to life even after you kill them, again and again. It was chaos. They were so persistent that we almost lost to the weeds. Right, Mr. Gibeom?”

The man didn’t answer. Taeheun opened his eyes slightly and saw him grinning. Taeheun smiled along with him.

While the child fed the dogs, the man busily prepared dinner. The man must have been more tired than Taeheun, but he didn’t show it at all. 8,000 pyeong (about 6.5 acres) my ass, he must have worked a few thousand pyeong more than that. There was no other way he could have gotten blisters on his feet.

The man brought him a box labeled “first aid.” Taeheun sterilized a needle with a lighter and popped the blister on his little toe. He winced from the sting.

“Such a baby,” the child clicked her tongue, watching Taeheun. She must have come in while he wasn’t looking.

“Jihye, wash your hands.”

The man, who seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, noticed the child’s presence immediately. 

“Okay,” the child replied and got up.

While wiping the pus from the blister with toilet paper, Taeheun watched the man’s back. Standing in front of the stove, the man wiped the sweat from his neck with a towel and slid the chopped ingredients into the earthenware pot in order. The pot bubbled, and the man tasted it with a spoon. Only after adding the tofu did he finally go to the small kitchen window to catch some breeze.