Awakening

Clink, thud—

I sank down beside the last boxes of empty liquor bottles I had just set in place. The damp floor felt almost indecently cool against my skin.

"...Jung. Han Naengjung!"

"Hah—"

When had I fallen asleep? It was more accurate to say I had dozed off without even realizing it. I jerked awake as if seized by a fit, and my heart hammered wildly from the sudden jolt.

Thump. Thump.

The pounding was so violent I wondered if something was actually wrong with me. Then again, it would have been stranger if nothing was.

"You okay? Kid, those bags under your eyes have dropped all the way down to your cheeks."

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Fine's fine, I guess. Get some damn sleep. Tch. Good work today."

"You as well."

Creak, thud—

The moment the guy I worked with stepped out, I crumpled back into place as if my bones had given up. The urge to fall asleep again surged up so hard it almost came out as a curse.

Slap. Slap.

I struck my own cheeks on purpose, forcing myself awake. If I slept now, I would taste a sweetness I might never know again in this life — and the regret that followed would be more than I could bear.

"Haa..."

Still. Just for a little while. I wouldn't sleep. I would only close my eyes.

Fortunately, my mind was still with me. Half-asleep, yes — but in a state where I could sit up the instant I chose to. I stayed like that, clawing back as much stamina as I could, and let my thoughts wander.

It struck me as strange, suddenly, that even someone like me had once had years that were happy enough to envy nothing. Maybe it would have been better never to have known. If I had never learned what ordinary happiness felt like, it wouldn't hurt like this now.

Screeeeeech—!

BEEEEP! BEEP!

"Hah!"

The shriek of brakes and the blare of a horn snapped my eyes wide open. Anyone would flinch at those sounds, but I was worse than most. Of course I was. They were the same sounds that had, one winter when I was barely fourteen, torn my parents away from my sister and me with savage indifference. The same sounds that had announced the beginning of our misfortune.

"Haa."

I let out a long, sour breath, pushed the door open, and went back inside.

Click. Click.

Everyone else had already clocked out. The shop lay dead-quiet around me. I killed the lights with the quick, practiced motions of someone who had done it a thousand times, and left. The only difference between me and the others was that when this job ended, I did not go home. I went to another one.

Jingle—

I arrived at the convenience store right in front of my house. Anyone watching might have thought I had stopped in to shop on my way home. I was here to work.

"Naengjung, you're here? You look exhausted. Why don't you close your eyes for a bit? I can hold the register another hour."

"No, I'm all right. You've worked hard enough yourself, sir."

"...Tch. All right."

The owner made a face ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that said he wished I would just take the kindness. I did not want to. I had been born that way, and my parents had raised me that way. I hated owing anyone a debt with a violence that bordered on illness. In a world like this, starting with the price of a house, who lived without debt? I hated it more than dying.

No. If I was being honest, I had wanted to die every single day.

Please. Just let me not open my eyes when I wake up.

How many dozens of times had I wished that, after being separated from my sister, sleeping alone at my uncle's house — if you could call it that — on a flimsy mattress inside a tent the winter wind punched clean through? I should have just frozen to death then. The human body, sturdier than I had given it credit for, clung to life with a cockroach's stubbornness even while I slept curled like a shrimp in that godforsaken cold.

Even now, the memory just makes me laugh.

I ran colder than most people. Not because my name happened to be Han Naengjung. That was simply what I was. It did not mean I had no feelings at all.

In any case, that was why the first thought I had after losing my parents at such a young age was not grief. It was my little sister, Han Suhui, sobbing without end in her mourning clothes — and how I was going to keep that child alive, no matter what it took.

Smarter than other kids my age, I decided the best thing I could do for her happiness was to ask our grandmother to take her in. In exchange, I had to go live at my uncle's house, as if I had been sold.

"..."

For a full six years, I had to live as their dog.

