Place to Be Chapter 3

He asked Seo Chiyoung with a generous laugh, and Seo Chiyoung, hesitating in embarrassment, simply shook his head. It seemed he intended to call him “Boss” instead of “Mister.” Seo Chiyoung thought “Mister” would actually be better, but he couldn’t bring himself to say even that and silently lowered his head.

“I’ll have to come often,” the words he muttered without much thought reached his ears with unusual clarity. Seo Chiyoung quickly turned his back and stood in front of the sink a couple of steps away, beginning to wash the dishes. The sound of water flowing from the faucet mixed into their conversation like white noise.

“Kanghee seems pretty busy these days. Considering he bragged about leaving all the heavy lifting to him on your moving day but couldn’t make it.”

“I guess so. You worked hard taking over Kanghee’s share, Wigeon.”

“Haha, it was nothing. The movers did all the heavy lifting; I just came by in the evening to help organize a bit. You’re finally done moving, so take a few days off.”

“What do you mean, take off? I have a lecture starting from first period tomorrow.”

He laughed while patting the shoulder of his grumbling friend. “Should I go instead?”, “What are you going to teach the kids?”, listening to the back-and-forth dialogue, Seo Chiyoung stole a glance over his shoulder before looking back down at the dishes in the washbasin.

The same as ever. They really are exactly the same.

By the time he had washed and flipped over all the dishes and cups that had filled the washbasin, they stood up from their seats, just as they said they would after a beer or two.

“You really worked hard today. Thanks. Once my back is better, I’ll go to your place and help move stuff around.”

“As if there’s any luggage left to move. …Excuse me, check please.”

With a soft chuckle, he turned toward Seo Chiyoung. Seo Chiyoung wiped his hands on a dry towel and mumbled, “That’s 9,000 won,” and the man, pulling a crisp 10,000 won bill from his wallet, smiled with crinkled eyes.

“It was really delicious. Since this friend just moved into the apartment up there today, we’ll be coming by often from now on.”

“I’m the one who moved in, so why are you the one coming often?”

“Does moving change the fact that I’ll be frequenting your place?”

As he spoke with a laugh, his friend looked displeased but merely shrugged his shoulders without saying much.

When Seo Chiyoung smoothed out a crumpled 1,000 won bill and handed it over, the man said “Thank you for the meal” once more and turned to leave. The voices of the two men as they stepped outside the vinyl tarp faded away along with their footsteps.

Anyway, Junyoung, what are you going to do, getting back surgery at your age… I’ll just dump all the heavy work on Kanghee and you… there must be plenty of other things to use your strength for… a Casanova like you should have injured his back instead of me… oh, it breaks my heart to hear our Junyoung say things like that… I’m telling you, I’m sick of those jokes… Those conversations grew more distant until finally, they could no longer be heard.

Seo Chiyoung stood vacantly, still clutching the 10,000 won bill in one hand. Like someone dreaming while standing up.

It was a strange feeling. It felt truly like he had dreamed, yet only the 10,000 won bill in his hand possessed a sense of reality. He briefly wondered if he had mistaken them for someone else, but there was no way.

However, Seo Chiyoung was still wearing a tattered apron in a worn-out, shabby shop, which quickly awakened his consciousness that had been soaked like a dream in a fragment of the unchanging past. Ten-odd years had clearly passed.

Even if Seo Chiyoung hadn’t changed, they probably wouldn’t have recognized him. He wasn’t close to them in high school. They were just classmates who had barely even spoken.

Then again, who knows. Perhaps even they, who seemed not to have changed at all, had changed in some invisible way.

But they were the same. At least—the way Jang Wigeon looked at Yoon Junyoung was.

“…”

Just then, the radio time signal announced one o’clock.

Seo Chiyoung, as if waking from a dream, jerked his head to look at the radio and stuffed the 10,000 won bill he was still holding into his pocket. Then he resumed the cleanup he had left unfinished.

After wiping the tables and finishing the dishes, he poured water onto the indoor cement floor to wash it down. After tying up the trash, putting it in the designated spot by the main road, returning to bring small items inside the shop, and finally checking the gas and turning off the lights, he ended the day by lowering the shutters.

Except for the unexpected guests who had briefly visited in the middle of the night and left, it was a day that flowed by smoothly like any other.

He was always with people. Usually, when someone is among people, they tend to get buried in the crowd and go unnoticed, but he was different. Even if he was just listening to the person next to him without saying much, or just offering a question or two of agreement, he occupied that space with a presence more vivid than someone talking a hundred words.

Though his low yet refreshing laughter wasn’t particularly loud, the reason it pierced the ears of Seo Chiyoung as he passed through the hallway was linked to that very presence.

Oh, Seo Chiyoung paused. Then he looked toward the voices talking across the hallway window, by the opposite windowsill. He saw a man who, perhaps listening to some funny story, sat skewed on the window frame with his arms crossed, listening to the person next to him before bursting into a clear laugh.

It was Jang Wigeon.

Suddenly, his heart went thump-thump. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the man’s face.

We’re in the same school. To think he’s even in the class right next door.

It was the very day after entering high school. On the second day of school, having sighed while commuting because he was assigned to the school furthest from his house within the district, Seo Chiyoung saw Jang Wigeon.

It wasn’t the first time Seo Chiyoung had seen him. He had seen him occasionally at the Taekwondo dojo he attended until middle school—though he quit upon entering his third year. Because their attendance times were different, he had only seen him in passing or happened to train at the same time a few times by chance, but Seo Chiyoung remembered him.

‘That’s him, the kid who won a medal at the National Junior Sports Festival this year,’ he had first seen Jang Wigeon coming out of the dojo just as he finished training, after peering into the dojo out of curiosity upon hearing kids whispering in the hallway when he arrived.

He had heard rumors that a same-aged kid attending the same Taekwondo dojo had gone to the National Junior Sports Festival and won a medal. Contrary to his vague assumption that the kid would surely be massive and rugged, he was an average-sized boy for his age, only slightly taller than Seo Chiyoung, with an impressionable, smiling face.

He was surprised. To think a boy with such a gentle smile was that strong. But at the same time, seeing that boy pass by Seo Chiyoung while chatting cheerfully with a friend, he found himself understanding. That boy had something he hadn’t seen in other friends. It was a dignified confidence.

More than the medal, that confidence—devoid of any childish bravado—struck his heart vividly. With a surprise bordering on shock, Seo Chiyoung had stared blankly at the boy’s back until he disappeared from sight.

After that, Jang Wigeon’s figure caught his eye often. It was understandable, since he looked around every time he went to the dojo to see if they might cross paths. Seo Chiyoung always followed Jang Wigeon with his eyes, as the latter arrived one hour earlier than him.

He looked different. Even though he played pranks mischievously, laughed, talked, and made a fuss among the average kids, he possessed a generous composure uncharacteristic of a child, perhaps originating from that calm confidence.

The closest word for Seo Chiyoung’s gaze would be “longing.” It was a very unique and unfamiliar emotion he had never experienced before.

Seo Chiyoung had never envied or been jealous of anyone. No matter how far ahead someone else went, or how they chased from behind, he always walked his own path at his own pace. So, Seo Chiyoung wasn’t envious of what Jang Wigeon had—whether it was a Taekwondo medal, confidence, or the friends overflowing around him. Thus, strictly speaking, that gaze might not have been longing. However, from then on, Seo Chiyoung’s gaze continued to follow him without him even knowing.

Then came a certain Saturday. It was a day so cold his ears felt like they would freeze, past the midpoint of winter break.