PEN Vol 5 Ch. 1

Reflection 4 Part 2

A week ago, when Sejin woke up, the space beside him was empty. He sat up, searching for Cheon Sejoo’s warmth, and quietly searched the apartment.

“Cheon Sejoo, where are you?”

His weak voice echoed through the apartment. Walking through the vast, almost cavernous space, Sejin searched for Cheon Sejoo, but he was nowhere to be found. Finally, after searching the bathroom, Sejin realized that Cheon Sejoo wasn’t anywhere in the apartment, and his expression hardened.

His downcast gaze swept over his surroundings. The bathroom floor was dry; it meant Cheon Sejoo had left without showering. He had left in a hurry, or perhaps casually. Then Sejin remembered the empty refrigerator and assumed he had gone grocery shopping. A sigh of relief escaped his lips.

Trudging out of the bathroom listlessly, Sejin curled up on the sofa. Even though quite some time had passed since his last meal, he wasn’t hungry. He only felt numb. He buried his face in his knees, then suddenly looked up.

The empty sofa caught his eye. Cheon Sejoo’s favorite sofa looked unusually desolate today. Sejin stared at it for a moment, then stood up. He carefully climbed onto the sofa and lay down in the exact position as Cheon Sejoo usually did.

He closed his eyes, then with some effort, opened them again. He could see the TV, the hallway, and part of the window all at once. He understood why Cheon Sejoo always lay here. The wide view didn’t feel constricting at all.

The only downside was that he couldn’t see his own usual spot from here. The chair beside the table where Sejin always sat, before he had a study room, was only visible from the sofa if he lifted his head and looked down.

He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved that Cheon Sejoo hadn’t noticed him peeking at him all those times while he sat at the table studying, or if he should be upset that he wasn’t within Cheon Sejoo’s line of sight. Suddenly feeling drained, Sejin silently gazed at the view Cheon Sejoo always looked at, then closed his eyes.

Cheon Sejoo will be back soon, the supermarket is close… 

But as he thought this, he drifted off to sleep, and when he woke up again, it was late at night. The sky outside the window was dark. The TV, turned off, displayed a black screen. Silence surrounded him. Sejin sat up abruptly.

“Cheon Sejoo.”

Sejin called out his name in a hoarse voice, but again, there was no answer. It seemed he hadn’t gone to the supermarket but was away on business.

Sejin wasn’t surprised. Cheon Sejoo often left without notice. However, just like every other time when Cheon Sejoo disappeared suddenly, Sejin had a feeling he wouldn’t be coming home tonight. He moved to Cheon Sejoo’s room.

The bed was still unmade. Sejin climbed onto the spot where Cheon Sejoo had lain, buried his face in his pillow, and hugged the blanket. It seemed to retain Cheon Sejoo’s faint scent. A sweet, yet cool fragrance…

And so, Sejin fell asleep again.

When he woke up again, it was dawn. He couldn’t sleep deeply, perhaps because his stomach was empty. He got out of bed listlessly and looked down at his stomach with gloomy eyes.

The moment he registered his hunger along with the rumbling of his stomach, a wave of self-disgust washed over him.

Mom is dead.

It felt strange to want to eat when his mother could no longer eat anything. He felt like a bad person, incapable of even feeling proper grief over her death. This intense self-loathing was a new feeling for Sejin. He felt a pang somewhere deep inside. He felt utterly miserable and sad.

Despite feeling depressed, Sejin forced himself to get up, remembering Cheon Sejoo’s voice ringing in his ears. 

I have to live. 

The words Cheon Sejoo had spoken at the funeral home kept him going. Nothing good would come from starving himself. 

Mom would be angry if she knew, and Cheon Sejoo would be upset too. 

Thinking this, Sejin headed to the kitchen.

He placed his dead phone on the charger and opened the refrigerator to prepare a simple meal. He was about to take out some preserved side dishes that should still be edible when he noticed the marinated ribs he had prepared for his mother and stopped.

He had marinated them in a sauce with plenty of kiwis to tenderize the meat because Kim Hyunkyung had trouble digesting food. Having missed the optimal time to cook them, the meat would have probably become mushy by now. Or it might have already spoiled.

“…….”

But Sejin didn’t want to throw the ribs away. Discarding something he had prepared for her felt like erasing a trace of his mother. He wasn’t ready for that yet.

Feeling a lump in his throat, Sejin placed the container of ribs deep inside the freezer and took out a few preserved side dishes that were still edible and placed them on the table.

The rice left in the rice cooker had long since dried out. Since they’d ordered takeout on the 31st and New Year’s Day when Cheon Sejoo was home, Sejin hadn’t realized.

He heated up the last pack of instant rice he could find in the cupboard and placed it on the table. He ate it with the slightly stale stir-fried anchovies and nuts, and dried squid strips. The sweet and salty flavors made his mouth water. Sejin chuckled humorlessly at the absurdity and finished his meal.

Then, he sent a message to Cheon Sejoo.

6:21
When are you coming home?

There was no reply. Instead of waiting for his message, Sejin did the dishes and tidied up the apartment.

Even though no one had been there, the apartment was surprisingly dusty after just a few days. He used almost half a roll of disposable cleaning cloths for the wet mop before he finished cleaning.

By the time he was done, he checked the time and it was past noon. It took that long because he hadn’t cleaned thoroughly in a while, and the apartment was large. It was tiring, but Sejin worked hard, driven by the thought that he couldn’t leave Cheon Sejoo’s home covered in dust. And after all that, he was hungry again.

