CH 14.1

Epilogue: Strangers

The light flashed and drew a long trajectory. A car drove along the path. Inside the car with the radio turned off was deadly quiet.

Dense fatigue weighed down the man’s head. It had already become his routine to go home around midnight and sleep at dawn, but his body couldn’t get used to it.

The man tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. The empty night road could only evoke boredom. He was no longer interested in what he would find at the end of the road. He knew it would be the same no matter what kind of path he took, so there was no excitement left.

He was bored. Or maybe tired.

It was about one or two years ago that he realized it.

His goal was to get into the public prosecutor’s office, and he achieved that goal. In contrast to his concerns, he found the work to be a good fit, and he tackled the workload with enthusiasm. He worked overtime every day and was rarely home. It was a dynamic life to be called an endless routine, but at some point, he felt empty.

Such a feeling felt even stronger when he came into his empty home. He had a silly notion that he had nothing but work. To his surprise.

Thus, he preferred to stay late and do his work. Or go home earlier and kill the time watching movies. Kill the time. The time had become something to kill from some point in his life. The man laughed wryly, thinking it was sentimental.

What will Mr. Seok say if he finds out? I’m sure he will be sad or give me warm advice. His teacher would only say the right things and guide him to the right path. But he was already hopeless. He decided that he should stop making his teacher worried as he was already this old.

He stepped on the brake pedal as he hit the red light. The man, who was tapping the steering wheel with his fingers, looked to the right. There was a boy sitting on the sidewalk. Even though he could only see the boy’s side profile from a distance that wasn’t too close, the boy’s young and attractive features stood out.

The boy, although he was too big to be called a boy, was staring blankly into the air. The night road was deserted because there were only officetels and corporate buildings in the area, and the boy looked like he was put into the scenery.

He wondered why the boy was like that. Surely everyone has their own situation. Maybe the boy was a college student, he was drunk, got off the bus at the wrong stop, and took a moment to breathe.

But the man couldn’t think so because the boy looked like he would disappear at any moment. He literally looked like he would evaporate.

Suddenly, or maybe inevitably, the man thought of a certain day. A certain day that was neither odd nor special. When he was sitting on the sidewalk and staring at the running cars. He thought of just killing himself, but couldn’t move even a step because the last bit of his pride, not wanting his death to be insignificant, held him by his ankle.

He tried to recall how he was feeling when he finally got up. Nothing changed, and his steps felt tragic.

The traffic light changed. The car started a little late and moved at a slow speed. He got closer to the boy. The moment he drove past the boy, he looked to his right.

At that short moment, he met the boy’s eyes. No, he was just passing by where the boy was looking, and being in a tinted car, it was hard to say they made eye contact, but the man couldn’t help but feel that way. His heart throbbed and stirred for a moment. The emotions of the past, now faded, had spread like wildfire. 

The boy looked like he would run and throw himself on the road right away. But he also looked faint as though he had let go of everything and would disappear just like that.

He resembled a glass doll, beautifully and delicately crafted with a great deal of care. But that rather made him look sharp and easy to break.

He will break, won’t he? He may be stronger than I thought, but…

The man accelerated his car, trying to shake off the lingering images. There are a lot of kids wandering the streets. It’s just that no one knows where those kids go.

“Hoho. You don’t need to pay anything back, kid. Just next time, if you meet a child in the same situation, help them. That’s how you pay back.”

Yes, I will. He answered like a good kid, but actually, he thought it to be absurd. He got help from his teacher, but why should he pay it back to someone else he didn’t know? He decided to take it as a consolation because he was young and couldn’t be any help to his teacher.

He studied hard to become a prosecutor and pay his teacher back, but it was impossible for him to repay the head of a healthy company that had never been accused of anything. 

As he thought about it, he remembered that on the next day after the day he forced himself to get up, gritting his teeth, and left the road, he met his teacher. If it weren’t for his teacher, his life wouldn’t get better like this.

What will that child do? Will he grit his teeth and get up? Or is he already broken? Then, what will happen next?

He couldn’t erase the empty eyes from his mind. This is only a coincidence. It’s not that I or that child was special that we met, it’s only a coincidence. So, it doesn’t matter even if I just left. If anything, that’s what I should do.

He stopped his car because of the traffic light. It was possible to make a U-turn in the next lane. The man grabbed the steering wheel so strongly that his veins protruded.

He had to take responsibility if he went back. People are not plants that just need to be watered. Nor are they pets that are blindly affectionate with all their insides bared. 

That’s what people are. They always have other things in mind. They are full of doubts, and they need to go through pain to grow up. His teacher who watched all this progress was incredible, and he himself wasn’t someone with such a big heart. There would come a day when he would regret, be disappointed, and be betrayed by this decision.

The light changed. The man drove off. The fragile eyes losing his way haunted him. The man gritted his teeth. The face that looked like it would shatter at any moment.

This might be on impulse, but the moment I make a U-turn, it won’t be on impulse anymore. As he grew up, he calculated everything before he made any action. Moments that looked like on impulse were also in his calculation. To say that he just wanted to show off to his teacher, he had to bear enormous weight. The moment he decided to take responsibility, he couldn’t do it half-heartedly.

On a quiet road with no one around, the man slammed on the brakes. He made a big turn with the steering wheel. The car turned and went the other way. He went back the way he came. He squinted his eyes, annoyed.

He got closer to the place he saw the boy. The boy was still there, and the man felt an uncomfortable relief.

He made a U-turn again and drove to the boy. In his mind was a ridiculous thought that it wouldn’t be that bad because he had never seen anything so pretty, even though he only looked at the boy for a glimpse.

He drifted to the right lane and slowed down. He finally stopped and lowered the car window, but the boy hardly moved. Look at that. I know this won’t be easy. The man strangely felt a happy displeasure.

After some time had passed, the boy stood up. He was higher than he had thought.

The tousled black hair. Picturesque, double-lidded eyes with slightly raised corners. A delicately defined nose and moderately full but rough-looking lips. The sharp and alert gaze. The cynical expression.

The light from the street lamp divided the boy’s face exactly in half. Seeing him up close, it was hard to look away from the peculiar atmosphere around the boy. His face showed that he had it hard in many ways. Making the man hate to leave the boy broken.

If I were to give this a poor reason, it’s that this boy is the only one. Yeah, I’ve never seen anything this pretty in my life.

The man held his breath and pulled up his lips. It somewhat felt exciting to see the black eyes sparkle in guard against him.

“Hi.”