My tears suddenly choked to an embarrassed halt when I heard footsteps stop, turn, and walk into the alley. I cast a small, scared glance upwards. Immediately I whipped my face back down. It was Park Bonghwan. He was from the Seven Directions gang, one of the gangs my father owed money to. Mr Park was the one tasked with keeping tabs on my father. He often visited, and though he was polite enough to my mother when my father wasn’t home, he was terrifyingly wrathful when he was.
I cowered down into a ball, hoping he hadn’t recognised me in my quick upward glance. It was for naught. “Oi, Baek Jaehyun-ya, don’t be a disrespectful brat. Aren’t you going to greet me?”
I scrambled to wipe the tears off my face and bow. I greeted him as formally as I could, but hated how my voice still trembled as I did so. I continued to plant my gaze at the ground before his loafers.
He hummed. “I thought you were a tough kid. I’ve never seen you cry and everyone in the neighbourhood knows you cover your scumbag father’s ass. How old are you now? Fifteen?” He sucked a long drag off his cigarette. I didn’t know what he wanted, so I stayed quiet. “Damn. What are you crying for now?”
He tapped me on the forehead impatiently, so I reluctantly looked up. Mr Park had a surprisingly sympathetic expression as he examined my face, discoloured by tears, soot, and bruises. “Your dad giving you a hard time?”
I looked away. The answer was obvious.
He heaved a great, cigarette scented sigh. “Truth be told, he’s been giving us a hard time too. Men like your dad, they’re bad for business. they keep accumulating interest and never even pay off the principal. And still have the audacity to keep asking to borrow. It’s ridiculous.”
My gaze returned to his feet and I could feel my heart nervously pounding. Somehow I felt as though I was standing on the edge of a cliff, moments from leaping off. “Mister…” I started. His gaze snapped to me sharply and I almost lost my nerve. I dropped into a low bow. “Mister Park… please let me work for you.”
My request seemed to stun him, as he was quiet for a few moments. I held the bow and didn’t know what expression he was making. “Alright alright, that’s enough!” He gripped my shoulder and pulled me upright again. Now I could see his face, and he seemed upset. “You’re still a kid,” he hissed. “It’s way too early for you to get involved in my line of work.”
I hadn’t really wanted to join a gang, but somehow the answer still disappointed me. “Go home for now,” he urged. “Don’t let me catch you asking that to any other gangsters, you hear?”
I was relieved to be excused but had no desire to go home. I bid him farewell politely and scrambled off, as directionless as I had started.
Eventually my stomach began to protest with hunger. Our family didn’t eat breakfast, and I had been out all day trying to win a score. The sun had long dipped below and left the day in darkness, and I had been wandering on my feet longer than it had been up. I ducked into a convenience store and stood wistfully in front of the refrigerator full of heat able, ready to eat meals. They were relatively affordable, even for a slum dog like me, but at the moment I didn’t have any money.
“Excuse me,” a man said as he brushed past me. I dipped my head politely as he passed and he smiled. He wasn’t yet aware that he had just paid for my meal.
Before he could finish browsing, I snapped up a samgak (the cheapest option) and headed to the counter. “Fourteen hundred won, please.”
Luckily the man did have cash in his wallet. Most people used AirPay or cards now. I paid quickly, then hurried away. My benefactor was heading towards the counter too now. I pretended to stumble over something as I left. The man was now nervously patting himself down, searching for his missing wallet. “Ahjussi, is this yours?” I pointed at the wallet I had dropped.
“Yes, yes it is,” he said in a relief as he scooped it up. “Thank you, young man.” He smiled at me again.
It should have been me thanking him. I made off with my ill gotten samgak and headed to a nearby park to eat it. As I sat alone on the park bench, I wondered why I had given the wallet back. In the wallet there had been a picture of the man smiling broadly with two young boys at an amusement park. One was a little older than the other. They seemed happy.
I chewed slowly to make every bite last longer. My mind filled with idle thoughts as I did so. What would my life have been like if I had had a father like that? One who took his kids to amusement parks and loved them enough to carry around a picture of them with him at all times. The mother hadn’t been in the picture but then again she was probably the one taking it.
Despite my efforts at prolonging my meal, the samgak steadily disappeared. My stomach felt a little less hollow than before. Still at a loss with what to do with myself, I climbed the playground castle. At the top level I sat there, wondering I could ever mend my relationship with my brother with my father looming over my shoulder. I doubted it. He had the right idea in getting out and going to university. That route was no longer open to me. My lack of attendance meant my grades were well below standard, and it wasn’t likely that I’d be able to test into a good university, let alone win a scholarship like my brother had. My family certainly didn’t have the money to send me to university without one.
Inexplicably, I felt angry that my brother had taken such an easy way out. He really had turned his back on his family the moment he could. My father deserved it, I couldn’t blame him there. Maybe my mother did too, for allowing things to get this bad. But I certainly didn’t deserve to have been left behind. With them.
I stared into the slide’s yawning yellow maw. I remembered coming here when I was younger, when things weren’t as bad. I had been afraid to go down the slide. “Don’t be afraid,” Taejun had said. “I’ll catch you at the end.”
