By Zephyria 
Night Guest
Rain began to fall from the early hours of the dawn. Tap, tap—transparent droplets touched the window one by one. Soon, they began to lash down violently in all directions.
Gloomy weather, a pitch-black sky, and rainwater that soaked through one’s feet.
Perhaps because of the superstition that one shouldn’t eat raw fish on rainy days, the stream of customers had come to a complete halt.
“Come again next time.”
Aunt Jeong-hye, having finished the payment, returned the card to the last customer.
“Sure thing, I’ll be back, sis!”
A man with a flushed face, reeking of alcohol, raised one hand. Then, he exited, closing the door with a loud bang!
“Ugh, how disgusting.”
Aunt Jeong-hye shuddered and clicked her tongue. She looked utterly repulsed.
“I wish he’d just drop dead.”
He truly was the pinnacle of nightmare customers. Eun-myeong, who had been observing the situation from inside the kitchen, let out a sigh of relief.
He had noticed the man wearing a sinister expression the moment he entered the shop, and since then, he had felt a perverted gaze lingering on him. While wiping the cutlery one by one with a dry cloth, Eun-myeong had felt a chill and looked up, only to find the man staring at him.
‘Hey, pretty thing.’
The man’s face was covered in deep pockmarks, and his nose was as large as a fist, making him look like a chunk of rock. Moreover, that look in his eyes—it was beyond strange. Feeling uneasy, Eun-myeong had kept avoiding his gaze.
‘Bring out some more peppers over here.’
The man ordered, rattling the pepper plate. Eun-myeong didn’t want to go near him, but he had no choice; he begrudgingly smeared a few peppers with ssamjang and served them on a plate. As he set it on the table, a creepy, insect-like gaze crawled down the nape of his neck.
‘Now, is this a girl or a boy?’
The smell of alcohol wafted strongly from the man’s mouth.
‘I wonder if the peppers sold here are as fresh as they look.’
As he spoke, he patted Eun-myeong’s buttocks. Eun-myeong flinched, his spine stiffening. Flustered, he darted his eyes to the side, but those greasy, glistening eyes were watching him.
‘Goodness, sir, are you crazy! Why are you doing that to a child? He’s like your own son, your own son!’
Auntie quickly came over and hid Eun-myeong behind her back.
‘Now look here, what did I even do? This place really knows how to harass a customer.’
The man responded with a brazen, shameless attitude. However, Aunt Jeong-hye was just as formidable.
‘My foot! God would be enraged, and Buddha would jump up from his sleep. Don’t be like that; don’t even look at the baby.’
She then gestured with her hand, shooing Eun-myeong to get back into the kitchen quickly.
‘Hurry inside.’
At Auntie’s urging, Eun-myeong retreated into the kitchen. However, worried about her, he sat down near the door and began doing the dishes. He poured dish soap into a rubber tub and diluted it well with water. He placed the plates inside and began scrubbing them with a sponge. The scritch-scratch sound echoed in the narrow space.
After confirming that Auntie had successfully calmed and sent away the nightmare customer, he relaxed and worked hard to clean the dishes. His arms felt tight and strained, and his back was stiff. In his stomach, which felt as empty as a hollow cave, a hungry rumble sounded. Before he knew it, a soap bubble had landed on the tip of his nose.
“Maybe it’s because the weather is so bad, but even that CEO who used to pop in and out so frequently hasn’t shown up.”
Returning to the kitchen, Aunt Jeong-hye pulled up a bath chair and sat in front of the tub. She patted her shoulders weakly with her fists. Her face, so thin that her cheekbones were prominent, looked exceptionally pale.
“Business is a total zero today, a total zero… Ugh, I’m exhausted.”
Eun-myeong’s movements gradually slowed. The soap bubble on the tip of his nose popped. Feeling guilty, he didn’t know how to look Auntie in the face. Although the number of customers had decreased from before, the work remained grueling largely because they were short-handed. Business was bad, yet the workload remained just as heavy.
“Baby, you were barely picking at your food earlier.”
“I’m okay, I ate a lot this morning…”
Eun-myeong rubbed the back of his neck. His cheeks flushed red from the attention.
“Auntie, please go home first. I’ll finish this…”
The only thing he could do for her was the dishes. The shop closed at 3 AM. There was still an hour left, but it didn’t seem like any more customers would come. It was safe to assume that today’s business was over.
“Huh?”
Auntie opened her eyes wide. Her teeth, stained with azalea-colored lipstick, were slightly visible. She tried to hide her laughter, but a smile leaked out nonetheless.
“I have some more things to do here anyway.”
He added a clumsy little excuse so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Of course, it wasn’t entirely a lie.
Furthermore, Aunt Jeong-hye was the only person who had reached out to him and Eun-joo noona, who had no one to look after them. He was always grateful, and since this was the only thing he could do for her, he wanted to help.
“Well then, I’ll bring you some rice cakes tomorrow.”
Aunt Jeong-hye pretended to reluctantly stand up and straightened her knees. Eun-myeong supported her as they left the kitchen together.
