I’m sitting in my room. The sixth place I’ve rented in Seoul, or maybe the seventh, if you count the one where we stayed together. Calling it a prison cell would be more fitting. Saimdang Study Room. Since there were only women, they probably hoped we’d become great mothers and wives like Shin Saimdang. Most of the girls there never even dreamt of aspiring to greatness, trying their best to just be mediocre. Not knowing what the word meant, they just wanted to strike gold in that place somehow. You, a young graduate from a teacher’s college in Jeonbuk. And me, a student from Chungnam retaking the college entrance exam out of a sense of duty to my parents. We were there for a year. While the women around us came and went, you and I stayed there throughout. Four people to a cell, the rooms divided by curtains instead of walls, and we even had to put the chairs on top of the desks to have room to sleep, but still there was always a line to get into the place. We spent so many sleepless nights there, sitting back-to-back. Maybe that’s why, even when I think of you now, all I see is your back, your hunched shoulders under the gloomy light from the desk lamp, writing and memorizing all night. My back must’ve looked similar to yours, right? We both had a lot going on apart from struggling to realize our dreams. Still, I’ve probably seen the back of your head more times than you’ve seen mine. The sleep weighing on my eyelids like an avalanche, I kept banging my head after nodding off, and so usually went to sleep first.
I’m looking out a window the size of a notebook. It doesn’t open, it’s just decoration, a glass plate with no frame or handle, probably to give it the appearance of a new building. It’s still a window though, and I can see the neighborhood clearly through it. The back of the building faces the road, so all you can see is the residential area. Tenements and low-rise buildings packed so tightly together they barely get any sunlight, Western-style houses with triangular roofs from the 1980s, and new apartment complexes lined up along the narrow mountain ridge. A tranquil, almost spring-like scene, yet serene and orderly, as if Seoul were drifting off to sleep at the end of a long day’s work. It’s dawn, so the lights are out in most windows, but they shine more brightly in the cold. At the very top, in the new town, each apartment block’s neon lights form the shape of the company’s logo. Floating in the darkness, they look like a castle in the sky, or like a signature crest of the century, approved by everyone and everything. Sometimes, I stick my nose to the window like the dog on the Sputnik 2 spacecraft. Then this room feels less like a space, more like an object on the move. A spacecraft departing Earth at high speed, in the knowledge that it will never again share the same time and space as the world below. Anyhow, tonight, as usual, red, yellow, white and blue lights are sprinkled over the distant dark city like candy, making you want to bite into them. It’s a beautiful city, Seoul.
It’s been ten years since I last saw you. It seems like just yesterday that I was carrying a linty polyester backpack, crossing a pedestrian overpass with a dizzying alarm sound, and entering “Noryang Island.” “A place you can only escape from after passing the exam,” they used to say. Back then, you really were like an older sister, but now I’m also in my thirties. A lot of things must have happened to you since then, so many they can’t be recounted in a few lines. Just as the wind takes away the seasons, time must have taken things from you, right? Things you missed out on, which still break your heart and can’t just be written off as “opportunity costs.” Secrets and stories you can’t tell anyone about. When I heard that you couldn’t find a job for eight years, it broke my heart. Eight long years. Like a question mark stuck in parentheses, the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth years of life withering away little by little in that cell . . . The age of thirty-one seemed unfathomable then. I’m all too familiar with the expectations, implications, tension, and pessimism that form in your mind while waiting for the announcement of the successful applicants. I’m also aware of the people I’ve lost after putting off “duties” such as being a filial child or a devoted girlfriend. It broke my heart to think of your young self growing old in a small, dark cell, your head buried in the wrong answers.
