Mother Tape Chapter 6.2

“Excuse me?!”

“Gasp.”

Startled, Wisoo flinched.

“Hey, what do you mean, ‘excuse me’. Isn’t that a bit cold? I’m not a waiter.”

“…Then what should I call you?”

Hwang Gujo narrowed his brow and typed on his keyboard. Wisoo, who had intended to ask a question, was instead presented with a problem and hung his head low again.

Then, after hitting the enter key with a sharp tap, Hwang Gujo uttered a single word.

“Hyung.”

“Pardon? But I’m younger than you?”

“No, I wasn’t calling you, Seon Wisoo, hyung. I’m saying you can call me hyung. Me.”

“…….”

“Why. Is it because I look old?”

Hwang Gujo, who was handsome but had a bit of a complex about his appearance, which seemed more mature than his age, thrust his head forward and asked. Without realizing it, Wisoo shook his head so hard it made a whooshing sound.

“Try calling me it.”

Hwang Gujo, whose expression grew fiercer and speech faster the more he focused on his work, urged him on.

“Quickly!”

“Hyu, hyung!”

Only after a startled Wisoo shouted it out like a scream did Hwang Gujo finally make a satisfied expression.

“There you go. So why did you call me? Call your hyung?”

He couldn’t tell if this was teasing or if he was being sincere. A confused Wisoo hesitantly held out his workbook.

“I, I don’t understand this part here….”

Hwang Gujo took the workbook and read it meticulously. Having grown up in a place with a different educational curriculum, he did not understand all of it either. Nevertheless, he used a dictionary to break it down and explain it in a way that Wisoo could understand as easily as possible.

Before he knew it, Wisoo was engrossed in Hwang Gujo’s explanation, and as the wall around his heart crumbled, his body began to lean in that direction as well.

Just then, Jaekwon, who had been outside, came in holding a coffee tray.

“…What are you two doing?”

Jaekwon frowned, looking at the two of them with their heads together, completely absorbed in solving middle school math problems. His head was heavy and his voice was rough from chain-smoking.

And this was the first thing he saw upon his return.

“Ah…. I was just asking about a problem.”

If Wisoo had a tail, it would have been wagging furiously as he looked at Jaekwon right now.

“…….”

Jaekwon stared blankly at Wisoo for a moment before pulling over a chair and deliberately taking the head seat, separating the two who had their heads bent so close they were almost touching across the table.

“Let me see. What kind of problem is it.”

As if that wasn’t enough, he turned his back to Hwang Gujo and took Wisoo’s workbook.

Hwang Gujo, who was abruptly pushed aside, found himself holding a coffee instead of a pen. It all happened in an instant.

“Ah. It’s okay. I understand it now. Hyung explained it so well.”

“Hyung?”

Jaekwon’s gaze slanted sharply. Hwang Gujo subtly stood up from his seat, holding his laptop and coffee.

“He told me to call him hyung.”

Wisoo tilted his head and then whispered to Jaekwon.

“I think we’ve gotten really close.”

Slurp…. Jaekwon’s coffee was already almost empty. Quietly sucking down the last of his iced coffee was the only reaction Jaekwon showed.

Wisoo did not understand this non-verbal pressure. This kind of social communication was the most difficult problem for Wisoo.

So Jaekwon, without worrying about looking childish, let his feelings show to his heart’s content.

“So you’ve gotten close?”

“I know, right? You think so too, don’t you, Jaekwon?”

“Yes. It seems to Jaekwon that you, Seon Wisoo, have gotten close with Hwang Gujo hyung.”

He would need to meet a lot more people to notice that I’m being sarcastic right now, but the thought of him meeting a lot more people and calling all sorts of bastards ‘hyung, hyung’ made him crave a cigarette again, just when he thought he could go a while without one.

Jaekwon crunched on the ice while looking at Wisoo’s beaming face, who had sensed something was off but couldn’t quite grasp it.

“Drink this.”

What he held out was an iced tea. Just as he’d requested it be made a bit weak, its color was pale.

The ambiguous iced tea that would be a cause for complaint for others was the greatest reward for Wisoo. While Wisoo sipped on it, Jaekwon flipped through the workbook.

