Chapter Text
Quiet.
That was how it had been ever since Eden.
The kind of silence that as you listened, the more deafening it became.
It was quiet under the blanket of sirens as he watched a ghost slip away into the shadows.
It was quiet when Jieun came to see him for the last time in the hospital after she herself was discharged. She left a basket of fruit at his bedside and shut the door softly behind her. Her departure cold and empty. Just as their relationship had been.
The static silence clung to him as he drifted from the hospital and boarded the earliest bus to Busan.
It was quiet when he arrived home at the break of dawn, his mother already left for the market, and his brother still fast asleep.
Jongwoo hated it.
Where his skull had once been filled with screams and malicious whispers, it now felt as though someone had lovingly ripped it apart, seam by seam, stuffed full of cotton. Preserving him in time, forever stuck.
Someone’s forgotten taxidermy.
My greatest masterpiece.
His brother woke once it was nearing noon.
Jongwoo felt his shadow fall over him as he stood in his bedroom doorway to watch as he unpacked his bag. It wasn’t a long task. After the police concluded their investigation, Officer Soh had returned whatever belongings Jongwoo had left at the goshiwon. There were suspiciously less than what he had remembered bringing with him to Seoul. All that remained had been his laptop, two sleeping shirts, and his copy of The Metamorphosis. He did not want to think about where the rest of his stuff had gone.
Jongwoo stood up to place his book on his shelf. He didn’t make any acknowledgement that his brother was watching him, and his brother did not make an effort to grab his attention.
Eventually, Jongwoo felt him walk away into the kitchen and then to the sitting room, making himself comfortable on the couch.
Jongwoo walked over to shut his bedroom door, sparing a quick glance at his brother eating his breakfast.
He looked just about the same as he did four weeks ago. He was eating that sugary cereal that their mother always scolded him for, the one she said was dangerous for his diet. Jongwoo never understood why she kept buying it for him if she really didn’t want him eating it.
He shut his door and twisted the lock for extra measure before returning to his bag on the floor. Flipping it onto its side, he unzipped the side pocket, carefully removing its contents, stuffing it away in his junk drawer, away from sight.
Jongwoo stood and looked around his room. The last of the morning snuck its way through the gap in his curtain, flecks of dust suspended in the sun beams. The light glinted across his laptop. He sighed.
He supposed he should work on his novel.
His mother came home a little after sunset. There were bags of groceries around her feet and Jongwoo’s shoes in her hand. She was in the middle of questioning his brother about the extra pair at the door when he exited his room.
Her eyes widened at the sight of him.
“Jongwoo-yah.” His shoes dropped behind her as she rushed to envelop him in a hug.
Jongwoo froze at the uncharacteristic gesture. He couldn’t remember the last time she had held him like this. Had it been when he came home from the military?
Hesitantly, he raised his arms and wrapped them around her frail frame. Two weeks ago, he would have broken down in her arms had she embraced him like this. Right now, he did not feel anything at all.
“You should have called and told me you were coming!” she scolded, pulling away. “When did you arrive?”
“Only a bit before yourself.”
She searched his face skeptically, trying to pinpoint the lie. Like usual she couldn’t find it, so she let it go. Bending down to pick up the groceries, she brushed Jongwoo off as he reached to help and hurried past him to dump them in the kitchen.
“You should have told me. I would have made sure to cook your favourite dinner.” She said over her shoulder in his direction as she went to rinse her hands.
“If I had known I would have brought enough groceries for three.” The comment was made to herself, not meant for Jongwoo to catch. He ignored it.
Normally, her words would have stung. Instead, they hit bluntly at his chest, falling at his feet.
“Jongseok-yah. Go and freshen up, okay?” she called over to his brother, who was sitting on the couch engrossed in whatever video game he had on his phone.
As she washed the vegetables, Jongwoo’s eyes roamed their small kitchen. It looked more or less the same. He ran his fingers down the old, but still clean, off-white tiles lining the walls, no grime or chewed wads of gum stuck to the surface.
His gaze fell onto the family pictures his mother had put up on the cabinet. They had been taken before he left for his military service. The three of them were at some port, lines of fishing boats behind them. A smiling Jongwoo standing proudly in his uniform stared back at him, with a naïve glint of opportunity in his eyes. He remembered his excitement to leave his small town behind, unsuspecting of what horrors lay waiting.