Me? As you know, I got into J University’s Department of French Literature that year. That’s all you know about my life since then, right? That’s probably why you mailed the package to our department office. I heard you asked for my phone number, but the teaching assistant told you no one knew my new contact information. Actually, because of what happened, I hardly see anyone these days, and have gotten rid of my cell phone. I got an email telling me to come pick up the parcel, and after contemplating for a few days, I stopped by the school. Today I got the postcard and present you sent. By the way, congratulations on becoming a mother. I never imagined that during this time you’d accomplished something so wonderful. If I were your child, I’d be so happy to have you as my mother. I’ve moved six times in the last ten years, worked a dozen part-time jobs, and dated a couple of guys, but that’s about it. That’s all, really. I’m embarrassed that my youth has gone like this. Have I changed at all since then? I’m worried that I’ve become someone who just spends money recklessly, doesn’t trust people, and has overly high standards. A pathetic adult. In my twenties, everything I did felt like part of an ongoing process, but now everything is just a result, and I’m anxious. You’re five years older than me, so you must have experienced everything I’ve been through, right? Have you gotten over these experiences? Are some of them nothing but memories now? Nothing in the world is meaningless. All my friends have either become somebody or are on track to getting there, and I worry that I’m the only one who’s on the way to becoming nobody. Or maybe I’m already less than nothing. I’m afraid you’ll say you’ve heard this kind of story too many times. You’re now dealing with problems like childcare, savings, in-laws, and health issues. At your age, you know that the pressing problems from before have to make way for the next big thing. But right now, you’re the only one I can talk to about this, that’s why I’m writing this letter. Even if I don’t send it in the end, I’ll do what I can tonight.
You see, I enrolled in the Department of French Literature despite my parents’ objections. I fantasized about France, thinking that knowing a foreign language would give me strength, like carrying a sword. No matter what life threw at me, I was determined to swing my sword like an exorcist, shouting, “Go away, I can call it quits anytime.” My father was furious, asking what kind of job I could get with such a degree. “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll get a teaching certificate and become a teacher,” I boasted. Some people might be offended by me pretending that it’s so easy to be a teacher, but I was young then and thought it would work. I only found out after the first semester that there was no such system in our department. And the fact that our department might disappear because of the low number of freshmen. They said the literature, philosophy and history departments would be abolished. It was just a rumor at the time, but now it’s becoming reality. Loss of credibility, insolvency, graffiti all over the school, the looks on people’s faces. When I returned after a long absence, the atmosphere at my alma mater was unsettling. Throughout college, I tried to prove something to my parents by living conscientiously and frugally. I dutifully handed in statements to my handsome bachelor instructor to explain my absences due to menstrual cramps, got merit scholarships, worked in the library and administration office, and took on odd jobs at convenience stores and coffee shops, but still couldn’t cover my tuition and living expenses. Being in and out of school, it took me almost seven years to graduate. But looking back, I think I was surprisingly healthy at the time. Proud to be in charge of myself, believing that all this experience and wisdom would help me grow. So I ate breakfast at dawn, just like when I was studying to retake the entrance exam, illegally shared “online lectures” with my friends, and lived off the “menu of the day” at the student cafeteria. I even sent part of my measly salary to my parents, and got a bit extra by doing questionnaires and working part-time as a server. Human lab rat jobs, aka “Maruta Arbeit,” or teaching at a nearby tutoring academy paid a bit more. At the time, I earned about 600,000 won a month, excluding taxes, for teaching children things I didn’t know much about, such as Chinese characters and essay writing. I was also in charge of cleaning the classrooms, consulting with parents, locking the doors and gates, and managing the copiers and printers. But the students at the academy in Myeonmok-dong were so bad at studying. Compared to the kids in Junggye-dong or Mok-dong, where I worked a bit later, they didn’t even have the basics down. Still, they listened to me, seemingly unaware that I was a rookie instructor who had lied about her major. One of them, a high-school girl with an angelic face, smelling of cigarettes, who’d often hug me while calling out “Teacher!”, kept in touch with me after she went to college. Even before that, she’d texted me countless times, mostly trivial things like: “Teach, you’re hilarious.” “Teach, what’re you doing? I’m hanging out at a friend’s house. I don’t want to do my homework.” “I wish you’d teach Chinese classics at our school, our teacher sucks.” “But Teach, why don’t you ever text me first?” Even though I knew the relationship wouldn’t last, when she hugged me like that, I could feel a warmth spreading in my chest. You know how, when you drop ink into a clear beaker full of water, a beautiful cumulus cloud forms and the nature of the liquid changes in an instant? I think that’s how I felt at the time. Easily swayed and touched by small acts of kindness, wanting to return them in some way. The kids were childish and easily distracted, but they also had the wit and imagination typical for their age. I once gave them an essay topic like this: “What would happen if people had eight fingers and used the octal numeral system?” Their answers surprised me: “The abacus beads would be divided in fours.” “Numbers would be rounded up starting from four.” “It wouldn’t be ‘nine times out of ten’ but ‘seven times out of eight’.” At such moments, I felt like I was learning from them. Another time, in response to the question, “Give a four-letter idiom to describe an affectionate relationship between a man and woman, literally meaning ‘a companionship shared with the clouds or rain’”, instead of “un-u-ji-jeong”, someone wrote “o-reu-ga-seum” (orgasm). I almost choked on my drink while grading the paper. Among the students, there was a middle-school girl who rarely talked to me, but occasionally brought me strawberry milk or chocolate, and a high-school boy who was quiet and always worried about his parents. Some kids got nosebleeds during class from studying so hard, and some ran out into the hallway to throw up. But these days, you know, when I look at those kids with pale faces, studying at the academy from dawn to dusk, I think to myself:
“You’ll grow up to be me . . . just like me.”