“From now on, if there’s anything you don’t know, put a star next to it and ask me.”

“Hyung explained it well. If you’re busy, Jaekwon….”

“How busy can I, a jobless man, be. You saw Hwang Gujo typing away on his laptop constantly.”

It was true that Hwang Gujo did seem busier than Jaekwon. Wisoo nodded his head. Because he agreed so readily… it felt a bit strange again, but Jaekwon managed a faint smile.

“If you keep calling him, his concentration will drop, so don’t call him too much either.”

Jaekwon, without a single pang of conscience, willingly exploited the fact that a tone of voice used to coax a child worked well on Seon Wisoo, due to his lack of social experience.

He had spent the day in a meaningful yet lazy way. It was just the right amount of time for the fatigue Jaekwon had felt after visiting that gloomy house to dissipate. Jaekwon stared intently at Wisoo, who, tired from using his brain, was eating as if counting each grain of rice with his eyes half-closed. His very actions were static. Maybe that was why watching him calmed one’s mind. And yet, it wasn’t depressing. How could a person be so different from his first impression. The thought occurred to him that perhaps he had judged Seon Wisoo immediately based on the version created by Shin Mohyuk, the teacher, and his own father.

“Am I going tomorrow too?”

Wisoo, who had been quietly bowing his head, suddenly asked.

Tomorrow. It was a rather important day, the 49th day since his father’s death, but Jaekwon had once again completely forgotten about it.

“Hmm. What do you want to do?”

He had planned not to take him if he didn’t want to go. He even secretly hoped he would say he didn’t want to. But Wisoo, surprisingly, said he wanted to go.

“I want to go and see.”

“It’s not like you’re going to see something fun.”

“I still want to see.”

Wisoo had to confirm. Whether Kwak Bonyoung would disappear or not.

If he could, he wanted to persuade him. But he didn’t have that kind of power. Hadn’t the teacher repeatedly told him that he was merely a vessel, a speaker? He had been hearing that since he was five, from the time he first met the teacher.

Jeong Taegyu…. He mutters the name that sounds unfamiliar no matter how many times he says it.

“Alright. If Seon Wisoo wants to go, there’s no reason I can’t let you.”

Jaekwon answered readily. But despite his mature response, he didn’t feel very pleasant inside.

Wiping his mouth with a tissue, he stood up and cleared the table. Wisoo also got up to follow suit, but when Jaekwon told him he didn’t have to, he said he was done eating.

The hotel room, which Hwang Gujo had left to meet his one and only friend in Korea, was quiet like the house they had been staying in, but it was distinctly different from the house.

It was gloomy, horrifying, and utterly loathsome, but comparing it to this hotel made him realize. That while hating it, he had been growing subtly comfortable in that house. After throwing away the trash, Jaekwon turned to look at Wisoo.

“About that house.”

“Yes.”

“You said the land itself is bad, right? But it occurs to me that while I hated that house, I might have felt comfortable there deep down. Is something like that possible?”

Wisoo stared at Jaekwon, then made a complicated expression, before returning to his usual impassive face.

“That’s….”

Wisoo had encountered all sorts of things through books. Among them were plants that were enormous and beautiful but reeked of a foul odor, and plants that were soft, small, and shaped like cute little jars.

“It’s probably just… pulling things in.”

Their respective methods of survival made them that way.

That house, and that land, that must be their method of survival.

The dead crave the living. The same goes for the land. A lonely piece of land calls in things from its surroundings, and that in turn calls out to other things.

“That’s right. It’s like a method of survival. A black hole, they say it gets heavier the more it swallows. That land also needs to keep swallowing to be able to eat more….”

Wisoo approached Jaekwon. And hugged him. Jaekwon would probably think he was doing something sudden and bizarre again, but for Wisoo’s part, it was a desperate act.

“Kwak Jaekwon. Would you like to move?”

Jaekwon’s body stiffened. Hidden beneath those words was Seon Wisoo’s intention not to follow Jaekwon, but to stay behind.

“You asked for my clothes saying you wanted to be with me, and now you’re trying to kick me out? Is this you saying it’s your house now?”

“That’s not it!”

Wisoo immediately shook his head. He truly did not have even a shred of desire for Kwak Jaekwon’s assets. He shook his head vehemently.

