Runway Chapter 2

Once I came outside and left the apartment complex, there was a bus stop with its back to the convenience store. Guys who looked about my age were gathered there. I pulled my cap down a little deeper.

If Lee Wookchan happened to be among them, it would just get awkward for no reason.

Having pulled my cap down to hide myself, I stood quietly at the stop and waited for the bus.

Just past 11 o’clock, a green bus came to a stop. It was the last bus. And Mom got off the bus.

“Seonho.”

I stuck close to Mom. Mom, who had tied up her hair that had been permed so long ago it had almost all come undone, stood there looking shabby.

Her clothes were always oversized—a colorless stretched-out t-shirt and wide-legged pants. Her sneakers, which she said didn’t hurt her feet even when worn for a long time, had a strange shape.

Weariness clung to Mom’s shadow. The fatigue was felt even by me. The breath she let out had no strength.

“You’re here?”

I walked with Mom. The weariness stuck to Mom’s shadow was a companion too.

Greetings like did you wait long, did you go to school well, did you listen to your teacher well, wasn’t Mom tired today—such things were omitted between us. There’s not much expectation. We just live.

It was the moment I had just taken a step to enter the apartment complex with Mom. From among the guys gathered in front of the convenience store parasol, my name came out exactly.

Bae Seonho.

After that they whispered among themselves again. I definitely heard my name come out of the group too, but I pretended not to.

Judging by the fact that no one came up to me right away to act like they knew me, Lee Wookchan probably wasn’t there.

Our house was in the most secluded part of the apartment complex. And there was a slope too.

Behind it was a mountain, so there were a lot of bugs in summer. Thankful it’s autumn. Since we could just close the door and sleep, that was at least fortunate.

“Did you do what Mom asked?”

“Yeah. Laundry and cleaning. I bought cup rice too.”

“You’ve grown up, my son.”

I feigned indifference at the embarrassing words. Since I wasn’t originally the talkative type, Mom and I had nothing more to say and reached the front of the house.

We just needed to go in, but a familiar figure was sitting on the bench smoking a cigarette. In the darkness, a presence that couldn’t be hidden and a small ember were felt.

Mom seemed to have noticed that suspicious person too and quietly shifted her gaze. I saw him too. My expression crumpled immediately.

“Annoying….”

“Is that Wookchan?”

When I muttered to myself, Mom threw a question. There wasn’t really anything to ask, though. It was a situation familiar to everyone.

I replied flatly.

“Yes.”

“Did you fight?”

“…It’s not that we fought.”

Whether Lee Wookchan smokes or not, to Mom we’re still kids. No different from when we first met at age eight.

No different from when Lee Wookchan shot me with BB pellets from a stolen BB gun and when I, overcome with anger, cried, he’d pull grimy coins from his pocket and buy me ice cream.

I stood blankly still in front of the apartment building. It’s a pitch-black night. If he’s out here puffing cigarettes, no matter that these are the apartment residents, they’d look at him strangely.

Nothing to be done. When I stopped walking, Mom stopped too.

“Mom.”

“Yeah, go see Wookchan.”

“Let’s go together to the house first.”

The first-floor entrance anyone can enter, woo-woong, the old elevator that makes loud screeching and creaking noises, the hallway, the meaningless automatic sensor lights that don’t let in any light no matter how much you move.

Mom and I strolled through there. And when we stopped in front of the house closest to the stairs, I shifted my gaze over the hallway railing. Lee Wookchan was still burning through a cigarette.

Click, I pressed the password and turned the door handle. Mom went in first. I stood at the door.

“Go and come back.”

Mom said. She was exhausted and looked tired. There was a defensive attitude in her, as if she didn’t want to touch even her son’s relationships.

I nodded without a word. Then I closed the door for Mom.

Instead of taking the elevator, I stepped onto the stairs. No matter how much I walk, there’s only darkness.

It’s the second floor anyway. When Mom, whose knees hurt, was with me I took the elevator, but when I was alone the stairs were more comfortable.

Having come back down to the first floor, I headed to the bench where Lee Wookchan was sitting. A short cigarette hung between his fingers, and at his feet three cigarettes of the same kind were each crushed.

“…”

“…”

We wordlessly revealed only each other’s existence.

Lee Wookchan flicked the cigarette he was smoking with his fingers. The ember hanging at the end plummeted to the floor.

He stomped on the cigarette butt he had thrown down. Suddenly I thought that the cigarette butt crushed and torn under his shoe sole was like me.

“Why did you come?”

I didn’t stand on ceremony. I asked with a flat face. We didn’t fight, we definitely didn’t fight, but without realizing it I end up sulking. And Lee Wookchan replies with a face more composed than mine.

“To make up.”

“…”

“Sorry for calling you a coward, a loser bastard, and telling you to cut your dick off.”

Lee Wookchan sometimes makes people feel shabby. He also makes them childish and ridiculous. It’s annoying.

Lee Wookchan and I made a pointless reconciliation. We sat on the bench.

Lee Wookchan put another cigarette in his mouth. The marshmallow experiment came to mind. The experiment where you leave a marshmallow with a child and that child’s life is evaluated based on whether they eat the snack right away or not.

Lee Wookchan probably would have picked up the marshmallow in front of him and eaten it before the observer even left.

Chew chew, and then he’d clearly have said, fucking delicious. He had no patience. And no reason to have any.

Lee Wookchan smoked beside me. It was familiar.

In between, he’d hold out a cigarette with teeth marks on it and ask, want to smoke? Some days I smoked, some days I refused.

Today I put the filter with teeth marks in my mouth. Huup, I inhaled the smoke. I couldn’t swallow the cigarette smoke that hit my throat. I spat it out as it was.

I exhaled the terribly strong cigarette smoke. Cough, cough…! When I coughed, Lee Wookchan laughed again.

Anyway, a pervert bastard, he’s great at pissing people off.

I moistened the inside of my dry mouth with my tongue. Holding my throat, I asked.

“Did you come after drinking at the convenience store?”

The guys huddled under the convenience store parasol bothered me.

Lee Wookchan gives me a sidelong glance.

“No, I told them I was coming here. Why.”

Then the guys who had been there were probably there to pick up Lee Wookchan and had gathered among themselves in advance. What the hell is he. I swallowed the thought inwardly.

“There were kids there.”

“Were they drinking among themselves?”

Whether they drank or not. I don’t remember well. I slowly shook my head.

“I don’t know…. I just saw that they were there.”

“Who was there.”

I had my cap pulled down so I couldn’t see anything in front of me, and I didn’t want to get tangled up with them so I didn’t even look.

So I couldn’t know who was at that table. Lee Wookchan persistently asked.

“Who was there. There must have been guys whose names you know.”

“I said I don’t know. I didn’t see properly.”

When I replied in an irritated voice, Lee Wookchan threw the cigarette he was smoking far away. Whoosh.

Then he grabbed the nape of my neck and shook it.

“This bastard doesn’t know anything.”

He spoke in a desolate tone, but there was playfulness in his voice.

Just then, Lee Wookchan’s phone rang shrilly. Because he hates loud ringtones, he always set it to vibrate.

So he often got scolded by other guys for not answering calls, but honestly I don’t get it. He answered my calls well.

Jiiiiing. Jiiiiing.

Seeing the phone shaking its body without rest, the caller was probably the guys looking for him. If not that, then Mina noona or something.

I raised my body.

“Why.”

Lee Wookchan grabbed my wrist while answering the phone. I was held by him in an awkward position, and eventually gave up and sat back down beside him. A high-pitched voice came through the phone.

Probably Mina noona. Lee Wookchan was living in the studio apartment of Mina noona, who is two years older than us.