#50

A man’s fist came flying at me. Caught off guard by the sudden violence, Tae-heun almost collapsed. My head was spinning. I could taste blood in my mouth, sharp and metallic.

I spat, looking at the man. He was trembling, fist clenched, looking like a victim despite being the one who had struck me.

I was angry. I was the one who had been wronged, yet here he was, playing the victim. I clenched my fist. But I couldn’t hit him with my bare hands. I looked around the yard, but it was too dark to see anything.

Tae-heun stepped forward and grabbed the man’s face with both hands. I pressed down hard, as if to crush his skull, and then bit down on his lower lip. The unexpected action startled him. Soon, he let out a loud moan, “Ahhh!” He struggled to pull me away, but he couldn’t. I chewed on his lip. It tore, and blood flowed. Only then did I let him go.

The man cautiously touched the torn corner of his mouth with his fingers.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He asked in a barely intelligible voice. The look in his eyes as he stared at me was one of disbelief, as if he were thinking, “What kind of crazy person is this?”

For some reason, that made me feel better. I spat out the blood in my mouth. My heart, which had been racing with anger, began to calm down.

“Shall we go? Are we going to stay here all night?”

I took the lead.

The man followed me, fiddling with his lips.

There was only one streetlight on the way to the village hall. The rain fell steadily. The road was dark and muddy. The temperature had dropped significantly. It wasn’t cold enough to give me goosebumps, but the air was quite chilly.

Two large shadows walked side by side on the country road. Thud, thud, thud. The normal footsteps and a slightly dragging rhythm broke the silence of the dawn.

In front of the village hall, I stopped. I craved a cigarette desperately. I went back to the parked car to find my pack of cigarettes. I cleared away the empty pack that was sprawled on the driver’s seat and took out a new cigarette. I flipped the pack over and tapped it, then tore off the foil.

“Ah, damn it. That hurts like hell.”

I complained as I put the cigarette in my mouth.

It had only hurt for a moment when I was hit, but now I was fine. The torn spot stung, but it was just enough to feel good. I thought to myself that I was the real pervert, finding pleasure in pain.

“Give me one too.”

The man said.

I quietly offered him the pack.

He hesitated for a moment before taking a cigarette and putting it in his mouth.

“You said you quit?”

I lit his cigarette first.

The light revealed his lips, which were ragged. He grimaced as he took a drag, clearly in pain. His cheeks hollowed out and then quickly returned to normal.

What’s with that?

Blood that had flowed from his earlobe left a long mark on the back of his neck.

“Why is your earlobe like that?”

I pointed with the hand holding the cigarette.

“Do you not remember doing that to yourself?”

“I did?”

His eyes widened. He had no memory of it.

“Yeah. When I tried to stop you suddenly….”

He trailed off, taking another drag. The cigarette filter turned red from his torn lips. I wondered if he had sucked on Kwon Yong-jun too. In the midst of all this, I was curious about that.

“You only bit my earlobe?”

“…Yeah. Just there.”

He tapped his lips with the hand holding the cigarette.

I kept my gaze on his lips as I took a drag. I smoked in silence. It was only after I finished my second cigarette that he finally spoke.

“Please keep it a secret.”

His voice trembled. He couldn’t bring himself to meet my eyes.

“What’s good about Damas, or Yong-jun?”

I asked.

He didn’t answer. He hung his head like a guilty person.

“Does Gi-cheol know?”

He shook his head.

“Of course, Yong-jun’s wife wouldn’t know.”

I exhaled a long puff of smoke.

“Ki-beom, I have one request.”

He looked up at me.

“While I’m here, just hold on. It’ll be at most a month, so just bear with it. If you really want to, just go for the daughter. You can do that, right?”

He nodded solemnly.

“Tell Yong-jun the same. If he doesn’t want strange rumors reaching his pregnant wife, he should hold on until I’m gone. If you can’t tell him, I will.”

“No. I’ll tell him.”

His voice trailed off.

Huh, I sighed deeply.

Normally, I would have said, “Those dirty bastards,” but I felt pity for him. Kwon Yong-jun, who was doing such things to a sleeping man, felt violent to me. Even though it was likely that two adult men over thirty were engaging in consensual actions, I found myself wanting to defend the man.

I really am deeply troubled.

I self-deprecated.

“By the way, Ki-beom, you throw a pretty good punch, huh? It’s been a while since I’ve been shocked by a hit.”

I touched my left cheek, where I had been struck.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? I hit you too.”

