By Zephyria 
The customer was like a massive boulder. And not just any boulder, but one of those great rocks weathered in some famous mountain behind a village.
Though the weather had turned languidly mild, a sharp wind still blew at night, yet he was boldly dressed in a short-sleeved T-shirt.
“Sir, is it right to bully a young student who is working so diligently?”
The veins in his forearms, visible beneath his sleeves, were prominent. His muscles were quite firm. Unlike Eun-myeong, he was a man of considerable build.
“You should know better. Why are you acting like this?”
The dick-pervert, whose shoulder was gripped tightly, let out a groan, revealing yellowed teeth.
“No, I—that’s not it…”
Perhaps completely intimidated, he began to spout a stream of nonsensical excuses.
“No, look, I know this kid. He’s always been like this, shaking his hips and flirting with customers to get attention.”
Eun-myeong’s mouth fell open in sheer disbelief. What on earth was this man saying?
“Last time, he even gave me a subtle wink and flirted with me.”
Eun-myeong wondered if anyone would actually believe such a lie, but the customer continued to look down at the dick-pervert with eyes full of distrust.
“I’m telling you, it’s true! I even gave him an advance!”
“What on earth do you mean, an advance?”
Eun-myeong asked out of indignation, but in the next moment, he remembered the few thousand won the pervert had given him last time. Was he claiming that was a payment for services? Eun-myeong felt as if the world had gone blank and bit his tongue hard.
“This mister is talking nonsense, right?”
The customer shifted his gaze sharply toward Eun-myeong. His eyes showed no sign of believing the other man.
Eun-myeong flinched. He wondered why such a plain appearance carried such a sharp image, and then he noticed—the man had crossed eyes. The side with the double eyelid looked smooth, but the side without it looked piercingly sharp. Eun-myeong widened his eyes.
“Yes, I don’t know him at all. Sir, sexually harassing someone like that is a crime.”
Perhaps because he had spent his life rolling around the bottom like a caterpillar, Eun-myeong understood these types of people better than anyone. He knew that if he didn’t act pushy and instead stood his ground firmly, they wouldn’t dare continue their crazy behavior.
At Eun-myeong’s words, the customer pulled a wallet from his back pocket and handed over a business card. On the scrap of paper, the workplace was indeed listed as Seoul City Hall.
“Sir, don’t embarrass yourself and just leave. I am a government employee.”
Uneducated people tended to be speechless in the face of such titles, and the dick-pervert was no different; he immediately tucked his tail and smacked his lips.
“Anyway, whether it’s this one or that one, they’re all just dying to grab a wrist.”
The dick-pervert hurriedly left a 20,000 won bill behind and fled. Eun-myeong felt like picking up that bill and throwing it at the back of the man’s head, but that remained only a fantasy.
He felt the gazes of the other patrons gathering on him. The customers whispered, and Hana Noona, who had just come out of the kitchen and grasped the situation, looked furious as she crumpled the bill and shoved it into the cash register.
“What kind of crazy pervert is that?”
Unable to contain her anger, she slammed her fist onto the register with a thud. The sound of coins clinking could be heard from inside.
Eun-myeong let out a deep sigh inwardly. His wrist, which had been gripped painfully, was red. Holding his wrist with his other hand, he quickly bowed his waist to thank the customer.
“Thank you so much.”
“…It was nothing.”
The customer waved his hand, dismissing the gesture. As he sat back down, the mister sitting with him roughly summarized the situation.
“My, all sorts of things happen in this world. Everyone, please eat, eat.”
Only then did the surrounding customers gradually look away.
Returning to the kitchen, Eun-myeong put his heart into preparing grilled eel. As he sliced the well-cooked fish, he felt a momentary wave of sadness, thinking that Boss Kang Pyeong-won had never even had the chance to eat this.
Coming back out to the hall, Eun-myeong served the grilled eel to the customer from before.
“Here, this is on the house. I’m sorry for the discomfort.”
“What are you talking about? You’re the one who went through a lot.”
The customer who helped him shook his head, and the person sitting with him struck up a conversation with Eun-myeong.
“You look really young, student. Are you working part-time here?”
“Yes.”
Eun-myeong nodded. While his situation was a bit more complicated than a simple part-time job, it felt like it would be uncomfortable for the customer to hear the full details of his personal circumstances.
“We’re civil servants from Seoul City Hall. We’re here for training.”
Ah, I see. Eun-myeong replied casually.
Later, on his way home from work, an exhausted Eun-myeong trudged along. His vacant eyes, almost devoid of focus, suddenly stopped in mid-air.
“Oh dear, what to do!”
An elderly woman with a hunched back was pulling a cart, and boxes were spilling over to one side. Eun-myeong quickly approached and helped her stack the waste paper.
“…Heave-ho.”
She squeezed out every last bit of her strength, but no matter how much they stacked, it kept falling over. There was simply too much of it.
Just then, a car stopped nearby, and the customers from earlier stepped out.
“My goodness, Mother, you’re quite greedy with your haul.”
Speaking with a friendly manner, two young men moved in coordination. They skillfully stacked the waste paper on the cart and helped tie it all up with thick black rubber bands.
“Oh, thank you so much.”
The grandmother held their hands tightly, shook them a few times, and then left. She seemed to have achieved a “full haul” today, as the stack of paper looked substantial. As he watched her walk away, looking like a snail carrying its house, Eun-myeong thought he should head home too.
“Do you live around here?”
The customer from before asked. Eun-myeong blinked. His long eyelashes fluttered. If he meant the hotel, it was a bit far to say “around here,” but if he meant his own home, then this area was correct.
However, to call the place he lived a “home”… it was more like a collapsed ruin.
“I have to go a bit far.”
The older of the two men asked.