It was not because I was stupid. Even in a so-called equal society dressed up in the fine name of democracy, you could do nothing — nothing at all — if you had no power.

"Ha."

A dry little laugh slipped out of me. Come to think of it, I had them to thank for growing this cold. I had spent the years when a person's nature is supposed to set — the whole of adolescence — in that kind of misery. The recoil was inevitable. Something tenacious and ugly had to be born from it.

If I look at it that way, should I actually be grateful?

Whatever the case, the present me had a résumé that put most kids my age to shame. But that was as far as it went. For orphans with no foundation whatsoever, the world was still a bleak and pitiless place.

"Fuck."

I swore under my breath and dragged a hand down my face. The tears did not come. The feeling that they were about to was miserable enough.

Today, I could not get a single page to stick.

Shhhhhh—

Was it the rain? They said rain made people melancholy by nature. I had not expected it to work on me.

I could say with a straight face that I had lived more fiercely than anyone. There might be people more unfortunate than I was. There was no one who had clawed through life with more desperation. And still, reality was a gutter.

Hey, errand boy! Cigarettes. And you were supposed to bring a lighter too, you little shit.

I had endured a stretch of time that deserved to be called hell, gotten into a prestigious university on a four-year full ride, worked two jobs at once, and somehow even managed to live on my own.

And yet.

"Here."

Tuk—

A man with no manners tossed his money at me, and I stood there furious and silent, because that was the reality I lived in.

"..."

Every time it happened, my mind went blank. Why ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠did people like that live so much better than I did? Instead of clawing my way forward, should I have become one of those monsters that sucked the blood out of other people?

They always said the ones who eat best in this wretched world are the con men.

Thinking about it, it was not as if the temptation never touched me. I was confident I would have been better at it than most. I could have run a scam without so much as a flicker on my face. I had never once let myself choose that. Powerless, I took the beatings that came with being powerless, and I held the line anyway.

My parents' teachings were still carved into me that clearly. And if I broke them, I would not have been able to look my sister in the eye. I had sworn in front of Han Suhui that I would never act against my own convictions.

I want to kill them.

At the very least, I wanted to erase every last one of those insect-people who harmed others, treated it as nothing, and lived well off the damage. Wouldn't the world be a little better then?

Sometimes the thought came to me that this wretched world's sickness was getting worse. They said the frequency of people's extreme behavior had been climbing sharply lately. I did not find that strange at all. In a world where only the selfish and the garbage got to be happy, who would stay sane?

Squeeze.

I clenched a small fist, then forced the feeling down as fast as it had risen. It was a pointless fantasy no matter how many times I ran it. The kind of power that could turn an imagination of this insane scale into reality did not exist in this world. If it did, the genre of the world itself would have to change.

Having no power meant that every time, you swallowed the injustices of the modern age, accepted them, and endured.

"That's... the right way, I suppose."

Everyone else lived like that. Being a little different did not change a single thing.

"Good work today."

"Take care."

I finished organizing my notes for Engineering Technology Management, handed the shift to the next person, and went home. It was funny, how grateful I felt that home was right in front of the convenience store. How little did a person have to be grateful for, to be grateful for that?

Beep-beep-beep-beep, ding-a-ling, clack!

The door had barely opened before a familiar figure filled my eyes — a back I would have seen even with my eyes closed.

"Oppa, you're home?"

The voice of the little sister who had come to live with me this year, after our grandmother passed, was tender no matter how many times I heard it.

"Yeah, you're up early. You should've slept a little more."

"I slept enough. And even when I lived with Grandma, I was always the one who made breakfast. She was getting on in years, you know."

"Still. A first-year in high school making breakfast is a pretty big deal. You think kids these days even know how to cook a proper meal?"

"Well, a tiny handful, maybe."

"And our Suhui is special even among that tiny handful."

"Ah, seriously! Don't say stuff like that first thing in the morning..."

