“...”
“...”
Since when had he been looking? I was flustered by the unexpected eye contact. Should I avoid his gaze or not? It was a fleeting moment, but my head was a tangle.
The one who cut the gaze off first was Seon Eunhu. Having bowed toward the ritual table and risen, he roughly stuffed money into the pig’s mouth. Then, heading back to his spot, he called the rep.
“Jeongsin, looks like everyone who’s supposed to come out has come out, do we need to do more? The pig’s jaw’s gonna fall off.”
“Hmm, you think?”
“Yeah. So let’s call out that, that one last thing. Just that one more, for the finale.”
“That? What?”
Seon Eunhu tilted his head as if straining to recall something. Every sculpture student watched his mouth. Seon Eunhu narrowed his eyes as if unsure.
“That... full...?”
Then he tilted his head the other way.
“Scholarship...?”
Pretending he couldn’t remember, but everyone knew it was Seon Eunhu putting it on.
“The kid who got a full scholarship?”
When the rep asked, Seon Eunhu nodded and welcomed it.
“Ah, is that how it goes? Right. The kid who got a full scholarship.”
Everyone here knew he was pulling a trick to drag me out. As I let a meaningless syllable slip through my slightly parted mouth with an “Ah...,” faces turned toward me one by one. Among them, Seon Eunhu looked at me last of all. His eyes, which turned gentle when he smiled, glared with a decidedly not-to-be-trifled-with force as he said,
“Come out. Go Taering.”
At the sudden call I flinched and stepped back. The expressions fixing on me were varied. Puzzlement and curiosity at Seon Eunhu singling me out by name, and concern and pity that I, who’d gone tacitly uncalled because of my orphanage-alumnus circumstances, had been called. On the other hand, there were also sounds of admiration from people who didn’t know my situation and just heard the words “full scholarship.”
“Oooh, Go Taerim. Hurry up and come out!”
Having dithered, it was only after the seniors jokingly called a few more times that I walked forward. I stole a glance at Seon Eunhu, then turned my head away. He was the one who said not to act like I know him, and now he calls me in front of every sculpture student? I couldn’t understand him.
As I fumbled to take off my shoes alone in front of the mat, it happened.
“Just go ahead and hold an exorcism,” Seon Eunhu said in a low voice only I could hear as he passed.
“Though I don’t know if it’ll rehabilitate you.”
“What...?”
Without even room to say anything, Seon Eunhu just went off somewhere.
What is he trying to do with me right now?
Dumbfounded, I tried to follow the back of him with my eyes, but the rep, suddenly closing in, urged me to hurry and bow. The reason was that the pungmul club members had just arrived. So, shoved along, I stepped up onto the mat, bowed, and put the money I took from my pocket into the pig’s mouth. The crumpled bill made it obvious even from a few steps away that I was the one who’d put it in.
As I hurriedly put my shoes on, the sound of a kkwaenggwari rang out from somewhere. From the direction the sound came, samulnori troupe members dressed in colorful pungmul costumes were coming in a line. Starting with the kkwaenggwari, the janggu, jing, and drum sounds harmonized, and the mood turned lively in no time. As BGM to listen to while getting shaken down by a pig, it was a pretty decent beat.
The performance went on for a while. It was a time when students from other departments passing by gathered too, clapping and cheering along. In their midst I clapped slowly while looking around for Seon Eunhu. Sure, he’s a pervert dying to show off his whatsit, but he’s got such a good build that he’s an easy man to find wherever he is, yet somehow I couldn’t spot him.
I wanted to ask whether, since the senior himself had broken the rule first, the promise was now null and void...
But Seon Eunhu didn’t show himself until the gosa was completely over, and I couldn’t even find him in the department building lobby where the drinking gathering was set up.
In the department building lobby, low floor-seating tables set with liquor and side dishes were lined up in rows.
I went and sat at one where the second-year female classmates were gathered. It wasn’t that I was close with them, more that they were the familiar faces who’d claimed the most corner-most spot.
Leaving the cup of liquor alone, I was filling my stomach with side dishes when Kim Juhui, picking at boiled pork slices across from me, called out.
“Taerim. Are you close with Eunhu-hyung?”
Kim Juhui’s face was red, already tipsy though the after-party had barely started. When she brought up Seon Eunhu, the classmates seated around the table pricked up their ears. When the attention suddenly focused on me and I stopped eating, flustered, Kim Juhui lowered her voice and continued as if making an excuse.
“No, it’s just, earlier he called you out of nowhere and it startled me. Going up front isn’t even a good thing, and unless you’re close you don’t single out just one person like that. So I was wondering whether you two were originally close, that’s why I’m asking. Seems like I’ve never seen you two hang out.”