You want to know what happened? I wish I could explain it better. One day, I woke up and realized I’d become a different person. I used to be a debtor, and I still am. Then and now, I’m a person who owes money, but I guess you could say it’s gotten worse. After you and I went our separate ways, I worked several jobs and barely made it through college. I still owed about ten million won in student loans, but was optimistic that I could pay them off as soon as I got a job. The job search didn’t go well, though. After graduating from the French literature department, I was already quite old, a woman at that, and not even a particularly good-looking one, so I wasn’t a great candidate. Then, to add insult to injury, my father was involved in a car accident that shook the family to its core. It was complicated, because even though my father didn’t cause the accident, he had to take responsibility for it. Apparently, a friend had borrowed his cargo truck and taken it out for a spin, crashed into three other cars, and died at the scene. He wasn’t the only casualty, and many people were injured. After that, our family, already in dire straits, was financially devastated beyond help and pulled into a magnetic field of misfortune so strong that even I wanted to run away from it rather than help. Because I knew that if I did something wrong, I’d be sucked into it. No one in our family was making money, but the landlord still insisted on raising the deposit and monthly rent. My savings from working part-time had already run out, and the bank was calling me every day. I really wanted to send someone a “cake box with no cake in it,’ because I’d heard that one of my classmates got into a private middle school in Gyeonggi-do that way. But then I got a call from my ex, saying he was in the area and wanted to meet up. That was three years after we broke up.
He looked good. He came wearing a suit, which was unusual, looking quite handsome. He bought me duck meat and said in a shy, quiet tone:
“I’m making good money now.”
He wasn’t boasting or showing off. It was strangely touching. I knew how hard he’d had it in the past, why we’d fought so often, and the reason he left me, so I was glad he’d lived until now without losing his courage. We’d been together for five years, and when we broke up, he was already in his early thirties with a bad credit score . . . He didn’t splurge or take out loans, he was just working hard on his thesis. I congratulated my ex-lover on his success, without bitterness or jealousy, and told him that I couldn’t wait to get a job of my own and treat him to a nice meal. Oh, did I tell you how we first met? At the academy, in Myeonmok-dong. He didn’t really make an impression, so I wasn’t interested at first. Then one day, when he confidently asked the director to provide snacks, I developed a crush on him. At the time, all the teachers at the academy were chronically hungry, and snacks weren’t included in our food budget. But during a meeting, he stood up and said to the director:
“It’s exam time, so I’d like you to give each of us a piece of bread during breaks.”
Of course, his voice was shaking and cracked, but I could see the joy on the faces of the English teacher, who always hung on the director’s every word due to her lack of experience, and the math teacher, who couldn’t bring up such a topic because of her age and for appearance’s sake. That’s when it started. We ate together, watched movies, went out drinking, and talked about our childhood. We even slept together. I found out that he’d written the graduation thesis for his Korean literature major about the verb “bbajida” (to fall for someone). “How can someone write a dozen pages about something like that? The world I don’t know is vast and mysterious.” It seems like just yesterday that I was looking up at my boyfriend with wide eyes. Somehow we had “fallen” for each other. At one point, we were lying in each other’s arms in my studio apartment, not knowing if the sun was rising or setting. I was comforted by the warmth of someone I could reach out and touch. Desire and pleasure were a distant second. Maybe a person doesn’t need too much warmth to live; maybe this is good enough. Maybe . . . that was what he thought too, so he came to meet me wearing his Sunday best that day. We exchanged pleasantries, ate, drank tea, and went to a bar. Later, his boss joined us, apparently a senior who’d helped him get the job. As we grew tipsy, my ex sipped his drink and murmured in a very adult tone:
“I guess people are the greatest asset in life.”
