The Sixth Somaek
The convenience store I’d sought out to soothe a weary life. But true to form as the protagonist of a life of endless misfortune, even here I found myself interrupted once again.
The sixth glass of somaek I’d poured with every ounce of my soul had ended up in someone else’s hand. Hyeonji was sitting naturally in the seat across from me, knocking the drink back.
Does someone send out a radio signal every time I start drinking? It’s not like this is the only convenience store in the neighborhood, so how the hell did she know to show up here?
So I asked about the thing I was most curious about right then.
“You’re wearing a baseball jacket…?”
Come to think of it, this was the first time I’d met Hyeonji on a weekend. So of course she wouldn’t be in her school uniform, yet her character was so strong that civilian clothes looked incredibly awkward on her.
Up top, an oversized round-neck tee. Down below, sloppy cargo pants. And as if that weren’t enough, she’d thrown on a baseball jacket far too big for her frame.
A shiny one, no less. Did this kid not even grasp the concepts of hot and cold?
“Got a problem?”
“No, just… how’d you know I was here?”
“Know? What do I know? I just saw you while I was passing by.”
“…”
Thinking about it, this was the same convenience store from last time. If our paths happened to overlap more than expected, there wasn’t much of a problem.
“But Hyeonji, you…”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Haa… Miss Kim Hyeonji, third-year at Cheonji High School? You don’t live around here, do you? Weren’t you living in the same neighborhood as Eunju?”
“I hang out around here usually.”
“That so? What were you doing?”
“Just wandering around listening to music.”
True to her word, a pair of oversized headphones hung around her neck. Suddenly I wondered what kind of music she listened to.
“What were you listening to?”
“Why do I have to tell you that?”
“Just curious what kids these days listen to. I mostly stick to older stuff.”
Roughly rewind the clock about fifteen years from you and that should cover it. Surprisingly, though, we seemed to have some common ground.
“Same here. I listen to old music.”
“Yeah? What was the last thing you put on before coming here?”
“Deux.”
“Deu… what? Hey, that’s way too old-school. Why not just listen to Chopin or Mozart while you’re at it?”
“Got a problem? What do you listen to then?”
“This and that. On my way to the date earlier I was listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
“You listen to all that geeky shit and you’re criticizing my taste?”
“…”
Why is RHCP geeky shit? And for a guy like me, listening to RHCP is no problem at all.
You, born on the tenth anniversary of Kim Sung-jae’s death, listening to Deux is way weirder.
Glug, glug, glug…
Whether she cared or not, Hyeonji downed her glass of somaek in one shot and was already pouring more beer. Left with no choice, I pulled out another paper cup.
At least she was in civilian clothes today, so no one was likely to report us. That was a relief. Hyeonji picked up the new cup, then let out a “Pfft…” of laughter. Clear mockery.
“What’s so funny?”
“So that was it today. The blind date with some working adult or whatever.”
“Uh… I won’t deny it.”
“You got rejected, right?”
“Huh? How’d you know that?”
“Just looking at how you’re dressed. What are you, some old fart?”
“…”
I was an old fart. Setting that aside, who was criticizing whose outfit right now?
“I don’t want to hear that from a kid wearing a shiny jumper before the cherry blossoms even bloom. And that’s an Eagles one, right? You’ll never wear it again in your life, so why buy it?”
“Someone gave it to me.”
“Uh… Miss Kim Hyeonji? If the other person didn’t agree, it’s not ‘given,’ you know? Who the hell did you snatch it from?”
“None of your business. Go buy some snacks.”
“Didn’t you say you don’t eat snacks or anything?”
“I’m hungry.”
“…”
She treated me buying snacks as a complete given. But if she had some part-time job, where was all that money going?
Left with no choice, I headed into the convenience store and picked out snacks. Since she’d said she was hungry, I needed a proper balance of carbs, protein, and fat.
I bought two pieces of chicken, heated up a container of stir-fried jjamppong, added a roll of gimbap, then grabbed some cookies and a mini pineapple for dessert before heading back out.
“Not an old fart—more like a housewife.”
“Even when I buy it for you, you make a fuss? You said you were hungry.”
Even then she didn’t forget to tease me. The moment I set the snacks on the table she tore open a pair of chopsticks and asked,
“Why’d you get rejected?”
“You said it was because of my clothes.”
“That can’t be the only reason.”
“Haa… I guess I just don’t meet their standards. Most of all, they said I look too young and they don’t like that.”
“Didn’t they already know you were nineteen when they met you?”
“Uh… actually I lied and said I was twenty. Otherwise why would a working adult meet me?”
“Anything else besides that?”
“They said they don’t like that I have no money and no parents.”
“Why would that be a problem?”
“They’re adults, you know? They look at things completely differently from us.”
“…?”
