Your Question
Living like a cactus, carrying thorns inside me, I learned three things. It hurts when the thorn of jealousy pricks you. It leaves a wound in your heart that festers for decades. I hated Cha Jun-jae—the one who had planted that thorn—with a murderous passion, but that wasn’t the whole truth.
Sometimes those thorns become the driving force that lifts me up, pushes me forward, and makes me grow. They jab at my sleeping side until I have no choice but to wake. When you really think about it, the thorns were an indispensable source of energy in my life.
On this island where night falls quickly, the sky becomes a playground for the stars. A damp wind kept brushing my cheeks. Tonight I had a good excuse—alcohol. With no grown-ups around to chatter, I wandered through old memories like a solitary animal. My body, which couldn’t survive without water, replayed the memories of first-grade class 1-1 on the way to the swimming pool.
The sense of crisis that the world was shrinking because of Cha Jun-jae’s arrival was mine alone. Mom had made a close friend and her world had grown bigger. She and Aunt Su-young, who had only recently come to Korea and found everything difficult, became inseparable. After school they even started bundling Cha Jun-jae into the package for pickup—it was convenient, apparently.
The result of Mom’s kindness was devastating. Art academy, piano academy, English academy—I ended up paired with Cha Jun-jae like a set. It was a mercy that Aunt Su-young hadn’t added ballet. Weekend ballet classes remained my peaceful sanctuary; weekdays were a silent war. At school and at every academy, I was stuck playing babysitter for Cha Jun-jae.
At first it was nothing more than the annoyance of having an extra burden. Cha Jun-jae was the type who obeyed orders without complaint, and he was an eerily perfect son who listened to his mother without fail. If I told him to fetch water during art class, he would bring it back instantly like a servant. Once our homeroom teacher handed the quiet, spacey boy over to me completely, I used him like a personal attendant. I made thorough use of him through the first half of the first semester.
His reputation in class was stellar, too. He only chose friends he actually liked. During breaks, kids swarmed to my desk like bees to honey. I thought I would enjoy the popular life I had always dreamed of forever.
But the first-grade days that had felt like warm sunlight ended abruptly. All because of one question. Cha Jun-jae, who had made a habit of sitting with a sullen face, called out to me one day.
“Eun-dam.”
I knew he wasn’t mute, but in the month or more we had been stuck together we had barely spoken. He had always been quiet and shy. Min-ji, who was coloring beside us, widened her eyes in shock.
“Is that fun?”
He must have eaten something strange at lunch. The boy who never even glanced at us when we jumped rope or played jacks was suddenly talking. The other kids in class, especially those he had ignored, watched with intense interest.
“Whoa, Jun-jae’s talking.”
“Jun-jae?”
I was several times more surprised than the others. I gripped my colored pencil so tightly my fingers turned white.
“Can I do it with you?”
Mom had told me to be understanding because Jun-jae had come from America and was slow with Korean. She had no idea that beneath that handsome shell was an idiot who had already taken ten years off my life.
“Um, this is something you do in pairs. Sorry, Jun-jae.”
It was a coloring activity that could easily be done by three or four people, yet I lied with trembling lips. Instead of questioning whether it was true or false, Cha Jun-jae smiled gently.
“That’s okay. We can do it together later.”
He must have gone crazy from the zucchini side dish at lunch. The other kids were now staring at the changed Cha Jun-jae. A crowd gathered around his desk, watching the boy who smiled brightly.
I understood why the children looked at him with eyes that wanted to talk to him. The boy who had only eaten, slept, and stared blankly like a newborn baby was suddenly speaking. Smiling. And I didn’t know what to do with myself. There was something strangely familiar about Cha Jun-jae’s smile and tone that I couldn’t quite put into words.
Maybe because we were seatmates, his blatant gaze would occasionally drift toward me. Even while happily chatting with the other kids, he would glance my way. The boy who used to stare only at the chalkboard like a shy child had changed his target and now watched me for long stretches. His persistent attention filled me with unnecessary tension.
Those black eyes and even blacker hair followed me all day. My stress levels rose with every move of Cha Jun-jae, who guarded my side except when I went to the bathroom.
“Bye, Eun-dam!”
“See you!”
I told them I had a cold and skipped the academy. I wanted to lie in bed and sort out my thoughts. I hadn’t exactly hoped he would stay silent until graduation, but that gentle, friendly attitude of his felt strangely unsettling.