“We’re not close, just... talked a few times, that’s all.”
I wavered a moment over whether to expose that I was in the middle of being unilaterally harassed, but chose to be vague. Since Seon Eunhu’s image was so good, telling the truth would obviously not be believed. It’d only start a rumor that I was going around spreading strange talk, and if Seon Eunhu humiliated me over it, I’d be worse off, not better.
“Really? But he calls you by a nickname all friendly like that?”
“Nickname?”
“Earlier he called you Go-ttaerim or Go-ttaengi or something.”
“Ah... that’s nothing either. More to the point, there’s a hair in your cup.”
“What? Ah, shit. This isn’t gonna dye my hair, is it?”
Kim Juhui’s interest in Seon Eunhu was so high that her hair, as she leaned her upper body close to me, had dunked entirely into the cup. As she scrubbed the hair that had been in the cup against her sleeve and swore, the people around laughed flippantly.
“Kim Juhui, seriously, the way you lose your mind the second Seon Eunhu comes up is hilarious. So what is it you want to fish out of Go Taerim?”
“Ah, you guys catch on fast. Was it obvious?”
“How could it not be obvious right now? You barely spoke to Go Taerim after he told you last year you were coming on too strong. What’s with the sudden friendly act?”
“Hey. You’re gonna bring up my dark history in front of the person himself? What am I supposed to do about being born a face-chaser. Cheers!”
Along with a mischievous laugh, cups gathered at the center of the table and scattered. I started moving my chopsticks again.
Ah... so that’s why Kim Juhui ignored me for a while.
Not long after I’d enrolled, Kim Juhui kept talking to me, and on top of that followed me to the cafeteria to pry into my private life, so I’d told her, roundabout, that she was coming on too strong, and she must have taken offense at that.
I tried to say it as nicely as I could, but I guess I failed.
While I realized it belatedly, the classmates’ conversation kept going.
“Anyway, so what else are you curious about with Seon Eunhu?”
“No, I heard Seon Eunhu quietly dates pretty steadily, so I figured maybe some girl he’s got a thing going with has come up. I was gonna ask that.”
The way she naturally called a senior by his full three-syllable name, no honorific, made it obvious she talked about Seon Eunhu a lot.
I gave an awkward smile to Kim Juhui, who cheekily wiggled her eyebrows when our eyes met. As I thought, I’m the only one here who knows Seon Eunhu’s filthy true nature.
“How are things with Dayeon these days? Wasn’t there something between them?”
“I thought so too, but apparently there’s been nothing since then. Dayeon’s the only one who got embarrassed.”
“What? Back then the two of them were exchanging looks and making a fuss over gummies, so I thought they had a thing going, but apparently not?”
“Apparently not. It’s not like Seon Eunhu was stringing her along, more like Dayeon just got ahead of herself. So anyway, do you happen to know anything about it, Taerim?”
Kim Juhui, not missing the opening, asked in an oily way. Trying to look apologetic, I slowly shook my head.
“Yeah. Sorry, but I really don’t know anything about that senior-”
“Hey, it’s Seon Eunhu.”
Sensing without hearing me out that it’d be a worthless answer, Kim Juhui cut me off and exclaimed in a hushed voice. So I too, in a neck-hunched posture, looked in the direction they were looking. Sure enough, in front of the third-year practice studio, Seon Eunhu stood with Lee Jinseong and other seniors. He must have come out from working, because the maple-colored apron wrapped around his waist suited Seon Eunhu quite well.
What kind of conversation are they having? Seon Eunhu chuckled, then went up to Lee Jinseong and draped an arm around his shoulders. When Lee Jinseong staggered, pushed by the force, Seon Eunhu pulled his body in tight, and in doing so the two of them ended up standing with their backs to us. Stroking Jinseong’s head as if handling a child, Seon Eunhu suddenly gave his back a thump along with some remark. Maybe because they were physically affectionate often, the surrounding seniors showed no particular reaction at the sight of the two.
Wouldn’t it be uncomfortable to be stuck to someone that closely? As I was thinking how improper it is to do that between the same sex, the backs of the two, who’d been stuck together without a gap, finally split apart. The reason was that someone passing by acknowledged them. Seon Eunhu, with a glad face, lightly wound the person into a hug and let go. Whatever the man abruptly pulled into the embrace said, Seon Eunhu laughed playfully.
“...”
Something I feel every time I watch, Seon Eunhu tends to be affectionate toward others. Seeing it now, he seems like a person free with physical touch too. The Seon Eunhu I saw from afar was a completely different person from the Seon Eunhu I’d experienced.
Why is he so fickle with only me?
The point being, if you’re great then you’re great, so why go around ignoring and tormenting a perfectly fine person. Even though we all end up the same handful of ash dust in death.
