Reunion at the Gopchang House
Even late on a weekday evening, Hongdae was packed with people. There were so many on the street that if you stood still instead of walking, the crowd would push you along on its own.
Buskers dotted the sidewalks, musicians playing in nearly every pocket of open space.
The song sounded familiar, but the lyrics wouldn’t come to him. Before he knew it, Yoon Sang-hyuk was humming along under his breath, hmm, hmm, following the melody.
Not long ago, right after Yoon Sang-hyuk returned to reality, Hongdae had been strangely quiet, nowhere near the place it used to be at the height of its fame.
But not anymore. More people now crowded in than he remembered from the past. And it wasn’t just Hongdae. The whole country was slowly changing in the same direction.
There was only one reason for it.
People had come to understand that South Korea was the safest country in the world.
Because the Masked Lord, Yoon Sang-hyuk, the Masked Mercenary Group, and the sub-guilds under the Valhae Guild and the other branches of the Masked Castle were all working to the bone, Dungeon Overflow no longer happened.
There had been a Dungeon Overflow in the Namdong Industrial Complex not long ago, but that place had nothing to do with the Masked Castle.
“I think it was better when it was quiet.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk let out a sigh as he kept getting jostled by the crowd.
“Hey, look over there. That guy’s a player, right?”
“Where? Oh, wow, he is. Look at that armor. It’s so cool.”
“Want to try talking to him?”
“Dream on. Why would a player go for you?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
Hearing the voices around him, Yoon Sang-hyuk turned his head. In a street so crowded there wasn’t room to put down a foot, there was one spot that looked oddly open. Or rather, the only area with any breathing room was around the player wearing full plate mail.
The player looked pleased with himself, as though he were enjoying all the attention being thrown his way. The people hyping him up around him looked like friends.
He couldn’t understand what kind of thought process led someone to go out to meet friends while wearing full plate mail.
He was what people usually called an attention seeker.
“That’s armor?”
At a glance, it was obviously just some run-of-the-mill piece sold at a player department store. Ordinary people might go, “Wow,” but to Yoon Sang-hyuk it only looked pathetic.
“If one of the Masked Mercenary Group showed up here, that guy would be in trouble.”
Across South Korea, and even across the world, the hottest people were the ones under the Masked Castle’s banner. The members of the Masked Mercenary Group were ranked as the number one men women most wanted to meet.
He shook his head at the absurdity of it and kept walking.
Still being shoved forward by the crowd, Yoon Sang-hyuk finally turned off the main street and slipped into an alley between buildings. It was far quieter than the road outside. Deeper inside, an all-too-familiar sign came into view.
- Grandma’s Gopchang.
Despite the name, the owner wasn’t a grandmother, just the lady who ran the gopchang place. It was also somewhere he had come often in the past with his friend Kim Chul-jung. Standing at the door with his hand halfway raised to open it, Yoon Sang-hyuk hesitated.
Maybe it was because opening this door meant coming face to face with a past he had spent years trying to forget. If Kim Chul-jung was already inside waiting for him, what was he supposed to say?
He stood there a moment longer, wavering.
“What are you doing standing there?”
“Huh?”
At the voice behind him, Yoon Sang-hyuk jerked around in surprise. An all-too-familiar face was there. It was the face of the friend that had seemed blurred, like a memory with a fault in it, even when he had been talking with Yoon Sang-min.
But now that he was standing right in front of him, the mist in his memory cleared all at once.
“Chul-jung.”
“Kkheh, what’s with that face? You look like you just saw a ghost. Come on, let’s go in.”
“Yeah. All right.”
He went into the shop with Kim Chul-jung.
“Grandma. We’re here.”
Kim Chul-jung greeted the owner with his usual easy familiarity, calling her “Grandma,” even though she looked no older than her forties at a glance. She seemed to like the nickname too, because she smiled brightly. Then she noticed Yoon Sang-hyuk approaching and looked startled.
“Oh my. Who’s this? Sang-hyuk, isn’t it?”