She grumbled, but her cooking chopsticks never stopped moving. She was working hard at a pan of shrimp fried rice. I leaned loosely against the wall and watched her back.

Until I had clocked out of the convenience store, I had been tired enough that collapsing on the spot would not have been surprising. Just hearing Han Suhui's voice burned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the fatigue clean off me. She was the salvation I had left in this life, and the engine that kept me moving. She was also the reason I worked two jobs.

"Suhui, how's school treating you?"

"Yeah, of course it's fine."

"That's a relief."

On the surface it was an ordinary exchange. Both of us knew we were lying to each other. I knew Han Suhui was being bullied at school. She knew I had already figured it out. Neither of us let it show.

Oppa, just endure it! Please — hhkk — I'm fine, so...

I had learned it the hard way, more times than I could count. Without power, being in the right meant nothing. In a world this crooked, we could take dozens of hits and still become the criminals the moment we gave a single one back.

Democracy? The law? They could go to hell. This was still a world where power was the law. More precisely, it was a world where money wrote the law. Because this was a capitalist world.

"This'll probably be my last transfer. The friends I've made this time are actually really good people. One of them even said her dad is the CEO of a major corporation. You know Hyeseong?"

"Anyone living in Korea would know Hyeseong. It's one of the top three conglomerates in the country."

"Right?"

Han Suhui and I looked at each other and smiled. The hand holding my spoon was trembling. Because what she had just told me, in so many words, was that one of the kids tormenting her was the child of a conglomerate — and that I was not to touch them.

In the end, Han Suhui, watching my face, opened her mouth with care.

"Oppa, I'm really okay."

"..."

"I've already transferred more than seven times, and it was the same situation every single time. Besides, you toughed out the exact same things I did. I can do it too. So from now on, let's just work hard and save up money for when I graduate! I'll look for side jobs I can do from home, too."

"Yeah. All right."

With a look of surrender, I smoothed a hand over Han Suhui's hair and sent her off to school.

"I'm off!"

"Go on. Oppa's gonna get some sleep."

"Sleep well, okay?"

"I've got no classes today anyway, so I was planning to. I've got to stock up on sleep if I want ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to survive another week."

"Be back later!"

I watched her back as she bounded out the door, then shut it and came inside.

"Okay, my ass..."

She had gotten so good at acting that reading her real feelings was hard now, but Han Suhui, unlike me, was a fragile child. I could kill a person without hesitation if I judged them evil by my own standard, no matter how righteous their convictions looked. Han Suhui was the kind of child who would reach out with sympathy and a helping hand even if the other person was a villain.

A girl that kind could not possibly be fine under bullying that had clung to her, relentlessly, since middle school — not once or twice, but over and over.

Besides, you toughed out the exact same things I did.

"I was suffering too..."

And high school bullying would be a different animal from middle school. It had only been about a month since she started, so it might still be mild. But high schoolers shedding the last of their middle-school skin were often crueler than adults, and purer in their cruelty. The thought of my little sister going through that lit a fire in my gut.

"..."

On another level, it was absurd. Both of us. Granted, being orphans, being poor, and looking gentle made it easy to get pulled into that kind of thing. But Han Suhui had transferred seven times, and no matter which school she went to, she walked into the same story.

Does that even make sense?

Objectively, the numbers did not add up. And that godforsaken probability was something both siblings were living through as a matching set. Odds like that, we should have won the lottery ten times over by now.

"God, I hate this fucking world. There are too many people I want to kill."

The fact that I could not was simply bitter. There were so many people who deserved to die, and even they were protected under the worthless name of human rights. They could not possibly be human. How could anyone who did things even beasts would not do still be called human? They were trash. That was all.

Shhhhing.

I swallowed the rage and, as I always did, picked up the kitchen knife. I was going to run through a few cuts before I slept, the way I always did. It would not change a single thing. But if the worst thing I could imagine ever came to pass... then, at least, I would not have to endure anything anymore.

And then.

...What the hell is this?