Rabbit Hole Chapter 26

“If you say ‘that person,’ how am I supposed to know who that is.”

As soon as the payment was done, the manager replied while absorbed back into a mobile gambling mini-game. Without even looking at Geumseo.

“Even if you tell me the name, I won’t know it, so don’t bother. And in the first place, you shouldn’t go around saying it either. Once you leave here, just forget it. They’re strangers.”

The manager’s hand, choosing a ladder on the screen, trembled. Geumseo nodded heavily and turned away.

“Cutie. When, when do you work.”

Heo Sangmuk asked while chewing the gum provided on the table. There were so many cards in his wallet that the leather was stretched out. It was clearly an expensive wallet, but Heo Sangmuk didn’t care at all.

“Is it around this time? Tomorrow too?”

“Ah…”

“Pretty thing. Answer quickly while oppa is still looking at you kindly. Or else oppa will get mad.”

Oppa? Geumseo doubted his own ears. But when Heo Sangmuk pulled the ashtray towards him, the answer came out quickly.

“Monday to Friday!”

“Weekday shifts? Aha. Good, good.”

Without even knowing what was good about it, Heo Sangmuk spat into the ashtray. It seemed he hadn’t grabbed it to hit him after all. Geumseo rubbed his flat chest. It was a chest that had absolutely nothing that would make anyone call him oppa.

“That bastard Heo Sangmuk is at it again. Seriously, his taste is unique. Going as far as male brats…”

“Leave him be. Guess he sees it as some exotic dish. It’s not just once or twice that bastard’s gotten hooked on weird things.”

The tipsy companions teased with loosened tongues. It’s not just once or twice that bastard’s gotten hooked on weird things…. That single phrase circled in his head particularly. Whenever he was told he was weird, weird, Go San said he was turned on. Before he knew it, to Geumseo, ‘weird’ had become some kind of secret expression that shouldn’t be said out loud and had to be hidden. So maybe because of that, he had a premonition that the ‘weird things’ Heo Sangmuk had gotten hooked on more than once or twice were also of that kind.

In that instant, a sense of revulsion hit him, almost to the point of nausea.

“See ya.”

Heo Sangmuk drew out the end of his words long as he patted the shoulder of Geumseo, who was barely holding back a creepy sense of disgust. One of the companions had his arm wrapped around another friend’s shoulder and left as if practically being dragged. Even with his legs completely gone, he sent a wink to Geumseo with a ridiculous face. It might have been a spasm.

“…”

Geumseo sluggishly moved his exhausted body and cleaned up the wrecked table. There was so much that a cart was needed. He poured the liquids into a bucket and gathered the food scraps onto a plate. He stood the empty bottles in the corner of the room.

“…I hate this.”

Hic.

Geumseo was surprised by the words that came out without him realizing. The words that the loan sharks had spent two years painstakingly erasing from Geumseo’s mouth were ‘tired’ and ‘hate.’ Go San had somehow managed to find the words the loan shark Misters had erased and make them come out of Geumseo’s mouth, but they were dead words that he never uttered just over work.

“Wow. I’m full.”

Startled, Geumseo shook his head. The cheek that had been hit rather painfully stung. Geumseo fiddled with his pockets, which were bulging awkwardly. Money amounting to several times his hourly wage was stuffed in them like discarded receipts. But he wasn’t thrilled at the thought of counting it like he usually was. He just… felt strange. As Geumseo moved the bucket sloshing with all kinds of liquids, he felt as if he had become this bucket. But in truth, the liquids inside this bucket were more expensive than he was.

∞ ∞ ∞

He had clocked out, but the road home felt long and distant. His own place felt as far away as Siberia, where he had never once been.

Geumseo stood still and pondered. If he were moderately tired, the urge to go home quickly and rest would be strong, but because he was so exhausted, he had no thoughts at all. He was so blank and fatigued that he almost felt it would be fine to just fall asleep right there.

At that moment, Geumseo’s phone rang. Since he hadn’t touched it throughout his entire shift, naturally the battery was barely drained.

“Hello.”

Geumseo answered without even checking who it was. After all, more than half of his meager contacts were either relatives avoiding Geumseo’s calls or loan sharks who contacted him on their own anyway.

—Where are you.

Ah. There was more. Go San and Unha hyung.

“I’m done with work.”