“…You bit me.”

He pointed to his lips and right ear.

I chuckled. The man laughed too. We both said “Ouch” at the same time.

On the way to the parking lot, I spotted a rusty bicycle. A good idea came to me.

“If the townspeople ask why our faces look like that, let’s say we were drunk and fell off the bike while riding. Since Ki-beom looks the most normal, he can drive, and I’ll ride behind him and get thrown off and fall over.”

“Yeah.”

“And Yong-jun’s condition is a bit serious, so, um. Let’s say he was riding a motorcycle instead of a bicycle. He swerved too hard trying to avoid us and flipped over. How does that sound? Does it sound plausible?”

“…Yeah.”

I opened the car door for the man. He hesitated before getting into the passenger seat. After closing the door, I turned to go to the driver’s seat but paused. I bent down to meet his gaze. When I tapped on the closed passenger window, the man, who had been looking straight ahead, jumped in surprise and turned to look.

He opened the window. We were close enough to hear each other’s breathing.

“I’m sorry for bringing up Ji-hye earlier.”

I looked into his eyes and said, “I’m really sorry. I’m a crazy person.” The man’s throat bobbed. At the same time, like ink spreading, his dark eyes became so deep that they seemed endless. Tears soon welled up. The man turned his head away.

I straightened up and stared into the distance. I could see the dim outline of a low mountain. Beyond that was the man’s house. A secluded house, far from the village, where he lived with a child, completely isolated. Suddenly, I thought how lonely he must have been. I too was lonely, and it seemed we had met well, lonely people. I had a silly thought.

The road home was treacherous. I had turned on the high beams, but with no streetlights, I could barely see an inch ahead. The darkness of the countryside was much deeper than that of the city at night, and the rain made it very slippery. It was the wet grass that caused it. After narrowly avoiding several near-misses of falling into a ditch, I finally arrived home.

As soon as the man entered the yard, he berated himself for forgetting to feed the dogs.

“I’m sorry, Mansu, Mu-gang. It’s raining, and I didn’t feed you. You must be hungry?”

He emptied the bowl filled with rainwater and wiped it dry with his shirt. I could hear the sound of him pouring dog food into the bowl. The puppies began to eat noisily, crunching and munching. The man limped over to the faucet to fill a bowl of water for the puppies. The muddy yard, soaked by the rain, was messy with the footprints he had left behind.

The man squatted in front of the puppies, watching them eat in the rain. His large back trembled slightly. His fist kept moving toward his eyes and then back again. The man was crying. I looked at his back with a heavy heart.

Don’t cry. Why are you crying?

I wanted to pat the man’s back, which looked so pitiful. I suppressed that impulse by biting my mouth. The already torn wound opened up again. The taste of blood was bitter.

* * *

Tae-heun opened his eyes at the sound of the man speaking in a low voice. He should have gone to bed in the room, but he had fallen asleep in the living room again. He remembered refusing when the man had tried to take him to the room. With a grunt, he finally sat up. His bruised face throbbed.

The man was on the phone. He was sitting at the table with a red cordless phone, talking to someone.

“I’m sorry. You understand, right? How’s your body?”

He sounded affectionate. Just from the conversation, I could tell it was Kwon Yong-jun. Looking at the clock, it was barely 6 o’clock.

I was thirsty. Regardless of whether the man was on the phone or not, I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The man glanced at me and handed me my cup that was sitting on the table.

“Do you want some, Ki-beom?”

The man nodded.

I poured barley tea into his cup. A pot was boiling on the gas stove. Two eggs and three packets of ramen were waiting with their mouths open. I stopped the man from getting up and added the soup and ingredients to the pot.

“I’ll cook.”

The man approached after finishing his call.

“That’s fine. I can cook ramen too.”

“Still.”

“What do you mean ‘still’? Just sit down.”

The man stood for a moment longer before placing kimchi and utensils on the table.

The noodles were boiling vigorously. I cracked in the two eggs at the end and then turned off the gas. The man placed a ramen stand for me and set the pot on top. I stopped him from grabbing a ladle.

“Let’s just eat since it’s just us.”

“Yeah.”

The man’s lower lip was covered in scabs. The parts that hadn’t scabbed over were swollen, making it look like he was intentionally pouting. My lips were probably the same, if not less so. The torn inside of my mouth was the real problem.

I scooped some ramen into a bowl and slurped it into my mouth. It stung painfully as the hot noodles went in. It felt exhilaratingly good.