“Ah, hello.”
It was only a simple greeting, but it still felt awkward to get the words out.
“How long has it been? You came at a good time. Sit down, sit down.”
She welcomed him warmly, but the warmth itself felt unfamiliar to Yoon Sang-hyuk. The shop was empty, so they could sit anywhere they wanted.
“Grandma, give us two servings of gopchang, enough for five people, and soju.”
“The usual soju?”
“Why ask something obvious?”
Kim Chul-jung poured water into a glass and slid it in front of Yoon Sang-hyuk.
“I saw Sang-min recently. Did he tell you?”
“Yeah. He did.”
“So he told you to contact me, then?”
“Well...”
Yoon Sang-hyuk trailed off, unable to answer at once, and Kim Chul-jung burst out laughing.
“That’s right. I knew it.”
“Have you been well?”
“Of course. Can’t you tell just by looking?”
That was exactly why he was asking.
He must have shaved in a hurry, because there were small cuts along his chin and under his nose. His hair had been pushed into place, but it looked thick and overgrown, as if it hadn’t been cut in a while. His clothes were clean, but the years showed in every seam. The shoes under the table were the same. They were badly worn, the pointed toes now blunt from age.
Looking at the shoes brought a memory back to him.
“Those shoes...”
“These? You bought them for me. Five years ago, when I told you I had a company interview, remember? You bought them then.”
Right. That’s right.
Those shoes were bought by Yoon Sang-hyuk. And Kim Chul-jung had been wearing them for five years. Every time he put them on, he had probably thought of Yoon Sang-hyuk.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what all of a sudden?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you sooner.”
Kim Chul-jung remembered him, but Yoon Sang-hyuk hadn’t.
“What, did you get drunk without even drinking? Since when do we apologize to each other for stuff like that?”
“Us...”
“Yeah. Us.”
A faint curve formed at the corner of Yoon Sang-hyuk’s mouth.
“Yeah. Us.”
He repeated the words after him.
“If that’s the case, then I should be sorry too for not reaching out. I almost called you when the last returnees came back not long ago. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“Why not?”
“What do you mean, why? It’s just weird, isn’t it? Calling a friend who became a player...”
“Because you thought I might misunderstand?”
“That too. And one of my acquaintances had been a player for seventeen years. He was someone I was really close to, though not as close as you, of course. Anyway, I ran into him on the street. I got happy and greeted him like I always did. But he looked at me like I was some insane bastard. Like I was a stranger pretending to know him.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk understood.
Maybe even he would have failed to recognize Kim Chul-jung if they’d happened to meet on the street without arranging it beforehand. Before hearing it from Yoon Sang-min, he hadn’t even thought of a friend named Kim Chul-jung.
“Later, the misunderstanding got cleared up, but he told me something. He said the memories from that other world were so intense that he barely remembered reality at all.”
“He had to struggle like a madman just to stay alive.”
“Yeah. That’s what he said. After hearing that, I couldn’t bring myself to contact you. Before I met him, I’d even thought about calling your number once in a while. I figured it was understandable if he couldn’t recognize me...”
Kim Chul-jung gave a bitter smile and let the rest trail off. He probably wanted to say that if Yoon Sang-hyuk couldn’t recognize him, it would have hurt.
“Still, I’m glad I get to see you like this.”
“Me too.”
“But damn, why’s this grandma so slow today? Grandma, hurry up! Our Sang-hyuk hasn’t been able to eat your gopchang for over twenty years!”
The owner shouted back, “It’s ready!”
Before long, a grill pan piled high with the first-round-cooked gopchang was set on the table. Looking annoyed, Kim Chul-jung headed to the kitchen and came back with side dishes and soju.
“Have a drink.”
He filled the glasses and they toasted.
“It’s only been a few years for me, but it’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it?”
“Huh? For what?”
“For the two of us to be drinking like this.”
“Yeah. It has been a while.”
“Let’s drink.”