Kids behind me were getting impatient so I swallowed my fear and sent myself hurtling through the yellow vortex. The speed and dip took my breath away, but as I shot out the end of it, Taejun caught me, just as he had promised. He set me down on my feet and brushed me off. “Told you! I’ve got you, Jae. Hyung will always be there for you.” He smiled and I believed him then.
For some reason I felt compelled to go into the slide, childish as it was. The speed and dip weren’t as extreme as I had remembered, and I coasted to a smooth stop at the end, catching myself with my own feet. I laid back into the slide. I slept there like that that night, with my feet hanging out awkwardly at the end. I couldn’t care less.
The next morning, despite the stiffness in my body I got for sleeping in a slide, I still couldn’t find it in me to return home. For all I knew, my running away had worsened the calamity back home. So I was caught in an ever worsening dilemma: the longer I stayed out, the angrier my father would be, but going home meant facing that wrath. So I kept putting it off.
I had picked a good time to be a runaway. It was late spring, and the days and nights were mild. Despite my lack of resources, the nights were warm enough to endure without cover. Last night sleeping under the stars was actually a pleasant experience compared to the anxious, light sleep my mother and I suffered at home, never knowing when my father would appear in the middle of the night, wasted or angry.
My boldness at asking Mr. Park for a job yesterday gave me a sort of direction. I was fifteen now, and it was possible for me to find a job. I washed my face and arms as best as I could in a public bathroom to try to make myself as presentable as possible and set off on the search for work.
I tried first at the convenience store where I had robbed a man of a samgak last night. I asked the girl at the counter if they were hiring.
“Not here specifically,” she replied. “At least I don’t think so.” I thanked her and started to leave. “Wait,” she called out, “7’s always hiring at some location or the other. Just send in your application and resume to their website.”
I thanked her again but again felt a wave of apprehension crash over me. I had no job experience, and no idea of how to make a resume, or even what one looked like. Growing up with minimal exposure to internet, it didn’t even occur to me that I could search up how to make a resume then.
Unfortunately it seemed that every chain store seemed to require a resume. I tried looking at restaurants instead. My mother worked in one, and I thought I’d be able to find a job at one if she could. But at every restaurant I tried, the managers cast a critical eye over my bedraggled appearance and said they weren’t hiring. The more polite ones asked me to come back with a resume, but the look in their eyes told me that even if I did, they would probably throw it into the garbage the moment I left.
After a day of job-searching, I found myself back at the playground, thoroughly discouraged. I was able to quench my thirst at the water fountains but the pain of my empty stomach was even more insistent tonight. The samgak from yesterday had barely sated me yesterday, and today I had not eaten either.
I eyed the convenience store across the street but for some reason I couldn’t bear the thought of stealing again to get food tonight. It’s fine, I thought to myself. I won’t die just from not eating one day. Tomorrow I would try other places. And even if nothing came out of it… the idea of searching for scraps of food from bins wasn’t appealing, but I’d done it before. Tomorrow the bakery would clean out its unsold stock, and I could probably get a pretty good meal then.
To distract myself, I started making a mental list of the places I’d try to find work at tomorrow. It worked, so well that I didn’t notice when someone walked up next to me.
A soft clearing of the throat interrupted my thoughts. I flinched and turned to look at the source of the sound. I flushed red to see that it was the man from yesterday. Had he noticed the missing money and come to reckon with me?
“Hi,” he said, politely and gently, as though he was trying not to frighten me off. I instinctively tucked my knees to my chest so I could protect myself if he decided to strike. He was too close to run away from. He could snare me by my shirt or by my arm before I could take flight.
He bent and I flinched away. But he wasn’t bending towards me. He set down a dosirak, warm and freshly heated from the convenience store microwave. I flickered my eyes over to it covetously.
“It’s for you,” he said. “I’m sorry that you have to steal to eat. Tonight, please take this instead.”
I flushed. So he had noticed the missing won from his wallet.
“I’m not mad,” he said, gently. “Thank you for only taking what you needed and giving it back in the end.” He started to leave but stopped. “I don’t know what your situation is, but I hope things get better for you soon.” He walked away.
As the distance increased I realised he really had bought and left the dosirak for me. Before he got too far I suddenly remembered my manners. I jumped to my feet and called out after him. “Ahjussi!” He stopped and looked back.
“Thank you!” I shouted as I dropped into a low bow. He smiled and waved at me and continued on his way.
I eagerly cracked open the container. The fragrant smell of meat, rice, and kimchi wafted up into my face. Strangely enough, as I put the first piece into my mouth I started to cry again. I didn’t know why. Perhaps I felt overwhelmed at the generosity and forgiveness of the total stranger. I thought of the two boys in his wallet. They were lucky to have such a man as their father.
With an entire dosirak for me to consume, I ate much quicker and greedier than my conservative nibbles at the samgak yesterday. As I scraped the last grains of rice off the container, I felt satisfied and full… stuffed, even. So much food made me feel wonderfully comfortable and warm. The feeling was intoxicating, and I felt sleepy and heavy. In my mind, I thanked the man again. I wished him a long and happy life.
I climbed into my slide again and curled up. It was an unexpectedly pleasant end to my first day away from home, and it felt as though the universe was telling me that I was on the right path after all. With optimistic thoughts filling my head I drifted off to sleep.
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