Runway Chapter 17

I thought of Lee Wookchan’s two weeks without me. He goes to school, where everything is solved just by checking attendance.

There, he has pointless conversations with the hyungs, noonas, and friends he meets, and with mister-aged men and ajummas.

He smokes, and he drinks. In studio apartments with ambiguous owners, or in cheap motel rooms, he drinks and does strange dog-like shit.

He goes to Mina noona’s place. He acts as Mina noona’s kept man.

Mina noona goes to work. He comes out again and repeats the exact same things as me.

Very occasionally, he goes home and sees the stifling state of his household. And he curses again.

Hyung doesn’t even pretend to know him, and only with noona does he exchange curses mixed with worry and affection, anxiety and deficiency. He puts his hands in his pockets and comes out again.

He, not knowing where to go, wanders. Like a paper airplane thrown out carelessly. There’s no destination.

“You said you weren’t coming.”

No matter how much I rolled my head, it was no use in front of a simple human like Lee Wookchan. So what I decided in the end was to act indifferent.

Bluntly, as if I had no interest.

I was busy with my own affairs, so I lived having forgotten about someone like you. There was no emotional exhaustion either, and I just spent ordinary days. I wanted to show that to Lee Wookchan.

Lee Wookchan, who had approached with his hands in his pockets, tilted his head and looked down at me. He looked irritated.

I hope he’s not angry. I steadied my mind.

“Usually you leave early, why are you so late today.”

Lee Wookchan, who I thought would grab my head or pick a fight by touching the buttons of my school shirt, spoke quite ordinarily.

He was swallowing his anger. Since we had met after a long time, it seemed he didn’t want to set a desolate mood.

After calming my breath, I gave him the answer he wanted.

“I do night self-study now.”

“Night self-study?”

Lee Wookchan took out a cigarette pack from his pocket and tapped it with the opposite palm. I answered his repeated question as he took out a cigarette.

Yeah, he might not know.

“It’s called night self-study, until night….”

“You think I don’t know that? If you’re going to ignore me, do it in moderation.”

Lee Wookchan lowered his voice and pressed down with intimidation. As if he no longer intended to smoke, he put the cigarette he had taken out back in.

I replied, Yeah, and continued.

“Until 10 at night.”

“Dinner.”

“Sometimes I eat, sometimes I don’t.”

As we talked like this, things returned to how they were. Two weeks ago, Lee Wookchan and I, who had fought over something trivial again, returned to our daily lives.

It’s regrettable. It always was. We are, on an old wall, a sticker of gum that no one knows who stuck there.

At some point we stuck together, and whether a storm hits and pounds the wall, or someone pisses on it and soaks it, we just keep our place.

“Want money for food?”

Lee Wookchan took out a wallet instead of a cigarette pack. The old, thin wallet’s thickness was considerable.

A thick wallet was soon a bad sign. When I let out a sigh, he looked at me.

I couldn’t ask where the money came from. The hyungs and noonas who always needed Lee Wookchan’s strength would have given it to him as part-time pay. I bit my lip.

“I don’t need it.”

When I replied, Lee Wookchan cursed for no reason. He seemed to know too. He said nothing. So did I. After quite some time, Lee Wookchan asked me.

“Bae Seonho.”

“Yeah.”

“Want to go to a karaoke room?”

Lee Wookchan can’t sing. He just yells out croaking sounds while thinking he sings well. What need was there to hear a pig being slaughtered at this late hour?

“I’m tired. I want to sleep.”

Naturally, I refused. I thought it would end with one refusal, but Lee Wookchan didn’t know how to give up.

“The PC bang in front.”

“Play games yourself. I don’t play games.”

“Go in and eat some ramen. You’re all skin and bones.”

Lee Wookchan grabbed my forearm and shook it. With his sturdy strength, my shabby body shook like a paper doll.

Even if I tried to shake my arm free, it was no use. Before I knew it, I was being led by Lee Wookchan’s hand. In the end, I lost.

“Send me home before twelve.”

“Okay.”

Because I know this is that damned ruffian bastard’s apology.

