The Counselor in the Dream
It took a long time to soothe Yerim. After finishing my meal, brushing my teeth, and washing up, I turned on a variety show on the TV and lay down on the bed. Yerim seemed distracted by the show, glancing at it every now and then while she straightened the pillows. It looked like she was planning to go to sleep early tonight.
"Why are you lying down so early?"
Well, I had hoped to roll around with Yerim a bit more. What a shame.
"I feel like I need to enter Yuda's dream a bit early. Her mind seemed quite unstable."
Hmm, I was curious about that too. What on earth had happened to Yuda? I wanted to hear about her past. Some stories are more intriguing than sex.
"So, are we going to start the dream tonight with the three of us talking?"
"Probably?"
Yerim and I lay down, resting our heads on the pillows. Just before drifting off to sleep, Yerim opened her mouth.
"By the way, Oppa, where were you and what were you doing with Yeongseon-unnie today?"
Oh, snap. My magic power had gone up, so she must have noticed everything.
"No, well. Just in a warehouse."
"A warehouse...? Do you like doing it outdoors too, Oppa...?"
"Isn't that not considered outdoors?"
A warehouse and the outdoors are strictly different things! Besides, is having sex in a place where the doors close... technically outdoor sex? As I pondered this essential question, Yerim laughed.
"If you like it outdoors, Oppa, I'll do anything for you. Ah, but... you might not be able to have sex with the real Yuda, not the one I'm mimicking."
Huh? Really? That’s a bit of a shame.
"Yuda-ssi's trauma is too severe. If we mess up, we could get trapped in the dream. So, for now, just treat her like a friend."
"Got it. And it's fine if we can't have sex. You can just do it with me in the dream, right?"
"That may be true, but..."
Yerim placed her hand on mine. It was warm and soft. And then, into the dark dream, winding and twisting. After that—without even realizing it was a dream—once the tattoo was finished, I walked the night streets with Yuda.
"Yuda-unnie, did something happen? You looked really exhausted today."
"Nothing special."
The three of us gathered in Yuda's duplex officetel and brought out the alcohol. She said she wanted to drink something strong, so we bought eight 200ml bottles of Valentine Pianist. A total of 1.6L. That’s about ten bottles of soju, right? The three of us sat at the table and raised our glasses.
Kangmin and Yerim were old friends of Yuda (at least, that was the case in the dream). They had stopped by Yuda's shop to get tattoos and catch up, but they were taken aback when she suddenly started crying during the procedure. They were worried, which is why they gathered at Yuda's place that evening. Kangmin asked worriedly while finishing his whiskey.
"Noona, you were crying a lot today. Did something happen?"
Yerim chimed in, "Unnie, we're friends. You can tell us anything if you're having a hard time!"
Yuda shook her head, saying it was nothing. She didn't want to say she had almost been raped. It would only cause them worry. But she had no way to explain why she had cried during the session. She had no choice but to lie.
"It's just, my period is coming soon, so my mood is unstable."
"Ah, is that it?"
Kangmin, perhaps feeling awkward about the topic, turned his gaze away and switched on the TV. But the news that came on wasn't good.
"Ugh, damn it. Why is the world so dangerous?"
Kangmin hurriedly turned it off. But Yuda was shocked. The news dropped a boulder the size of a house into her chest. Yerim asked, filled with concern, "Unnie, don't you feel scared being in the tattoo shop with a man?"
"That's why... I did install an emergency bell, but..."
Yerim was staring at her with wide eyes. Looking into those eyes made her want to say what had happened. It was a gaze that made her feel like they would accept anything she said. Like a dream where no one gets hurt. Peacefully. Yuda's mouth moved before she knew it.
"I had something like that happen to me, too."
Looking into Yerim's eyes made her want to spill everything. But when was it that she had almost been raped? As Yuda searched her memory, Yerim provided a hint.
"Unnie. Does it have to do with you closing the shop two months ago?"
Ah, right. It was two months ago.
"That's right. Closing the shop. Actually, that was because I was hospitalized."
"What? Unnie, what happened?!"
"Noona, why didn't you tell us! We would have at least come to visit you in the hospital!"
Kangmin and Yerim were fiercely angry. They knew she was practically estranged from her parents. That was why they were so furious. They were worried in their own way, thinking, You had no one to take care of you, wasn't it hard being hospitalized alone?
'Still, you two are the only ones who worry about me.' Yuda had lived the life of a prisoner since she was young. Playing with friends was forbidden, weekend outings were limited to the library, and there wasn't even a TV in the house. Yuda, who had lived her life suppressed, finally exploded after the college entrance exam. After taking the exam, she threw away her test paper—having missed only one question across Korean, English, and Math—and ran out of the house without even applying to any universities. And for rebellion, she got piercings and tattoos. Her mother had said, Those things are only for women possessed by the devil. When she got piercings in her ears and a tattoo on her arm, she felt a sense of liberation as if she were jumping off the edge of the world. If they found out she ran a tattoo shop, what would their reaction be? Would they think she was an agent of the devil? Her parents might faint if they saw Yuda's current state. Especially if they saw her split tongue...
