I Changed It Because There Was Nothing
Riiip.
Two pages of the calendar came off at once. It was nighttime, so the sound was louder than I expected, and Rainy bolted under the bed.
"...Did I scare you?"
Half an hour ago, I'd been sitting in front of a blank manuscript. The first word hadn't come — not because I had nothing to write, but because what I was about to write was, once again, about Dogyeong.
Before, I could have passed it off the way I always did: a story about Dogyeong that was really a story about me. Today, it wouldn't pass.
It had taken me several nights to decide what I wouldn't do, and once I decided, that space sat empty. I hadn't decided what I would do.
I closed the laptop and looked up, and there was the calendar on the wall — the only thing in this room with anything written on it.
Dogyeong's birthday. Yuna's interview. Dogyeong's blind date. Yuna's application deadline.
Not a single one was mine.
Yuna's interview and application deadline had already passed. I'd said I wouldn't write them for her, so those dates meant nothing anymore — and still I hadn't erased them.
One handwriting stood out that wasn't mine.
Dogyeong's birthday. He'd come over the day I moved in, circled it right there, drawn three stars beneath it — and then forgotten he'd ever written it.
Everything else was my handwriting.
I turned to the next page, a month that hadn't even arrived yet, and three squares were already filled in. I'd written them after regressing. Decided I wouldn't do these things anymore, then copied the dates over anyway.
So I ripped it off. Two pages came away in my hand, and the one underneath was still blank. But this page would look the same soon enough. It always had.
I took the calendar down from the nail and folded it. The fold was stiff and took two tries.
Only the empty nail was left.
I sat down at the desk and opened a search bar first.
What it means to be mys|
The cursor blinked after "being mys" and my fingers stopped. If I knew what being myself looked like, I wouldn't be searching for it. I deleted it and closed the window.
I opened a new one.
Things I Want to Do but Haven't
I typed only the title and let the cursor blink. I had never written anything like this. I'd kept exhaustive records of when other people had to be where — but there had never been a place to write down mine.
Something moved at my feet. Rainy had come out from under the bed and was sitting beside the desk leg.
I typed one line.
1. Raise a cat — ○
And marked a circle at the end of the line, because this one was already done. When I'd opened that box in the rain, there'd been no reason behind it and no one asking me to. I'd simply wanted to bring him home.
On the second line, the cursor stalled again. One line down, and the next one wouldn't come.
After a long while, I went to wash up before bed.
Shhh.
I turned on the tap at the sink, and a face appeared in the mirror. I passed this spot every day, but it had been a long time since I'd actually stood and looked.
Morning washes are for watching your hands, not your face.
I set my glasses down.
Tap.
The mirror blurred. An indentation ran down both sides of the bridge of my nose, and when I pressed it with a finger, it sank in.
I'd worn these every day without ever knowing the mark was there. Other people's faces, I'd studied plenty — every time I helped pick out photos.
I lifted my bangs with my hand.
My forehead. The last time I'd seen this face was the spring of my first year of high school; after letting my bangs down then, I'd only ever adjusted the length. Every trip to the barber, the same words: Same as always, please.
It wasn't that I had a reason. It was simply that today had to be like every other day. At some point, I had been fixed as this kind of person, and the clothes that fit the role had been dressed over me — forgettable hair, unremarkable black clothes, eyes hidden behind bangs. No one had put them on me, and I had never once thought to take them off.
Change something, and people ask. When they ask, you answer. To answer, you need a reason — and I had never once had a reason that belonged to me.
I let go, and my bangs fell right back into place.
I lifted them a second time.
Back at the desk, I typed one more line.
2. Hair
Rainy climbed onto the desk and blocked the screen.
"Move."
He didn't. I picked him up, set him down beside the desk, and looked again — and a screen with only two lines somehow took a strangely long time to read.
The cheapest one. The fastest one to show. The one that doesn't require asking anyone else.
I typed one more line beneath them.
Dating someone.
I didn't number it. I started to, then stopped.
The things above it end the moment I do them. This one needs another person. Write it down, and it becomes something I'm asking of someone.
I struck through the two lines, but the letters were still legible underneath. Where they'd been erased, only two bare lines remained.
Rainy leaned his body toward the screen.
"Don't look."
The next morning, I went looking for a hair salon first.
There was one I'd been to twice on the second floor of the shops behind the back gate, following Dogyeong. Student discount, narrow stairs, a sign with half its lights burned out.
I didn't go there. If I sat in one of those chairs, I'd end up in the seat next to Dogyeong again.
The place my search turned up was two stops from the main gate. It said reservations required, so I called.
Rr-ring.
They picked up on the third ring and asked my name.
"Jung Woojin."
I'd made plenty of reservation calls before. Dogyeong's hospital, Yuna's salon, even the team dinner spot — every one of them in someone else's name.
I went in the afternoon. The glass door was transparent from the outside, but inside it was quiet, and one entire wall was a mirror — wherever I looked, there my face was.