“I was worried about you.” His mother said in a hushed voice, pulling Jongwoo from his thoughts. “The last few times we spoke, it seemed like something was bothering you. You didn’t sound like yourself.”
Who did he sound like then?
“I lost my job,” he said. His mother paused and looked over her shoulder in concern.
“My senior, the one who got me the job, passed away. His office was shut down.”
Her face twisted into shock. Whether at the news or the nonchalant way Jongwoo shared the passing of someone who she presumed had been his friend, he was unsure.
“My poor boy,” she said in that voice, the same one she used with him when he was in grade school. “That must have been awful.”
She turned the water off, moving her dinner preparations to the table where Jongwoo stood, trying to catch his gaze. “Are you alright?”
Jongwoo’s throat bobbed, humming in response, averting his eyes as she began to chop the meat for dinner, the fingers of her plastic gloves staining red. He picked at the cracks in the faux leather of the chairs at the table, not wanting to continue the discussion further.
His mother sighed, dejected. Jongwoo was shutting her out again, she knew that. However, given the weight of what he just shared with her, Jongwoo knew she would not push further.
“Well, I’m just glad you are here with us. Safe and in one piece.”
The following morning found Jongwoo going into town in search of a new job. At dinner, he had brought up the idea to his mother of helping her at the market.
“You know I wouldn’t be able to pay you,” she said apologetically. “Our house earnings would just be the same. If you really want to work again so soon, it would be better to find it elsewhere.” She finally advised, after Jongwoo had dismissed her requests for him to stay home a few days to rest. Given all that he’d just been through, she couldn't understand why he needed to find another job so quickly.
Jongwoo didn’t know how to tell her that if he were to sit still a moment longer, he’d surely lose hold of the last fractured fragment of sanity he had. A singular grain that longed to be swept up into the wind, that so far, he’d managed to keep from slipping through his fingers.
He needed to do something. He needed to feel something. Anything. Anything that could liberate him from the oppressive weight that had settled deep within his chest, threatening to hold him in place as the world went on without him.
That’s how he ended up in the first nameless fried chicken restaurant he happened across at 9 o’clock in the morning. The woman behind the counter asked him a few questions, then handed him an eyesore of a helmet and keys to a scooter and sent him on his merry way. The restaurant’s newest delivery boy.
He knew he looked a loser driving around town on the scooter, delivering orders of fried chicken. Jongwoo was beyond the point of caring. As he saw it, it was a job. One where he would have minimal contact with people and was barely required to speak. The pay was about the same as he had been making in Seoul anyways.
And so that was how he filled his days. He would wake before the sun touched the horizon, then make breakfast. His mother would scold him for not getting enough rest but still graciously eat whatever Jongwoo set out for her. And when she started to sleep in a half hour longer than she used to, Jongwoo did not mention it.
After his mother went off to work, Jongwoo would try to write his novel before it was time for himself to head out. He’d spend the rest of his day delivering orders across town.
After nightfall, he’d bring home the tips he earned and place them in his mother’s hand, despite her half-hearted objections. The three of them would eat dinner together, and after washing up they’d each return to their respective bedrooms.
Then dawn would break the sky’s darkness, and the day would repeat.
Before he knew it, Jongwoo found himself stuck once again. This time caught in a perpetual loop, leaving him to wonder whether he was truly living at all.
The clocks on the walls continued round, while he remained unmoving. Minutes, hours, days, weeks; they all blurred. Months of mindless repetition trapped him in a haze that left his head and limbs feeling heavy, making it difficult for him to keep going.
In the dark of his bedroom as he lay awake into the depths of the night, his eyes tracing the same images he had found in his water-stained ceiling when he was a child, Jongwoo questioned whether this was the life he was destined for after all. Exhumed from one coffin only to be discarded into another.
The months bled away into autumn. Death and decomposition skittered around yet refused to take him along.
Jongwoo dismounted his scooter outside an apartment complex in the shadier part of town. Dusk came to envelop the sky once more, the sun hanging low, supposedly signaling the end of another day. He removed the last order from his basket and looked up at the foreboding building.