He downed the soju. For some reason, it tasted sweet. Yoon Sang-hyuk laughed. If he added up everything he had laughed at since returning to reality, it still might not be as much as he had laughed after meeting Kim Chul-jung.
“Hah, this is nice.”
“So, how’ve you been?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk asked. He already knew from Yoon Sang-min what kind of work Kim Chul-jung was doing, but he wanted to hear it from him directly.
“What, do you think I’ve got some fancy skill or a college degree? I’m still doing the same work I used to do.”
“Construction sites?”
“Man, our Sang-hyuk went off to some weird place and came back with better language habits. You used to call me a laborer every chance you got.”
“Did I?”
“Just forget it.”
Kim Chul-jung snorted and filled Yoon Sang-hyuk’s glass before trying to refill his own. Yoon Sang-hyuk snatched the bottle away and topped off his glass for him instead.
“Making enough to live on?”
“More or less. What’s so special about work done with your body? Still, there’s a lot of work these days, so I’m not going hungry.”
As Eternal World was implemented in reality, there had been more and more cases of destruction followed by rebuilding. Because of that, the construction industry, which had been in decline, was enjoying another boom.
“What was your daughter’s name again?”
“You crazy bastard. You can forget my name, but you’re supposed to remember your niece’s.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“You say sorry every other breath. It’s Hyo-yeon.”
“Ah, right. Hyo-yeon. She’s growing well, then?”
“Of course. These days, I live for the joy of seeing my princess.”
That was not something Kim Chul-jung, just barely in his late twenties, should have been saying, but the way he beamed while talking about his daughter made it sound sincere.
“How old is Hyo-yeon now?”
“She just turned five. You know what? My Hyo-yeon takes after me, so she’s a total genius. A five-year-old already finished learning hangul and can recite the multiplication table up to seven times. What do you think? Genius, right?”
“Yeah. She does sound like a genius, but I don’t think she takes after you.”
“Why not?”
“In school, there were only three guys who studied worse than I did. You were one of them.”
“Forget useless things like that. My Hyo-yeon definitely takes after me. My wife’s actually not all that sharp when it comes to brainwork.”
He told the story himself, then laughed to himself.
“Still living where you used to?”
“No, I moved. The world’s gone all upside down, and rent got way too expensive. I kept moving to cheaper and cheaper places, and I’ve already moved three times.”
He said it like it was no big deal, but bitterness filled his eyes. After thinking for a moment about what to say, Yoon Sang-hyuk simply lifted his glass and held it out in front of Kim Chul-jung.
Clink.
The glasses met, and they drank again. The first shot had been sweet, but the second was unbearably bitter.
“Chul-jung.”
“Hey, the gopchang’s done. Eat.”
He was about to say something, but Kim Chul-jung cut him off. He must have guessed from the mood what Yoon Sang-hyuk was about to bring up. Kim Chul-jung transferred the perfectly cooked gopchang onto the plate in front of him.
“Dip it in the sauce and wrap it up with some chives. After you got dragged off to that weird place, Grandma developed this new sauce. It’s deadly good.”
Just as Kim Chul-jung said, Yoon Sang-hyuk dipped the gopchang in the sauce and ate it with the chives. Its richness spread through his mouth along with a spicy kick. It had been a long time since he’d had gopchang, and it made him happy to eat it again.
“Good, right?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled and nodded.
“Eat up. It’s not like you could eat this over there even if you wanted to.”
“You eat too.”
“Me? I used to eat this every day.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk drank the soju and chewed thoughtfully on the gopchang.
“Chul-jung. There’s something I want to say.”
“Don’t.”
Kim Chul-jung poured another shot into his mouth and spoke with finality.
“I’m fine. I’m living well enough without your help. That’s why I couldn’t contact you. I’m fine. You’re just my friend, Yoon Sang-hyuk. Not some great friend because you make a lot of money. Just my friend. If you’re going to say something weird, then get up and leave.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled and shook his head.
“No. Let’s have one more drink.”