∞ ∞ ∞

Lee Wookchan played games. I sat next to him, eating ramen and fried rice, and did my performance assessment homework.

Whether in a house reeking of dust, or in a PC bang where cigarette smell crept out from the smoking booth, the result was the same.

Lee Wookchan, wearing a headset, spat out double curses, and when he got tired of the game, he played Minesweeper. When he, who wasn’t smart, pressed the button, mines exploded one after another.

Exactly when the twentieth mine was triggered, he threw down the mouse.

“Fucking boring.”

Lee Wookchan indirectly sent his gaze toward me. I replied without even looking at Lee Wookchan.

“Play dress-up.”

“Want me to cut off your dick?”

Lee Wookchan let out a hollow laugh and shot back. I saved the Hangul file and emailed it to myself.

A hand suddenly came over toward me. I flinched.

“If you’re not going to eat it, give it here.”

The fried rice, less than half eaten, and the ramen with only broth left, were eaten by Lee Wookchan.

He has a strong stomach. After hurriedly finishing the food, he let out a belch, grabbed three cigarettes, and stood up from his seat.

“Let’s go after I smoke one more.”

“Do whatever you want.”

As soon as the answer fell, he leisurely disappeared.

In the place where Lee Wookchan had disappeared, four bowls, cleaned empty including the pickled radish and kimchi, and the phone he hadn’t taken with him remained.

I pretended not to care and put my gaze on his phone. Though he had many places contacting him, I’d never seen him properly take care of his phone.

Even when we went to karaoke rooms, he left it behind several times, and it wasn’t once or twice that I went back for it in his place.

One second.

Two seconds.

About three seconds passed. The phone glittered and held light.

「Where are you, you bastard」

「A bastard like you is better off dead, you fucking bastard」

「Just die, kill yourself, die」

The person who sent the messages was Hyeonji noona. Lee Wookchan’s noona.

I froze at the murderous curses. After the three messages, no more came.

Did something happen. Actually, it was a relationship where curses frequently went back and forth, but….

The phone… I should take it to him.

“Fucking annoying bastard….”

Muttering to myself, I picked up the phone. Just as I was about to rise from my seat, Lee Wookchan came out from the smoking booth, reeking of having inhaled all the cigarette smoke.

The three cigarettes he had taken with him had long since disappeared.

Lee Wookchan smoked often, but he wasn’t the type to smoke a lot at once.

I’m not the type to care whether Lee Wookchan smokes or not. Sometimes I also smoked the cigarettes he passed to me.

Dad, who no longer lives with us, smoked too, and Mom tried to hide it but sometimes brought the smell in with her. Cigarettes were that familiar in my life.

But from Lee Wookchan came a harsh cigarette smell so strong that even I, used to it, frowned and found it hard to bear. Only then did I get a strange foreboding.

“Phone.”

Lee Wookchan reached out his hand. I obediently handed him the phone.

Lee Wookchan turned on the power button and hardened his expression. Soon he returned to his original face, though.

He turned his body.

“Let’s go, Bae Seonho.”

We walked the night streets. The autumn wind was our only companion.

As it was late at night, cars and people were not easily seen.

While walking the road, I couldn’t ask Lee Wookchan what had happened. Even as we walked a road so deserted that passing cars were hardly visible.

This road has only us. There was no one to overhear my conversation with him. Even less anyone to sympathize, feel sorry, or look at us pitifully.

Lee Wookchan walked me to the front of my house.

It was something unfitting of Lee Wookchan’s personality, but as someone who had watched him for a long time, I was used to it.

Lee Wookchan always walked me all the way home without fail.

Even though I wasn’t especially short, and even though I had an appearance that anyone could see wasn’t easy to pick a fight with.

Lee Wookchan pouted his lower lip. Then he took out his wallet again.

“Put it away.”

When I said that, Lee Wookchan spat out curses right away, saying, “You little….” Then he immediately continued.

“Bae Seonho, don’t get cocky. You’re the kind of bastard who’d whine after getting hit a few times, but with your mouth it’s fuck, every day….”