EP Chapter 1.7

Im Jihoon and I, who had been squatting in a corner, stealthily slipped outside the gambling den. I left Im Jihoon by the back door of the gambling den and hurried into the small corner store.

I chose the biggest loaf of bread on the shelf and handed the grandmother who ran the store a crumpled 10,000 won¹ bill from my pocket. 

When I returned to the front of the gambling den, Im Jihoon greeted me excitedly. I wondered why he seemed so happy to see me after such a short time, but I was nevertheless delighted as well. It was the first time anyone had been so happy to see me. I squatted down in front of Im Jihoon. He then told me,

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‘The neighborhood kids call me a dumb dirt-eater. They say I don’t go to school, and I’m so stupid that I pick up dirty things from the ground to eat.’

‘Why did you pick things up to eat?’

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‘I asked to be sent to school. After starving for three days, I really thought I was going to die.’

‘…From now on, just come to me. This hyung earns money, so I’ll buy you delicious food every day.’

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I handed Im Jihoon the large loaf of bread I bought from the store. Im Jihoon accepted the bread as if it were precious and looked at me.

‘Thank you, Hyung.’

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As soon as he finished thanking me, Im Jihoon hurriedly ripped open the bread bag and stuffed the bread into his mouth as if worried someone would steal it from him.

Seeing him like that made me feel so sorry for him, but then I thought, am I any better than this child?

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I guess I’m happy back then, and felt a strange sense of satisfaction. Yes, it started from then. Me preparing Choco Pies for the starving kids. 

‘You see… fuck, even at this age, I thought those Choco Pies… I thought you only gave them to me.’

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Im Jihoon, who had been stroking my back while I lay on top of him, suddenly made a frightening expression and ripped my clothes off. A large kitchen knife appeared from somewhere. The large kitchen knife poked my left chest and began to thinly slice off layers of skin. Thin, thin slices of my flesh fell to the floor.

‘There were other kids besides you who were just as hungry, but I should have prepared food only for you? No, no, it was my fault, wasn’t it? I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was wrong, I won’t do it again. Forgive me. Stop!’

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“Ugh… Huh… Sob, gasp…”

Small, pained groans could be heard. I don’t know if the sounds were coming from my own mouth or from somewhere else.

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Ah, is this a dream?

As soon as I thought that, I felt at ease and was sucked back into the dream. I continued to dream after that, occasionally waking up to the pain in my left chest.

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* * *

“Hyung-nims, wake-up call! Time to get up.”

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I heard the youngest’s voice softly. Whoosh, whoosh, I heard the sound of wind, the sound of footsteps, and the sound of the locker door closing.

But… why hasn’t he come to wake me?

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I opened my eyes and sat up abruptly. Three sets of bedding were laid out in the sunlit prison cell. On each blanket, the cell leader was snoring softly, Im Jihoon was sleeping soundly, and I was sitting there, probably with a stupid expression on my face.

“Youngest!” 

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I called out to the youngest, thinking he might have forgotten about me. 

The youngest, who was sitting in the corner of the room, putting his reflection paper on the floor, flinched at my call. He slowly approached and stood in front of me. I looked up at his face and noticed a large bruise. Wanting to get a better look, I raised my hand. The youngest recoiled in fear, taking a step back.

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Seeing his reaction, I knew for sure. The youngest had definitely been beaten by Im Jihoon because of me. So, I lowered my hand and muttered weakly,

“You can go.”

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The youngest bowed his head and scurried back to his spot. I got up and folded the blanket and floor mat I had used. My heart was heavy with guilt because I felt like I had done something wrong to the youngest.

The youngest had only said a few words to me. But because I was so terrified and listened intently, he must have been mistaken for someone who had babbled something he shouldn’t have to me. Im Jihoon must have used that as an excuse to beat him.

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The youngest had embezzled money, and that’s why he was in prison. But he was a guy who had a normal office job. So, he was completely different from people like Im Jihoon, the cell leader, and me, who were accustomed to prison life.

The only things I could talk about were prison life, host bars, sex – nothing but vulgar things. The youngest could have told me about the corporate world, something I could never experience in my entire life… If only I had become friends with him on the day we met, without any incident.

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I carried the neatly folded bedding and shuffled towards the locker. Fraud man 1 and 2, who were sitting at a distance, saw me and hurried over to open the locker door for me.

Were these guys also beaten by Im Jihoon?

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I couldn’t help but wonder.

People started avoiding me. So, it feels like all I have left now is Im Jihoon. He’ll have those conversations that don’t even qualify as conversations with me, and then, under the guise of teasing me, he’ll touch me? How did things end up like this? Because my name is engraved on Im Jihoon’s body? Because I came to prison?

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Or maybe it was because, a long time ago, I bought Im Jihoon that bread.

Speaking of Names, I remembered the Name that had tormented me even in my dream. I squatted down, pulled up my prison shirt, and looked inside.

