End of the Line
Somehow or other, we had really ended up all the way at the terminal. Confronted by the unfamiliar sight of a bus depot she had never seen in her life, Hyeonji asked with a hint of fear in her voice.
“Where is this?”
“Well... somewhere around Eunpyeong-gu, I think...”
“This is the first time I’ve ever come this far.”
“Same here. So, shall we head back now?”
After all, the whole point had been to avoid riding the bike by any means necessary. We had killed enough time; heading home now would make for a solid enough alibi.
“Already? I want to look around here.”
“Look around...? This place is just some residential area on the outskirts of Seoul. What’s there to see?”
“I just want to walk.”
Before I could even answer, Hyeonji strode off at a brisk clip. As the adult who had brought a kid this far out, I had no choice but to follow.
It was a strange place that truly lived up to the label of Seoul’s outskirts, lined with nothing but rundown buildings. Even the area around the Nobel Townhouses, supposedly the most run-down neighborhood near Cheonji High, looked better than this.
Of course, to someone like me who had grown up in the countryside, even this was dizzyingly complicated. Hyeonji kept swiveling her head left and right, busy taking in every little detail.
“You like walking, huh? Not the usual parks or trails—you prefer strolling streets like this?”
“I can people-watch.”
“Come to think of it, what’s your social life like? You always hang out alone and just work part-time. Don’t you have any friends you actually meet up with?”
“Just Jihye and a few others.”
“Jihye... as in Mok Jihye, the one who ran for student council president and then dropped out? How’d you two even get close?”
“None of your business.”
“...”
Hyeonji cut me off cold. But was it really that weird for me to be curious?
I would admit she had an unexpectedly pure side. That was something only I knew from watching her up close and analyzing her, though. On the surface she was Cheonji High’s untouchable Queen of the Street.
I did not know much about Jihye, but she had been a candidate for student council president. That made her at least as much of a model student as Eunju. How had someone like that ended up friends with Hyeonji?
“Are you mad?”
At that moment, words I never imagined could come out of Hyeonji’s mouth reached my ears. She had not only stopped walking and turned around—her gaze was surprisingly serious.
“Why the sudden question?”
“Are you mad because I said it was none of your business?”
“You just don’t feel like answering, right? That’s how you always are.”
“Always? What do you even know about me?”
“Why are you getting angry again...? You draw a hard line between what you want to talk about and what you don’t. We haven’t known each other that long, but I’ve finished analyzing that much at least.”
“You want me to tell you everything?”
“Well... it would be nice if you did. People can’t help being curious, right?”
“...”
Hyeonji fell silent for a moment, eyes darting left and right as if replaying our entire conversation.
Why do you keep acting so out of character? Where did the usual Kim Hyeonji who blurts out whatever pops into her head go? If you’re fretting over my feelings like this, how am I supposed to react?
“I’ve been bullied before.”
“Not you, obviously—Jihye? She didn’t seem like the type to make enemies.”
“She lived overseas for a long time. Sometimes English slips out, and the other kids didn’t like that.”
“I think I get it.”
Admiration and hatred for black-haired foreigners were always just a thin sheet of paper apart. When she armed herself with mysterious tales of a completely different foreign land, people welcomed her.
But the moment that butter-slick English pronunciation slipped out and poked at their unique English-phobia, they went ice-cold in an instant.
“Huh? What does that have to do with you two getting close?”
“I already said it. She got bullied and didn’t have friends for a while. So I hung out with her.”
“So the voluntary loner stepped up to help the involuntary loner? You’re showing me nothing but new sides of yourself today.”
“You’re the one with the prejudices.”
She said it that way, but she averted her eyes as if she were embarrassed herself. This girl was impossible to pin down.
She acted completely indifferent to other people’s business, yet she had an unexpectedly huge soft spot for the weak who got bullied.
“So you hang out with Jihye normally?”
“We meet sometimes and drink choco choux... tea or whatever.”
“You can just say you eat chocolate cream puffs. Then you also know why Jihye dropped out of the election?”
“I know. But I can’t tell you.”
“You already spilled about Jihye’s past, and now you can’t talk about this? Doesn’t that mean something big is going on? Like she got so stressed over her campaign promises that she decided to drop everything...”
“That’s not it.”
“...”
Hyeonji clearly did not want to discuss it further and started clomping ahead again. The more she did, the stranger it felt.