Dried leaves scuttled at his feet as he made his way up the cigarette littered path. The foundation looked to be crumbling underneath the weathered concrete tower and all its residents. He took a deep breath and held it then let it go with a disappointed sigh. The loiter of tobacco must have been swept into the brisk of the evening.
Jongwoo dragged his way to the entrance. There was a gross sense of nostalgia as the lobby door creaked and swung shut behind him.
He swallowed against the lump in his throat. It was almost like coming home.
There was an elevator, but Jongwoo took the stairs, not trusting the groaning metal cage with his luck.
Jongwoo found the door with the corresponding number written on the order receipt. Eyebrows furrowed in disdain; he blew a pocket of air through pursed lips as he stood outside room 313.
The door swung open at Jongwoo’s knock. The guy stood in nothing more but his undershirt and boxers, the smell wafting from the inside of his room forcing Jongwoo to hold his breakfast down beneath a gag.
With a barely regained composure, he provided the man his total and stretched the greasy bag forward. The man snatched his food from Jongwoo’s hand without paying. His swollen hands raced to slam the door.
Jongwoo caught it at the last moment.
“Yah, what do you think you’re doing,” the man spat.
Jongwoo took a steadying breath. “You need to pay for that.”
The man scoffed. “Forget it. You show up here late and expect me to pay? What type of customer service is this?”
He tried to pull the door shut again, but it did not budge against Jongwoo’s hold.
“Hey, you bastard. Do you want to die? Let go.” The man struggled to pry Jongwoo’s fingers off the door.
“I’ll let go when you pay for your food, you fucking cheapskate.”
The man’s already swollen face turned ten shades darker, gawping like a fish at Jongwoo’s sudden vulgarity.
“What the fuck did you just call me?” he roared, moving forward as if he were going to attack. Then, a woman appeared from behind, wrapping her manicured nails around the man’s shoulder.
“Babe, just give the man his money. He was only a minute late,” she cooed into his ear. Jongwoo averted his eyes from their whispered argument.
Finally, the man begrudgingly agreed, making a show of counting the few bills his girlfriend handed him. The man ducked to catch Jongwoo’s eyes, a sneer wide on his ugly face. Jongwoo stared back with unconcealed irritation.
Not without spitting on the bills, the man threw the money at his face, spitefully pulling the door shut with a slam.
Jongwoo blinked at the door.
Hands clenched, trembling, he tried to control that ugly familiar sensation that simmered hot in the pit of his stomach. The one that almost convinced him to force his way back into the man’s room and add his face to one of the many stains that coated his dirty rug.
Jongwoo seethed, picking his money off the floor. As expected, the idiot had not tipped. Feeling pathetic, he stuffed the money in his pocket and turned to leave —
And immediately froze in his tracks.
A man clad in a pristine white button down and black slacks stood opposite him in the middle of the hallway, blocking Jongwoo’s path.
Eyes void of life locked with his own. His unmoving gaze rooted Jongwoo to his spot.
The ghost smiled. A soft upturn of the lips that Jongwoo now recognized as nothing but sinister.
His blood ran cold. Frigid. Paralyzing.
As suddenly as he appeared, the man turned, starting down the hallway.
“Hey.” Jongwoo called after him, voice betraying panic. The man in question made no move to indicate he heard him.
“Hey, wait –”
But the air between must have turned a vacuum, Jongwoo’s voice seemingly to have not carried through the space.
The ghost slinked away into the elevator. Jongwoo ran after, his heart hammering as he lost sight of him. Adrenaline wasted to his sluggish movements. The metal doors shut before Jongwoo could catch them.
Without a moment to lose, Jongwoo threw open the door to the stairwell, his legs carrying him down three steps at a time. Panic clawed up his throat. Not fast enough.
He reached the lobby, beating the elevator. But when the doors slid open with a ding, only a group of schoolgirls walked out.
Jongwoo dashed towards the exit of the building like a madman. Throwing the flimsy door open, almost breaking it off its hinges. Outside, Jongwoo fervently looked around to no avail.
The ghost had vanished into the night.
His name was Seo Moonjo.
