Bitter Summer
Bitter Summer
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
After that, the center director and staff came out to the playground, horrified.
No matter how clueless you might be, you couldn't fathom smoking in a playground where children were running around and playing.
And that made sense — the Sorimsa Children's Center where I was doing my practicum had an indoor playground.
Transparent walls and ceiling... it felt like being trapped inside some kind of acrylic case.
Since it was winter, the ventilation fans were off, and the children had been breathing in cigarette smoke for quite some time.
What do you suppose the kids told their parents when they got home?
The parents, naturally, called the center.
So at that moment, they were going around making apology calls one after another.
If your own child had breathed in cigarette smoke in an enclosed space, you'd obviously be furious.
If our kid had experienced something like that, A-ra might have stormed out and beaten that tattooed woman to death.
I probably wouldn't have held back either.
I would've hired a whole fleet of lawyers — for the misdemeanor of smoking in a no-smoking zone,
and I would've found fault with every other little thing until I got her thrown in jail somehow.
Anyway, we bowed our heads and apologized to the guardians who came to pick up the children.
Since we were staff members of this institution during our practicum period, it was only proper that we did so.
Among them, there were many who recognized me and just laughed it off.
The mothers were especially like that...
Some people even asked for autographs or handshakes while I was still in the middle of working.
Well, we were in the wrong, so I shook their hands without letting on...
"Maybe I should wear glasses or something as a disguise starting tomorrow."
"It'll be totally obvious, so you're better off not. You want some weird news story popping up?"
"Ugh..."
Jeong-hwan was probably right about that.
These days, if I so much as do anything, the news blows up. It was like I was practically handing them an excuse to latch onto.
Still, what could I do?
There were people who followed my every move and wrote articles about it like stalkers.
"Sigh... so when do you think we can clock out?"
"Two more hours."
"Ah, two hours is really not doable..."
Thinking about my bunny-like wife waiting at home made me want to rush back as fast as possible.
Work, practicum, and everything else be damned — I'd throw it all away.
"So what happens to the tattooed woman now?"
"Well... she smoked in the playground, so... if she just gets her practicum canceled and gets hit with a civil suit, she'd be lucky, wouldn't she?"
I suppose so.
As a practicum student, she caused enormous harm to her practicum site, so she'd have nothing to say even if she got sued.
She got kicked out of her practicum placement, so she can't finish her practicum either — F.
Even if she retakes it next semester, I don't know if she'll be able to graduate on time.
Personally, I think giving someone like that a social worker license makes no sense.
I'll have to make a point of contacting her supervising professor and pushing for that.
Just as I was making that resolution, the center director hung up the phone and stood up from her seat.
Her expression looked so dark that it was a little intimidating.
"Seong-hwan, Jeong-hwan, Lee Min-ho — you've all worked hard. You may go home now."
"Thank you for your hard work."
Let's not say anything today and just go home.
I can come back next week and bring it up then.
***
"I'm home~"
"Woof! Woof-woof!"
Sure enough, the first sound I heard when I got home was our little mutts.
A-ra must have been doing the dishes, because the sound of running water came from the kitchen.
"Ahaha, that tickles, Lil' One."
Lil' One came running at me with kibble crumbs smeared all over her mouth.
She was licking her father's cheeks after he'd worked hard to earn money — our eldest daughter really is the best.
Our eldest son Pipsqueak walked over all dignified and then plopped down, asking to be petted.
"Alright, alright. Our Pipsqueak is such a good boy too."
"Mung."
I glanced around, wondering if Tiny wasn't coming, and saw him staring at me intently from a little farther away.
Then he let out a 'myaong' and wandered off back to his own business.
As expected, cats don't really greet their owners like that.
Cute little guy.
"Hoo..."
I hugged Lil' One and Pipsqueak close and leaned back onto the living room sofa.
The cushions were soft and plush, and with two fluffy warm bodies cuddled in my arms — my heart felt like it was being healed.
Right before I left work, I'd felt like I was on the verge of total burnout, too.
Seeing that I'd sat down on the sofa, A-ra tossed off her apron and plopped down next to me.
Then she gently wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
"You're home? Was today rough?"
"Today was seriously the worst."
"Is the children's center that hard? How about switching to a different place?"
"No... it wasn't that it was hard physically..."
"Then what?"
A-ra, who's basically curiosity incarnate, had her eyes sparkling and looked so eager that I gave her a rough summary.
About the practicum student who showed up a day late, did all her work half-heartedly, couldn't do anything properly, and caused nothing but trouble —
and then got caught smoking in the playground where the kids were playing.