Hyeonji tilted her head as if she couldn’t understand. Her outfit was pure ragamuffin, just like Aunt had said, yet every time she tilted her head like that her glossy hair swayed with an absurdly high-class sheen.
“So that’s why you’re drinking alone? Because you got rejected by Kang Harin and Park Eunju and everyone?”
“It’s not like that with Harin and Eunju, okay? Well, there’s that too, and it feels like my life just isn’t working out, so I’m borrowing the power of substances.”
“What’s not working out?”
“You didn’t actually think I’d tell you, did you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“…”
Why was she acting so familiar? Watching the way she carried herself, though, she did seem bored enough to throw out these trivial questions.
We already shared quite a few secrets. Adding a little more couldn’t hurt, right? And honestly, I wanted to unload the current situation on someone—anyone.
“Actually, I have a niece. A niece with quite an age gap, and we’ve been bound by an unavoidable bad fate since the moment she was born.”
“Cut the pretentious crap.”
“It’s true. Because her dad is my older brother.”
“…”
I’d already told Hyeonji about my brother and Yu Jiyeon. She wasn’t a complete idiot, so that alone seemed enough for her to figure out Harin’s identity.
“Must feel like shit.”
“Not like shit… just a bit uncomfortable. But what can I do? In the end, the only family left is me and her, right? So I want to get along, but she finds me uncomfortable.”
“Buy her something delicious.”
“I did. Bought her new clothes too, talked a lot, but I made a bit of a mistake.”
“She found out you were meeting a woman today, right?”
“Huh!? How do you know that?”
That made no sense. If it were Eunju maybe, but how could someone like Hyeonji—who lived without a single thought in her head—hit the exact answer right away?
“Kids are like that. Dad has to be theirs, so if he’s close with another woman, even if it’s Mom, they get jealous. But for her, you’re the dad substitute.”
“So it’s the Electra complex? That makes enough sense.”
“Don’t use hard words.”
“…”
Hyeonji shot me a glare and told me not to talk like that again. Of course, even that fierce look was so queen-like it felt a little like a reward.
Of course it wasn’t the right answer. Because Harin wasn’t the little kid everyone imagined—she was a high school sophomore.
The age for an Electra complex had long since passed.
She was simply feeling betrayed because her dad was abandoning Mom to meet some other woman. She acted cool, but inside she was a sensitive high school girl who couldn’t control her emotions.
Separate from that, I was surprised Hyeonji had come up with the idea at all. I’d thought she was just an empty-headed ordinary delinquent, but she actually thought about things?
Or maybe…
“Because you were like that?”
“Watch your mouth.”
Hyeonji instantly caught what I was about to say and grabbed the soju bottle. She wasn’t seriously thinking of swinging it at me, was she?
“You’re the same, right? You loved your dad more than anyone, but he was taken by another woman, and that’s why you’re like this.”
“Shut up.”
“You call me an old fart, but your own word choice is so old-fashioned… We’ve already concluded we’re the same kind of people a long time ago, so what are you embarrassed about?”
“I’m different from you. I’ll never forgive for the rest of my life.”
“The rest of your life? You haven’t even lived that many years yet. Anyway, so you don’t really have a solution either?”
“I do. Go hang out together.”
“Easy to say, but she won’t even associate with me, so am I supposed to drag her by force?”
“Take her somewhere she can’t resist going.”
“For example?”
“Flowers will bloom soon, so something like flower viewing.”
“That’s what you want to do, huh? So you’re just projecting onto my niece for no reason?”
Swoosh!
Hyeonji couldn’t hold back any longer and snatched up the soju bottle. I hurriedly took a defensive stance and rose from my chair.
“Whoa whoa… Aren’t you putting that down right now?”
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”
“Can’t even have that much conversation between friends?”
“Who’s your friend… But why is this here?”
“Huh?”
Hyeonji stared at the soju bottle in her hand and asked in confusion. I couldn’t understand the intent behind the question.
“What are you talking about? We’re drinking right now, aren’t we?”
“But why is there soju?”
“Well, because we’re drinking it as somaek, right?”
“What I drank was somaek?”
“Yeah.”
“You crazy bastard…”
Swoosh!
That was the end of it. Hyeonji suddenly looked dizzy and collapsed right there.
Thud! If it hadn’t been for the reflexes I’d honed on the ship, she would have face-planted straight into the concrete. I caught her and urgently called her name.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong with you?”
“Uung… uung…”
But she was already out of it. A girl who normally chugged beer with no snacks at all was like this after one glass of somaek?
She must be ridiculously weak to soju. That was why she always stuck to beer—she’d just looked at the color just now and mixed them up.
A pain in the ass right to the end. From the looks of it she wasn’t waking up anytime soon, which meant I was going to have to take her home, wasn’t I?
“…?”
There was just one problem. I had no idea where Hyeonji lived.