“It’s not that. If Kwak Jaekwon finding that house comfortable… if that’s not a good thing…. Then what do I do.”

Wisoo’s head moved about busily in tandem with his rambling words. Jaekwon looked down at the top of that busy head, then cupped Wisoo’s cheeks.

“Seon Wisoo.”

“…….”

“Hear me out to the end.”

“To the end…. Yes. I’ll listen.”

“So I went back in the middle of the night. To the house. But the house felt unfamiliar again. Unpleasant, just like when I first saw it. I wondered what was different, and it was because you, Seon Wisoo, weren’t there. What do you think about that. How will you explain this one away.”

At first, Wisoo couldn’t understand the words he had just heard, so he blinked his eyes.

“Is that also a method of survival? Yours, Seon Wisoo?”

“That’s….”

“I’m not trying to say anything. It’s good. Clever is better than stupid, isn’t it.”

Jaekwon felt like his emotional ups and downs were more childish than during his adolescent years. Seon Wisoo clinging to him like this made him happy again. Was it because he was a person who was fun to tease?

Jaekwon cleared his throat and separated Wisoo from him.

“A method of survival…. It’s not like that.”

But Wisoo seemed to be mulling over the words Jaekwon had said lightly.

“It’s absolutely not like that.”

As if his thoughts had finally settled, he looked up at Jaekwon with firmly closed lips.

“It’s absolutely not like that, and I would never pull Kwak Jaekwon in like that just so I could live.”

Jaekwon knows Wisoo’s naked body. The idea of Wisoo pushing him away out of some altruistic intention was physically unimaginable. Even if he tried to push me away, wouldn’t he be the only one pushed back? Even if he tried to pull me in, would I be so easily drawn? Jaekwon had a lot he wanted to say, but Wisoo’s eyes were sparkling so brightly that he just smacked his lips.

“Alright. That’s admirable.”

Then he walked past him towards the room.

Wisoo follows behind him, patter, patter. The distinctive sound of Seon Wisoo’s footsteps, cha-bak, cha-bak, can be heard.

❖ ❖ ❖

Hwang Gujo, who had left in the early dawn, returned in the morning. In his hands were three black suits. Unfortunately, Hwang Gujo was not as perceptive as Jaekwon, so the clothes were slightly big on Wisoo.

“It’s a suit, so you can’t even cuff it.”

Jaekwon muttered, covering his mouth to hide a laugh.

Wisoo looked like a new student who had just entered school and had their uniform tailored in a larger size in anticipation of growing. Except it wasn’t a school uniform, but a suit for mourning.

Jaekwon approached and put a necktie around Wisoo’s neck.

“Are we wearing neckties too?”

“It’s better to wear it since he went to the trouble of bringing it.”

But in truth, this was Jaekwon’s.

Jaekwon tied the one meant for him on Wisoo, and wore his own suit without a tie.

“Still, you’re pretty much the only bereaved family member.”

“I didn’t even act as the chief mourner. Why start now?”

“Then Seon Wisoo will look like the bereaved family.”

“Everyone who gathers there knows Seon Wisoo and the old man aren’t blood-related. And I don’t care if it looks that way.”

Jaekwon pulled Wisoo, who was glancing between him and Hwang Gujo, and tucked him into his side.

“Those people need to learn a lesson that they can’t treat this person carelessly.”

Wisoo’s body, pressed against Jaekwon’s side, slowly warms up. He can feel his heart thumping. The hand holding him is firm, and the body pressed against his is firm as well.

Seon Wisoo was a valuable person. It was because he had an ability that could be converted into money. But aside from that, there was probably no one who thought of Seon Wisoo as precious. Even his parents had abandoned him in the teacher’s hands and never came looking for him again.

‘Your parents left you in my care. They said they wouldn’t see you until you were fixed, until you stopped seeing scary things. They asked me to fix you, no matter how much time it took.’

To them, he was a flawed and severely defective being. It probably wasn’t like that from the very beginning. But their instinctive aversion and fear must have won out in the end.

At that time, Wisoo was five years old, only three by Western age. Sitting on a bed that was excessively large for him to use alone, he had stared blankly up at the person he didn’t even know he was supposed to call ‘teacher’ back then. He couldn’t describe how big that person had seemed.