Deep down I had been worried that Jihye and Thuy might have gotten hurt because of me. Yet Harin, and now Hyeonji too, both talked about the withdrawal as if it were no big deal to them.
Right up until the moment I went to the school as Harin’s dad, Jihye’s side had held the high ground. Even if I had persuaded the faculty, ordinary students still would have believed Jihye’s side was the honest one.
Because the star witness for Eunju’s side—‘Ban Chulgyu’—had never shown his face. So why had Jihye’s camp given up on the election so coolly?
Following Hyeonji in a daze, I realized we had reached Yeonsinnae. Compared to the terminal area, it was a proper commercial district packed with shops.
Beep-beep... beep-beep...
Hyeonji stopped in front of an arcade and stood stock-still, peering inside. She seemed interested, so I stepped up beside her and asked.
“You like games?”
“I don’t. But I want to try.”
“Then just try them.”
“Cards work?”
“Uh... probably not. But I’ve got some cash on me, so we can use that.”
I had spent more than a decade drifting from port to port around the world. Carrying cash for whatever might happen had become a habit.
We stepped into the game center. It was a decent-sized place stocked mainly with experience-type games, claw machines, and even VR units in the corner.
Clatter...
I changed a ten-thousand-won bill entirely into thousand-won notes and handed them to Hyeonji. Without so much as a glance back she headed straight for the claw machines.
Whirr~
The moment the claw arm moved, my back pocket vibrated. While Hyeonji was absorbed in the game I pulled out my phone and saw that Eunju was calling again.
“...?”
Hyeonji and Eunju did not get along. It was mostly Hyeonji one-sidedly exploding with jealousy, but there was no need to take the call here and poke the bear.
“Yeah, Eunju? What’s up?”
So I slipped quietly out of the arcade and answered. Eunju replied in a slightly sulky voice.
“You’re answering so casually, Oppa? I figured you’d be super mad.”
“Because of earlier? Someone asked me to go eat, so I hung up, right?”
“I felt bad about that, so I’ve been waiting for free moments this whole time. But seeing how little you care, I guess it wasn’t something I needed to feel that sorry about.”
“...?”
That did not add up. Apparently Eunju was disappointed because I had not gotten angry.
If I had been a same-age friend of hers, hanging up in such a hurry might have stung like I had just caught her plotting treason.
But I was not Eunju’s friend—I was merely a parent of one of her classmates. Of course I was dying to know the rest of the story, but how could I snap at a kid so much younger than me?
“So who was that earlier?”
“The vice student council president of Jedang Affiliated High whom I just met here. Not anyone you’d care about, Oppa.”
“Why can’t you even mention them? You’ve only been at camp a short while and you’re already that close?”
“We just said hello. I was the only one missing from the cafeteria, so they came looking for me, that’s all.”
“They came looking for you specifically, and you call that just saying hello? From where I’m standing the mutual chemistry already looks ridiculous.”
Is this a joke? I’ve been a student before too, you know.
Going out of your way to drop a line on someone who is off alone on the phone—that was exactly the kind of thing I used to pull on Yu Jiyeon all the time.
“I don’t know what they think, but I’m not interested.”
“Really? Then what are you doing now?”
“It’s free time, so I stepped out of the seminar hall for a short walk.”
“So you’re out flower-viewing? Let me guess. That person is there with you, right? And you’re still calling it one-sided interest?”
“Oppa, are you doing this on purpose? Now you’re pairing me with Sangmin instead of Teacher Lee Jubin?”
“Sangmin...? You’ve known each other for how many hours and you’re already calling him Sangmin?”
“Right? I should have saved him as ‘Park Eunju of Cheonji High Class 2-2’ for days like you do, Oppa. I changed the form of address way too fast.”
“Hey, this isn’t the time for you to be snarky. So who all is there?”
“Everyone who came. Unnie Yuna too, of course. What about you, Oppa? Where are you and what are you doing? From how noisy it is, it sounds like you’re outside.”
“Me? I’m just...”
I could not say. Starting from how I had met Hyeonji all the way through every conversation we had shared—there were too many things I could not even open my mouth about.
“I just stopped by an arcade for a bit.”
“A game center... you mean? Did you go alone?”
“Of course alone...”
“Who is it?”
Click!
The instant Hyeonji’s voice came from behind me I hung up. I whipped my head around to find her staring at me with eyes full of suspicion.