At least that was the name brandished underneath his smiling photograph on the news report Jongwoo watched with bleary eyes while in the hospital. Among the faces of the other residents splashed across his laptop screen, Room 304 stood out of place, the ever-present impression of an upstanding dentist had the report not been for serial murder among other atrocities.
The newscasters expressed the same shock, surprised at his ordinary appearance. Blinded by that smile that did not quite reach his eyes. Too practised. Unnaturally perfect.
Seo Moonjo was dead.
Jongwoo knew he was dead. He had felt the warmth of his blood on his own hands. He felt the tremor of the man choked last breath against his own flesh. His gaze had not dared waver from Jongwoo’s own as the light faded from his eyes.
He was dead.
He repeated it to himself like a mantra.
In all the old stories, come morning everything is supposed to be alright; everyone should be safe now. All should go back to normal.
The monsters disappear into the darkness, that’s the rules.
That’s how the story ends.
“What really happened that day at the goshiwon?” Officer Soh had asked him. He couldn’t give her an answer. Only one thing was certain.
He was dead. They all were.
Jongwoo left Seoul, running from the monsters that crawled their way into his periphery, sinking their nails into the corners of his eyes begging for his acknowledgement while he lay rotting in the hospital.
He never looked their way.
The story was all wrong. Somebody was missing.
Jongwoo had grown to think of Moonjo as his shadow. A dark presence that always lingered close behind him, following him. Like they were one being. Wherever he turned, he’d be there.
“You and I will be together forever.”
He hadn’t believed him.
A final spew of nonsense before Jongwoo stabbed the man’s jugular.
Seo Moonjo was dead.
So, what had he been doing in a random apartment building on the outskirts of Busan?
The question kept Jongwoo awake all night.
He must have been mistaken. Not a single glimpse of the man had plagued Jongwoo since that night. Not in his nightmares, nor days.
In his anger, he likely imagined it. The building had brought back unpleasant memories. That was all.
He had half convinced himself until the man appeared once again. And again. And again.
Underneath a flickering streetlight on the crosswalk ahead of him on Jongwoo’s way to work. Sitting outside a café as he drove by on his scooter on route for deliveries. Between aisles of the convenience store he would stop by on his way home.
A car would pass, or Jongwoo would blink, and the man would vanish.
To his dismay, Jongwoo found he was always searching, waiting, for the man’s next appearance.
One night at dinner, the man was standing outside his kitchen window. Face void of expression as he stared at Jongwoo through the glass. He leapt from his chair, knocking it on its side.
Deaf to his mother’s shouts, he pointed at the window. He needed someone else to see him. He needed to know.
His mother and brother looked at him in concern.
“Jongwoo-yah. Are you alright?”
They saw nothing.
His body sagged, in relief or disappointment he was not sure.
With a mumbled apology, he blamed his outburst on the few nonexistent drinks he had after work and excused himself to his bedroom. The guilt of having left the clean up to his mother lingered for only a moment.
Jongwoo sat on his worn-out mattress, alone with the darkness. Goosebumps raised on his skin, slithering up his arms and under his shirt. Nobody crept through his open window aside from a chilling breeze.
His name was Seo Moonjo. And Jongwoo had killed him.
He was dead.
Jongwoo parked his scooter, chaining it to his designated spot in front of the restaurant. A dull but pinching ache started up his back, his head pounding, having gone overtime tonight while making deliveries at further distances than he was contracted. He had contemplated arguing with his manager but decided against it in the end. The money was the same. There was no real desire to rush home either way.
As he slumped his way to the door, a group of guys around Jongwoo’s age walked out of the restaurant, obviously drunk by the way they were knocking into each other and laughing. Jongwoo rolled his eyes. It was a Wednesday night.
He sidestepped them to make his way inside, ready to clock out.
“Yoon Jongwoo?” a slurred voice called out. “Hey, is that you?”
He turned at the sound of his name. It was one of the guys from the group. Jongwoo squinted in his direction. His face was vaguely familiar.
“No way. It is you.”
Jongwoo blinked at the guy, finally placing him from his high school. Just another irrelevant face from the crowd.
He half nodded in his direction and moved to go back inside.
“I thought you were off to make big money out in Seoul?”
