People’s eyes gathered on Eunhyung, then drifted away. In his rough-looking biker jacket and sneakers, his sleek appearance naturally drew attention. No one would have believed that the shabbily dressed Shim Hyungnam was with him.
Hyungnam kept her head bowed and scurried after him, barely managing to keep up.
His hair’s so long he looks like he’s begging to get stopped by the police. If they catch him, I’ll say I don’t know him and run.
Thinking nonsense like that, she followed him through the crowd waiting for the cable car and onto the walking trail.
After about three hundred yards, a staircase appeared beneath a sign marking the hiking trail. Without offering any real explanation, Choi Eunhyung began striding up the steps.
Why did he bring me here?
She was curious, but the resentment she had built up toward him still hadn’t faded. She simply didn’t feel like talking to him yet.
Hyungnam kept her mouth firmly shut and followed wherever he climbed.
She had never exercised in her life unless work counted, so she was out of breath almost immediately. Her heart pounded harder than usual, the pulse reaching all the way to her fingertips.
Hyungnam stopped for a moment, gripping the railing as she tried to catch her breath.
Far ahead, Choi Eunhyung glanced back.
He looked down at the maid standing there with sweat on her forehead, panting, then turned around and came back down the stairs. He stopped in front of her looking perfectly composed, without the slightest trace of exhaustion.
“You’re tired already?”
“…”
“I picked an easy place for your sake, and now you’re whining.”
“…”
“Unless you want me to take you to Mount Bukhan and make you climb Kalbawi holding on to ropes, shut up and catch your breath.”
He had come all the way back down the stairs he had already climbed just to scold her.
For my sake? What exactly did he do for my sake?
She had wanted to see Namsan Tower, yes, but certainly not with a gangster.
Hyungnam glared at the broad shoulders already striding back up the stairs and let out a small sigh.
But she had not even brought her wallet. If she didn’t want to get lost, she had no choice but to follow him.
How far had they climbed?
Short stretches of level ground began appearing between the staircases, and suddenly the tower was right in front of her.
Hyungnam opened her mouth and stared up at it.
The white spire rose so high it looked as though it might pierce the deep blue sky.
Overwhelmed by its sheer scale, her small feet slowly came to a stop.
Only then did she have the presence of mind to look around.
The bustling city of Seoul lay beneath her feet.
Pyeongchangdong was elevated too, but this was nothing like looking down from there. People looked the size of ants, and even the long city buses seemed no bigger than the joint of a finger.
Cold, fresh air filled her lungs, then burst back out like filthy wastewater that had rinsed old emotions clean.
A cool wind wound around the back of her neck and dried her sweat.
Hyungnam willingly breathed deep through her mouth, exhaling the contamination inside her over and over again.
Her chest, which had felt packed full of garbage, slowly grew lighter. With each breath, the murkiness in what she exhaled seemed to fade.
Once she had caught her breath completely, she followed Choi Eunhyung’s tracks ahead of her.
Strength returned to her heavy legs, and she found the energy to climb again.
Just as he had told her, she kept her mouth firmly shut, conserved her breath, and climbed.
An octagonal pavilion came into view above.
Hyungnam clenched her teeth, bracing her hands against her knees as she dragged her body upward.
“What are you, a turtle?”
Eunhyung had arrived long ago. He clicked his tongue at the utterly exhausted Hyungnam.
He didn’t look tired, but apparently even his body had heated up from the climb. His black jacket was slung over his left shoulder, and the sleeves of his cream-colored sweater were pushed up to his elbows.
Seeing how neat and polished he still looked made Hyungnam slightly embarrassed by her own appearance.
She quickly combed her hair back with her fingers and retied it.
Eunhyung glanced at the tightly pulled bundle of hair, not a single stray strand escaping, and grumbled.
“I should’ve made you crawl up here in a push-up position. I went easy on you.”
She had no idea what he had supposedly been going easy on her about all this time.
When Hyungnam merely glared sullenly at his feet, Eunhyung seemed to give up and pushed her by the back himself until she was standing in front of the pavilion.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“…”
“What, did somebody staple your mouth shut? Answer me.”
“Yes.”
The reply came out edged with irritation.
She expected him to snap at her for being disrespectful, but surprisingly, Choi Eunhyung said nothing.
Instead, he rested one hand on the rope fence around the summit and began swaying his body.
It was playful, but so precarious that it looked as though he might fall at any moment.
Each time he staggered theatrically, Hyungnam’s hand twitched.
Then Eunhyung suddenly pitched forward as though he were about to tumble over, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
His unruffled voice followed immediately.
“Your brother’s not dead.”
“…That’s dangerous.”
“Worried?”
“…”
“How do you think I felt?”
The man who had been fooling around so carelessly suddenly straightened and stepped in front of Hyungnam.
The fine fibers of expensive cashmere filled her vision from inches away.
Hyungnam tried to step backward, but he caught her wrist first.
