TTD Ch 95

The excitement of the date momentarily faded as Kang Il-hyun’s car was heading to an increasingly strange place since a while ago. He drove out of the center of Seoul and entered a place commonly known as a slum, but later the road had become narrower until they had to stop and get out in the middle.

Ja-kyung who got out of the car stopped when he found a small hole-in-the-wall shop in front of the neighborhood. In front of the dilapidated hole-in-the-wall store, a stooped, gray-haired old lady was sitting on a bench peeling garlic. The old lady raised her head at the visit of strangers. Seeing the large mole next to her eye, Ja-kyung flinched back.

“Do you need anything?”

Her hearing seemed to be not so good, so her voice was loud. Ja-kyung’s memory quickly flashed to the past. At that time, hunger was an everyday thing, and he often visited the store to steal bread because he couldn’t bear the hunger. He would get caught and beaten, but the aunt of a particularly generous store owner covered Ja-kyung and secretly gave him bread or milk. And she also had a big mole next to her eye.

As Ja-kyung stepped back, he felt a warm hand on his back. The hand then came up to rest on his shoulder. Ja-kyung turned around and faced Il-hyun.

“This is…”

“You remember?”

“How did you know?”

“There are many ways to know.”

Ja-kyung was speechless. He looked around the neighborhood once more. The stairs he climbed up and down while delivering drugs as a child, and the spaces where he hid from his parents’ beatings, were still the same. Ja-kyung wasn’t ready to climb up and just stood there, but Il-hyun extended his hand.

“Do you want to go see the house you used to live in?”

“…”

“Tell me if you feel uncomfortable. We can go back.”

Ja-kyung was silent. After leaving Korea, he never wanted to set foot here again. But as he began to settle down, he became curious sometimes. How would that place have changed? Will the house he lived in still exist? He could find it if he tried, but he couldn’t bring himself to look for it. But now that he has come here, it wasn’t as scary as he had thought.

While he was lost in thought, Il-hyun went into the store and came out with two ice creams. The man’s muffled voice was from inside as he swiped his card. He peeled off the wrapper and handed one to Ja-kyung. Ja-kyung absent-mindedly took it, and Il-hyun was already taking a bite of his strawberry ice cream.

The scene where Kang Il-hyun eats 1,000 won ice cream was as unfamiliar as Wang Han’s thick hair. He spoke to him affectionately with strawberry-flavored ice cream in his mouth.

“Do you want to go up?”

He extended his hand, and Ja-kyung looked at it blankly before stepping away. Kang Il-hyun trailed behind him and held his hand. It seemed strange for two big men to go up the hill holding hands, so Ja-kyung kept pulling away, but they eventually made it up the hill while holding hands.

There was graffiti on both sides of the alley with red paint spars, and there were old people sitting and relaxing along the way. As they continued up the steep hill, Il-hyun seemed to get hotter and took off his jacket, draping it over his arm.

The stairs where the man fell to his death and the house where old Wang lived were all still there. Ja-kyung’s heart tightened as more old memories surfaced in his mind. Whether it was because of strength or for some other reason, his step became heavier and heavier.

The closer he got to the house, the tighter his breath became, and he couldn’t take any more steps. Because his hands were sweaty, he let go of them and rubbed them on his pants several times.

“Shall we go back?”

Ja-kyung shook his head quietly in response to Il-hyun’s question. Still, since he had come this far, he was curious. Ja-kyung took a long, deep breath in front of the tightly closed blue iron door. He felt like he was going to be grabbed by the hair and stomped in the face the moment he opened it.

He felt like his dead mother was going to scream at him with her demonic face and tear at his body with her ghostly nails. It seemed that his terrifying father was going to hit him with a golf stick in a fit of rage. He couldn’t bear to take a step, and just barely put his hand on the door.

It felt chillingly cold. As he slowly opened the door with a creaking sound, Ja-kyung stopped in his tracks. The front yard of the house was full of flowers. It was obvious that someone had put a lot of effort into taking care of it. The whole house was clean and had a cozy feeling to it.

Ja-kyung grabbed Il-hyun’s arm and pulled him.

“Let’s go… someone must be living here.”

Il-hyun pretended not to hear and went to sit on the porch, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it before patting the seat next to him and motioning for Ja-kyung to sit.

Ja-kyung looked around and cautiously stepped inside. 

“There must be someone living here.”

“No, there isn’t.”

No matter how you look at it, it’s obvious that someone lives here. It wouldn’t be this clean otherwise. Ja-kyung couldn’t even imagine that this was the house he lived in. Come to think of it, there were red roses climbing all over the walls.

Il-hyun approached him and placed a cigarette in his mouth as he carefully sat down on the floor.

He then walked up to the floor in his shoes and lay down on Ja-kyung’s thigh.

“Oh, it’s comfortable.”