Jongwoo exhaled sharply, clenching his keys. He quirked an eyebrow in his direction.
The guy nudged his friends and pointed towards Jongwoo. A loud burst of snickers and jeers exploded from the group as they took in his uniform.
“Jongwoo-yah. What happened?”
He took unbalanced steps towards Jongwoo, a haughty expression on his crooked face. Jongwoo stared back blankly. The jerk reeked of cheap alcohol.
“A few weeks away from your eomma in the big city was too much for you, huh?”
This comment pulled a wheezing eruption from his group of friends, ever the comedian. The guy smirked backwards with his tobacco-stained teeth, proud of his accomplishment.
With a few more wobbling shuffles, he crowded his space, looming over Jongwoo, stretching his one inch of height on him.
“Tsk. Don’t feel bad,” he closed his bony fingers over Jongwoo’s shoulder. “Not everyone is meant to make it big in life. We can’t all be special.” There was a pressure against his collar bone. Jongwoo’s eyes shifted downwards, noting the guy’s strain to flex his biceps as he talked down to him.
“Still, I’m surprised I really am. You were quiet, sure, but smart, all the teachers used to say so.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked. What’s that saying?” He turned to look at his friends, pretending to think. “Ah, yes. You’re a literature student, so you should know this one.” He leaned down lower than necessary, blowing his sour breath in his face. “‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’”
He flicks Jongwoo’s name tag. “Of course, I guess you couldn’t manage the stench of fish, could you?”
Jongwoo was not aware of his own body until he felt his fist connect with the guy’s nose, knuckles cracking on impact.
The guy went down in one hit. Pathetic really.
A thrumming started low in his palms, running up his arms into his temples. Vision clouded red, yet still with razor focus on the crumbled heap that squirmed at his feet. Jongwoo reached down and swung his arm once more, a satisfying snap of cartilage as his fist collided. Blood sputtered out and over the idiot’s mouth and chin, as he gargled pleas for Jongwoo to stop.
Jongwoo grabbed hold of his collar, forcing him to look him in the eyes.
“Stop laughing,” he whispered, voice eerily calm.
He grabbed his discarded helmet off the floor and smashed it into his teeth. The guy wailed; the sound garbled as blood pooled down his throat. The glass of the visor shattered against his forehead, shards nicking him across his hairline, slicing into Jongwoo’s hand with each blow, decorating his wrist red.
Jongwoo’s ears were ringing, and his blood was pumping. He almost felt alive.
Suddenly arms wrapped around his waist, yanking him off the bastard.
Jongwoo hit the sidewalk, the gravel skinning his knees. One of the restaurant’s other delivery drivers. He was yelling something in his direction, his voice muted to Jongwoo’s ears.
The guy’s friends, who had been recording the ordeal on their phones, now surrounded their injured friend, fawning over his injuries as if they hadn’t just been enjoying him getting the crap beat out of him.
They gathered him up and took him to the hospital, leaving Jongwoo behind.
Jongwoo sat on the curb, coming down from the rush of adrenaline. He sat there as the lights of the small businesses and restaurants went out around him, the owners locking up for the night.
Drip.
He expected the police to show up eventually. They never came.
Drip.
He clenched his fist tighter, pressing on his bloodied and torn knuckles, relishing in the sting. The weight on his chest a little lighter.
Drip.
The streetlight flickered above him.
Dark coloured dress shoes stepped into view. A drop of blood escaped his palm and disappeared into the black leather.
He didn’t dare look up.
Jongwoo was fired the moment he walked into work the next morning.
His manager tried not to eye his mangled knuckles while he handed her his keys and shattered helmet. She made no mention of how or when he will receive his severance pay as she shooed him out the front door.
Jongwoo was not surprised his co-worker ratted him out. He had texted him that same morning with news that the guy he beat up would not be pressing any charges. Something about already having too many unpleasant run-ins with the police, and not wanting to make things worse for himself.
Obviously, Jongwoo’s co-worker, the good Samaritan he was, couldn’t let Jongwoo walk away unpunished. So, he took matters into his own hands and sent one of the many videos recorded last night to their manager.
Now, Jongwoo was unemployed. Again.