Auntie took out an old pink jumper hanging on the rack and zipped it up to her chin. She firmly pressed a floral-patterned brimmed hat onto her head.
“Oh dear, I didn’t bring an umbrella, this is a problem.”
“…Auntie, I have one.”
Eun-myeong grabbed a plastic umbrella from the umbrella stand next to them and handed it to her.
“What about you!”
“I have another one. One I brought before and didn’t use…”
Aunt Jeong-hye was pleased, saying that was wonderful and a relief. The corners of Eun-myeong’s lips lifted slightly. Though they quickly drooped again from a lack of energy…
“Get home safely.”
“Baby, listen.”
Through the small crack of the door, the sound of pouring rain could be heard. Auntie stopped in her tracks while holding the door.
“That CEO who comes every day.”
Then, she lowered her voice.
“Last time, he asked me where Eun-joo was.”
It felt as if something thumped near his navel. Without realizing it, Eun-myeong took a step back.
“That girl Eun-joo, she’s really doing okay, right?”
“Yes, Noona went to a relative’s house in Seoul.”
Eun-myeong nodded mechanically. The eyelashes along his eyelids trembled.
“A relative’s house?”
Auntie started to say something more but stopped. Much could be read from her gaze—the kind of look that questioned how they could have relatives when they were orphans without a single blood relative and had even gone to an orphanage.
“If you’re hungry, take something out of the fridge and eat. No matter how worried you are about Eun-joo, you can’t get your work done if you keep skipping meals.”
Eun-myeong nodded slightly.
“You have to eat for your brain to work and to have strength.”
“Yes…”
“Alright, I’ll see you when it’s light out. Baby, don’t go in too late either.”
Eun-myeong gave a faint smile. Soon, the door slid shut with a clatter. Even the hazy smile that had hung on Eun-myeong’s face vanished like mist, like a dark cloud.
Eun-myeong took a step and stood close to the glass window. Through the transparent pane, he saw a small figure receding into the distance.
This was the only chance. He stealthily stepped out in front of the sashimi restaurant with a landing net. Snow crabs were lined up in the tank. He lifted them with the net and checked each crab shell one by one. There were some whose shells were exceptionally plump and swollen.
He took all of them out and brought them to the kitchen sink.
He picked one up and pressed it with his hand; it felt weak and flimsy. When he carefully made a cut with scissors, a very small plastic packet came out. The contents sparkled like glass beads under the electric light.
It was the powder that had burst in his hand when he was with the man.
“Oh, what do I do…”
Snow crabs, horsehair crabs, red crabs… He felt he now understood why those things were written in Noona’s notebook. He had to burn the notebook once he got home.
Why on earth would she do such a thing… Noona had never once coveted something that belonged to others, and she had never committed even the smallest of bad deeds.
And yet, if Noona had gone this far.
“……”
It must mean that life had been that wretched. A hollow feeling washed over him, and he lost himself for a moment.
Eun-myeong picked through the snow crabs one by one. He gathered all the shells and threw them away as general waste, and tossed the meat into the food waste bin. Expensive snow crabs, worth over a million won, were being thrown away.
The tank would empty quickly enough for them to notice that this many crabs had disappeared at once, but Eun-myeong couldn’t leave even one behind. If these went into a customer’s stomach and caused food poisoning, or if the man happened to see this…
As terrible imaginations followed, his vision seemed to go white. Holding onto the sink, Eun-myeong endured a bout of dizziness that felt like something was shattering before his eyes. Because he had eaten almost nothing, his head throbbed. Even in this state, his stomach was hungry, as if fighting to survive…
Come to think of it, when was the last time he had a proper meal? Starting from the day Noona disappeared, he had been busy just barely scraping by day by day.
‘You have to eat for your brain to work and to have strength.’
Auntie’s voice echoed in his slow-moving mind. Yes, that’s right. As Auntie said, he had to fill his stomach, even if by force. Only then would he have strength, earn money, and be able to help Noona if something happened.
Eun-myeong slowly moved his feet. Scuff, scuff. His light green slippers brushed against the kitchen tiles. When he approached the refrigerator and opened the door, there was a pot of spicy fish stew. Inside, various pieces of sashimi were mixed together indiscriminately. He could never tell the customers, but whenever a few pieces of sashimi remained, they were collected like this.
‘When would we ever get to eat such expensive sashimi.’
And then, they would gather in the kitchen in small groups and share it with the aunties. The current portion was even more pitiful, as it had already been picked over once during the day.
The remaining rice was burnt and cold, no different from dog food. Yet, seeing food for the first time in a while, his stomach twisted with a loud growl. Eun-myeong swallowed hard.
He took the rice bowl and pot out by himself and sat at a table. With the bleak weather and the sound of drizzling rain, it remained eerie despite the sound of the television playing in one corner.
He carefully lifted his spoon and put a piece of salmon in his mouth.
Flinch. Eun-myeong’s shoulders trembled. He slowly looked up. Immediately after, he heard the sound of the door sliding open.
A large, massive shadow stood towering like a mountain.
It was that man.