Even So, One Step
Dramas and movies pretty up the violence of love and youth far too much.
Get hit, and it feels like absolute shit. That's just how people are.
There hadn't been many, but back in middle and high school I'd been in a few childish fights. Half a year shut inside my room had wasted me, though. Whatever toughness I'd had in those days was gone, and Tae-hoon's fist hurt like hell.
"You son of a bitch. I trusted you with her, and you put your hands on the kid?"
I had plenty I could have said. I swallowed it. Someone had to show my friend that real life isn't the kind of thing where romance just detonates.
My lip split. Blood ran. Humiliation made me grab my phone.
"The fuck you callin' the cops for? You little bastard, I swear it—you're dead before they get here."
"Would you shut up already! Tae-hoon sunbae!"
Yujeong screamed at him like something in her had snapped.
Tae-hoon was so startled by the sight of her shrieking that his mouth just opened and closed.
The hand around my throat went slack. I shoved him off and coughed for no good reason at all, hacking like an idiot.
Fed up with her outburst, he lost both his excuse to hit me and whatever he'd thought he was protecting. Yujeong bolted for the entryway, still yelling, and slammed the front door in a fit. Out in the hall, the disappointed murmurs of the neighbors who'd been enjoying the show died all at once.
"Ha, shit. What is this. What the hell's even goin' on. What'd you do to your girl. You fucker."
Tae-hoon glared at me, eyes full of resentment, but I wasn't guilty. This is all your misunderstanding.
She shut the door, scurried back in those little squirrel steps of hers, yanked the suitcase open, and threw on a shirt.
"Sunbae, I'm really sorry. It's not what you're thinking, not at all. If anything, I'm the one who did wrong by Woojin sunbae."
Resentment sat in her eyes when she looked at him, and he froze in something like despair, unable to go one way or the other.
"And sunbae, thank you for looking after me all this time. Honestly, though, it was a burden. So I'm sorry, but I'm quitting as class rep, and you don't have to cover for the girls anymore. I'll just keep my mouth shut and go to school. Please stop doing that for me."
Ah, Yujeong, how can you settle that here? That's for the two of you to work out—ah, seriously!
"Wait, Tae-hoon! Tae-hoon!"
Lim Tae-hoon shot to his feet, slammed the front door hard enough to break it, and left nothing behind but the strike of his shoes.
"Ah, seriously! Na Yujeong! That's something you two were supposed to handle! Now I'm the one who looks guilty! Ow, ow. Hurts."
The split inside my mouth sent a bright jolt of pain straight into my brain. My strength gave out, and I dropped onto the bed.
"Sunbae. Did I do something wrong? You said Tae-hoon sunbae was a good person. So how does his fist come out that fast?"
"Ah, that—sigh. Some guys are just like that. They've got that side to them."
Her legs trembled as she went to the beanbag and collapsed into it. Tae-hoon, worked up like that, had clearly shaken her badly.
She was looking my way.
But I couldn't go over there. Like you said—I'm an impotent idiot now.
Still, it was too pitiful to watch. Uncomfortable as it was, I did my best just to keep an eye on her.
She'd grabbed the box of tissues off the desk at some point and was crying like she meant to wring out every last tear and every bit of snot.
Damn it. I keep missing the moment to throw her out.
Whether I'd fallen asleep without knowing it or simply passed out, I opened my eyes and couldn't see a thing.
Yellow, and blue.
Post-its. Two characters each, written top to bottom.
SEONMI
BAEAN
This brat. Coming at me while I was defenseless, over and over, pulling stunts like this.
Aside from the beanbag, nothing was left—not the clothes I'd had hanging out, not the suitcase Tae-hoon had dragged in.
She must have understood she had to go, even without me saying it.
And like that, I got my freedom back.
For a few days the chaos was simply gone, and my true days of rest arrived at last.
I cleared the final stage of the game I'd been wanting. With nothing in the way, it went down smooth.
I set the meal tray in the middle of the living room and turned on the TV. It didn't feel like its old place. So what.
I put the beanbag she'd left behind back where it belonged. She'd only been here a day. Why did that spot already feel like hers.
Wonder when she'd come take it back.
Maybe it was the jolt those brief breaks from routine had left behind, but ordinary life had gone a little dull. I knew it would wear off soon. The first day still wasn't exactly pleasant.
Why.
Back to the shower, standing under the water in nothing but my underwear, and when I woke, doing it again. For a little while, I'd forgotten.
Why, though.
About four days passed like that.
A rustling came from the beanbag, so I went over. There wasn't a bomb in there. Probably.
I remembered hearing somewhere that bugs could turn up in beanbags stuffed with soybeans, and I eased the zipper open. Fortunately it was nothing but a heap of styrofoam-like bits.
My heart pounded.
Was it just the scare about bugs? The feeling wouldn't settle.
Yujeong's body-shampoo scent reached the tip of my nose. Of course the owner's smell would have soaked into the thing.
There had been a bottle of hers in the shower—I had no idea when she'd brought it—and I hadn't used it.
The smell was still here.
Startled by the thought of bugs, I lay down on the beanbag without meaning to.
The sound of styrofoam rubbing filled my ears. Loud, and yet it gave off a strange calm.