He shuffled his feet along the cracked sidewalk, hands stuffed into his jean’s pockets. He looked up and down the street, unsure of what to do with himself. It was too early to head back home.
He sighed, breath coming out in a mist against the crisp morning air. Kicking a pebble ahead of him, he walked aimlessly up the path, careful not to bump into the rush of passersby moving around him.
The push and pull of the early morning traffic somehow led Jongwoo to the local library a couple blocks down south. He stood outside on the sidewalk. Over the years, the door once painted a bright pink, now stood proudly a sun-warmed peach.
The old lady at the desk greeted him as he entered. He nodded in return and hurried past into the shelves.
The library was small and old, though it held its own charm that Jongwoo appreciated.
The coffee-coloured carpets were peeling at the wall corners, wooden shelves chipped along the edges, and scribbles scratched into the tables’ surfaces. Little messages for friends. Notes that they existed, they had been here.
Fundraisers were held every year to renovate the place, but the librarians always set the funds aside to buy new books or computer equipment instead.
Jongwoo used to spend most of his days after school here, the relaxed atmosphere allowing him to finish his work.
Today, the place seemed quite empty save for a few elderly people lounging around.
He felt himself drawn to the children’s section of the library, a cozy sunlit corner with large windows in place of walls and colourful rugs laid out across the floor. Jongwoo took a deep breath. The corner still held that faint scent of mothballs.
He was safe here.
It was calm and quiet, as most kids were in school during this time of day.
The pads of his finger brushed along the spine of books in the stacks. He traced the titles, new and familiar. From epic battles to stories of heroes’ quests. He fell on one with a cracked spine and faded cover.
An old collection of fables and fairy tales.
He took the book from the shelf and brought it with him to the small table shaped as a green leaf with little ladybug chairs circling around it. He made himself comfortable on the red ladybug.
He skimmed through the yellowed pages, the familiar stories putting him at ease.
The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon was their mother’s favourite to read to him and his brother as children. She would repeat the story from memory every time one of them would cry. His brother, who soon realized this pattern, developed the skill of conjuring tears at odd moments of the day just so he could hear her tell it.
Jongseok always laughed hysterically while his mother animatedly described the dim-witted tiger and his antics, as if it were his first time having heard the old tale. Jongwoo particularly liked the story because they would both get bowls of freshly cut persimmon afterwards.
“Not exactly Raymond Chandler, is it?”
His stomach dropped at the smooth voice.
Seo Moonjo sat opposite him, relaxed on the pink ladybug chair. He was wearing his more casual outfit this time, those black sweats and matching shirt.
Jongwoo went back to his book, pointedly not looking his way.
“Hm. I suppose I should have started with a ‘hello’.”
Hands trembling, the text on the page became unfocused. “You’re not real.” Jongwoo forced himself to form the words. He needed to hear it. Needed to keep hold of sanity for just a moment longer.
Seo Moonjo was dead.
“Does that bother you?”
Jongwoo shakingly flickered his gaze upwards to meet the man’s stare. His eyes were flat and blank.
“I don’t know,” Jongwoo confessed in a whisper.
The man nodded, leaning his elbow on the table. His chin rested on his palm as he watched Jongwoo through his lashes with that familiar intensity, except… except it was all wrong.
A mimicry.
“Why?” the broken question crawled up his throat. The man simply blinked.
Jongwoo collected his breath into an even rhythm. “Why now?” he asked again steadier. “After all this…after everything.”
Moonjo does not respond and taps his fingers along the table.
“Why are you here?”
“I don’t know.”
Jongwoo’s eyebrows furrowed in his direction. Moonjo raised his own back at him. They both sat silently for a moment. Moonjo traced his thumb over the cracked paint of the tabletop.
“I…I killed you,” Jongwoo enunciated each letter, each syllable, tasting the admission on his tongue.
Moonjo hummed with the ghost of a fond chuckle. “You did,” he said, like it was an honour. A privilege to be slain by his hand.
Jongwoo watched the man as he peeled the paint from the leaf, leaving a spot of brown in the green. Moonjo sighed before flicking the chip in his direction.
“I’ve missed you,” the man said in a faraway voice.
Jongwoo scoffed as he fiddled with his fingers. He had a splinter cut through the skin of his thumb. “I didn’t.”