‘They said they would steel their hearts and not appear until you are fixed. Because that is how you will become strong.’

Being young, Wisoo believed those words.

‘Before you came to me, you often went to the hospital with your parents, didn’t you? The hospital must have been scary. But I will not try to fix you by force. I will do it my own way, but if you do not get better, it will be due to your lack of effort.’

That was why Wisoo thought he was at fault. For a long time, he had believed his own efforts were insufficient.

He completely gave up on any expectations for his parents when he was thirteen. By then, the teacher had already hospitalized him several times. It was almost every school break. While other friends went on family trips for vacation, Wisoo had to be locked up in a suspicious and dark hospital ward that likely hadn’t received any official authorization.

When Wisoo begged, saying he would really listen to the teacher from now on, the teacher would say he wouldn’t send him to such a place again, and that he was sorry, but would instead provide a space for him when he needed time to collect his thoughts alone. That was the basement.

It was in that gray concrete room that he also realized the teacher had no intention of curing him in the first place. When he realized that, he threw his body against the wall with all his might, and after doing that a few times and passing out, he woke up to find all four walls padded with white cushions.

Seon Wisoo was valuable, but at the same time, he was a being that must be treated carelessly.

‘Those people need to learn a lesson that they can’t treat this person carelessly.’

Whatever Jaekwon’s intention was in saying it, Wisoo was so happy from that single phrase from Jaekwon that his whole body tingled. He also learned for the first time that you can feel like crying when you’re too happy. He teaches him that he can improve his elementary school graduate education, and offers him sweet things, spicy things, all sorts of forbidden things. There was no way those things could be harmful to him. They were so sweet.

Wisoo hugged Jaekwon.

“Whoa, you scared me.”

Jaekwon’s eyes went wide and he awkwardly raised his arms.

“Thank you.”

Hwang Gujo and Jaekwon shared a look. They only asked each other with their eyes, ‘What’s with him?’, but there was no one to answer. Because they couldn’t.

Still, Jaekwon lowered the arms he was holding up awkwardly and patted Wisoo on the back.

“Hmm, I just dressed you up in fancy clothes because I wanted to mess with some adults I dislike even as a grown-up, but getting praised for something so trivial makes me feel embarrassed all of a sudden.”

“Still.”

“I get it. Since you’ve praised me this much, I’ll also make sure the adults don’t scold you, Seon Wisoo.”

“Because I’m a baby?”

Hwang Gujo made a face that said, ‘What kind of bullshit were you spewing?’. Ignoring him, Jaekwon let out a chuckle. He thought he had said, ‘He’s a baby,’ to piss off the adults, but looking back now, he had simply felt for Seon Wisoo, who was just taking all that abuse like a transparent person, no, like a trash can. Even though he himself had insulted him, he had wanted to get Seon Wisoo out of that situation.

“That’s right. You’re a baby, aren’t you?”

He certainly was a soft child, both inside and out.

Jaekwon wrapped an arm around Seon Wisoo’s shoulder and took a step forward. They had to leave around now to get to the temple in the mountains.

❖ ❖ ❖

The weather was sweltering. When Wisoo started panting, Jaekwon bought him a bottle of ice water from an old lady selling them at the entrance to the mountain path leading to the temple. There was a straw attached to the lid. Wisoo drank from it and looked much better.

Jaekwon walked slowly, then on an impulse, he picked some small foxtail grasses. Then he used them to tickle Wisoo’s cheek and the nape of his neck. Maybe because he was a baby, the nape of his neck was damp with sweat. Yet it was strange that besides his pheromones, there was no body odor.

“That tickles.”

Wisoo hunched his neck and laughed. Jaekwon found himself grinning along without realizing it.

Before long, each of them held a foxtail grass in their hand. Hwang Gujo, who had been busy taking pictures of the trumpet creepers in full bloom, happened to look ahead and discovered Kwak Jaekwon holding a foxtail grass instead of a cigarette.

“…….”

Kwak Jaekwon, who had been called by all sorts of brutal nicknames like ‘mad bull’ and ‘hunting dog’, was nowhere to be found.