The weather was lousy. The light under the streetlamp was dull too. It must be right before rain or snow, or the air quality was bad. The dreary yellow light was not much different from the barely passable employee break room.

—Come home.

“Whose home?”

—Our home, obviously.

Korean is strange. They didn’t even live together, yet Go San called it ‘our home.’ There was no ‘our home’ in this world. Because there was no space that Go San and he shared, lived in together.

—Come quickly. I want to eat something. I’m hungry.

“It’s dawn, though?”

—I trained until a little while ago, so my weight dropped.

“It’s dawn, though?”

Geumseo repeated the same words. Eating at dawn? Training at dawn? Without further ado, Go San just urged him to come quickly.

—Take a taxi.

“The taxi fare is expensive…”

More than that, it was so close that he worried the taxi wouldn’t take him.

—Stop being so cheap and just take it.

Go San said he’d time it. He said he’d wait 10 minutes. He could hear an auditory hallucination of the timer that Go San’s coach carried around worn-out, clicking as it was pressed. Geumseo, feeling anxious, reached out his hand first. A taxi that would absolutely never be caught at normal times was, strangely enough, caught immediately by Geumseo’s gesture.

—Got in?

“Yeah.”

—Okay.

And click.

Geumseo stared blankly at the suddenly ended call, and when asked where he was going, he stammered out the address of Go San’s house.

“You live in a nice area.”

The driver glanced at Geumseo through the rearview mirror and murmured. The one living in a nice area wasn’t himself but Go San. Geumseo just let it go and leaned towards the side where the warm heater was blowing.

As if the weather had been threatening to turn foul, snow eventually began to fall. It wasn’t pretty snow—more like torn pieces of paper pouring down. The taxi driver clicked his tongue. He also added that he’d hit the jackpot today.

“You can stop right here.”

Geumseo pointed towards the entrance, then blinked in surprise, his eyes widening. At the tip of his pointing finger, a tall, slender figure stood. Even with the snow falling, under the sleeve of the man wearing a black short-sleeved t-shirt, a long shark tail emerged. He was wearing a hat, but just from the silhouette of his body, it was Go San.

Go San approached the taxi as it crept to a stop near him. He kicked the snow away with the tip of his slippers.

“How much is it?”

Whether it was true that he’d come from training, a faint smell of swimming pool disinfectant and shampoo came from Go San. The taxi driver, who had been curt with Geumseo the whole time, looked at Go San’s body and politely stated the fare. Go San pulled out a fifty-thousand-won bill, said to keep the change, and pulled Geumseo out.

“The change must have been quite a lot.”

“It’s snowing. What’s the big deal, he’s working hard.”

Surprised that Go San even thought that way, Geumseo looked at him several times. Then he pushed Go San’s sleeve all the way up. There was definitely a shark tattoo there.

“I thought it was Unha hyung…”

At the words he’d unconsciously murmured, Go San grabbed Geumseo by the collar and lifted him. Even with just one hand, Geumseo was raised enough to be on his tiptoes. A choking, gagging sound came out involuntarily. The streetlamp was on, but a shadow fell over Go San’s face, who was wearing a hat. His eyes glistened.

“Yang Geumseo.”

“Gak, gack…”

“Before you just say whatever you want and get fucked, should I just fuck you over first?”

Geumseo couldn’t understand at which point Go San had gotten this angry. He knew Go San disliked Unha, but it wasn’t to this extent. It would end after he mocked and badmouthed Go Unha; he had never gotten angry enough to choke him like this…

“Why the fuck do you keep mistaking me?”

“Ku… huk… Go… Go San… ah…”

“Should I crack your skull open…”

As if possessed, Go San murmured and very slowly lowered Geumseo back down. Just when it seemed his breath would ease, because of that persistently slow hand, he couldn’t breathe at all, and so his mind, which had rushed ahead, clashed with his body’s state, whittling Geumseo’s breath away even more sharply.

Geumseo’s lips were wet, tears not enough, even drool spilling. Go San set Geumseo down, straightened out his clothes, and then wiped his tears and lips. The touch was rough. But it didn’t feel as unpleasant as when Heo Sangmuk had touched him. Geumseo’s face scrunched up like a child getting their face washed. As if the person who had grabbed his collar and choked him moments ago were someone else, Go San murmured in a teasing voice.

“Ugly thing.”