Moonjo leaned across the table, into his space. “No?” he asked in a low tone. His face was close enough to touch. The man’s body moved with his inhales and exhales, yet the air suspended around Jongwoo remained stale.
Jongwoo swallowed thickly. “No.”
Moonjo nodded, leaning back into his chair.
“Good. I’m glad.”
They sat there a moment longer, each not saying a word. The angle of the sun shifted as it neared noon, casting the man in a glow, his skin appearing warmer under the bright rays. Alive.
But the heat of the late autumn sun had no effect on the man. Which was not unusual in and of itself; the man always seemed to have an immunity to nature. He did not try to shift away into the shade; he made no movement whatsoever, instead fondly watching Jongwoo as Jongwoo watched him.
If it were not for the lack of a shadow drawn across the table’s surface, Jongwoo might have been fooled.
“Um. Excuse me, sir.” Jongwoo started, trance broken by this new voice.
A young bespectacled woman stood to his left; a stack of picture books held to her chest. Her eyes darted nervously between Jongwoo and his table companion. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to move to another area. The children from the daycare will be here soon for story time.”
“Ah, right. Sorry.” Jongwoo scrambled to his feet, his knees knocking against the underside of the table as he stood.
The woman smiled gently, moving to set up the area for the children.
Jongwoo looked back. The pink ladybug sat alone.
Silhouettes of lace woven into yellow wood crept towards him, settling on his lap as the sun slipped off its peak. Jongwoo peered through the old curtains of his bedroom window from his place on the floor. He could smell the dust from where he sat.
The curtains billowed gently. Emptiness had followed Jongwoo home and greeted him upon his arrival.
Still dressed in his uniform, Jongwoo sat quietly, his junk drawer laid out in front of him. Miscellaneous knickknacks and forgotten memories scattered inside.
An inconspicuous lumped sock was held delicately in his palm. A prickling started under his nail beds and into the tips of his fingers, urging him towards the folded hem. Gingerly, Jongwoo unraveled the sock. The contents rolled out, landing softly against his thigh.
A single chained line of canines and molars innocently glinted up at him. He took the bracelet in between his fingers, dangling it in the light.
There was a spot of blood staining ivory. Jongwoo does not let himself wonder whose it could be. Instead, he undoes the clasp, fitting the bracelet around his cuff.
It looked ugly around his scarred wrist, catching on his wrappings from the night before.
You have delicate fingers.
An odd thing to say. He pressed his thumb into the bandage around his palm, a spot of red appearing at the centre. Perhaps he meant corruptible.
“I know I should be honoured darling, but a sock of all places?”
Moonjo had returned. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him, chin supported by his hand, arm leaned forward on his knee. A strange sight, he never saw the man sit in such an undignified manner before.
“You kept it,” the man continued, awe in his voice.
Jongwoo thumbed a molar. “I can’t just throw it out.”
“You can,” he said simply. “There is nothing stopping you.”
Argument swelled up Jongwoo’s throat, but he did not allow it to take form, letting it die flat.
“I forget sometimes.”
The sharp of the root nicked the splinter at the pad of his thumb.
“What is real…”
The ache of something like a pulled tooth strained the muscles of his jaw. Ghost pains that fooled you into believing it were still there.
Moonjo carefully took Jongwoo’s hand in his own, pressing the flesh of thumb into his pulse point just below the metal chain. The lack of pressure hurt.
Jongwoo twisted. Moonjo stared back, a smile in his lifeless eyes.
Then, movement in his periphery caught his attention, a shadow in the doorway.
Jongwoo’s head snapped towards the visitor, rushing to put space between himself and the invisible man. His cheeks burned as his brother stood at the threshold, confused as Jongwoo’s fumbling.
“Hyung,” he started after finding his voice. “I’ve told you already. Knock.”
‘I did’, his brother signed back.
Jongwoo swallowed. “Right.” He hadn’t heard.
He swiped a hand over his face, risking a quick glance sideways.
Moonjo had backed off, giving Jongwoo space. Leaned against his mattress, he rested his head on folded knees, watching Jongwoo’s brother with curious eyes.
Jongwoo followed the route of his gaze.