Two months later, I joined this weird company that told me I could make three million won a month, even ten million, but first I had to buy eight million worth of goods.
I listened to a lecture by a man in his fifties who said, “Anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard enough.” Sounds like it’s not worth listening to, doesn’t it? You’d be right to think so, but that’s exactly what captures people’s attention. Hearing the word “dream,” I felt a stabbing pain in my chest, painful and pleasant at the same time, and my heart was beating fast. I realized I’d desperately wanted to hear such words for a long time. Straight out of a textbook. You know, words that are true and beautiful, but which no one really believes. So true they even seem sacred, but you know what? In today’s world, there’s nothing I want to believe in more than the saying that anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard. Of course, I wasn’t convinced right from the get-go. I entered the training center skeptically, smugly saying, “I’m an educated woman, I’m no pushover.” I trusted my reasoning, willpower, and logic. And as my ex-boyfriend had said, I could just take a look and leave anytime. When I wasn’t convinced, he said, “Listen, if you don’t like it, if it’s really such a bad place, shouldn’t you be the one to rescue me?”
After three days and four nights of training in the underground auditorium of a shrine, I had a one-on-one interview with the man I’d met at the bar before. When I asked, “Isn’t this a pyramid scheme?”, he called it “a new type of network marketing in the developed world.” I didn’t know what that meant, but was mesmerized by the talk I’d heard. After listening to the story of a person with a similar family background, relationship history, and personality, who’d worked their way up to a director-level position, I was filled with hope that maybe I could become like that, too. I was so desperate, I was willing to do anything to make money, as long as it didn’t involve killing people. As if to reassure me, he showed me the business license, and said they could even get people exempted from military service. We went straight to the dormitory, a multi-family house about a thirty-minute walk from the training center. It was a semi-detached building with iron bars on the windows, and the first thing that caught my eye was the locked shoe cabinet. Back then, I just thought, “Probably to prevent their shoes from being stolen.” As I stepped through the door after my supervisor, I saw a man washing his hair in the kitchen sink, shooting me a sideways glance with water dripping from his hair, like something out of a horror movie. Next to him were about thirty toothbrushes with white bristles stuck in a cup, and the whole place smelled musty and unpleasant. I looked around in disbelief. Boxes containing red ginseng extract, antibacterial towels, silver nano soap, green onion juice, and socks were stacked up to the ceiling. They weren’t for sale, they were paid for, and I recognized them at one glance because I’d already bought a set. The “initial investment.” As I walked past the restroom, I made eye contact with a woman squatting on the toilet and peeing. The door was ajar, and to my surprise, there was someone standing guard in front of it. I wondered how people could live together in a place like this, but there really were unmarried single men and women sharing one room. Eating, sleeping, and taking a dump together. When I greeted them in a croaky voice, those people with faces as white as sheets applauded, smiled, and welcomed me with fake hospitality.
After entering the dorm, my cell phone was confiscated, and I had to give them information about everyone in my list of contacts. Whether I knew them a little, quite well, or not at all, I had to make a file on them, even if it required research. Age, gender, place of residence, education, complexes, religion, health status, military service, experience living abroad. I could feel something was wrong but didn’t have the courage to admit it. I just wanted to be part of what everyone there believed in. If a thick-headed girl like me thought that, what about the people who were just in their early twenties? Especially in that place. An area designated as a new town by the shrine but neglected for a long time because no business was done there, slowly turning into a slum. Youngsters living together, doing “advanced network marketing” like me. At first, I assumed there were between five hundred and a thousand, but they say that there are close to ten thousand, not nationwide but just in that neighborhood. Those people, eating inadequate meals and sleeping rough, living in the worst conditions, would wake up in the morning, put on their suits and transform. Then they would go out in groups of three or four, pouring into the city like a thundering wave, a spectacular sight to behold. At that point, I assured myself that if a lot of people were doing something, it couldn’t be that weird. Because I had paid for a year’s worth of lodging and food in advance, it was hard to get out. Oh, the money? The company took care of everything. I didn’t qualify for a loan, but they gave me a fake guarantee through a middleman and then wired the money directly into my bank account. It’s funny, a couple hundred bucks seemed ridiculous at the time. They’d assured us that sooner or later we’d make five hundred or even two thousand, so what’s the big deal? I don’t know why I believed that back then. I sound like an idiot, right? But