When the Stall Burned
I was dragged to the hospital by him. What was going on? Come to think of it, where was Father? Father ran a food stall, so whenever the sun rose he always came home to sleep. That was how it should have been, yet I was the only one in the house. No matter how I turned it over, something was wrong. Then… could it be?
“No way…”
“Yeah. Your dad’s food stall burned down. Happened last night—you really didn’t know until now?”
“G-God!”
I was so startled I kicked the car door open and bolted into the hospital. But I could only stand there like an idiot at the entrance—I needed to know which room, didn’t I? That was when Officer Jang came running up.
“Hey hey hey hey! Room 701! Don’t run around!”
“Excuse me. It’s a problem for the student to be running, but could the police officer please keep his voice down a little too?”
The nurse who had claimed the administration desk glared at both me and Officer Jang with terrifying eyes. I had no mind left to heed the warning Officer Jang had shouted while making a scene—“Don’t run around!” I sprinted and flung open the door to room 701.
Inside was a man wrapped head to toe in bandages.
“F-Father?”
I dropped into the chair by the bed in shock. N-No way. How could he be hurt this badly? He looked like a complete mummy!
But thinking about it, the covering of a food stall is vinyl, and inside they use fire and electricity to cook the side dishes. If a fire starts, of course it spreads big.
“Um… who are you?”
A voice asked from behind me. Startled, I stood and turned—it was some middle-aged woman.
“…Oops?”
I had just done something so stupid even a third-rate sitcom wouldn’t use it. The image of burns must have been burned so deep into my head that I pulled this idiotic stunt.
Come to think of it, this wasn’t a private room. Of course not—with our household finances, taking a private room would mean diving into the Han River to fish for empty bottles. Anyway, Father was lying on another bed looking relatively fine.
Embarrassed, I apologized to the woman.
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
Still, though. If someone was wrapped in bandages over their entire body, shouldn’t they be in intensive care or the ICU or something? I grumbled inwardly as I went over to Father’s bedside.
Thankfully, in Father’s case the burns were only minor—just his hands a little. But the shock seemed too great; he simply lay there staring blankly at the hospital ceiling.
“….”
“Um… Father, I’m here.”
“…Ugh. S-Seo Rin?”
Father turned his head with difficulty to look at me. I sighed at the sight of him.
“Yes. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“…I’m sorry. This father of yours is worthless… I completely burned up the food stall that was our meal ticket. Hahaha, once the oil heated up and caught, I couldn’t do a thing with my hands or feet. It all burned before I could even grab the extinguisher.”
“….”
I had nothing to say and shut my mouth. I wanted to tell him that at least he was safe, but the words would not come. How were we supposed to live from now on? If the creditors went berserk, how were we supposed to stop them?
“We should have at least gotten insurance.”
Of course there was no way our household could afford insurance. And if we had gotten it, the creditors might have set our house on fire themselves. Just to collect the insurance money and claw their cash back, those guys would kill without a second thought.
That was how inhuman the relationship between creditors and debtors was.
“Damn it.”
This country is broken. From the creditors’ perspective, of course they would be furious about being stiffed out of free money… but Father had simply failed in business and ended up buried in debt. Lending money for a business is investment, isn’t it? It wasn’t as if he had cooked up a fake business plan to raise investment funds and then run off with it—he had worked hard and failed…
Primarily it is the bankrupt businessman’s fault, but secondarily it is also the shortsighted investors’ mistake.
Have you ever seen a racetrack refund a betting ticket because the horse didn’t come in first?
Of course I know how shameless that sounds. It is not something that should come out of a debtor’s mouth. But what about Father, working himself to the bone trying to pay it back somehow, and me, his son?
Honestly, with debt in the two-billion-won range, even working a lifetime there is no way to pay it off like this. Please… can’t you just leave us alone already! Father had actually gone to prison once because of the business failure. Legally, he was clearly bankrupt.
But he could not bear to cause losses to the people who had trusted him and lent him money, so he had worked himself half to death wanting to pay them back somehow.
