Place to Be Chapter 9

The sound of cicadas rang in his ears. From the athletic field, the distant sounds of the sports team staying behind to practice drifted over.

Seo Chiyoung stepped forward with a feeling as if he had come to a different world, wondering when the last time was that the school had been wrapped in such silence at an hour when the light poured down so dazzlingly. Passing two classrooms and reaching the third, his own class, Seo Chiyoung saw one person remaining there.

Jang Wigeon was sitting on the frame of a wide-open window with his eyes closed. From the earphones plugged into his ears, whatever music was flowing caused his finger to occasionally go tap, tap, against his folded arms. However, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t hear outside sounds; as Seo Chiyoung entered, he seemed to sense a presence and opened his eyes to cast a glance, but that was all; he merely acknowledged him with a look and closed his eyes again.

Seo Chiyoung stood at the back door and stared blankly at him.

It really felt like being in a different world. The empty, silent school building. The shouts of the sports team drifting faintly from outside and the sound of cicadas filling his ears. The sunlight pouring dazzlingly behind his back. And before his eyes, there he was.

“I heard, you like men.”

Only after that voice reached his own ears did he realize he had said such a thing. Ah, it wasn’t supposed to be like that—the nuance was subtly different from the stories he had heard, but it was already too late to fix it. Above all, having blurted it out himself, he was so flustered he couldn’t open his mouth further.

Jang Wigeon opened his eyes. He gave Seo Chiyoung a brief glance but shrugged and nodded as if uninterested. That was all. A concise and refreshing affirmation with no trace of displeasure or shrinking back. As if it were merely a nuisance, he closed his eyes again.

Seo Chiyoung looked at him for even longer than before. Only after enough time had passed for probably several songs to have played through, Seo Chiyoung spoke.

“I, …I do too.”

Even if a lifetime passed, he would probably never be able to muster as much courage as he did then. It was a single sentence squeezed out from every bit of courage Seo Chiyoung possessed.

I am the same as you. I like men too. I like you.

The end of his words trembled faintly. After a moment, Jang Wigeon opened his eyes. Glancing at Seo Chiyoung, he said just one thing: “Is that so?” It was a response of someone who found it trivial and had no interest; that was the end of it.

Who Seo Chiyoung liked, or what kind of person he was—those were things that had absolutely nothing to do with Jang Wigeon.

Suddenly, Jang Wigeon’s gaze stopped somewhere outside the window. His aimlessly wandering eyes fixed upon something. He stared intently as if even the time taken to blink was a waste.

What might be there—it wasn’t visible from where Seo Chiyoung stood, but somehow he felt he knew.

“…”

Seo Chiyoung looked at Jang Wigeon’s profile. He looked intently at the man who, in this moment, would never turn his eyes elsewhere. Just as relentlessly as that man’s fierce gaze.

At one moment, it seemed he, whose gaze had shifted ever so slightly, bitterly gritted his teeth. But that was only for a split second. Soon, Jang Wigeon pulled the earphones from his ears and, leaning his body perilously out the window, shouted.

“Hey, Kanghee Kwon! How long are you going to practice! Let’s go already! Can’t you see Junyoung has been waiting for a while!”

In that cheerfully shouting voice, there was no trace of the bitter shadow that had brushed over his face moments ago. Gesturing while laughing brightly and vividly like the sun as usual, he gave a full laugh and climbed down from the window frame. The parting remark of “See you next week,” thrown briefly as he passed Seo Chiyoung while leaving the classroom with a low hum, was merely a formal phrase that didn’t matter who the person standing there was.

Until his back, descending the stairs at the end of the hallway, disappeared from view, dust rose wherever his light steps touched, fluttering and sparkling in the sunlight. Seo Chiyoung stood vacantly amidst those dancing dust particles. Until those particles settled calmly and no longer sparkled in the air.

The time when even the dust sparkled and shone stopped on that day.

