Want to Come Home?
"It's getting pretty late. Which way's your place? I'll walk you home."
"Huh? Y-you really don't have to go that far..."
I pulled out my phone to check the time. It was already pushing eight.
When I shoved it back into my pocket and said that, Seol-hwa fretted about imposing, exactly the reaction I'd expected.
"I'm not so rotten that I'd send a girl home alone this late at night. Besides, you waited for me in the first place, right? This much is the least I can do."
"That was just me being selfish..."
Where had that somewhat reliable side of her from earlier gone?
Thinking that, I sighed and lightly rested a hand on Seol-hwa's still-hesitant head.
"We're friends, aren't we?"
You did as you pleased, so I'll do as I please too.
When I said that, Seol-hwa seemed stunned for a beat before finally nodding her heavy-looking head. "...Please take care of me."
Leaving her alone feels too risky, for one thing...
Wandering through that downpour without an umbrella, waiting for me in the dead of winter without even dressing properly... It was all so absurd I hardly knew what to call it.
If some shady stranger told this spineless kid to follow them, she'd probably go along without even managing a proper refusal. That was how little faith I had in her. Of course I couldn't say any of that out loud.
With nothing much to talk about, we simply walked the streets in silence for a while.
"Ah, not that way."
We had been walking like that when we naturally reached the main road. I started heading toward the big street without thinking, only for Seol-hwa to suddenly grab my sleeve and stop me.
"The bus stop's this way, though?"
I answered while ignoring a vague sense of unease. Seol-hwa's eyes darted around as she replied.
"Buses don't run to my place..."
"...What?"
For a second I thought I'd misheard.
When I asked again in a dazed voice, the awkward look that crossed Seol-hwa's face made it harder and harder to keep ignoring that earlier unease.
"Just checking—you live alone, right?"
"...Yeah?"
"Which direction's your place? Point for me."
"Th-that way... over there?"
Looking at the direction Seol-hwa indicated, I reflexively sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.
The direction she pointed, the fact that no buses ran there, and that she lived alone... There was only one conclusion those pieces could lead to.
"How long does it take you to get to school?"
"About two hours...?"
Even the leftover sighs had run dry. Without a word I pulled my phone out again and started tapping the screen rapidly.
"Um... what are you doing?"
"Calling a taxi. Is that a problem?"
"A-a taxi?!"
These days an app would bring a ride right to you, which was convenient. I finished the payment quickly and answered offhandedly, and Seol-hwa's already pale face went completely white.
"Th-that's so expensive..."
"It's just a taxi. Don't worry about it."
"Even so..."
While Seol-hwa hesitated, the taxi arrived within minutes. I pushed her still-reluctant self into the back seat.
The direction she had pointed was the complete opposite of the main road I'd been heading toward—out toward the Hillside Village Slum on the outskirts of the city.
It was an area that hadn't been properly developed yet, so there were no bus routes. A taxi was the only real option. Without one she really would have had to walk for two hours.
Even by taxi it took a full thirty minutes just to reach the vicinity, and after that came a stretch of one-way alleys. We had no choice but to rely on our own two feet and climb the steep hillside path for what felt like forever.
The environment of a place that remote was never going to be pleasant.
As we walked I took in the torn flyers whose contents were impossible to make out, the meaningless graffiti covering the walls—everything about it flaunted the complete absence of public safety. On top of that there were dogs barking frantically from behind walls, streetlights flickering irritatingly from unstable power, and trash growing thick as weeds over cracked asphalt.
While we walked those streets where you could scrub your eyes raw and still find nothing resembling a virtue, Seol-hwa beside me kept her dark expression and never once opened her mouth.
"...I knew it would be like this."
After all that walking, the place we arrived at was a shack that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Inside, the window was broken right through the middle, the wallpaper and floor were in tatters, and a decrepit lightbulb flickered irregularly just like the streetlights outside.
Why is it that bad premonitions never miss? I thought, letting out a sigh that had somehow recharged itself completely.
"This isn't a house. It's just an abandoned ruin."
Even the lazy first little pig's straw house from the fairy tale would have been better than this. That was how bad it was.
The whole neighborhood deserved to be bulldozed flat. I even vaguely remembered hearing something on the news about redevelopment plans.
"I half-doubted it, but I never thought it would actually be true."
I said it while sprawling out on the uneven, uncomfortable floor. Even so, I never imagined a classmate would actually be living somewhere like this.
"The rent's cheap here..."
Seol-hwa, who had been shrinking into herself with her head bowed as if cowed by my attitude, finally spoke carefully.
"How much?"
"About fifty thousand won a month..."
"Even ten thousand would be a waste, you idiot."
As living expenses went it was certainly cheap, but staying in a place like this made pitching a tent and sleeping on the street sound better. The house was so wretched that even that ridiculous idea felt like an improvement.
If you lived here you shouldn't be paying rent—you should be getting paid. No matter how I looked at it, this was nothing but some crafty adult's scheme to bleed a naive sucker dry of every last won before the redevelopment went through.
I was thoroughly sick of reality for refusing, yet again, to let my hopes be wrong.
In fact, one of the reasons this neighborhood had become a redevelopment zone was that so many homeless people and criminals had been caught living here illegally. That said enough.
"Did your family give you money when they kicked you out?"
"...It's easier in a lot of ways to just think of them as not existing."
"They said you came from a well-off family. Real generous of them."
I honestly couldn't even imagine what Seol-hwa must have felt, being driven into a place like this.
Looking around again, even this collapsing shack had been cleaned and maintained with surprising care, as if she still considered it a home. It was wretched, but surprisingly hard to find any actual filth.