The owner came around behind me and met my eyes through the glass.
"Welcome. What can I do for you today?"
I sat down in the chair and my face filled the mirror head-on, and in front of it, no answer would come out.
"...What would look good on me?"
The owner's hands paused.
"Whatever you'd like. What style do you usually go for?"
I didn't have a style I liked. It wasn't that I didn't have one — I'd never thought to have one. Black clothes, because black hides everything no matter what I wore; hair, as long as no one noticed it.
My bangs covered half my eyebrows. Like that, my eyes couldn't be seen — and that was exactly why the length had been comfortable.
"...Show my forehead, please."
"Oh — that's quite a change."
"Yes."
"Did something happen?"
"......"
"People who come in for this usually have a reason."
I looked at the owner through the mirror.
"Nothing happened."
"Nothing happened, and you're changing it?"
"I'm changing it because nothing did."
The owner laughed.
"That's the best reason there is."
I took off my glasses and put them in my pocket.
Snip.
The scissors made a sound on their very first cut, and my bangs fell downward instead of sideways.
Sitting in the chair doing absolutely nothing stretched to about forty minutes. When I used to come to a salon, I sat in the next seat over — the spot where I watched Dogyeong get his hair cut, picked out the photos for him, and told him it suited him.
"You have so much hair."
"...Yes."
"Where have you been hiding all of this?"
"In front."
"...In front."
The scissors paused for a moment, then resumed.
My bangs dropped to the floor, and the amount was more than I'd imagined. That I'd been carrying that much around on my face all this time felt absurd.
When the sides got shorter, my ears emerged and the scissors sounded closer.
"All done."
When I finally looked in the mirror, at first I didn't know who it was.
My whole forehead was out. I hadn't even known I had eyebrows until today. The eyes my bangs had been hiding were bigger than I'd thought — one had a crease and the other didn't, and the outer corners tilted slightly upward. With the sides short, the line running from jaw to neck showed clean and unbroken, and from there it carried straight into my shoulders in one sweep.
It was an ordinary face.
"How is it?"
"......"
"You don't like it?"
"No, I do."
"Then why are you staring like that?"
"...It's the first time I've seen it."
I took the glasses back out of my pocket and put them on.
A sound came from behind me.
"...Oh."
"Yes?"
"Nothing."
In the mirror, the owner had a hand pressed over his mouth. The moment our eyes met, he lowered it and began tidying his scissors — tidying them a second time, when he'd already tidied them once.
"Um, sir?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever thought about contacts?"
"Contacts."
"I mean — the glasses suit you fine too. It's just, your eyes are too nice to cover up."
Having said it, the owner's face went red. I almost asked what exactly was too nice to cover, then let it go. Ask, and you have to hear the answer — and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with an answer like that.
"...I'll think about it."
"Do try them. Really."
At the register, the price was double what the place behind the back gate charged.
Inside my wallet was the card my family had given me, tucked in when I started school, never once used.
It was a tight month with the hospital bills, but I didn't take it out.
"Come again."
On my way out, I looked up at the sign once more.
This was a place that talked a lot. The salon I used to go to never asked a single thing once you sat down, and that was why I'd kept going.
Today was uncomfortable — but not bad.
On the way back, I stopped at an optician. That word — too nice to cover up — kept snagging on something in me.
I'd never worn contacts, so we started with a fitting, and getting them into my eye took two failed attempts.
On the third try, the world suddenly got wider. With no frames to stop it, my vision ran unbroken to its edges — and only then did I realize I'd been seeing everything my whole life inside that one border.
"First-timers' eyes get tired for a few days. Wear them short at first and stretch it out little by little."
"Yes."
"Why don't you just wear them home today? Take them out if they bother you."
"...It looks nice."
"Doesn't it? Everyone says that."
I folded the glasses and slid them into my pocket. My list had gained one item it never contained.
The next morning, I tried putting them in on my own.
I did it exactly the way I'd been taught, and one eye took five attempts. My eyelid always flinched first, so my fingertip only grazed my lashes and retreated — and then the lens flipped over on my finger and dropped into the sink.
Plip.
"......"
I picked it up, rinsed it, and started over. By the time both were in, twenty minutes had passed.
Meow.
"...Why are you watching me from there."
I looked in the mirror. There was no mark on my nose. It couldn't have vanished overnight after being there every day until yesterday — and yet I couldn't see it.
Not being visible and not existing are two different things. I know that. But today, I let it be the invisible kind.
There was a face in the mirror. Not a single part of it was hidden.
The work-study money hadn't come yet. The tutoring pay had come in last week — exactly enough to cover rent, and yesterday I'd spent half of it. After rent goes out, I'll be short a few days, so I'll eat triangle kimbap a few more times. It's the same calculation I've always run, but this time it didn't feel unfair.
In that calculation, the one who always got cut last was me.
Rainy was still sitting in front of the sink. He hadn't moved since a while ago.
"Don't laugh."