“M-my aunt was asking where I went...”
“...”
Hyeonji scanned my face this way and that, trying to decide if the words were true. Apparently she decided I had no reason to lie, because she cut straight to the point.
“Give me more money.”
“I just gave you ten thousand won. How many plushies are you trying to win?”
“I didn’t get any.”
“What the... You dumped ten thousand won in and didn’t land a single one? Hyeonji, when you cast a line and there are no fish, the smart move is to move to the next spot right away. Pouring more money in there won’t catch you a single one!”
“Are you good at claw machines?”
“I’ve never even tried. Anyway, quit wasting time and do something else.”
“Like what?”
“Metal Slug or Tekken... Isn’t that what you’re supposed to play when you come to an arcade?”
“...”
Hyeonji’s face said she had no idea what those even were. Fine, then we would do it this way.
We would try something neither of us had ever experienced and find a kind of common ground that way.
We moved over to the VR corner. While the clerk rattled off explanations I checked my phone for a second.
Just as expected, she had texted right away. It was only a simple sentence, yet I could feel the anger packed tightly into it. Was that just my imagination?
The situation was way too ironic. I had gotten annoyed at Eunju for going off because some Sangmin guy called her, yet I myself had lied about coming to the arcade alone and gotten caught red-handed on the spot.
“Do I really have to wear this?”
Regardless, Hyeonji accepted the VR headset with a face full of complaints. But was that even a real question right now?
“What, do you swim in a pool with the water drained? Without this, how exactly do you plan to experience anything?”
“Why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad—your question is just that ridiculous... Anyway, there are people waiting behind us, so put it on already.”
I snatched the VR set from her and forced it onto her head. Then the two of us climbed onto the ride together.
Whooosh~
Suddenly everything went dark and the sound of a raging storm filled my ears. The ride began to rock, and before long a familiar light appeared far in the distance.
Huh? That’s a lighthouse. We were floating on the open sea. Riding a tiny boat that pitched in every direction on the rolling waves, we were rowing toward our destination.
“Wh-what is this?”
Hyeonji’s voice trembled; she clearly could not adapt to her first-ever VR experience. I was new to VR myself, but I had ridden boats until I was sick of them, so I was not tense in the slightest.
“See that lighthouse? Looks like we have to get there.”
“It’s way too far. What if we fall in the water?”
“...”
Was she serious? Still, the way she genuinely fretted about falling overboard in the middle of all this was so cute that I found myself listening to her nonsense despite myself.
“Uwaaah!”
Hyeonji let out a low, hoarse scream. A shark had just appeared. I calmly whispered right into her ear.
“Don’t worry. Sharks are smart—they never attack humans first. More like, seeing one swimming around with its tail up on a surface this rough means something’s definitely wrong with it.”
“What if it’s a crazy shark? What if it jumps onto the boat?”
“There’s no way. I’ve seen plenty of sharks and never once met a psycho like— Aaaaah!”
Splash! Either the VR creators knew jack about the ocean or the shark really did leap through the waves and land on the boat. Even with more than a decade of experience, I had never seen that coming.
Wham! Without either of us deciding who would go first, we threw our arms around each other and locked into a protective crouch. Splash! The shark sailed clean over the boat and plunged back into the sea.
“...”
The result left our situation a little awkward. Who exactly was I hugging right now?
But it was real. The empty space in my arms that always felt hollow was now completely filled with Hyeonji’s solid body.
The hair brushing the tip of my nose was as soft as the finest velvet, tickling my skin. The scent of shampoo rising from the crown of her head made my prostate go rock-hard without my permission.
Whip!
All I could think was that I had to escape this position as fast as possible. I hurriedly dropped my arms, yet our posture did not change one bit.
Squeeze...
Because Hyeonji’s arms were still locked around my waist. She had buried her face against my chest and was not moving a millimeter.
On the rocking boat I put every ounce of strength into my arms just to keep my balance.
So what else could I do? If the last dozen-plus years had not been a complete waste, then as the senior on the sea I had to hold her.
Slide...
I reached out again and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. I knew full well I was doing the wrong thing, yet I could not stop myself.
Nnngh...
An unintended sigh slipped from Hyeonji’s lips. The distance between us was now completely zero. As if we had been one from the very beginning, I did not want to pull back even a single millimeter.
It was the first time in my life I had ever hugged a girl. And that girl happened to be my daughter’s school senior.