My Girl, Her Man
A meal had been laid out on the table. There was even a pot of stew still sending up curls of steam. Yunchae sat down in front of it. I watched her a moment, then sat down across from her myself. She set a pair of utensils in front of me and said,
"I didn't think you'd just gone home. When I stepped outside at dawn, you were asleep right in front of the house. So I hurried and put a meal together, then came out to wake you. Eat."
Yunchae picked up her spoon first and began to eat. I was starving. The smell of the food woke my appetite at once. I took up my own spoon and started in. Everything tasted far too good. I ate without thinking until I asked,
"Did you make all this, sunbae?"
Yunchae stopped her spoon mid-motion, looked at me, and nodded.
"I've cooked for myself and gone to school alone since I was very little."
I turned to ice in that instant. Without looking at me, she went on.
"Don't look at me like that. I had no friends, and no relatives either. There was a social organization that helped me, but all they ever did was hand over formal financial support. I built walls around myself with other people, too. I told you why yesterday, didn't I?"
Yunchae slowly lifted her head.
"I can't stand watching the people around me get hurt anymore."
I swallowed what was in my mouth. She looked at me for a moment, then went back to eating.
"Maybe the reason I followed Jusin's words without a second thought when he said I had to bring you in was because I wanted to form a real human connection with someone now, too. Because I wanted to lean on someone—and be someone's strength in return."
I stared at the crown of her head for a long time before going back to my food. I didn't manage a single word until I left that house after the meal. My thoughts were racing, and I couldn't bring myself to pile this or that on top of Yunchae's melancholy face. I felt as if I had glimpsed the interior of her, the self hidden under that extraordinary beauty. I walked the still-early morning streets deep in thought. I deliberately didn't take a cab and walked a long way. A strange tangle of feeling settled over me until my heart grew unbearably heavy.
I stopped by home, then went to school. I sat through class, but not a word of the lecture sank in. Midway through, I left the classroom and sat on a bench in front of the building, chain-smoking without purpose. Someone came walking toward me. It was Yongjin sunbae.
"I was wondering who was out here looking like a movie protagonist, smoking so stylishly while drowning in angst—and it was you?"
The engineering building I attended sat right beside the main gate, so every student coming onto campus passed in front of it. Sunbae had spotted me on his way in. He sat down beside me.
"Something on your mind?"
That one line from him… that single warm, gentle sentence… At the time, I had no idea how enormous an influence those few words would come to have on my life.
With my heart depressed and in turmoil, I told him about everything that had happened the day before. Of course I left out the part where Yunchae sunbae and I had given each other our virginity. He listened with complete seriousness and gravity, and aside from my feelings and a few details, I told him everything carefully.
When he had heard it all, sunbae's face had grown very grave. Even after my story ended he sat there looking deeply serious, his brow furrowed. He looked so serious it was almost embarrassing for me, the one who had told the story.
"Sunbae… I just… this ridiculous situation… and I feel so sorry for Yunchae sunbae…"
At my words, Yongjin sunbae nodded and said,
"So Yunchae was carrying a secret like that…"
"You didn't know either, hyung?"
At that, Yongjin sunbae nodded absently. He seemed to be thinking about something far more seriously than I had expected. His intensity left me flustered instead. After brooding alone for a while, he fixed me with a terrifying look and said,
"You're going to save people? That's what Yunchae's Jusin said?"
I nodded.
"Those were Yunchae sunbae's words, of course. Whether a real god was speaking through her, I don't know either…"
Yongjin sunbae looked back down at the ground, lost in thought. I had no idea what to do with this over-the-top reaction of his. Then he suddenly shot to his feet and said to me,
"Okay. You haven't told this story to anyone but me, right? Don't. Not to anyone else."
I nodded reflexively. It wasn't a story I'd been eager to shout from the rooftops anyway. It was Yunchae sunbae's private life, after all. I was already starting to regret telling even Yongjin. As he headed off somewhere, he said,
"I've got something I need to take care of right now… Let's talk again later."
He vanished almost at a run. I'd poured everything out the moment I saw him, out of that stifling, complicated feeling, and immediately regretted it. Of course Yongjin sunbae wasn't the type to go around blabbing other people's stories—but if Yunchae found out, I had a feeling she'd have something to say to me. My heart only grew heavier.
I went to the rest of my classes after that, but still nothing sank in. When classes ended, I considered going to the club room. Yunchae sunbae would probably be there. I wondered what expression I should greet her with if we ran into each other—but the awkwardness would cut both ways.
Thinking that, I found myself standing in front of the club room. I came to my senses, decided I'd come for nothing, and turned to leave. Just then the club room door opened and someone stepped out. Yunchae. She saw me and said in an expressionless voice,
"If you came, why are you just standing there? Come in."
I tried not to show how flustered I was, but it wasn't easy to hide.
"No… I was just… uh…"
Yunchae stared at me for a moment, then walked toward me and said,
"I was waiting for you so we could eat before I head to my part-time job."
Surprise must have shown on my face, because she took hold of my arm and pulled me along. I walked with her in a daze. We walked side by side without managing a single word. Yunchae kept her eyes fixed ahead, her face cold.
"Uh… sunbae… about yesterday…"
Yunchae stopped walking. She turned to look at me. Startled, I stopped too and stood there like an elementary school kid about to get scolded by a teacher.
"We…"
Her voice wasn't cold or hard. I lifted my head.
"Let's drop the formalities from now on. Speak casually with me."
"W-what?"
I yelped back in surprise and my voice cracked. The corner of Yunchae's mouth curved up. Even her smile was something I felt like I was seeing for the first time.
"We're one body now. So treat me comfortably. I'm still a little… so for now, let's just be easy with each other. In time you'll speak down to me, and I'll speak up to you."
I couldn't remember ever opening my eyes that wide in my life. Looking at my expression, Yunchae's face went cold again.
"I don't know how this all seems to you, but to me it's extremely serious. I've lived my whole life with this Jusin. Even when I rejected him and rebelled, I knew I could never truly refuse him."
Yunchae started walking again, facing forward. I hurried after her.
"What do you want to eat?"
Looking at her cold profile, I said,
"Ah… anything's fine… I mean, anything…"
Yunchae nodded.
"Let's get jjajangmyeon."
We ate jjajangmyeon, and after the meal Yunchae left for her part-time job. She said she worked at a small art academy. Even during the meal she barely spoke. I was so tense I barely registered the noodles going down—I just filled my stomach.
After watching her leave, I headed home. On the way I stopped at a convenience store, bought a few beers, and took them home. Between yesterday and today, so many shocking things had happened that I was in a state of mental anomie. Yesterday's shock hadn't even worn off, and today's shift in Yunchae's attitude had left me nearly catatonic. I came inside, stripped down to my underwear, cracked open a beer, and drank. It wasn't that I wanted alcohol so much as that I didn't want to think. I meant to drink and then sleep. But even as I drank, Yunchae's face kept growing clearer and clearer, hovering before my eyes. It was as if she stood in front of me like a hologram, and the face that never quite laughed out loud but always held a faint smile at the corners of her mouth refused to leave me.
If I thought about it on the surface, hadn't I just started dating Yunchae? We were speaking casually, eating together affectionately… Wasn't that exactly the image I'd wanted so badly? The moment the thought struck me, a smile kept rising to my face without my meaning it. And the place my thoughts arrived was singular. Whatever else was true—whether I was possessed by a ghost, whether I was cursed—it didn't matter. I had become her man. My Yunchae had become my woman. That, at least, hadn't changed.