when you’re there, that’s what happens, really. None of us looked particularly stupid. I was a bit older, but most of the others were sassy, bubbly college kids, the kind of people we used to look up to as the intellectuals of society. The only difference is that, while they used to be student activists in the past, they’re now involved in pyramid schemes. Some of my friends at the dorm hadn’t been home for over three years. Even during holidays, the company wouldn’t let us leave. I remember making up excuses, saying I had to go on a business trip or do volunteer work, as the company had ordered us to do. A lot of students had come to Seoul from other provinces, so it was easy to lie to their families. I spent my days drinking onion juice worth five million won every day instead of water, and using the soap, toothbrush, and socks I’d bought with the remaining three million won. As I learned the ropes of doing sales, I started crossing out the names of people I knew one by one. A senior I’d had a crush on, a childhood friend, a girl who’d let me crash with her for a while when I was having a hard time, and a classmate whom I’d studied with at the university library during exam season. I made more than ten calls a day, saying my name over and over again: “Hi, this is Suyin. How’ve you been?” “Hi, Suyin here. How long has it been?” “Hello, this is Suyin, do you have time to talk?” Of course, there were people who couldn’t even remember my name, whom I’d only met once or twice because of work. Sometimes it was better that way. The company didn’t let us go out alone, we had to walk around in groups of two or three. My supervisor gave me all kinds of useful information. Don’t be pushy, don’t be impatient, don’t hesitate, call at the right time, sit with your back to the wall in a restaurant, things like that. She meticulously checked my customer care card every time and made corrections like an essay teacher. That way, she’d get a bigger cut. After a year, I had accumulated almost two hundred cards. But you know what? The hardest part wasn’t agony or conflicts. It was the very real feeling of hunger that filled my head like an obsession. I’ve never eaten such crappy food before in my life. It wasn’t rice, more like gross porridge made by boiling whatever was in the fridge. For every meal, we sat around in a circle, gobbling up every bite. Hard to believe something like that is happening in the twenty-first century, and to young people with a bright future in the middle of Seoul, right? But it did happen. And is still happening now. What I sold was mostly daily necessities. Also health products and luxury goods. I’d sell a 1,000-won mask pack for 200,000 won, a 30,000-won watch for 580,000 won, or a 150,000-won handbag for 1.2 million won. At least that’s what I thought, but one day I came to my senses and realized that what I was selling wasn’t objects. You see, I was really selling people. And yet, I kept trying to convince myself that it’d be good for everyone in the end, that the more salespeople were at the bottom, the better it would be for all of them. I convinced myself that if I contributed to the cycle and supported the structure, everyone would get a bigger share, not just me. Maybe the reason I got caught up with that simplistic logic was because I was trying not to see the person at the bottom of the pyramid. Or maybe I didn’t think it would be me. As long as it wasn’t me.
Luckily, I got out. And someone else took my place. Call it a custom or a rule. I didn’t think it was a big deal because my job was to keep recruiting low-level salespeople. Maybe I’d flipped a switch in my head. The company seemed to be fed up with me as well. I hadn’t brought in money for months because I’d already reached out to everyone I knew, so I wasn’t getting any more customers. But then I got a call from that girl, Hyemi. You’re probably wondering who she is . . . She was a student of mine, at the academy.
“How’s it going, Teach? Looking at the fallen leaves, I thought of you, so I just texted, haha.”
At first I felt uneasy, like the company was testing me, but after hesitating, I wrote back, “Excuse me, but who are you?” She replied right away:
“Teach, it’s Hyemi. Aw, I’m sad ;(“
Ah, Hyemi! One of the students I’d met in Myeonmok-dong a few years back. The kid with an angelic face who always smelled of cigarettes and hugged me. She’d gone on to a junior college I’d never heard of, and even after becoming an adult, she’d deliberately come to my neighborhood to have a drink with me. We’d texted a few times after that, then I’d deleted her number because she was kind of annoying and I thought we’d never see each other again anyway. She’d reached out to me again. For a brief moment, I faced a dilemma. In my head, she was still a young high-school girl, and I wondered if I could ask her to do this kind of work, but my supervisor immediately gave me an order. Not giving salespeople time to think was one of the things the company did best. I went through the motions in the prescribed order and asked how she was doing. She said she was basically unemployed, sleeping during the day and selling popcorn at a multiplex movie theater at night. After that, the lines poured out of me like a machine. I shouldn’t have done it. Like a vending machine operated by the press of a button, I told her that a well-known entertainment management agency in Gangnam was looking for interns. That a senior from my department worked there and I was meeting him soon, so if she was free, she could tag along.
