UBC Ch7

The seat of the new bicycle my aunt had bought me at great expense was covered in a fine layer of dust. This was because my old, low-seated bicycle—converted from a four-wheeler by removing the training wheels—was responsible for most of my outings. Still, out of consideration for my aunt’s sincerity, I rode the new bicycle when going downtown and only took out the old one for short trips around the neighborhood.

Even when speeding along the rice paddy paths, I slowed down when passing the alleyways. The unpleasantness of the suspicious tutor, the existence of the chopsticks—I was going to tie them all to a kite of regret tonight and fly them away, lightheartedly.

The bicycle, which had been speeding through the blue night, braked as it entered the alleyway to Eui-joo’s house. The bicycle light brightly illuminated the dark alley, where there wasn’t a single streetlight. The scene of a cat startled by the light and running away from rummaging through a trash bag was comically cartoonish.

I walked alongside the bicycle, my companion, until I reached the blue gate. I didn’t even want to guess whether I would ever come here again. I intended to end this strange, shallow connection with the man by gifting him the chopsticks for correcting his grip.

As the bicycle wheels came to a stop, the light that had been polishing the night also went out. I took out the chopsticks from my back pocket, and only my final mission remained. But as luck would have it on this unlucky day, the blue gate opened. Someone was standing in front of the mailbox where I was supposed to secretly slip in the chopsticks. Startled, the bicycle light, which had begun to tumble, only illuminated up to his torso. The man’s hand, casually swatting away mosquitoes, went into the mailbox.

“H-hello, hello.”

The man, who had been skimming through numerous bills, only checking the names, slowly shifted his gaze. His expression changed as he turned to find the source of the light illuminating him.

“Yang Ji-eon?”

His voice, sounding as though he was just remembering my name belatedly, was full of ignorance and indifference. His attitude was so-so, making me think I shouldn’t have come. It was the moment I resolved to make an excuse about taking the wrong turn and leave. My palms, soaked with sweat, dropped the troublesome chopsticks.

His gaze and my gaze simultaneously turned to the same spot. Moreover, he was even faster. He would never know my desire to disappear like the wind, without any explanation, without him knowing that I was the one giving them. I wanted to be remembered as a cool and exemplary student who looked out for the neighborhood like Hong Gil-dong.

The man stared intently at the chopsticks he had picked up, then looked down at me with an expression that clearly asked, “What on earth is this?” Just then, the idle moonlight shifted and illuminated me. My flushed cheeks, red with embarrassment, would have been exposed by the moon’s mischief. A line was drawn on the man’s indifferent face. He frowned and looked at me intently.

“U-um, well, my mom told me to give these to you.”

“Your mom?”

“I saw you eating once, passing by. She said your chopstick skills were really bad, uh, I mean, what am I even saying? I…?”

“Nonsense.”

“Right. I’m talking nonsense. Bye.”

At that moment, I heard the man’s unexpected laughter. The sound subtly grabbed my ankle as I turned away. The man, with the bills tucked under his arm, gestured with his chin towards the blue gate.

“Want to come in and eat?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

The man, his smile deepening, opened the gate and went inside first. Having missed the timing to refuse, I awkwardly applied the brakes on my bicycle. Thinking I would go in and properly refuse, I followed him through the gate.

“Oh, my gosh.”

In the time I hadn’t seen it, Eui-joo’s house had undergone a small but significant change. Dumbbells, a soap dish, and a red kimchi-making basin were placed in the yard, and the broken floorboard light had been repaired, making it three or four times brighter.

“The house has changed a bit, hasn’t it?”

Even though he had only placed a few simple belongings, it somehow felt chaotic. I only looked around with my eyes before turning my gaze back to the man, who was bringing out the dining table.

“Sit.”

The man’s words were short and concise, but they had an undeniable power. I cleared my throat and took off my shoes before stepping onto the floorboards. I wanted to turn my head primly, but the state of the side dishes the man had brought out was far from satisfactory.

“What on earth is this…”

“Rice. Side dishes. Kimchi?”

He even added a question mark at the end, as if he couldn’t be sure himself. The side dishes, with their decaying colors, were almost scary to touch, and what he had given me as rice was similar to porridge. The identity of the side dish that the man himself had made was later revealed to be bracken.

He said the white crystals on the outside were salt. As if his tongue was made of iron, the man picked up the bracken salt and placed it on top of the rice. Then, without looking, he put a spoonful in his mouth and read the bills.

“Um, that’s, well.”