Even after that, days no different from before continued. After a break of only a few days, the second semester began, and among those with a double-digit number of days left until the college entrance exam, there was no longer any room for useless rumors to wander.

In a place far removed from such anxious and unsettled atmospheres, Jang Wigeon continued to get along pleasantly with his friends, and Seo Chiyoung likewise spent time with his own friends. There was no point of contact and no particular attitude to change. They were classmates in the same room who never had reason to speak unless something happened—no more and no less. Until the year changed and they met their final day as high school students.

However, on that final day, Seo Chiyoung could not go to school.

Around the time the college results came out, his father’s business went bankrupt, and Seo Chiyoung’s home was shattered overnight. His father and mother, whose foundations of life had crumbled so completely they could not handle their own persons, let alone support a child, each left for the countryside to avoid creditors and find work, and while Seo Chiyoung was taken in at his aunt’s house, even that soon became difficult.

Seo Chiyoung gave up on the university he had been accepted to and, as that winter drew to a close, stepped down from the daily life he had been settled in. The burden that fell upon his shoulders overnight was far too harsh for someone on the boundary between minor and adult to bear; from then on, he wasn’t even given the luxury to think of things unrelated to practical survival.

And so, his young days ended.

∞ ∞ ∞∞ ∞ ∞∞ ∞ ∞

“Hmm?”

“Uh…”

Seo Chiyoung stopped his hand just as it was opening the refrigerator door to put in a side dish container and looked at the person who had stepped inside, pulling up the vinyl tent. The time was already past midnight, and today the customers had left at just the right time, so he was just about to start closing up.

He had sold almost all the ingredients prepared for today’s portion; it was a day of just the right amount of business. Having finished such a day, he had completed the cleaning of the shop, wiped the griddle and dishes clean, and now only needed to do a bit of tidying up before going home. It was at that moment. The man entered with a face exhausted to the point of ruin.

“…Business is over for today…”

Though he hadn’t finished putting away the side dish containers, Seo Chiyoung hesitated and spoke while closing the refrigerator door first. After looking around the clean griddle and the neatly organized shop interior, the man finally gave a gloomy look to Seo Chiyoung, and then to the side dish container at Seo Chiyoung’s feet. His face, soaked in fatigue, looked so somber it was almost off-putting to even speak to him.

The man frowned slightly over his expressionless face and checked the clock. He knew that this shop closed at midnight unless something special happened. The time was slightly past midnight, and the customers had all already left.

It would have been enough to say, ‘Then I’ll come tomorrow,’ and turn away, but the man, who looked tired and displeased, stood there vacantly without moving, and Seo Chiyoung, who was crouched in front of the refrigerator, faced him awkwardly.

This man was a new regular who had recently begun frequenting this shop very diligently. He came so often that Seo Chiyoung even knew this man’s name. Though even if he didn’t come often, it was a name he already knew.

Today he came later than usual. Since as it gets closer to midnight the hour is late and sometimes ingredients run out, he usually came by ten o’clock at the latest. Today, too, Seo Chiyoung had been thinking it was strange since the time he usually came had passed, and was just thinking that perhaps he wasn’t coming.

After waiting for a while, Seo Chiyoung looked at him, who showed no intention of turning away and was staring at the empty griddle with regretful eyes, and spoke hesitatingly.

“Besides, the ingredients prepared for today have all run out…”

“…”

The man’s expressionless face grew even bleaker. Seo Chiyoung waited a bit longer, but the man still stood vacantly with no sign of moving, so he scratched his head in embarrassment.

“If you don’t mind…, I can stir-fry what was left over from yesterday for you, but it might have a gamy smell.”

The man seemed to contemplate for a few seconds, but he soon pulled out a plastic chair and sat down. As soon as he sat, he gathered the chopsticks and placed them neatly in front of him.

…He really must like gopchang. It seems like a lie that he said he didn’t really like meat itself when he first came.