I even tried the pose she'd done, hips lifted, clinging on. I was taller than her. It didn't work.
Little thing, acting up.
My heart kept thumping. I knew there were no bugs. So why.
The rubbing drowned my ears out. It was noisy, and I wanted to keep making the noise anyway.
So I buried my face in the beanbag and rubbed.
Swish. Swish. Swish. The prickle of rough fabric against my skin wasn't bad.
Some satisfaction I couldn't name came over me, and I rolled onto my back.
And met Yujeong's eyes, looking down at me in pure disgust.
"Sunbae, are you actually a pervert?"
After a whole commotion of hyperventilating, Yujeong sat there sullen, glaring back and forth between me and some strange little booklet.
I was as good as dead and ought to have kept my mouth shut, but instinct is honest.
"No, the beanbag just felt nicer than I expected. Before I knew it, I just..."
I scratched my head and tried to excuse myself. Yujeong's guard was cranked all the way up. She had a meerkat look about her.
She's the one who showed up after acting like she wasn't coming. Isn't that on her?
I climbed straight into denial, got sulky, turned my back on that stinging look, and switched the console on.
"Once this semester's over, I'm not class rep anymore. I went and told Tae-hoon sunbae myself. Voluntary outsider again. Feel better?"
"No, that's not what I meant. It was something for the two of you to sort out. I was asking why you had to do it at my place."
I said it without turning around, and the meerkat hissed.
"When you talk to someone, you're supposed to look at them. Sunbae, you can't even do that much?"
For some reason I kept shrinking, and I ended up doing as she said. I set the console down, hunched in on myself, and looked at her without really looking.
"Finals are next week, so going home and back is a pain. Let me impose for just a week. In return, even when I'm not here, wear your clothes, and don't touch my things."
It's my house. Why do you get to decide that?
"Answer."
"Yes."
Tiny, and she's got a temper.
She got up right there and started pulling this and that out of the suitcase she'd packed to the brim.
"I'm gonna shower. You didn't use my shampoo, right?"
"Yeah. Didn't use a drop."
"Use some. You smell."
Ah, she's gonna make me swear. What am I supposed to do with that?
A hint of a smile crossed her face as she headed into the bathroom. I decided to pretend I hadn't seen it and let her have the win.
I'd already cleared the game I was playing, so I felt at a loss. I opened a video site, lay down, and watched. Hunting for something fun in a new game, I found a competitive water-gun shooter, got interested, and focused in.
The more I watched, the better it looked. I started pulling up character guides, thinking I'd order it later.
"Sunbae. Mind if I watch some TV?"
She'd finished showering at some point and was asking, so I answered vaguely.
More than that, I was busy deciding which character to use.
My nose itched. The beanbag's scent was there—only warmer now, mixed with the smell of water.
The TV blared, filling the room with noise.
"Sunbae."
"What."
"Hup—sunbae?"
"Why are you interrupting. Just let me look at this. Watch the TV."
"Sunbae!"
I swallowed the irritation surging up at her teasing and bolted upright.
"What? What's going on?"
She had her chin propped on her hand, smiling at me. What kind of prank had gotten into her?
"Anything different about me? Hehe."
Wet hair, and lace-trimmed pajamas. Not much else had changed.
Her makeup had never been thick, so bare-faced she looked almost the same.
Fearless girl. How confident is she in that bare face, showing it off to some guy who isn't hers like it's nothing.
Ha. I don't know what she's thinking, but even if she wants to play that kind of trick on someone whose entire dating history is one day long, I wouldn't get it. Twenty-two years, and I never did.
"Pfft—hahaha! Puhahahaha!"
Yujeong suddenly couldn't hold it in. She rolled around, laughing.
"Sunbae, your face is hilarious. Seriously. You don't see what changed?"
She was laughing hard enough to cry, and I had no idea what she meant.
My mood was just about to sour.
"Sunbae, where am I right now?"
"The room."
The middle.
In the room that passed for a living room, the meal tray sat so the TV was dead center in view. She was there. Three steps from my bed.
No way.
"Sunbae, can I come a little closer?"
Startled, I told her to come—and I meant it in a completely innocent way.
But the moment she lifted a foot and took one step toward the bed—
"Hrrk."
Dry heaving climbed up my throat.
Yujeong flinched and yanked her foot back. She waited until I steadied, then tried stepping forward again.
"Hrrk."
"So that was me coming all the way to the limit in one go. Shame."
Nothing for you to be disappointed about. Even so, something in me must have shifted.
After the shower, maybe because her blood was moving, her face was flushed. From three steps away, she offered me her hand.
"Let's shake. A handshake."
We stretched our arms as far as they would go and tried it, holding nothing but her fingers.
Those small fingers wobbled between my thumb and index finger. Cold sweat was starting, though. Any closer than this felt dangerous.
Yujeong drew her hand back and stared at her own fingers for a moment.
I somehow felt like I'd become a monkey at the zoo for her, and I shrank in on myself. But the hyperventilation definitely didn't come. That alone made me so happy I could hardly stand it.
Why am I happy? It wasn't uncomfortable for half a year.
Yujeong was staring straight through me.
As if spellbound by that look, I carefully reached a finger toward her.
She reached one back to match.
It felt like an alien meeting a girl.