Phase 3: Mom Gyeong-ae (9)
To put even a little distance between myself and all these complicated problems and tangled feelings, the proper move was to throw myself into something else that could devour my full attention.
I could have drunk alone, or called someone over to talk until late into the night, but what I chose was exercise.
I ran myself ragged on the machines and focused on every single breath while I lifted weights. Sweat poured down my body and my arms and legs trembled, yet my mind only grew clearer — and that itself filled me with despair. Why was it like this?
Oppa’s a good man, sure, but that doesn’t mean he’s the best, you know?
Hui-gyeong’s words kept circling through my head.
What had she meant by that?
Even if there was no deeper meaning buried inside, the sadness carried by the words themselves was enormous.
I admit it. I’m not the best husband material, or the best boyfriend material. That’s an objective fact, so I admit it. But with Hui-gyeong, at least, I wanted to be the best.
Had I been too hasty? A virgin like me lusting after my little sister as my first woman and promising her a lifetime — had that been too light? This heart that only wanted to cherish and love her had been invaded by the crushing possibility that maybe I wasn’t the best she could have.
No matter how heavy the weights I pressed, no matter how fast I ran, the helplessness refused to leave. Even in those tiny rests between sets, Hui-gyeong filled my thoughts. The longing to see her was still as strong as the love I felt, but I wanted to put that feeling, and that moment, off for as long as I could. In the end I pushed until I was soaked through with sweat and couldn’t so much as twitch a finger.
“Member! Long time no see!”
I was slumped on the rest chair when a familiar woman trainer struck up a conversation. She was the same trainer who’d spoken to me the last time I’d come with Hui-gyeong. Her shoulders and midriff bare, she casually dropped into the seat beside me.
“Every time I see you, you’re working out like your life depends on it.”
“I use my body for work.”
“Oh? Same industry?!”
“No. Construction.”
“Ohhh, so all this is labor muscle?”
Her professional spirit must have been something else; even when I answered half-heartedly because I was exhausted, she kept the banter rolling with easy charm. Still, it was obvious this was just member management. A kind of polite line-drawing that said don’t get any funny ideas. She had a boyfriend, after all. Natural enough.
“Member, that girl from last time. She was your girlfriend, right?”
“…Yeah.”
We weren’t close, and if things went south I could simply never come back, so I admitted it without fuss. The trainer immediately squealed and shoved her nose into my business.
“Wow! She was seriously pretty. Even her angry face was pretty! Honestly, kind of out of your league?”
“Yeah, she is.”
I was agreeing with a statement that was clearly true, yet the taste in my mouth turned bitter. Hui-gyeong really was too good for me. Great body, beautiful face — next to a guy whose only asset was muscle, she was way out of my league. Maybe because of the words I’d heard earlier, the bitterness showed plain on my face.
“…Did you two fight?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Not from then until now, though. Fight, make up, fight again?”
She was uncanny. Even though she was a woman, the way she casually pinpointed exactly where it hurt with that light tone of hers had the adult quality I’d been hoping for. I couldn’t help admiring it.
“Doesn’t seem like you’d be the one starting trouble first… Girlfriend’s early twenties?”
“How’d you know?”
“Ahaha… That age, guys or girls, it’s all about themselves. I was the same. Before I met my current boyfriend I fought like crazy, broke up in the ugliest ways imaginable. Looking back, every single time it was just me digging in my heels, refusing to lose, and riding it all the way to the end.”
“That’s not only early twenties, though.”
“True.”
The trainer grinned slyly and dropped something chilling.
“People like that just get weeded out, you know.”
“Huh?”
“You get older but still only think about yourself, you can’t date~. Ah, dating maybe you can still scrape by. But the marriage market? Automatic fail. Hit your thirties, forties, and you’re headed straight for involuntary singlehood.”
Strange. Wasn’t this supposed to be member management? The level of what she was saying was getting pretty intense.
“So when does that early-twenties dating style get fixed?”
“Hmm~. When you meet someone more grown-up than you?”
“That’s hard.”
“Or when you see a partner who’s reliable or has their head on straight, age doesn’t matter. Then you start thinking, ‘I want to become an adult who matches this person.’ You know that saying? Looks matter, sure, but seeing someone work hard or study hard makes you fall for them all over again.”