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I must have scratched myself again in my sleep because my chest was a mess of new wounds. The red lines and the dried blood made me wince just looking at them. The area that was bruised and dark had deepened considerably overnight, no longer looking like a bruise. But it didn’t look like a Name either. That meant I still didn’t have a Name.

Despite that, I had a feeling that a Name would appear on this scarred chest soon. I no longer had the hopeful thought that a Name might not appear at all. This deep black something wasn’t something that would appear overnight.

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Even if I was lucky enough to have Im Jihoon’s Name appear, I would surely be tormented to the point of wanting to die. So, is it better to have someone else’s Name, or Im Jihoon’s?

Life is really fucking shitty. When someone compares the degrees of happiness to choose something happy to do, I, fuck, compare the degrees of misfortune to try to be less miserable. Bad coincidences like these happen one after another, but even if I diligently bought 50,000 won² worth of lottery tickets every week, I never even won the most common last-place prize. 

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Still, I had to live. So, I had no choice but to pray that Im Jihoon’s Name would appear on my body. Because he said he wouldn’t torment me, because he said he just wanted to have sex with me. If I played along with what he wanted for three months, perhaps I could become free.

That’s right! 

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But come to think of it, I’m getting out of prison in three months!

How could I have forgotten something so important? Idiot! 

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I smiled like a fool, unaware that my mouth was gaping open.

“Why are you so happy this early in the morning?”

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Im Jihoon, who had woken up at some point, came and sat in front of me then asked. It would have been stranger not to be startled by his sudden appearance, so I flinched slightly. Im Jihoon sat with his knees drawn up, resting his chin on them. He stared at me blankly for a moment, then suddenly furrowed his brow and glared behind me.

I turned to see what he was glaring at. I saw the youngest carefully folding Jihoon’s blanket. The youngest had been beaten the night before, so I couldn’t imagine that he would have suddenly done anything wrong to provoke Jihoon again. Then why was he the target of Jihoon’s ire right now?

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It was probably because of me. I called out to Im Jihoon,

“Hey…”

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Im Jihoon looked at me again. When looking at me, unlike when he looked at others, he had a slightly softer expression on his face. It was more likely that I was mistaken, but I had to think this way to work up the courage to speak. I gave an awkward smile, hypnotizing myself into believing he would be gentle only to me.

“You… you said you wouldn’t hit me, curse at me, or scare me. That you wouldn’t make me scared… I remembered that.”

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It was an excuse I came up with because I had nothing else to say. But even to my own ears, it sounded ridiculous and stupid. I just wanted to protect the youngest. But maybe I should have just worried about saving my own skin. I became a little tense, worried that trying to protect him might lead to both of us getting beaten.

“Ah- so you were happy because of that?”

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Im Jihoon asked. Desperate to avoid getting hit, I put on the most pitiful expression I could muster and nodded vigorously. He smiled, revealing his teeth. At least it seemed like the situation I was worried about wouldn’t happen.

But how could he smile so happily after beating three people the night before?

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The more I thought about it, the more creeped out I felt. But I couldn’t show my fear. That crazy bastard might try to torment me like yesterday. So, as if hypnotizing myself, I repeated internally:

He’s not right in the head. He’s not right in the head. This bastard is crazy.

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Just then, Im Jihoon reached out towards me. Startled by his large hand approaching my face, I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Geez, fuck. You talk all nice but then you suddenly get scared?” 

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“No, you hit someone else while I was sleeping.”

With my eyes tightly shut, I couldn’t see Im Jihoon’s face, so I unconsciously revealed my true feelings. Then, startled by my own words, I opened my eyes wide. Im Jihoon was laughing as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. I grabbed his wrist and shook my head frantically.

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“It’s not that someone else told me, it’s just… I saw earlier that the youngest had a bruise. So, I just assumed that on my own… Really.”

“He wasn’t beaten by me. He got hit by the cell leader.”

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“Huh?”

Im Jihoon’s words, which were completely different from what I had thought, made me confused. Seeing my dumbfounded expression, he chuckled.

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“It’ll serve as a warning to the cell leader that this could happen to him too. The one getting hit will be in pain, so he’ll reflect, thinking, ‘Ah, I was wrong.’ It kills two birds with one stone. Why would I bother getting my hands dirty?”

Im Jihoon casually said something even more terrifying than if he had admitted to hitting the youngest himself. Flustered, I darted my eyes around and looked towards where Fraud man 1 and 2 were sitting. Im Jihoon briefly turned his head in the direction I was looking and smirked.

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“They’re just spectators.”

No matter how much I tried to hypnotize myself into not being afraid, this sociopathic murderer would never seem like a harmless bastard.

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“Right, of course.”

I managed a weak, barely-there reply with a shaky voice.

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“Cute.”

Im Jihoon muttered softly, then raised his hand again to stroke my hair.

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