"Seong-hwan, this isn't like something you saw in a novel or on the news, right? This is something you actually experienced just now?"
"Yes. Just now. Hard to believe, isn't it?"
At a children's center... and in the playground, of all places — she smoked.
It's a topic that people with basic common sense find hard to understand... no, one they wouldn't want to understand.
"That's someone I'd seriously love to smack a few times. How does a person like that even exist?"
"Right? So it was frustrating, and..."
When I said I was frustrated, A-ra looked surprised — a look of amazement.
She'd probably almost never seen me lose my cool, so I guess that was understandable.
In my case, I'm the kind of person who didn't even get all that angry when I nearly got stabbed.
Yeji had gotten angry on my behalf back then, and it almost turned into a huge mess.
"Our Seong-hwan has grown up so much — he even knows how to get angry now?"
"Mmm..."
A-ra's hand casually stroked my cheek and lips, then slid down below my chest.
It traveled down even more slowly, until it reached a place that others ought not to touch.
That place, with no particular sensitivity, was a place permitted to no one but A-ra.
She slowly wrapped her hand around it, gripped it, and began repeating a motion — lifting and lowering.
"N-noona, the sun is still..."
"In summer, the sun just stays up for a long time, that's all. It's already 8 o'clock, you know."
That was true.
It was summer now, so the sun was simply lingering in the sky longer.
The sunset I was watching was the kind you'd only see around 5 o'clock if it were winter.
"Seong-hwan, you were tired, so we haven't done it in three days, right?"
"Y-yeah... that's right..."
"And didn't you promise yesterday that no matter what, you wouldn't wiggle out of it?"
"I... I vaguely recall that..."
As I racked my brain, wondering if there was any corner I could escape to, A-ra's hand, which had been gripping my sensitive area firmly, tightened its hold.
Generally, if someone squeezed a sensitive area that tightly, you'd naturally feel pain —
but what I felt was roughly eighty percent pleasure and twenty percent pain.
"Th-the dogs are watching right now!"
"Woof!"
Trying to persuade her to go into the bedroom and do it later, I picked up Lil' One, who had been nestled in my arms, and held her out.
Lil' One started licking her mom's cheek, and seeing A-ra grin at how ticklish it was and take a step back, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Her hand also came off my you-know-where, and I set Lil' One and Pipsqueak down on the floor.
They must have been in the middle of eating, because the moment I let them go, they dashed to the kitchen, and the sound of lap-lap-lap echoed out.
If they eat too fast, they're going to choke.
"R-right... then I'll go wash up and come back."
"Wait a moment..."
"N-noona...?"
This time, she grabbed my shoulder firmly.
Of course, if A-ra seriously clamped down on my shoulder, she'd shatter my shoulder blade, so she must've been holding back to some extent.
It stung a little, but it wasn't at a bad level.
"Noona says it's okay even if you don't wash up?"
"N-no..."
"Yes!"
That night...
Maybe it was partly because the next day was the weekend,
but A-ra's inner beast, which had been abstaining for four days, awakened.
I even had the delusion that I was being preyed on by a succubus...
Still, I was satisfied, and A-ra was satisfied too... was she, though?
***
Deep in the dead of night.
At an hour when it was at least past midnight, when only the round moon and the streetlamp lights illuminated the dark night,
a woman was wandering the streets.
In her hand, she held a one-liter plastic bottle and a lit cigarette.
"You're cutting me... from the practicum...?"
The woman, both arms covered in tattoos, dropped the cigarette she'd been holding in her mouth onto the ground.
Then, without stepping on the butt to put it out, she opened the cap of the bottle she was holding in her other hand and began sprinkling its contents little by little onto a building.
The liquid, splashed not only on the building but also onto the flower beds, gave off a very foul smell.
That smell closely resembled the smell of gasoline you'd catch at a gas station.
"You fucked me over... so now you get fucked too."
And then, she picked the cigarette back up off the ground and tossed it at the spot where she'd splashed the liquid.
At the same instant, hellish flames shot up, and the building slowly began to catch fire.
No one was inside, so there was no one to respond to the fire alarm bell that was ringing out.
Just then, a passerby who had noticed something strange and entered the building saw the flames shooting upward and stumbled to the ground.
"F-fire!!!"
At the sound of the passerby's shout, lights began turning on in the surrounding buildings one by one. The woman, now a full-fledged arsonist, fled quickly.
However, she didn't seem to have given the slightest thought to the fact that she was being recorded on CCTV.