The Moon (2/4)
Smartphones. Bitcoin.
In the end, they were stories of the future.
Realistically, there was nothing she could try right this moment.
"I know so much about the future, and yet…"
Nothing particular about the year 2006 came to mind.
Of course, next year the subprime mortgage crisis will kick off an international financial meltdown. If I took a short position…
Hong Yujeong shook her head, chasing the thoughts away.
"Haa, and what good would that do? It's still ages off… Flip 'poverty' backwards and what do you get? Nonsense."
She let out a deep sigh, and Cha Suhyeon scratched his head.
"I don't know. You've still got a decent amount left from the part-time work, right? Why this sudden money fever?"
"But if I don't do something…"
I'll become a useless person, and eventually no one will remember me — I'll be abandoned alone in this past.
She swallowed the rest of the words.
Cha Suhyeon looked at her, tilted his head, then went back to the dishes.
Hong Yujeong watched him for a moment before she asked,
"Hey, Suhyeon. What kind of part-time work did you do after graduating high school?"
"Tutoring."
The unexpected answer made her tilt her head.
"Tutoring?"
Cha Suhyeon gave a slightly sheepish smile as he scrubbed a pot with the sponge.
"For a country boy who came out of a technical high school, I'm pretty decent at English. The temple where I grew up got a lot of foreigners coming for temple stays. I spent years stumbling through as an interpreter for the older monks, and my English just kept getting better."
"Huh. That's unexpected."
He added,
"In a place this rural, even little things spread fast. Word that I spoke English reached the town, and some of the aunties who took an interest started leaving their kids with me. There aren't even many small academies out here in the countryside — but that doesn't mean parents don't want their kids educated."
Hong Yujeong's eyes lit up.
"Then — you know what? Ask those kids if they want tutoring again! I may not look like it, but I'm Hong Yujeong: KAIST valedictorian, senior researcher at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, and an astronaut! I teach math and science, you teach English. Perfect, right?"
Cha Suhyeon finished the dishes, peeled off the rubber gloves, and scratched his cheek.
"Hmm. Tutoring?"
"They might say yes, you know? Come on?"
The aunties had been pretty disappointed when he'd stopped teaching the kids, after all.
"Well, alright. I'll ask around next time I'm in town. They'll probably all be gathered at the beauty salon."
As for the astronaut and senior researcher business — that was far too outlandish. He'd just say a friend from KAIST was visiting for summer break.
"Yes! Really?"
Watching Hong Yujeong clench her fists in delight, Cha Suhyeon wore a faintly bitter smile.
She probably thought he didn't notice how hard she was trying to stay bright. But after living together for several days now, it showed whether she meant it to or not.
The way she desperately searched for anything she could do looked like a struggle to find her own usefulness — a thrashing effort to blend into this world.
In her, Cha Suhyeon saw his own school days.
Raised by monks at a temple with no parents of his own, fitting in among ordinary friends had never been easy for him.
The town aunties' response was more enthusiastic than expected.
Since Hong Yujeong had no way of leaving the blue veil, the tutoring would take place at Cha Suhyeon's house.
He brought over kids who would be starting middle school the following year.
Before long, the children adored the cheerful, pretty Hong Yujeong.
"Mom, I want to keep learning math from Teacher Yujeong, okay?"
Even without the pleading, the parents had already planned to continue the tutoring.
Whether it was the KAIST introduction or whether they had simply recognized that Hong Yujeong was exceptional, the parents who sat in on the first day's class left thoroughly satisfied.
The parents in town were so dedicated they drove their kids over every single day.
Beyond teaching the children, Hong Yujeong had also picked up a hobby lately.
That hobby was Yeongjin Super, which sat right under the blue veil.
Arriving at the little corner store, Hong Yujeong slid open the entrance door.
"Grandma."
"Oh my. The pretty little one is back again."
"Yes. Grandma, may I use the computer again today?"
The grandmother smiled.
"Of course. Use it as much as you like."
Hong Yujeong beamed.
"Thank you!"
Watching the young lady close the sliding door and head into the house next door, the grandmother chuckled.
"Good for her. Just like my boy who went off to Seoul. Completely hooked on that game — Lindsey or Mickey Mouse or whatever it was."
Of course, Hong Yujeong wasn't playing games on the computer.
The only places she could go were the mountain, Cha Suhyeon's house, and this store — and of everything inside them, the computer was what held her interest most.
It was an old machine with a massive CRT monitor and Windows XP installed, so slow it could make you want to scream compared to the future — but having one at all was something.
After spending a good while at the store grandma's house, Hong Yujeong returned to Cha Suhyeon's.
"Oh? You bought them!"
She spotted the items sitting on the wooden porch floor.
Cha Suhyeon nodded.
"Yeah. While I was in town earlier, I stopped by the hardware store and picked up the things you mentioned."
Her face brightening, Hong Yujeong began tinkering away with the hardware-store purchases.
"Ta-da."
It was a paper-cup telephone connected with copper wire.
Though the paper cups had been replaced with plastic receivers, and copper wire was coiled inside like a proper coil, it looked convincing enough to pass for a real landline phone.
"You made that pretty fast."
"An astronaut has to be able to fix or build just about anything. Once you leave Earth, there's no more resupply."