As if possessed, Hwang Gujo raised his hand and took a picture of the two of them. Pressed closely together, the round knuckle bones on the backs of their hands frequently brushed against each other as they walked. Yet the two did not move apart.

“Peaceful.”

This must be why people come to temples, muttered Hwang Gujo, who wasn’t even fully Korean by nationality.

Just as he said, it was peaceful.

When they arrived at the temple, people dressed in black were gathered in clusters. Jaekwon, looking at the large number of people—his relatives, in any case—summed them up in one sentence.

“They don’t even get along usually, yet they’re acting like they have a family register?”

Hwang Gujo chuckled at the sharp remark.

“You don’t have a family register?”

“Nope. Even if we did, it would have been bought. You can tell just by looking that it’s a family of commoners.”

Kwak Jaekwon retorted even more harshly to Hwang Gujo’s question.

Because of the crowd, Wisoo felt his spirit shrink, just like the day he first met Kwak Jaekwon. His energy gets drained when there are a lot of people. With every step he took, there was the rustling sound of dry soil, but when he looked with his eyes, it was full of black, sludgy water. All of it came from those people.

“Have you ever seen our ancestors?”

Jaekwon tilted his head toward Wisoo and asked.

“I’m curious if they were commoners or nobles. Have you seen them?”

“…No.”

Wisoo shook his head.

He had only seen two of Jaekwon’s dead family members. One was Kwak Bonyoung, and the other… his mother. He could not bring himself to say he had seen them both.

“Really? Tell me next time they appear.”

“You won’t believe me even if I tell you….”

“It’s fun to listen to. I think I’ve grown fond of them. The stories about dead people that you tell, Seon Wisoo.”

“It’s not a good thing to see them. I’m not going to tell you.”

“Why. Why isn’t it a good thing. I’m curious. About how our ancestors lived.”

“It’s not a very good thing for ancestors to be lingering around, unable to pass on.”

“Is that so? You’re smart….”

He was clearly teasing. When Wisoo turned his head away with a jerk, Jaekwon placed a hand on the crown of Wisoo’s head and shook it, making his pliant neck tilt.

“Don’t do that….”

“The mark on your neck is almost gone.”

Jaekwon pretended not to hear and whispered into Wisoo’s ear. Wisoo, as if startled, covered it with his hand. He knew exactly where it was at once because Kwak Jaekwon had pointed it out before. Jaekwon, pretending to look elsewhere, leaned his body in and whispered more deliberately to Wisoo.

“Marks form easily, but they also disappear easily, don’t they? It makes one feel defiant.”

Did that mean he would leave more, or that he wouldn’t? Even though their lips hadn’t touched, the nape of his neck tickled, so Wisoo rubbed it with his hand.

“Jaekwon!”

Perhaps noticing that the two of them—no, that Jaekwon—were unilaterally ignoring the gathered people with their silly jokes, his uncle, who had been at the forefront of the group that stormed the house last time, called out to him.

Jaekwon immediately clicked his tongue, tsk. His expression was still gentle, but the look in his eyes was filled with annoyance.

“This must be why that fucking house feels comfortable. Nothing but bothersome things happen when I come out.”

“…….”

“It’s hot today. Let’s buy bingsu on the way home. Have you ever tried it?”

Jaekwon gently stroked the head of Wisoo, who naturally shook his head, then took a step, calling out, ‘Uncle.’ The road back to that house had never been a happy one, but the moment Jaekwon promised bingsu, a different feeling arose.

“It seems you can just stick with me, Seon Wisoo.”

As soon as Jaekwon walked away, Hwang Gujo strode over to Wisoo, who was kicking at the dirt with his foot. He had thought Wisoo looked small in comparison because Jaekwon was there, but even alone he looked desolate. It was impossible not to feel for him.

“Shall we walk around for a bit until it’s time? I’ve always wanted to try a temple stay.”

“A temple stay?”

Wisoo soon nodded his head.

“I guess so. It would be good for you to do that often, Hwang Gujo. Since you have a constitution that strange things stick to easily.”

“Pardon…?”

It’s usually fine if you don’t know, but the moment you do, you start to worry. No matter how much I say I don’t believe in this stuff like Jaekwon, isn’t it still unsettling? It was like being told you’ll die in a car accident if you drive today.