For a second I imagined studying or trading stocks in front of Hui-gyeong. I could already picture the look on her face — pure you? levels of baffled disgust. Wrong answer. No matter what I pictured, I couldn’t summon any hope that she’d look at me with anything positive. Right now everything was still just depression.
“Or sometimes when I throw a fit and they just take it all, or even when we fight they carefully keep things from crossing the ‘let’s break up’ line. I’m human too, so after a while I realize I was wrong and feel sorry, but apologizing hurts my pride. There are people who naturally lead you to that place, you know?”
“Naturally lead?”
“My oppa always says the situation just kind of happens, but anyway! The important part is there’s someone who gives you time until you figure it out yourself. And once you do figure it out, you start being careful so that kind of sorry mess doesn’t happen again~. That’s how you grow out of the early-twenties way of dating.”
“What if… the other person doesn’t give you time, or you never figure it out?”
I didn’t know why I asked that. The trainer, who’d been chattering away so happily, just blinked and went quiet. The clank of other people lifting weights and the whir of machines running filled the space between us for a moment. She stared at me in silence, then seemed to reach a decision. The blinking stopped and she let out a sigh.
“Then you break up.”
“…….”
“Sometimes you only realize you shouldn’t have been like that after you’ve broken up.”
“Do you really only find out after breaking up?”
“Why? Did you two promise marriage or something?”
“…Pretty much.”
The trainer beamed.
“Haha, by that standard I’ve already been married four times.”
What was an adult, really? Someone who coldly accepted that in the real world, in society, anything could happen out of nowhere? She was smiling, yet something almost desolate hung around her.
“Plenty of people get married and still divorce.”
“Yeah…”
“I didn’t want to go this dark, but you get what I’m saying, right? The moment a thought like that hits you, you have to consider going back to the beginning.”
I didn’t need to ask what “the beginning” meant. Back to before we started dating. Before we were tied together.
Suddenly I saw her differently. I’d always thought of her as just a woman in revealing workout clothes who smiled and made small talk. Learning she had this thoroughly adult side was surprising. Rude of me, maybe, but that was the truth.
“Ah, that face just now~. I think I know exactly how you usually see me?”
“Not at all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright. Well, looks like you’re done working out, so how about you head on out?”
“Huh? Why?”
A trainer telling a member to leave? I was so startled I questioned her. She raised her index finger with absolute firmness.
“You already went way too hard, didn’t you? If you don’t cool down properly, the muscle pain’s gonna be brutal!”
“Y-yeah. Thanks.”
“And!”
Her face came in close.
“Try enjoying the workout a little. Don’t always look like something’s chasing you for your life!”
“Me…?”
“How serious do you have to look for this noona to jump in with unsolicited counseling? I can add this to your bill later, right?”
“Ah, then maybe just until the end of this month…”
“No no no, bill cancelled! Membership’s down lately, business is rough~.”
I stood, wiped the sweat I’d left on the chair, and thanked her.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it~. If you and your girlfriend work things out, make sure you go to Yangyang.”
Yangyang again. Still, hearing her push it that hard made me want to go once Hui-gyeong and I made up. We’d never taken a real trip together just the two of us. It could make a good memory.
After showering and leaving the gym, I checked my phone to see if anything had come in. Mom had sent a few KakaoTalks asking whether I’d be late today. From Hui-gyeong, nothing at all. Honestly, that was better. If anything had been waiting, I would have agonized over it. Whether it was something nice or something ugly, I had no idea how I was supposed to answer. I felt both resentment and guilt, so I couldn’t even decide what attitude to take.
Fighting constantly after getting together was just the growing pains of getting stronger… right?
If you haven’t been dating that long, maybe ending it before it ripens further would be better?
Then you break up.
The ruthless advice of an adult older than me. How much of this was I supposed to take in? People are always colder and more merciless when criticizing someone else’s story, after all.
Worry upon worry upon worry. What kind of life was this, drowning in worries? If there was a god, please just give me an answer. So I wouldn’t have to keep worrying.
KakaoTalk!
God answered my prayer. But answering only half of it — was that divine mischief?
A KakaoTalk that would blast every single one of my worries away had arrived.
“Ah, for fuck’s sake!”
This was really not it—!!!!