His brother had a new line of stitches above his brow from where he had fallen last week. Another seizure. Not as severe as past attacks. He’d only nicked himself on the corner of the television stand, the wound smaller than the price of the hospital visit.
“What did you need?” Jongwoo asked, speaking as he signed. “You should be resting.”
The question goes unanswered. His brother folded his arms over his chest, observing Jongwoo with a slight tilt of his head. Jongwoo pressed his tongue against his teeth, growing frustrated at the silent scrutiny.
Then, ‘What is that?’
Jongwoo blinked. “What?”
His brother pointed towards Jongwoo’s wrist. ‘What is that?’ he repeated.
A tremor started up Jongwoo’s spine. He could see it.
“A gift I got in Seoul,” he replied shortly. He made no move to hide the bracelet and instead relished in the sick satisfaction of having it on display.
‘From your friend?’ his brother inquired further. ‘The one who died?’
Moonjo laughed.
‘What do you want?’ Jongwoo repeated, expressing his impatience.
His brother teetered on his feet a moment, thinking. He fidgeted his fingers as though there were something more he wanted to say.
Then, without another word, he left the room. Jongwoo huffed. He never bothered to close the door.
Jongwoo made his way over, but just as the door was about to fall shut, a single bright blue flipflop caught it.
Jongseok had returned, a bowl of apple slices in hand. He shimmied his foot, forcing his way into the room. Jongwoo let him pass with a questioning brow. Then, he was handed the bowl.
“What is this?” he asked.
‘You got hurt too.’
“Eh?”
His brother lifted a finger towards his face and Jongwoo flinched backwards. Jongseok’s lips thinned. Carefully this time, he pointed a path down the long scar that hugged Jongwoo’s left eye.
‘Eomma cut me apples because I got hurt,’ his brother explains, eyes now on Jongwoo’s injured hand. ‘I think she forgot you were home.’
The innocent gesture broke something bitter inside Jongwoo. The ugly feeling took residence upon his features, drawing a scowl.
‘You look different,’ Jongseok scanned his face, skipping over Jongwoo’s eyes to avoid contact.
Jongwoo surveyed his brother with a dark look. Since when had he grown enough of an interest in him to notice a difference? This was the longest conversation they’d had in months.
Jongwoo put the bowl of fruit on his desk. It shuddered against the wooden top having absorbed the vibrations of Jongwoo’s unsteady hands.
‘You don’t,’ he signed back. He swallowed down rational emotion. The comment was unfair, his anger misguided, but he couldn’t help it.
Jongseok’s lips quivered into a smile, construing Jongwoo’s words as a compliment.
He scoffed over his shoulder at the sight of his toothy grin, his own lips raising incredulously. Moonjo remained in the spot Jongwoo left him, observing the brothers' interaction with unconcealed interest.
“Woo-yah…” his brother whispered the closest approximation to his name he could manage.
Jongwoo startled. He was unsure of the last time he called him that. Something in his chest squeezed. Jongwoo blinked rapidly and hummed in response.
‘Do you want to play?’ Jongseok gestured backwards to the living room. The display screen of his video game lit up the television screen. ‘It’s been long since you last played.’
Jongwoo’s fists shook at his side. He flexed his jaw, shifting his expression to one of neutrality.
He swiped his thumb at his cupid’s bow and sniffed. “I’m busy,” for a reason unbeknownst to him, his voice cracked. ‘Leave me alone,’ he then signed with trembling hands.
Jongseok frowned. He stared over Jongwoo’s shoulder, eyes on the space beside his bedframe. Where Moonjo sat.
Jongwoo’s stomach dropped.
Then, Jongseok took a step backwards out of the room. ‘Eat the apples,’ he signed before walking back to the couch.
Jongwoo swallowed, unsure of what to make of the odd interaction.
He shut the door behind him and walked to his desk. He stared blankly at the bowl of fruit that sat innocently before him.
“That was sweet,” Moonjo said thoughtfully. “He seemed worried about you.”
Jongwoo scoffed. He picked up an apple slice. It was jagged and misshapen, evidence of his brother’s struggle to maneuver the knife.
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” Moonjo said in an obnoxious sing-song voice.
Jongwoo sank his teeth into the sour flesh.