Flustered, Hwang Gujo grabbed his own butt for no reason, saying, ‘Where is it? Here?’. He himself couldn’t understand why his butt of all places.

While one part of his mind knew it was as nonsensical as someone asking, ‘Do you believe in the Path?’, perhaps because of his history with accidents, Wisoo’s words did not sound like they could be taken lightly.

“Here and here….”

Just then, Wisoo turned his body and pointed to Hwang Gujo’s shoulder and collarbone, areas where he often complained of pain. Then, he stopped talking.

“…nim.”

“Seon Wisoo?”

Hwang Gujo was flustered, seeing Wisoo turn so pale that he wouldn’t have been surprised if he fainted on the spot. As if being deathly pale wasn’t enough, Wisoo’s hands were also trembling.

His appearance as he stumbled backward was so alarming that Hwang Gujo reached out a hand to grab him. Otherwise, it seemed like he would fall straight backward.

“Seon Wisoo?”

It was not easy to grab him and look behind at the same time.

“Alright, let’s all go inside now!”

From far away, one of Jaekwon’s relatives clapped his hands and said.

The people all headed toward one place in a crowd. The uncle who had been talking with Jaekwon was the same. A trust can be terminated at any time as long as the person’s own will is confirmed; there would be other conditions. He had only spoken of obvious things. Jaekwon was annoyed because he had patted his shoulder and acted friendly. The words telling them to go inside felt welcome, in contrast.

The man called uncle left first, and Jaekwon, as a matter of course, turned his head toward Wisoo.

And his eyes met Hwang Gujo’s.

“What is it?”

Hwang Gujo was pleading for help with his eyes. Jaekwon started walking in that direction.

His steps grew faster and faster. Jaekwon undid the button of his jacket and strode forward. It was at the same speed as others lightly jogging.

And into Wisoo’s field of vision, a current like a black wave finally flowed over the red doorjamb leading into the main temple hall.

Something clanking washed in, soaking Wisoo’s feet. It is sticky and heavy. But on the surface, it is merely pretending to be a wave in the night. A human figure pushing through that current was revealed.

“Seon Wisoo.”

Jaekwon grabbed his arm.

Ah, no.

Wisoo realized that at this very moment, all the people he absolutely did not want to encounter had gathered.

Could this also be a stage set by the teacher? There was no way it wasn’t.

“Kwak… Jaekwon….”

“Let’s go,” Wisoo said, pulling Jaekwon. But his body was frozen in shock, and he had no strength.

And more than anything, the current was gradually washing in, soaking his shins, and would soon submerge his knees. It seemed so. It passes by Jaekwon’s spot in a circle, not touching it. Wisoo stared at Jaekwon, aghast. If it had submerged this much, it was irreversible.

“Wisoo.”

At the husky voice calling his name, Wisoo squeezes his eyes shut. His body reacts before his head or his heart. It stiffens rigidly, and his head hangs low.

“You, are you going to be so disappointing when you’re seeing your teacher after such a long time?”

At first, it wasn’t this deep or this high. At first, it was barely enough to wet the soles of his feet. In Wisoo’s eyes, it had looked not like a puddle but like an ocean, so he had thought this person was different. He had believed this person could save him.

But he was wrong. The teacher was not an ocean but an advancing swamp, and this was not a wave but corrupt foam. The fact that the water level had risen this high must be because the teacher had swallowed that many things. If so, the one who pushed them toward the teacher so he could swallow them was probably… me.

“Your teacher came to see you!”

Along with the cheerful voice, Wisoo was yanked backward.

Jaekwon’s eyes widened. The same was true for Hwang Gujo. A thin, frail middle-aged man had snatched Seon Wisoo away in an instant. Jaekwon watched Wisoo being swept away as if by a current, but Wisoo avoided his gaze.

“Jeong Taegyu…?”

With his arm still outstretched toward Wisoo, Jaekwon, his face crumpled in a fierce scowl, calls out that name. At that, the other person smiles brightly.

“Yes. That is what I am called now.”

The sound of a wind chime can be heard faintly between the four of them. The wind blows eerily, ominously. The foxtail grass has already flown off somewhere, and his hand, with nothing to hold, futilely clutches at empty air….