Jjimjilbang (2)
Jjimjilbang (2)
"Unnie! Please give me a ride again next time!"
"Anytime."
Minji's eyes sparkled as she got out of the Bugatti Chiron, and A-ra looked satisfied seeing Minji like that.
Minji, who had just had the rare experience of riding in the only car of its kind in Korea, was already throwing a playful tantrum, begging for another ride.
A-ra nodded and agreed to Minji's request, grinning from ear to ear.
Women generally liked cars, so sharing that hobby helped them get close quickly.
The two of them had also talked about cars when they first met, and then they'd gone down to the parking lot together...
From what I'd heard, it seemed like Minji was even going to be bought a car once she got her license.
What kind of car she'd buy for her... I was starting to get a little scared.
"But is this the right place?"
"Yes, they said it's the entire upper floors of that building over there."
Just because it was a closed community didn't mean it was tucked away in some rural corner.
It was located right in the middle of Gangnam in Seoul, and they supposedly used the entire 5th through 8th floors.
Since the building was bigger and wider than your average corridor-style apartment complex, I was looking forward to seeing what the inside would be like.
That aside.
Lee Min-ho and Jeong Hwan-yi, those two, were collectively late.
Honestly, this is why men are a problem, you know?
"Looks like Lee Min-ho-ssi is buying the sikhye."
"Not just sikhye — eggs and kongguksu too, the whole lot..."
I was going to use this opportunity to suck Lee Min-ho dry of everything he had.
Jeong Hwan-yi, I'd just stick a straw in him next time...
"Do they even sell kongguksu at a jjimjilbang?"
"I don't know? They probably do?"
I shrugged at Minji's answer.
Because I couldn't really remember if they'd sold miyeokguk or kongguksu.
I'd gone exactly once before, a long time ago — what had I even gone for?
Even that no longer remained clearly in my memory.
"From what I heard from someone who's used this place, they said they sell tteokbokki here?"
"At a jjimjilbang... tteokbokki?"
"Yeah, and they said they sell things like tteokgalbi too?"
Was this place actually running a restaurant disguised as a jjimjilbang?
Selling food that had absolutely nothing to do with a jjimjilbang.
"Oh, a car's pulling in over there."
A-ra gave a warning, so we stepped back a little from where we'd been standing.
The parking lot was a tower type, so there was nothing directly in front and the space was wide open.
Looking at the license plates and car models, they were Jeong Hwan-yi and Lee Min-ho's cars.
Only a handful of people were gathering, and yet four cars showed up.
The two of them placed their cars inside the tower and pressed the button to raise them up.
Once everything was done, they walked over to us.
"Hello, A-ra-nim."
"Hello, Lee Min-ho-ssi. It's been a while since your performance... And the little one next to you?"
"This is Ji-ye. Say hello."
"Hello!"
This time, Ji-ye greeted in one go without mumbling or stumbling.
Ji-ye seemed very happy to meet her idol.
Not just happy — her ears were practically twitching with excitement.
It was all Lee Min-ho's fault for playing A-ra albums instead of nursery rhymes since she was little.
"She's cute..."
"Cute?"
"Yeah...."
Minji was also blushing, seemingly having taken a liking to Ji-ye.
Every single thing Ji-ye did was genuinely cute.
"Can we do the rest of the greetings later and go inside already?"
"Yeah, we're already past our entry time."
"It's because you two were late, you know."
Anyone listening would think we were the ones who were late and caused the delay.
*
"Huh? There's no button for the 5th floor?"
We got into the elevator, but there was no button for the 5th floor, where we needed to go.
Even for a closed community, was this level of secrecy really necessary?
"Move aside."
Lee Min-ho told me to get out of the way from in front of the buttons, so I stepped back.
Once I stepped back, Lee Min-ho started firmly pressing the buttons from the 1st floor to the 4th floor one by one.
At first, I thought he was playing a prank, but then a beeping notification sound rang out inside the elevator.
Then all the button lights turned off, and the elevator started moving.
"What... what is this?"
"Huh? It was written in front of the elevator earlier. That's how you get to the 5th floor."
The person who made this kind of device was amusing, but what kind of person was the one who wrote that on the 1st floor?
It felt more like an elevator with a design flaw than a secret community.
The elevator moved at a fast speed, and we arrived on the 5th floor.
As soon as the door opened, we stepped out and checked the front desk entrance area.
"What, it doesn't seem much different from an ordinary jjimjilbang."
It was just a bit more upscale, but otherwise almost the same.
An entrance with keys dangling, a large desk, one computer, and a card reader.
I was actually more bewildered by how exactly like any other jjimjilbang it looked.