“Damn it! Damn it! How the hell is a food stall supposed to earn twenty billion…”
Tears suddenly welled up and I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. Why, of all the houses in the world, did misfortune have to hit ours like this? We were trying our hardest to live, and then a fire…
“I’m sorry. I have no strength at all. But it’s alright now.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to worry about my debts anymore. I made a kid suffer for nothing. You went through all that, and I couldn’t even buy you a single proper set of clothes… I’m grateful and I’m sorry for everything until now.”
Father said that and sighed. Aaaah… in that moment I lost all words. To say I had never thought about it would be a lie. I already knew that legally Father’s debts would not be inherited by me. So if I turned my back on Father’s suffering and simply lived on the money I earned myself, I could clear away this endless bleak life… I knew that.
And I had thought about it over and over… really over and over. But Father is human, unlike me. Could I abandon a father who lay on the floor groaning with a body worn out by fatigue, unable even to buy a single dose of medicine because of that damned money?
If… if Father had turned his back on me, if he had abandoned me when I was brought to this country from faraway Russia still wrapped in swaddling clothes, he would not have had to suffer like this—yet Father never abandoned me. So I will not abandon him either.
“What are you saying? Don’t talk like that—just get up quick… and let’s get discharged. The room fee is expensive.”
Just then the hospital room door opened and Dr. Kang walked in.
“We meet often.”
“D-Dr. Kang.”
“Hmm. Anyway there doesn’t seem to be any major problem, so it would be best to discharge. You’re not in a position to cover hospital bills, right?”
Dr. Kang said that to Father, then looked at me. I quickly wiped away the traces of tears and stood.
“Ah, okay. We’ll leave.”
“No—actually it seems your debt collectors have already gathered quite a crowd.”
“God. How did they know?”
I had only just arrived myself—how did these people know? Could they have been the ones who set the fire? I even had that absurd thought as I looked toward the window. From here the front entrance was not visible, so I could not tell.
“Anyway, we don’t want a brawl with debt collectors in front of the hospital either, so I’ll prepare a back way out for you. And… if the debt collectors scare you, how about just flying off to a foreign country?”
“What?”
“There ought to be work more lucrative than a food stall.”
Dr. Kang said that while looking at me. Ugh… this slippery eel of a man. Looking at him now, he must have overheard my whole situation outside. I stared at him, exasperated.
But… if Father could go abroad, that would really be a good thing. Debt collectors aside, that Han Se-gun… that guy worried me. He seemed extremely dangerous—if things stayed like this, wouldn’t Father be in danger? That thought crossed my mind.
“….”
Just then the hospital room door burst open. Oh damn it—creditors I knew well from experience.
“You fucking idiot! What! You burned it all up?!”
“You son of a bitch! What about our money?!”
They glared at me and Father with eyes that looked ready to devour us on the spot. Dr. Kang stepped forward to stop them.
“Just a moment. What’s this disturbance in a hospital room? Patients need absolute rest, so please be quiet…”
“Shut up!”
“You stay out of this!”
They shouted that and tried to shove Dr. Kang. But then Dr. Kang caught a hand and lightly twisted the man’s arm.
“Aaaargh!”
The creditor at the front was a giant about 185 cm tall weighing over 100 kg. Despite that, Dr. Kang lightly twisted and bent the arm, then stuck his thumb into the spot between the elbow bones where the ligaments ran and pressed lightly. Amazingly, the thumb sank in a whole joint’s worth. Then that huge man—probably a thug who specialized in collecting debts—screamed, not living up to his size at all.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
“Should I just snap it like this?”
Dr. Kang said that without changing his expression once.
“W-What are you doing?!”
“A-A doctor is hitting people!”
Everyone stared at Dr. Kang in shock. Then Dr. Kang snorted, grabbed the man’s hair, and yanked. Pulling the hair with enough force to snap the neck back while lifting the bent arm, the man bent like a bow. On top of that, cracking sounds came from all over his body—it really looked dangerous.
“Seems you don’t know that in a hospital a doctor is basically God’s classmate… It’s even in the Hippocratic Oath.”