Seonghwa, it’s been ten years since we parted ways, and I can’t help but wonder how you remember me. I didn’t tell you back then, but as an exam repeater from the countryside, I felt guilty because of the sacrifices my parents made for me. I was determined to get into a prestigious university and lighten the load for them as soon as possible. So I’d go to bed late and wake up at the crack of dawn, and every morning, if I was dozing off, you’d make the bed for me. Then I’d take a deep breath, get up, and go out to buy something to eat with my meal vouchers. Back then, the Noryangjin food court sold thirty meal vouchers worth 3,000 won for 2,000 won each. My favorites were the boiled chicken soup from Hyundai restaurant, and that place which sold meals from my hometown, where the soup was terrible but cheap. It was in the basement, so even after a short stay, the smell of food stuck to your body. But I didn’t really eat much, because I could never digest it properly. It was also a waste of time, because when I was full, I felt sleepy, so I tried to eat as little as possible. That’s why I often bought bread for lunch. Tous les Jours had opened a branch behind our study room, and they had all this amazing, delicious bread. They even gave you a five percent discount. I bought a lot of bread there over the course of a year. I still had some in my mouth when I stood in line for classes—with Han Seok-kyung, a famous math lecturer, or Yoo Min-sun, who is now a civil service Korean language instructor—in between classes, or when cramming in the study room. On the other hand, you never used meal tickets. To save money on food, you kept simple side dishes in the fridge at the study room, and bought a lunch box with literally nothing but rice. If I passed by while you were eating in the break room, you’d always ask if I was hungry and offer me some of your food. Even then, you were kind to me, picking up my laundry and folding it neatly, putting candy or vitamins on top of my test papers. One time, you even carried me on your back, do you remember? At the Saimdang study room, there was a wide hallway between the study room and the common room where we had to wear indoor shoes. But one day, there were no slippers in front of the door, so you picked me up and carried me past the break room to my room. You kept giggling while staggering around. Then one day before the national college entrance exam, you bought me a cheeseburger from McDonald’s, wishing me good luck for the test, and even gave me a pair of sleep socks as a gift. Even though you were also about to take your teacher certification exam. Soon after, I left the goshiwon and went back to the countryside. As I packed my things, I still didn’t know which university I should go to, and you advised me to choose a school in Seoul to gain experience and broaden my horizons. Before I left, I gave you my Tous les Jours mileage card, on which I’d accumulated about 10,000 won after eating 200,000 won worth of bread in one year, with the words: “Buy yourself a cake with this. You’ll pass the exam for sure. Let’s stay in touch.”
On the postcard I received today, you wrote that you’d finally passed the teacher certification exam, and after you’d calmed down, you suddenly thought of me. Suyin. You knew my first name but not my surname. Then you remembered the Tous les Jours card you kept in a drawer. The name Kang Suyin was written on it, and you remembered that I’d gone to J University, so you reached out to the department office. Before I could finish reading the postcard, my curiosity won out and I opened the package. The moment I’d taken off the wrapping paper, the colleague next to me looked at me and asked, “Is it bad news?” Probably because I was staring at my name, which someone had written clearly on a bakery card ten years ago. I almost burst into tears seeing my name in that square space, delivered from the distant past.