"Hello."
"Hello, customers. If I may ask, through whose introduction did you come?"
"CEO Kim Jae-ho of Gwangjin Pharmaceutical."
He dropped the name of a very famous pharmaceutical company's CEO, then pulled out his wallet and held out a business card.
So the very famous person who'd given the recommendation was apparently him.
"I've checked the list. Are you perhaps Lee Min-ho-ssi?"
"Yes."
"You've been confirmed."
Then she pulled out keys in different colors, one for each person, and held them out.
Three for men, three for women.
But was that really all there was to it?
"They called it a closed community, but is it really just confirming a referral and that's it?"
"It's not as deeply closed as you're imagining."
"Hmm..."
Was it because I'd been watching too many movies and dramas lately? It seemed I'd actually been building up an overblown fantasy about it.
***
"Wow... The entrance looked like that, but the inside is no joke."
A sight unfolded before me that resembled what I'd once seen online of the Spa Land at the New World Department Store in Busan Centum City.
By default, the interior was dim, but it was beautifully decorated with lights.
And they'd harmoniously used marble and wood like black ebony, with incredible attention to detail.
"...How much is the entrance fee here?"
"We don't have to pay, apparently?"
"Really?"
I didn't know why we didn't have to pay, but a place like this definitely wouldn't just let us in for free.
There were probably spots inside designed to make you want to spend money.
"For the record, it's not some partial monetization thing, okay?"
"Hmm... Even the heated rooms are free."
"So, since we're here, let's just do everything we want and then leave."
Jeong Hwan-yi nodded at Lee Min-ho's words.
It was the two of them pledging to get their full money's worth.
"What could Ji-ye possibly learn watching an oppa like that."
"It's fine. Ji-ye doesn't learn from me — she learns from her older sisters."
"Older sisters?"
I'd seen Lee Min-ho's noona exactly once before, and her force was no joke.
Because their mother, the chairwoman, wore a kind and gentle smile, but the noona who was the senior managing director had an incredibly fierce impression.
Clearly, that guy Lee Min-ho must have been raised being completely doted on.
Ji-ye was also a late-born child, so she would have been doted on too.
"Ji-ye, do you talk with your older sisters often?"
"They call every single day to ask if I've done all my homework."
"Homework?"
What kind of homework did a five-year-old girl have?
I'd heard that Ji-ye didn't even go to kindergarten and had lessons at home with a tutor. Was the tutor that strict, to the point of giving homework?
"No. My older sisters assign the homework and check it every day."
"Your older sisters?"
"And they ask me every day if I've brushed my teeth and cleaned my room."
Listening more closely, it sounded like her older sisters had already become independent, but they came home every Friday to assign homework for their little sister's education. They gave her until the following week and checked it the next week.
"That sounds tough."
"It's not tough. They said that's what everyone my age does."
"......"
To tell such a lie.
When I was five, I slept at every spare moment and scribbled in my notebooks...
For a long while, I held my hand to my forehead and reflected on my past self.
*
"Are you two going to come out soon?"
"Phew... Seong-hwan-a, bring noona some cold sikhye!"
"Oppa, me too!"
I placed my hands on my hips and let out a sigh.
A-ra and Minji had gone into a place that looked scorching hot, with high humidity and high temperature, and were having a childish contest to see who could last longer.
The number of sikhye containers they'd already asked me to bring them exceeded six.
"Noona, you're going to die of heat at this rate..."
"It's fine! It's less hot than being in the apartment!"
"What do you take me for, oppa...! I even went through the whole summer without turning on the air conditioner once, you know!?"
The two women, absolutely unwilling to lose, were like a dragon and a tiger.
Wasn't this the very image of a dragon and tiger?
In the first place, A-ra had bet something ridiculous.
The absurd condition was that if Minji won, she'd buy her a cheap unit in our apartment building so she wouldn't have to keep going back and forth.
Our place was one of the most expensive residences in the Republic of Korea, so it would cost at least 20 to 30 billion...
"Oppa, A-ra-nim's face is too red."
"Noona! Come out now!"
"Ugh... so hot..."
In the end, A-ra couldn't stand the heat and ran out.
Meanwhile, Minji was still inside drinking sikhye, saying she could hold out longer.
Minji had won this one.
No matter what, it was hard to imagine A-ra, who was very sensitive to heat, beating Minji, who hadn't turned on her air conditioner once during the summer.
I thought it was a natural and fitting result.
But I wondered how long she was going to keep calling her sister-in-law with the 'nim' honorific.
Even if she was a fan, using 'nim' among family?
It felt like calling Lee Min-ho 'nim' was more than enough.