What little there was consisted of a single blanket in the middle of the room, a few school uniforms and clothes hanging in a narrow, mostly empty wardrobe, and...
"Don't tell me you've only been eating that stuff at home?"
My gaze landed on the corner of the room. There sat a mountain of instant rice packs and cup ramen.
When I asked in disbelief, Seol-hwa answered with a weak nod.
"I'm not good at cooking, and I don't have much money... so whenever the mart has a sale I buy as much as I can."
"Even so."
Relying on instant food and delivery was something I did myself, so I couldn't really lecture her about it. But knowing a kid who was already in poor health was living like this left a bitter taste.
"...By the way, how are you making money then?"
The thought struck me after a moment. If she was barely getting anything from home, how was she covering day-to-day expenses?
When I asked carefully, Seol-hwa couldn't even meet my eyes anymore, as if I'd hit the mark.
"Logistics work... every other week or so..."
"...I shouldn't have asked."
I'd already guessed what options a high school girl would have for earning money. But the fact that my predictions never missed even once was starting to make my head spin. All I could do was pinch the bridge of my nose.
"...I'm sorry."
Seol-hwa, who had been quietly watching me as my ability to hide my exasperation reached its limit, lowered her head in a voice full of gloom.
"What do you have to be sorry for? You were doing your best in your own way, weren't you?"
Unable to keep looking at that dejected face, I stared up at the shabby ceiling and continued.
"So that's why you skip school sometimes."
"Yeah. There's the illness, but if I overdo it at work I can barely move for a day or two..."
"...You've had it rough, in a lot of ways."
"It's my own doing. I'm the one who said I was leaving home..."
"...Is that so."
If her family was the kind of place she described, they might well have kicked her out the moment she was old enough. I didn't bother saying that out loud.
An environment like this would make even a healthy student waste away. For Seol-hwa it must have been so much worse.
Injustice.
Was there a better word for the situation?
Why did a kid like her have to live like this?
The world was full of people born with silver spoons who loafed around and still ate well and lived well—myself included. A loser who'd given up on school and everything else was wasting time in a house far too big for him, wallowing in self-pity, while this girl who had never given up on life was stuck in a place like this... It felt like our positions should have been reversed.
It was stupid... and it made me sick.
"Hey. I'm about to say something a little... no, pretty stupid. Don't take it the wrong way, okay?"
I didn't want to see any more of it—the sight of someone who worked harder than anyone living so miserably, or the way she simply accepted it as natural.
"...Want to come to my place?"
"...What?"
"I live alone anyway."
Seol-hwa's reply sounded like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Feeling oddly embarrassed, I turned my gaze to the wall.
"The place is uselessly big as it is. One more person isn't that big a deal."
"B-but... I can't keep imposing even more..."
"It'll be cold at night. The window's broken, too."
"That's..."
"It'll probably leak when it rains. The ceiling looks pretty damp."
"But if someone like me is there..."
"I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't want to."
With a little "up we go," I pushed myself to my feet and stretched.
"What, planning to cause trouble or something?"
"O-of course not!"
Watching Seol-hwa frantically shake her head in denial, I couldn't help a small laugh.
"Then what's the problem?"
I kept my tone as light as possible so she wouldn't feel pressured. Even so, whether she still had hang-ups about freeloading or was simply being overly apologetic, the dark cast never left her face. I stepped closer and gently stroked her hair.
It struck me again how dry and brittle it felt for a girl's hair. She hadn't been in any position to take care of it, so it was only natural, but even that small detail felt a little sad.
"Hey. What was it you said earlier out on the street?"
"...That Yu-seong is a good person?"
"...Not that."
She really had no filter when it came to saying embarrassing things, this kid...
To keep myself from getting swept up in sudden secondhand embarrassment, I lightly bonked her on the head with the hand that had been stroking her hair.
"...Then I really don't know." Seol-hwa clutched her forehead with a look of genuine confusion, so I made a show of sighing.
"You said being together is nice."
"...Ah."
"Having someone like you around, I probably won't get bored being alone."
"I-I'm not confident about being fun, though."
As Seol-hwa's voice started to shrink, I laughed and said, "That's exactly the point."
"Wh-what point...?" she tilted her head. When I took my hand away from her hair, she almost seemed a little disappointed.
"What are you, a puppy?"
Come to think of it—waiting endlessly in front of the school gate and everything else—it weirdly suited her. I laughed again.
Seol-hwa's face turned as red as a ripe tomato. "...You're mean," she muttered sulkily, and I almost laughed again. But that would have actually made her pout for real, so I barely managed to keep my expression under control.
"Anyway... you're coming, right?"
I cleared my throat to suppress the laugh and held out my hand.
Seol-hwa hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. Before long she carefully took the hand I offered.
"Um... someone like me, but... thank you for—"
I cut her off mid-sentence with a light flick to the forehead. "Hey."
"Forget the thanks. 'Take care of me' is plenty, right? Between friends."
"...Is that how it is." Seol-hwa rubbed her forehead and murmured quietly.
I answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Keep it simple. Simple."
"Someone like me... but please take care of me."
"Yeah. Same here."
As a little smile gradually returned to Seol-hwa's previously dark expression, I found the corners of my own mouth lifting too.
Warm, I guess you could call it?
On the rooftop, on the way home from school... whenever I saw that smile of hers, something like that settled over me.
A face that suited smiling so well, always hanging so low—it felt like such a waste.
It'd be nice if she could make that expression more often.
That was the kind of face Seol-hwa was wearing now.