“How do you think you’d feel if I rolled off this mountain right in front of you?”
“…”
“You’d feel fucking awful, wouldn’t you? I’d show up in your dreams.”
“…”
“That’s exactly what happened to me yesterday.”
The low threat in his voice made her throat ache.
Choi Eunhyung gave her captured wrist a hard shake, then flung it away.
Hyungnam’s body swayed along with the arm that had been thrown aside.
“So, maid. Don’t die in front of your brother.”
It was absurd.
He probably wouldn’t even twitch an eyebrow after killing someone with his own hands, but I decide to die on my own and suddenly he throws a fucking fit because it makes him feel bad?
In silent rebellion, Hyungnam pressed her lips together and slowly curled her hand into a fist.
Having received no answer worth calling one, Eunhyung let out a long sigh and moved behind her.
“See that over there? Seoul Station.”
He covered both of Hyungnam’s ears with his large hands and abruptly turned her head to the left.
Startled, Hyungnam nodded before she even knew what she was doing.
“All the best beggars in Seoul gather there. Beggar’s den.”
“…”
“You know they fight each other every damn day over who gets whose tin can?”
How the hell would I know that?
Just as the thought passed through her narrowed eyes, Eunhyung abruptly twisted her head to the right.
The movement threw her small body off balance, forcing her to cling to his solid arm.
“Way over there. Seoul National University Hospital.”
“…”
“Half-dead corpses from all over the country gather there. And at the far end there—see that overpass?”
“…”
“Take that and you get to the Miari red-light district. That’s where women who get paid less than you live.”
He lifted his hands from her head.
As the warmth of his palms disappeared, noise flooded back into her muffled ears.
The rumble of car engines below. People laughing and talking. Street vendors calling out to customers.
The lives of all those people wound around her body like a whirlwind that had suddenly broken loose.
In an instant, Hyungnam’s world, drenched in all that colorful commotion, grew sharper and more saturated.
Eunhyung hooked an arm over her shoulders as though leaning against her and flicked her plump cheek with one fingertip.
“There are bastards worse off than you who keep living. Fight tooth and nail over tin cans just to stay alive.”
“…”
“Even bastards who already know they’re going to die still crawl into Seoul National University Hospital because they want to live.”
Emotion gradually seeped into his voice, almost as though he were talking about himself when he mentioned people with their death dates already set.
Then his straight lips pressed stubbornly together.
Hyungnam couldn’t tell whether he was angry or simply disgusted with her.
He planted his hands on his hips, breathed a few times, then continued quietly.
“You walked all the way to the top of this mountain on your own two feet. So why the fuck do you want to die?”
“…”
“You don’t know how to be grateful for what you’ve got, fuck.”
Hyungnam lowered her eyes and bit hard into the inside of her lip.
She had plenty to say.
She wanted to demand what exactly she had been given. Where exactly this supposedly generous gift was.
But in front of the lives Choi Eunhyung had pointed out to her, saying she wanted to die over something like this would probably sound like the indulgence of someone who had eaten too well.
She might even learn firsthand what it felt like to be stoned to death.
She resented Choi Eunhyung for using such a cheap trick that even made the words I’m suffering stick in her throat.
Staring reproachfully at the toes of his white sneakers, Hyungnam muttered,
“You don’t have to… concern yourself with what I do.”
“The fucking attitude on you after I went through all that trouble to keep you alive.”
“…”
“What the hell is going on inside that pea-sized rock you call a head?”
Eunhyung pressed his index finger firmly against Hyungnam’s forehead, intending to shove her backward, but the glare she shot him made him snort in disbelief.
His outstretched hand hesitated.
Then, instead, he roughly ruffled her small head.
It was the sort of touch someone might use on a stray animal.
“Stop thinking. Just live.”
“…Because you’ll feel fucking awful if I die, Manager?”
Her voice had sunk weakly, yet she clung to the question as though arguing a case.
His reason for telling her not to die—because it was gruesome and unpleasant for him—had lodged in her throat and refused to come loose.
Choi Eunhyung pulled a cigarette pack from his jacket and placed one of the slim white cigarettes between his lips.
Without looking at Hyungnam, he idly shook his lighter.
“This little shit’s really determined to make me sound like human garbage.”
“…”
“If you die, who’s going to make me kimchi soup with hand-torn dumplings?”
“…”
“I’d never had anything like that before. It was fucking delicious.”
The words came out indistinctly around the cigarette as he drew in smoke until his cheeks hollowed.
Then, without ever having been granted permission, he arbitrarily invoked the right to remain silent.
Hyungnam slowly turned her head and studied him.
There was something faintly awkward about the way he exhaled the smoke.
He sucked air through his teeth with a soft hiss, then continued like a man who had just made some enormous decision.
“I’ll give you a discount. One bowl of that soup.”
“…”
“So don’t fucking die… and later, if you ever find somewhere you want to go, tell me.”