“Yeah?”

The man, his entire attention on the bills, replied insincerely. I was going to say, “Did you boil the chopsticks I gave you to make soup?” until his eyes, busily reading the bills, caught my attention. Hadn’t he elicited my pity last time by saying he was illiterate?

“Excuse me.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t read.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you looking at now?”

“Electricity bill.”

“You can’t read, but you can read that?”

“Yeah.”

I was furious at the man’s joking answer, and I completely put down the chopsticks, which had been aimlessly poking at the air anyway.

“You lied.”

About being Eui-joo’s half-brother, about being sold off because of debt, about dropping out of high school—he had scraped away at other people’s sympathy. Now that one lie had been exposed, I was suspicious of the others as well. Was it a trick he had pulled to get free side dishes?

“The batchim (final consonant) is hard. Other kids started reading from some point on. But I didn’t have anyone to teach me.”

The man’s voice was quite composed, cooling down my boiling suspicions. His spoon, which had been busy scooping rice, slowed down a bit.

“…You went to school, though.”

“The teacher laughed at me. I didn’t ask after that.”

So, he meant that he could roughly read, but he didn’t know accurately. I felt like I knew why he called himself illiterate. Where suspicion had left, pity flowed in like the receding tide. I ate, scooping up only enough rice to coat the end of the spoon. Thinking of it as porridge, it wasn’t too bad.

“You can learn with just a little bit of studying. It’s not hard.”

Now that I looked again, there was a Korean language study book among the bundles he had taken out in front of the door. I was strangely relieved that he wasn’t an animal that had completely given up on learning.

The man, who had carefully examined the many bills, finished his meal with the last spoonful. His hand went under the table and took something out of his pocket. It was the chopsticks I had given him. The man, turning the packaged product back and forth, tilted his head.

“How do you use this?”

Finally, the topic I had wanted had appeared. I put down the spoon, which had been counting rice grains, and straightened my upper body.

“You put your fingers in those holes you see, like I explained last time. Put your middle finger in, yes, yes, like that.”

“Like this?”

“Yes! That’s right! That’s right!”

I enthusiastically explained, not even knowing that rice grains were flying everywhere. After several attempts, the man learned the correct chopstick technique. As if it had become somewhat familiar to his hand, he immediately tried to pick up a side dish with the newly learned method. After suffering the humiliation of slipping several times on the side dish plate, he finally grabbed the bracken. Overwhelmed with emotion, I clapped without realizing it.

“It looks so good. The best, the best!”

At that moment, the man, who had been dangling the bracken side dish he had picked up in front of my eyes, changed the temperature of his gaze. His softly relaxed gaze slowly and intently scanned my smiling face and clapping hands. As if matching the rhythm of the increasingly slow applause, his gaze climbed up and stopped around my pupils. A lukewarm emotion flashed and disappeared. It was so fleeting that I couldn’t tell what that emotion was about.

“Oh, um.”

I thought to myself that I might have overdone it. I sat with my knees together like a child being punished, receiving his gaze. But as soon as I became docile, the man seemed to lose interest and was just picking at the side dishes. As I watched his much-improved chopstick skills, I slowly brought up the topic of parting.

“I, uh, I think I should go.”

“Where?”

“Home.”

Even though he knew that the only place a student named I would go in Chowa-ri was home, the man still bothered to ask. I thought he would say goodbye, but the man dragged out the time with a lukewarm gaze. Having progressed from fist-chopsticks, he continued to try to pick up the bracken. I confess that my heart was filled with joy as I watched him. A smile filled me at the thought that I would sleep well.

“Yang Ji-eon.”

I wanted to stop flinching every time the man called my full name, but I instinctively startled. Without showing any personal dissatisfaction, I answered brightly.

“Yes?”

“Teach me how to study.”

“…Sorry?”

“I need to graduate high school because of work. It’s hard on my own.”

The man, revealing his circumstances in a calm tone, now looked me in the eyes for a long time. His proposal, brought about by a single pair of chopsticks, was quite unconventional. I, who had intended to end our meeting today, couldn’t readily speak.

A person trying to study with determination, a person isolated in the neighborhood—my thoughts went that far, and just as I was about to utter words of permission, my aunt’s angry face came to mind.

“I don’t think I can. I’m busy.”

If I were to be caught playing alone with the man, it would be a death sentence. The man, who I thought would show at least a little disappointment, nodded as if it were a natural result.

“Yeah, okay.”

For the last night of me and the man, it was somehow a bland ending.