It’s not! What lies! Can a doctor do that?! I stared at him, dumbfounded, but the creditors all stopped and just flapped their mouths.
“Stop it! What do you know to be sticking your nose in, huh?!”
“That bastard stiffed us on our money and said he’d work hard so we were letting him be… what, a fire?!”
“He must have insurance! Hand over the insurance money! Now!”
Damn it! So that was it after all!
They had jumped to the conclusion that we must have insurance and come swarming to snatch the payout first. We hadn’t even gotten insurance, and even if we had, how much could burning one food stall be worth that they’d flock like bees to collect it! Then Dr. Kang snorted.
“Truly pathetic. If you don’t get out of the hospital right this second, I’ll sue you for illegal trespass. Of course… you know fists are closer than the law, right?”
In that moment the arm of the man held in Dr. Kang’s hand twisted in a bizarre direction.
“Aaaargh!”
The man screamed and crumpled to the floor clutching his broken arm. The others stared at Dr. Kang in shock.
“A-A doctor hitting peo—”
“Quietly shut your mouths. You’re pissing me off.”
He said that, smoothed his hair back, and pulled a scalpel from his coat. He spoke while shaving with the scalpel.
“I’ll give you five seconds to disappear from my sight. You morons who look like you were born from a human ejaculating into salmon roe. One…”
The creditors made regretful faces and filed out the door. Only the man with the broken arm could not even get up.
“Um, isn’t that dangerous?”
“Simple dislocation. I’ll put it back now.”
Dr. Kang grumbled that, grabbed the man’s arm, and set it. With a crack the man fainted.
“Thugs these days seem to have dropped a lot in quality. At this rate they couldn’t even shake down elementary schoolers for lunch money.”
“Um…”
I was so dumbfounded I just stared at Dr. Kang. Was this the kind of person he was? I had known him for quite a while, but this personality… no, thinking about it for a second, he really was the type who was the center of the universe, looking down on everyone, twisting everything to his convenience. He did not look like a doctor practicing the art of healing, but either way, thanks to him we had gotten help.
“Anyway, thank you.”
Father bowed deeply to Dr. Kang. Dr. Kang waved it off.
“There’s nothing much to thank me for. The positions of creditor and debtor only apply between you and them—it doesn’t give them the right to throw their weight around inside this hospital. I just taught them that with my body. More than that, about what I said earlier… think it over carefully, for your son’s sake at least. Hmm, I can guarantee it’s work that pays far better than a food stall.”
“I can’t give you a definite answer right now.”
I said that, seeing Father conflicted. If Father went abroad I would be free, but agreeing with that freedom felt somehow cowardly. It felt like I was hiding my feelings for Father and egging him on as the situation led, just to take the benefit.
“Then quietly leave through the back door. I’ll handle the discharge paperwork, so get out right now.”
Dr. Kang said that and ushered Father and me out.
“He’s truly a kind person. Someone who has no real need to help us.”
“…I think this case is a little different.”
But gratitude was gratitude. Dr. Kang always showed kindness that went beyond what a doctor could do, in this way. But that did not solve the problems we were facing now. Let’s organize them.
First, my life is being threatened by a terrorist.
Second, our family’s livelihood tool is gone.
Third, how do we deal with the already furious creditors.
In a situation like this, one would seriously contemplate whether mixing pesticide with dry ice would make it drinkable like soda.
Truthfully, I really want to just die. There is no exit visible in life. But I cannot die now. My age is too young to escape into death.
I dragged Father outside and fled at once. Creditors might have gathered at the house too, but for now we had no choice but to head home. The clothes I was wearing were tattered from being shot, and Father’s body was not whole either.
“Get on my back.”
“…I’m sorry.”
Father kept saying only that he was sorry. But I shook my head.
“Please don’t say that.”
I had no choice but to say that to Father. But then Father shook his head.
“It would actually be better for you if I ran away to a foreign country.”
“….”
I could not really argue against that. And I was surprised at myself for it. In truth, if I just kept my mouth shut here, it would be nothing but pushing Father to go abroad. But the moment I heard those words I felt so relieved… I could not bring myself to say words that were not in my heart.