Hong Yujeong took down the original red-string paper-cup phone and hung the copper-wire phone in its place, threading it through the gap in the door.
Watching the screen, film critic Jo Hoon understood exactly what this scene meant.
The thin string had been the medium that carried their private hearts and deep conversations.
At first, Cha Suhyeon installed the paper-cup phone to comfort Hong Yujeong. Now the initiative has shifted to her. And the emotional bond between them has grown as solid and thick as copper wire.
Nearly two months had passed since they'd started teaching the kids.
In that time, the two unexpected housemates had grown considerably closer.
They washed blankets together in a big basin of soapy water in the yard, and Hong Yujeong attempted cooking — producing something she called soup that was really a bizarre gruel.
But while the spatial constraints brought them closer, they also quietly ate away at Hong Yujeong's spirit.
Choosing not to go out and being unable to go out were two different things.
Hong Yujeong stood before the small crosswalk next to Yeongjin Super, staring blankly at the other side.
I can't even cross this tiny crosswalk.
There weren't even any cars…
Even when the light turned green, she couldn't cross.
The blue veil blocking her path continued to wear a person down.
That blue veil is going to devour me eventually.
Cha Suhyeon noticed the change in her.
On a day with no tutoring sessions, he spoke to her first thing in the morning.
"Those sneakers we bought last time — put those on. We've got somewhere to go today."
"Somewhere to go?"
The only places Hong Yujeong could reach were the mountain, the house, and the store. Where exactly could they go together?
"We're going to see the sea today."
"Huh? Where's there a sea?"
"You'll understand when we get there."
With nothing better to do at home anyway, Hong Yujeong tilted her head and put on the sneakers.
Then they walked for a long time.
They climbed along a narrow trail, and sometimes they walked where there was no path at all.
The blue veil formed a circle of fixed radius around Cha Suhyeon's house, but she had never gone toward the mountain on the opposite side from the store — so every path she faced was a new landscape.
They passed through a tunnel of low-growing apricot trees whose branches curled together in a circle, like a cave of wood.
At the end of the tree-cave, a glittering light appeared.
"Good thing the weather's nice today."
At Cha Suhyeon's words, Hong Yujeong looked ahead.
They had reached the mountainside. Before her eyes was a sheer cliff, and looking down through the trees below, she could see the blue barrier.
And beyond it, far in the distance — the sea.
It was a magnificent view.
No — a hidden vista no one else knew about. A secret paradise.
"There really is a sea…"
The moment she saw the ocean, a tear slipped from Hong Yujeong's eye without her meaning to.
She wasn't particularly sad. She didn't know why the tears were falling.
"Maybe it's just the sudden brightness…"
After sitting for a long while, simply gazing at the sea, Hong Yujeong spoke.
"This was the only path I had. I didn't have the luxury of thinking about anything else, or the face to. People always say, 'What has the country ever done for us that it takes so much in taxes?' Looking at it another way, that might have been a lot of people each sacrificing a little for me."
Cha Suhyeon asked quietly,
"Why did you think that?"
"Space exploration is the most expensive road you can take — one that ends up earning the public's resentment. From the time I was selected as a science prodigy as a kid, I was always supported by foundations and government funding. So my path was set from the start, no mid-course quitting allowed. Still, I held on, believing that no matter how long it took, if I just kept running steadily, I'd reach the goal."
She had never imagined that all that endurance would land her locked in a cage like this.
They sat without much more to say, watching the sea, until the sun began to set and they stood.
"Let's head home."
"Okay."
Cha Suhyeon carefully took Hong Yujeong's hand.
She flinched for a moment, but her face flushed as she held his hand and they descended the darkening mountain path.
After walking for a while, once the steeper stretch was behind them, Hong Yujeong quietly fidgeted, trying to pull her hand free.
"The path's still rough and dangerous."
"…Yeah, I guess it is."
Above them, a red light painted the world as the sunset fell.
That red light seemed to hide the flush rising in their cheeks.
And the audience watching this sweet, tingling scene found themselves smiling like fond mothers without realizing it.
The enormous change that came to their quiet life arrived at an unexpected moment.
"Yujeong?"
He looked around, but Hong Yujeong was nowhere to be seen.
Just a moment ago, she had been right beside him.
She had said she was curious about the pendant necklace he always wore, so she had taken it off and placed it in his hand — and in the brief moment he tried it on, she had vanished without a trace.
Cha Suhyeon scanned the surroundings, then cupped his hands around his mouth and called out.
"Hong Yujeong!"
His face urgent, he searched the area for the Hong Yujeong who had suddenly disappeared.
Meanwhile, Hong Yujeong blinked in shock at the abruptly transformed view before her eyes.
Just a moment ago, she had been sitting on the wooden porch talking with Cha Suhyeon…
Inside the dark cabin, emergency warning alarms blared loudly, and red lights flashed continuously.
A thick smell hung in the air — steam or smoke, she couldn't tell.
Faced with yet another inexplicable event, fear surged through her for an instant.
But then she looked around and realized this place was both unfamiliar and familiar.
"The exploration ship…?"
Around Hong Yujeong, fellow astronauts hung unconscious in their safety harnesses, heads slumped.
The place where Hong Yujeong had opened her eyes was a lunar exploration vessel that had made an emergency landing somewhere in the vast waters of the South Pacific.