'My tongue is split?'
Yuda briefly rolled her tongue inside her mouth. There were no piercings, no split tongue. What was I thinking? I had only ever thought about getting a split tongue. The thought of the split tongue slipped through her fingers like a dream. Regardless, she had to explain to the two of them what had happened to her two months ago.
"A man made a reservation via DM, and then suddenly asked if I could tattoo his crotch in the studio. So I pressed the emergency bell and waited, but before the police arrived, that guy suddenly grabbed my neck..."
It was hard to talk about it sober, so she opened a bottle of alcohol and drank it down as she spoke. "He hit me, kicked me... he tried to force himself on me..."
Kangmin took the bottle away. "Noona, calm down."
But the words poured out of Yuda's mouth. It was so sorrowful that she had no one to tell the fact that she had almost been raped. And that there was no one to soothe her even if she cried. She didn't want to tell her estranged parents, and she had no close friends because she had only studied for 12 years. But today, there were people who would listen to her story.
"I was so scared. Since then, I can't stay in the same studio with a man. My heart starts racing. When I'm with a man, I feel like he might suddenly hit me, or ask, 'Can you tattoo my crotch?' Is it my fault? Do I look cheap because I have piercings? Is it a problem that a woman opened a tattoo shop alone? I just want to live as myself. What on earth is the problem-!"
Yuda shouted sorrowfully, crying her eyes out. Kangmin and Yerim came to her side and hugged her. "It's not your fault, Unnie. That bastard is the bad one!"
Yerim was genuinely angry. She was angry on her behalf, telling her it wasn't her fault. Yuda felt like a small ray of sunlight was shining into her heart.
"Is that really true? Would my mom say the same thing?"
Yerim closed her mouth. From the memories she had read, that didn't seem likely. Before Yuda ran away from home, her mother had been screaming at the top of her lungs that it was all the devil's fault. She was a person who would throw things at her husband, shouting that the child was possessed by a ghost because his conduct wasn't upright. Not everyone has good parents. Yerim just hugged Yuda tightly. Kangmin sat beside her, holding Yuda's hand to comfort her.
"Yuda-noona, what you went through... it's just an unfortunate accident. It's not your fault."
Just as the poverty Kangmin had experienced wasn't his fault. Accidents are unavoidable. They don't happen as a form of punishment for doing something wrong. Kangmin tried to find other words of comfort, but he didn't know what to say. Should he bring up the story of the poverty he had experienced? That would be strange, too. Using one's own misfortune to comfort someone else's sorrow isn't true comfort. So Kangmin just sat there, holding Yuda's hand and listening to her story.
"I, I... thought everything was my fault... Maybe opening this tattoo shop was one giant mistake. I thought I should have just given up. Gone to a teacher's college. Like my mom said. Should have just gotten married. Or I should have never taken male customers in the first place. I only had thoughts like that. But, isn't it because I was careless? Is it really not? Is it not my fault?"
Between the two of them, Yuda poured out the resentment that had been building up for 5 years—no, 17 years. She sobbed, spitting out broken sentences. The two of them just listened quietly, soothing her.
"That's not it, Noona."
"Aigoo. Stop crying!"
After a long time passed, Yuda's crying subsided. Then Yerim patted her back to comfort her. "Unnie, it was really hard, wasn't it? You were scared?"
Yuda nodded with a face that was a mess. She seemed to have calmed down only after crying for a long time.
"Yerim, you're good at comforting people."
"Unnie has done that for me a lot. And, well, I've had a similar experience in the past, too. I just couldn't leave you like that."
An experience in the past? Yuda wanted to ask, but her body was tired after crying so hard. She didn't have the energy to express curiosity to others. She only had enough strength left to be grateful.
"Thank you for soothing me. Thanks to you two, I feel a bit better. It feels like the knot in my chest has loosened. I should stop drinking. I'm tired after crying. Don't think about teasing me about this later. I'm sleepy."
Yuda suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of fatigue and blurted out words incoherently. And as she lay down, the two of them whispered.
"Yuda-unnie is asleep."
"She must have had a really hard time."
Kangmin lifted the blanket in the corner and covered Yuda's body. "Aigoo. You should at least sleep with a blanket on."
Warmth spread. Kangmin, you bad guy. You're Yerim's boyfriend, so stop being kind to other women. Yerim, too—you two are both too damn kind... Thank you, thanks to you both... I feel like I've been saved a little bit today— And, just before it went pitch black—
"But Charles, what do you mean you went through a similar experience?"
"...Forget it, Oppa. It's not an important story."
Perfect, darkness.