“Want a ride?”
Eun-myeong shook his head.
“No, I’m fine.”
Upon hearing that, the customers didn’t push further. They returned to the car and slid the window down. Resting his arm on the window frame, the man left a piece of advice.
“Be careful when walking around at night. You’re an Omega, right? There are plenty of crazy bastards in this world.”
It was a strange way of speaking. It felt almost like a tickle on his forearm. Eun-myeong shifted his side awkwardly and said, “Yes, thank you,” before hurrying away.
∞
The man remained hot, cold, and callous. A frozen silence flowed between Eun-myeong and him. Eun-myeong felt a stifling energy, like indigestion, settling in his chest.
Even until last night, when the man left for a business trip to Seoul, the atmosphere had been utterly chilly. Eun-myeong looked at his cell phone, wondering if there had been any contact.
But as expected, the inbox was empty. After ignoring them for a few days, even the voice phishing scammers had stopped calling.
Eun-myeong tapped the keypad.
[Noona, is your body okay? I’ll visit tomorrow. Is there anything you want to eat?]
He sent a text to his Noona, but there was no reply. Even when he visited the hospital in between, Noona would either lie there with her back to him or stare blankly out the window.
[I’ll buy you everything you want to eat, Noona…]
Still no answer. He felt like he was dying of anxiety. Eun-myeong let out a deep sigh and carried out the trash that had piled up in the meantime.
As he entered the alley, someone was crouching in the darkness.
“There, there.”
Looking closer, it was the customer who had helped him a few days ago. Perhaps he still had business in Gyeryong Bay, as he had been visiting the sashimi restaurant occasionally since then.
Eun-myeong saw him holding out his palm and realized he was tempting a stray cat with a piece of sashimi.
The stray cat hesitated with one paw raised, then darted forward, snatched the fish, and bolted. Then, it trotted over to Eun-myeong, tapped its nose against his foot, and left.
The customer let out a bewildered laugh.
“Wow, it didn’t even give me a glance.”
“They’re usually shy.”
Those born and raised on the streets were always like that. Giving affection to just anyone only made them more vulnerable to danger.
Thinking of that, Eun-myeong felt he finally understood why his Noona had told him not to give his heart to just anyone.
Because emotions flow as messily as liquid leaking from a food waste bag, she must have blocked the possibility entirely.
“My Poppy doesn’t do that; he goes to anyone and cuddles, and his tail wags like a propeller. That’s the dog I raise.”
Ah, are dogs and cats different?
A faint smile appeared on the man’s lips. He put a cigarette in his mouth and flicked a lighter. However, the fuel must have been gone, as the flame flickered and died repeatedly. Eun-myeong let out a small breath.
“Sir, here.”
Eun-myeong reached deep into his apron. He pulled out a long-reach lighter used in the restaurant and lit the cigarette for him.
“Oh, thanks. Lucky me.”
Feeling a sense of helpfulness, Eun-myeong smiled shyly. After putting the lighter back, he took the recyclable waste out of the box he had brought and sorted them one by one.
He set aside a separate box for the grandmother who came every evening to collect waste paper.
“Isn’t it hard? Working here.”
Looking back, the customer was still in the same spot, smoking.
“No, it’s okay.”
The pitch-black night sky was visible behind the customer. It was the first time in a while he had seen the outside sky, having been cooped up in the shop all day.
A slender crescent moon was hanging there. Was the man looking at that same moon in Seoul? What kind of place was Seoul? The place his Noona had dreamed of for so long, and where the man was born and raised…
As if possessed, Eun-myeong asked.
“When you go to Seoul, is there a lot to do? Is it very hectic?”
Maybe that was why the man hadn’t contacted him. He wanted to comfort himself with that thought.
“There? The air is just dirty and it’s chaotic.”
Eun-myeong looked up at the night sky. His thick eyes, looking like beads embedded like a cat’s pupils, appeared moist. The man looked down at those eyes silently and asked.
“What’s your name?”
“Lee Eun-myeong.”
“I’m Ji Jun-il.”
Ji Jun-il. Eun-myeong chewed over the name in his mind. The name sounded sophisticated. It had a clean and neat scent to it.
“I just asked for no particular reason. My younger brother is in the army. I thought you might be around the same age. You were exempt because you’re an Omega, right?”
Eun-myeong gave a small nod as he walked back into the shop. The customer followed him in.
“For some reason, I feel like Eun-myeong 씨 has an older sister.”
The way he called him “Eun-myeong” felt so unfamiliar and ticklish. People said everyone in Seoul spoke like news anchors, and it was true. Although Boss Kang Pyeong-won was languid, he couldn’t hide his vulgarity.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Then do you live with your sister?”
Eun-myeong looked up at the man. He briefly wondered why he was asking such a thing. The customer seemed to sense this and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Ah, no, I’m just asking. Was that question too deep?”
“No, it’s not that…”
Just then, a vibration sounded from his apron—zzzt. Eun-myeong’s thigh trembled. He pulled out the phone and looked at the screen; the caller ID read “Boss Kang Pyeong-won.” His heart sank the moment he saw it.
“Hello?”
Eun-myeong quickly turned his back to answer the call.
—Why do you sound so surprised? Like you were caught doing something bad.
Eun-myeong shook his head, insisting he hadn’t done anything wrong. Then, as he reflexively glanced to the side, he let out a gasp and shrugged his shoulders as if he had seen a ghost.
“Why, why…”
Without realizing it, the customer had stepped closer, now only two paces away. The customer waved both hands awkwardly.
“No, I was just wondering where the restroom is.”
Eun-myeong raised his hand and pointed the way. Then he pressed the phone back to his ear.
The man’s low voice wrapped around his sensitive earlobe.
—Did you guide him well? How commendable.