I ate strawberry cake and watched my favorite cartoon. But my worries must have ruined my concentration, because Jun-jae’s smiling face kept floating across the screen. Even after a nap, that smile of his—which sent chills down my spine—still lived vividly in my head.
It should have been perfectly normal for someone to be friendly and smile at me. Yet his kindness felt so unpleasant that I wanted to peel the wallpaper off the walls…
“Hi, Eun-dam!”
“Hi.”
I had stayed up all night and yawned hugely on the way to school. What was the big deal about Cha Jun-jae becoming kinder and smiling more? I woke myself up by chatting with friends I met on the way. When I reached the first-grade hallway, the sound of our class laughing everywhere felt refreshingly bright. I ran forward and confidently opened the classroom door.
“Hahaha!”
“Let’s do it here too.”
“It’s pretty. Is this Jun-jae’s?”
My empty desk. And what filled it was Cha Jun-jae’s coloring supplies. At the center of the group, Cha Jun-jae was happily exchanging words with the other kids.
I stood frozen at the front door, watching this new version of Cha Jun-jae. Just like I had on the first day of school.
“That’s…”
After observing from a distance, I finally understood the déjà vu I had felt the day before. That tone, that laugh, those gestures, that expression—they had an original. They were modeled after me, his seatmate. He was imitating me with that beautiful face that had planted a thorn in my heart from our very first meeting.
“Jun-jae! Let me join too.”
“Sure, let’s do it together.”
He had chosen a different path from me. I had only played with the kids I liked. Cha Jun-jae won popularity with a fair and beautiful heart. A warm, friendly atmosphere created by including even the isolated children. It was something the narrow-minded, lone general that I was could never have produced.
From that day on, I learned one thing. Cha Jun-jae’s persistent gaze was to observe me, and his questions were warning shots signaling that he was about to steal what was mine.
It was impossible to forget the memory of the day he taught me loneliness.
“I really hate you.”
Because that was only the very small beginning.
When I reached the swimming pool, I realized the alcohol had completely worn off and let out a small laugh. The brightly lit pool already had a guest. He seemed just as troubled as I was. Swimming like a fish in water this late at night was proof enough.
Thinking about Cha Jun-jae made me drink, and thinking about Cha Jun-jae sobered me up. I wiped my face with a dry hand and dipped only my ankles into the pool water.
Feet submerged in water always look more beautiful than they do on land. Everything that happens on solid ground becomes nothing once you’re in the water. That was why I had fallen in love with swimming.
Imagining the sea I would enter tomorrow, I quietly sealed the memories with tape. I even trimmed the thorns that had grown sharp while I wasn’t looking. Just then, the man who had been swimming stopped in the middle and stood up. His sudden action after swimming from one end to the other caught my eye.
The first thing to break the surface was his back. After seeing countless shirtless Westerners since arriving here, I still let out a sigh of admiration. His body had the solid, defined muscles of an athlete. His hand rose gracefully to shake the water from his hair. The lingering alcohol seemed to make every movement of his more provocative.
I should go in now.
Half the men visiting this island had partners, and the other half had come looking for one. Of course there were one-night moth-like lovers too. I couldn’t guess how he would interpret my gaze. I pulled my feet from the water and slowly set them on the tiled floor. Feeling good, I began to hum a tune.
It was the moment I stood up, clutching the room key Mom had given me so I wouldn’t lose it. The humming tune I had just been belting out—my own Song Eun-dam original—was now coming from the front. My foolish body reacted quickly to the things it hated. My wet feet hesitated, stepping backward.
“Eun-dam.”
I had gone so far as to lie to my parents just to avoid places where the two of us might be alone. It had all been pointless.
“I was actually planning to come see you tomorrow.”
From that day onward, Cha Jun-jae had started talking a lot. In contrast, I found myself holding back my true personality and words in front of him. Our positions had completely reversed from our first meeting.
“Nice song.”
And even now, after time had let us grow, his questions never stopped.
“Tell me the title.”
“……”
“We have similar taste in music, don’t we?”
What more was he preparing to steal from someone who already had nothing?
The moment our eyes met in that searching gaze, I raised both hands in surrender.
I would never be able to win against him in my entire life.