DS 41

Waiting for praise was both nerve-wracking and exciting.

Finally, the man discovered the shoes the next morning. As he was about to slip his foot into the shoe, he frowned sharply.

What should I do, what should I do?

Standing behind him, Eun-myeong quickly turned his head away, his heart pounding. Thump, thump. His heart beat heavily.

Would the man be pleased? Would he finally praise him? His chest swelled as if it might burst with expectations.

However, the words that came next wrecked Eun-myeong’s expectations.

“Did the hotel staff do this shit?”

Eun-myeong almost gasped out loud. He swallowed his denial, unable to voice it. He should speak up right now and say he did it.

“Polished them so vulgarly.”

When the man wrinkled his face like that, it became too suffocating to say anything.

“Are they trying to sell me some extra service?”

He finally kicked the shoes violently.

“Manager Park, get rid of these.”

Eun-myeong stood silently behind, hands clasped, just staring at the floor. He’d looked at the rug so much he could probably draw its pattern from memory now.

Boom, after the man left the hotel first, Bear picked up his shoes and dumped them in the trash. Then he glanced back at Eun-myeong, as if he knew who had done it.

“There are proper places for shoe shining, so it would be better not to touch them in the future.”

Mr. Bear was very quick to read situations.

Alone in the hotel room, Eun-myeong carefully approached the trash can. The man’s leather shoes were inside. He quietly took them out. How could they throw away something so precious?

He wiggled his toes uselessly as embarrassment and shame washed over him.

This was Eun-myeong’s first time doing something for others without getting paid. Though he had put his whole heart into it, it was too inadequate and was rejected before it could even bloom.

Eun-myeong carefully placed his heart in the drawer under the closet to hide it away.

* * *

Eun-myeong desperately attempted to earn even a fragment of praise from the man. Since the man kept trimming his finger and toenails, wondering if he looked too dirty, he carefully trimmed his nails with clippers.

Unfortunately for Eun-myeong, when the man grabbed Eun-myeong’s hand with his pocket knife, he showed his clear displeasure.

‘Who touched these?’

Who else would touch Eun-myeong’s nails besides Eun-myeong himself? Surely this wasn’t wrong too, right? When Eun-myeong timidly said he had cut them himself, the man scolded him for doing unnecessary things.

‘Showing all your flesh like that. Not even knowing to be ashamed.’

His hands were raw and red in places from climbing the ladder in the tank, but seeing that only seemed to worsen the man’s mood, making him temperamental.

Phew, Eun-myeong let out a deep sigh. He had no idea what he needed to do to earn even a little favor in the man’s eyes.

Meanwhile, his body gradually recovered. After almost a week, Eun-myeong trotted back to the fish restaurant.

“Hello…”

“Oh my, our Eun-myeong is here.”

Aunt Jung-hye quickly welcomed him, saying she had been worried. Her excessive concern was puzzling. But it turned out the man had really contacted the restaurant, lying that Eun-myeong was so sick he couldn’t eat or drink anything. Eun-myeong shook his head, saying he was fine.

“It, it wasn’t that bad, fortunately.”

“I smuggled this out to feed our baby.”

The aunt made Eun-myeong gulp down some health tonic, saying she had taken it from his son. Though he tried waving his hands, saying he was fine, the aunt just winked and insisted it was okay.

“Auntie, and please give me your number.”

The tonic was terribly bitter. After drinking it all with a “ugh” and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the aunt quickly gave him a nurungji candy to clear his palate.

“Number?”

Then, while Eun-myeong rolled the candy around, she clapped his hands as if realizing something.

“Oh my, you finally got a phone? This is really something to see!”

Eun-myeong laughed with a “hehe.” The aunt quickly took out his phone from his apron and opened something like a cover. They put their heads together and exchanged phone numbers.

“Aunt Jung-hye.”

Eun-myeong spoke each syllable as he slowly but firmly pressed the keypad to save the aunt’s name.

Then the aunt taught him how to operate the phone.

“You have to make the text really big so it’s easy to see.”