This time, it wasn’t just a passing hunger that could be satisfied with a simple snack. Thus Sejin went to the kitchen and started preparing a proper meal. 

He rinsed the rice and started a new batch, then took out the frozen shrimp and seafood mix from the freezer and stir-fried them with kimchi and napa cabbage. Then, remembering something, he soaked some dried seaweed to make seaweed soup with perilla powder.

Cheon Sejoo’s birthday was January 1st. Last year, he hadn’t remembered in time, but this year… he’d missed it while sleeping.

He felt not only sorry but also guilty towards Cheon Sejoo. Blaming himself for being foolish, he carefully placed the entire pot of seaweed soup in the refrigerator. He would eat it with Cheon Sejoo when he returned.

I should go out later and buy a cake too.

Even though it’s late, I should at least let him blow out the candles. 

He felt bad that he couldn’t do more for Cheon Sejoo, who had done so much for him, so he also planned to go to the department store with him once he got back and buy him a present. He thought it would be nice if Cheon Sejoo happily received it.

After finishing lunch, Sejin sat in the revitalized apartment, staring blankly at the flowing Han River. This was the first time he’d been truly alone since the funeral, and the worries he’d been putting off came flooding back.

The CSAT was long over.

I should have studied less if I wasn’t even going to take the exam anyway. 

Sejin regretted it. He should have spent that time visiting his mother instead. 

I should have told Mom I loved her more often. 

Did I ever apologize for snapping at her?

Sejin followed that train of thought for a moment, then shook his head, feeling his mood sinking. He didn’t want to think about his mother when he was alone. Dwelling on it was too much to bear without Cheon Sejoo.

What about the apartment now? 

That was his next worry. His original plan was to enlist in the military as soon as he turned twenty. He would save his military salary, build up a lump sum, and then, after his discharge, find a place to live with Kim Hyunkyung, who would have finished her time at Ehwagak, and start anew.

But those plans had become hazy after he started studying with Cheon Sejoo.

What if I get accepted into college?

That question had kept intruding, constantly altering his imagined future. Each time that happened, he had told himself he would think about it after the CSAT, postponing any revisions to his plans. However, since he hadn’t taken CSAT, there was no reason not to proceed with his original plan, yet he hesitated.

He didn’t want to leave Cheon Sejoo’s side.

The thought of Cheon Sejoo being left alone in this apartment if he enlisted in the military right away worried him. It was strange. Sejin was the one who had lost his family, yet he was more worried about Cheon Sejoo than himself.

‘That’s what it is. Death… that’s how it is….’

He suddenly recalled Cheon Sejoo’s words to him when he was consumed by resentment. It had only been a few days ago, but back then, he resented Cheon Sejoo. He hated that Cheon Sejoo, of all people, would say such things to him. But there was nothing wrong with what he had said.

Of course, that didn’t mean his resentment towards the others had completely vanished. Sejin still hated the loan sharks who took his mother away, and he loathed Kwon Yongbeom, the source of all their misfortune. Yet, he no longer felt the same surge of anger and grief he felt at the funeral.

As Cheon Sejoo had said, Sejin didn’t want to be chained to the past. He didn’t want to waste his life hating and resenting everything that had led to his mother’s death. That’s what Kim Hyunkyung would have wanted.

Her last words to Sejin, the day before she died, had been just that. Before losing consciousness from the excruciating pain, she had whispered, not recognizing Sejin holding her hand beside her,

‘Please tell Sejin, my son, that my wish was to die before I turned 50, so I have no regrets. Tell him not to cry for me, feeling sorry for me, but to live happily, enjoying the things he wants to do, the things he wants to eat, the things he wants to have, the things he loves.’

After Kim Hyunkyung’s death, Sejin was consumed by undirected anger. But after hearing Cheon Sejoo’s words, the knot in his heart loosened, and he remembered his mother’s words.

As Cheon Sejoo had said, if he lived clinging to resentment for things he’d missed, he couldn’t live happily as his mother wished. He had realized this early on, thanks to Cheon Sejoo. That’s why, even while feeling disgusted with himself for feeling hungry in this situation, he could still diligently prepare and eat his meals.

He wanted to live enjoying the things he loved, as she had said. He wanted to live better than anyone, so that she wouldn’t regret leaving her young son behind, watching from above.

And for that, he needed Cheon Sejoo. Sejin wanted to be with Cheon Sejoo, to share delicious food with him, and to become someone he needed. He wanted to have Cheon Sejoo, to love him completely. So Sejin waited patiently for his return.

But he didn’t come home for a week.

After that message, I won’t be able to come home for a while, Cheon Sejoo hadn’t contacted him. He was usually someone who at least checked his messages, no matter how busy he was, so at first, Sejin was terrified. He feared something might have happened to him.

Three days, four days, and finally a week. As the days without Cheon Sejoo stretched on, Sejin’s mood plummeted.

His unstable emotional state after Kim Hyunkyung’s death trapped him in a state of immense anxiety. It made him feel abandoned. Old memories, lingering like trauma, resurfaced. 

Like Kwon Yongbeom, who had hit him and his mother and left home, never to return, would Cheon Sejoo also leave him and never come back? 

Sejin was consumed by endless anxiety.

He knew what kind of person Cheon Sejoo was and that he wouldn’t act so irresponsibly, but he couldn’t help it. Having been abandoned by his father, his uncle, his homeroom teacher, by countless irresponsible men, it was a scenario he couldn’t help but imagine.

You brought me here. 

You can’t do this to me now. 

You can’t abandon me so irresponsibly. 

You can’t…