Ja-kyung exhaled a long puff of cigarette smoke and looked around the house.  The house had changed so drastically that he wondered if it was really his house. It was at the top of the hill, so sitting in the shade was quite pleasant. The wind blew and cooled the sweat on his forehead, making him feel alive.

Ja-kyung who was looking around the yard looked back. He saw a tightly closed door. Still inside, it seemed that his mother was having affairs with strangers. After staring blankly, he lowered his gaze and looked at Kang Il-hyun, who has closed his eyes and barely moves.

“Are you asleep?”

“No.”

“This… how did you find this place?”

Il-hyun opened his eyes. Ja-kyung’s face was reflected in his languid eyes.

“I found out by accident when I was looking for you after you ran away last year.”

Last year… Looking at the pretty flowers on the flower bed and the wall, Ja-kyung felt suspicious if Il-hyun had done it. Il-hyun sat up and made eye contact with Ja-kyung with a slightly serious expression.

“It’s been empty for a long time, and it’s covered in dust. They say it’s haunted, so no one has lived in it or touched it.”

“…”

“I was curious about how you looked when you were young.”

Il-hyun stopped talking and remembered that time. Messy household items, adult products, and a small amount of drugs scattered around the room, empty bottles of alcohol, and gambling cards.

“I wondered if I had come to the wrong place because there were no traces or things of raising a child.”

Ja-kyung bit his lower lip. There couldn’t be anything like that in the first place.

“For fuck’s sake, if they had given birth to you, they should have taken at least one photo. Don’t you think?”

The only children’s clothes Il-hyun could find were a few rags. They weren’t worn out over time, but they were just that way from the beginning. There were no toys, notebooks, or writing utensils to be found at all. Il-hyun gnashed his teeth with hatred in his eyes.

Ja-kyung’s nose turned sour as he watched Il-hyun take his side. When Ja-kyung tried to brush it off, telling himself that it was all in the past, Il-hyun stood up and walked over to the flowerbed. He drew a cigarette and smoked it, so Ja-kyung thought he was doing so to relax, but Il-hyun went into the flower bed and broke off the flowers blooming here and there one by one.

Ja-kyung frowned.

“Why are you picking the perfectly good flowers?”

Il-hyun pretended not to hear and kept bending and carrying it slowly across the yard. Wearing loose clothing, smoking a cigarette, and holding a randomly picked flower, it reminds Ja-kyung of a villain character from a certain movie.

It felt like he was about to pull a gun out of his pocket and shoot. Instead of a gun, he held out a flower. When Ja-kyung remained motionless, Il-hyun stubbed out his cigarette on the ground and smiled brightly.

“Consolation to you who grew up without being loved as a child.”

Ah, why was this man like this? Ja-kyung took a deep breath, and that’s when he smell it. The smell of alcohol. The smell of heavy cosmetics. The smell of cigarettes. The smell of fishy semen. The smell of blood. The voices of his parents screaming that they should never have had a child like him.

Ja-kyung kept his eyes fixed on the ground and couldn’t lift his head. His nose was sore and his eyes were hot.

“Babe. Can you take it before my arm falls?”

At his joke, Ja-kyung raised his head. Instead of his abusive parents, there was a handsome man holding out a flower with a charming smile. The scent of flowers was so strong that it made his head dizzy. Il-hyun took out his cell phone and sat right next to him.

Il-hyun turned the camera on without saying a word. It was awkward to see himself on the camera sitting side by side with Kang Il-hyun.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a picture.”

Ja-kyung snapped out of his daze. He tried to run away because he didn’t like it, but he was caught and forced to take a picture. Ja-kyung’s expression in the photo was unnatural. Kang Il-hyun looked at it disapprovingly.

“Fuck. It came out as if I was the only one who liked it.”

Ja-kyung laughed unconsciously at the childlike complaint. Il-hyun looked at Ja-kyung’s smiling face, then pulled the back of his head and swallowed his lips. His tongue slipped into the open mouth and slid across the sticky coating, then fell off.

After that, Il-hyun hugged him tightly and stroked his back and head with his big hand.

“Thank you for growing up well.”

Ja-kyung’s throat tightened. It was the kind of thing you usually only hear from your parents. Ja-kyung buried his eyes in Kang Il-hyun’s shoulder. He felt like he was going to burst into tears.

“From now on, I will give you all the love you need.”

It was nice to hear the softly whispered confession.

If it wasn’t for that last word, it would have been more memorable.

“If you get it from someone other than me…”

Il-hyun stopped talking and Ja-kyung held his breath.

“Then we’ll be buried together in this flower garden, do you understand?”

Ja-kyung raised his head and frowned, Il-hyun pressed Ja-kyung’s head back down to rest against his shoulder and patted him on the back to soothe him. Good boy, it’s okay.

Unlike his frightening words, his voice was as affectionate as ever.

Whether it was a confession or a threat, Ja-kyung can’t tell.