“Oh, yes yes,” Eun-myeong listened attentively. The text in his phone soon grew to fill the entire screen at maximum size.

He practiced typing messages with his aunt at the restaurant.

[Did, you, eat, lunch, Boss?]

Though he couldn’t bring himself to press send, worried it might disturb work, he still felt oddly satisfied.

* * *

The restaurant was very busy again today. Making up for his rest, Eun-myeong bustled between the kitchen and dining room, and occasionally swept in front of the store. Perhaps because the wind had been especially fierce last night, fallen leaves like strands of hair had blown everywhere, making the storefront dirty.

As evening shadows fell on the seaside, while the drinking customers were leaving one by one, Eun-myeong swept the storefront again. He moved his hands quite diligently.

At some point, he heard an engine roar and quickly looked up. It was a white sedan. A common car type that is seen several times a day in this neighborhood.

Eun-myeong looked down again and swept the storefront. Having already cleared the leaves, only brown sand swirled in the wind.

“Child.”

Unlike before, when he turned his head, Aunt Jung-hye was standing at the door. She beckoned with his tanned hand.

“Come inside and rest now. What if you collapse again?”

Her face was full of concern and worry for Eun-myeong. Eun-myeong smiled faintly. It was a smile that barely lifted the corners of his mouth. His chest hurt with guilt toward the aunt who firmly believed he had been deathly ill.

“I’m fine, I’m not tired at all. I’m all better.”

Though his legs were a bit shaky, he had eaten well before coming to work, so his stomach was very full.

“I ate lots of food before coming.”

Just then, another car sound with a swoosh came from behind. Eun-myeong’s head naturally turned. This time it was a yellow compact car, completely opposite from the car he had been picturing in his mind. His expectant eyes quickly dropped.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“…Pardon?”

He turned sharply to look at the aunt. Eun-myeong blinked. How could that be? Who would he be waiting for?

“That Boss?”

At the aunt’s sudden words, Eun-myeong’s hand holding the broom trembled.

“No, how could that be, Auntie…”

He slowly shook his head. The end of the broom he was holding shook. But the aunt wasn’t listening anymore.

“The moment I saw him, I thought, there can’t be a bigger scoundrel in the world than this one.”

“Yes…”

No matter how positively one tried to speak of him, the man’s first impression couldn’t be called good. Rather, he was quite crude and delinquent-like. Though armed head to toe in expensive scents, luxury suits, and sophisticated shoes, there was a subtle hint of decadence and rawness about him. Like wrapping a fish knife in smooth silk. So, rather than a director at some respectable company, he was much better suited to being the head of a gang.

“But he takes you to eat, lets you stay at his place when you have nowhere to go, calls a doctor when you’re sick…”

Eun-myeong’s shoulders drooped more and more as he listed the unkind man’s kind actions. These were scenes that kept popping up in his mind like thorns, no matter how he tried not to think about them all night. They were so firmly embedded, trying to pull them out…

“I just have this feeling, you know.”

The aunt looked around and lowered his voice considerably. Eun-myeong tensely put his ear close to her.

“Could he really become Eunju’s husband soon?”

Words he’d never heard or imagined flowed into his ears. It was truly deflating.

“N-no, not at all.”

Eun-myeong quickly shook his head. Sister Eunju was very smart and clever, perfectly capable of taking care of herself. In neither past nor future lives would Sister Eunju be involved with someone like that. Rather, the one getting involved would be…

Startled by his own thoughts, Eun-myeong quickly looked around. Though no one could hear his thoughts, he was needlessly frightened.

“Hey, you never know. These things between men and women…”

Aunt Jung-hye gently nudged Eun-myeong’s shoulder with his elbow. Eun-myeong awkwardly lifted his mouth in a smile as shallow dimples formed at the corners of his mouth.

Meanwhile, hearing another vrooom sound from behind, he habitually turned his head to look.

Oh.

This time it was a yellow van. Eun-myeong’s eyes fell again.

And so, Eun-myeong’s eyes kept reaching outside the store. Until closing time, he kept craning his neck to watch passing cars as if he were waiting for something or someone.