I should wrap this letter up now, but, before I do, I want to tell you about Hyemi. Even after moving into the dormitory, she’d reached out to me a few times, but I didn’t answer any of her calls because I was trying to recover my broken body and mind and adapt to a normal daily life. After a while, she started texting me again, but I didn’t respond to her messages either. The texts came weeks or even months apart, then gradually dwindled and finally stopped. I was relieved. Then I changed my phone number, moved to a new neighborhood, and built a wall around myself. It was an excuse to live in a place where I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me. I thought about going back to my hometown, but I couldn’t face my parents. Since I owed everyone I knew money, there was no one left. Except for one person, a boy who really tried to help me, but I avoided him, thinking, “Why is he treating me like that? What does he want?” Maybe that kid, Hyemi, was confused as well. You know . . . I wanted Hyemi to do well. She was a sociable and bright kid, and I imagined she was probably making a lot of money. From a young age, she’d been ambitious and charming, and although she was a bit of a “lazy bum” at school, she was a cute student with a loud voice, a bright laugh, and she was good at swearing. One time, while I was sweeping the floor at the academy, she came up to me and whispered something in my ear. She had a serious expression, as if she was about to tell me something very important. Her voice was so quiet I could hardly hear her, but her expression was so vivid that I could decipher the message from the shape of her mouth. “Teacher! Your skirt!” I was wearing a short one-piece that day, so every time I bent down, my thighs were showing. She opened her mouth in a theatrical fashion and said, “You’ll make the boys horny,” not giving a second thought to what vocabulary she was using in front of her teacher, treating me like an older sister. Her worried tone and wiggling eyebrows were so serious it was almost funny. I remember scolding her, “Your skirt is much shorter, you brat!” but she kept standing behind me until I was done sweeping the floor. What else? Oh yeah, she would put a hand mirror on her desk, fiddling with her hair the whole time during class. She was horribly self-conscious about her hairstyle, to the point where she wouldn’t listen to me no matter how many times I reproached her. Even when I flicked her on the forehead, she’d say, “Geez, don’t touch my hair.” One day, I walked in on the kids as they were preparing for my birthday party. Some of the boys were blowing up balloons, while the girls were rubbing them against their heads and holding them up in the air, to create static electricity on the surface and make them float to the ceiling. There was already a bunch of colorful balloons floating near the fluorescent lights: yellow, blue and pink. On the blackboard, they’d written, “Kang Suyin, we love you!” It was one of those events that only really popular teachers at the academy would get. I looked around in delight and embarrassment. The students seemed a little disappointed that they’d been caught in the middle of preparing a surprise party. And then I saw Hyemi at the very back of the room, holding a balloon over her head and rubbing it with her hands held high. And with such enthusiasm, too. When our eyes met, she had this fresh, cheeky grin on her face, with her hair all up in the air like a cartoon character. Maybe that was it. That’s why I believed she’d be fine no matter what. That she’d always be “facing up” to the world with a bright smile like that. But you see, that kid . . . A while back, I heard that she had tried to take her own life, after drowning in debt and suffering from a failed relationship. They say she hung herself using the doorknob in my old room . . . Fortunately, she was rushed to the emergency room and survived, but her brain was damaged due to the lack of oxygen and now she’s lying in the hospital room in a vegetative state.
Autumn is already in full swing. Looking outside, I see gingko trees, their leaves shaking in the wind. The world will only get colder in the future, right? When I went to college with big dreams, I thought I’d spend my life doing something creative and giving back to the world, but, as you can see, this is who I am now. If someone asked me whether I’ve lived my life to the fullest, I think I could answer with “yes.” I don’t know how I ended up like this. These days, whenever I’m lying in bed at night, I hear strange noises. Whoosh. The sound cars make as they dash through the wind. Like I’m standing in the middle of an eight-lane road. You know, there are these pro gamers out there. They say that the bullets look really big as they fly by, and the way they’re coming at you feels like slow motion in a movie. I want to be like that, too. Even if the spot where I’m standing now is precarious and dizzying, even if the gap between the stepping stones is too wide, I hope the space I step on will look as big as a missile. And one day, after I’ve crossed this bridge, I want to be able to say to people and to myself, “I’ve done well, even though it took me a while. I’ve actually done a good job.” But right now, the water in front of me is deep, and the gap between the stepping stones is so big I can’t even see them. So here I am, staring at the old question mark in the palm of my hand. The one I’ve held on to, and still stare at, whenever I get nervous, whenever I try to wrap my head around the all-important factors of “money” and “time.”
“What can I do?”
And then, as if in protest, I hear a loud cry from inside me.
“What . . . is . . . left?”
I don’t know what to do. I want to ask someone for advice, but there’s no one left. Tell me, what can I do? What should I do? I want to go to the hospital to see her, but I don’t have the courage. And lately, several times a day, I think: if only she hadn’t contacted me. If only I hadn’t worked at the academy back then. Or rather, if only she hadn’t liked the twenty-something me. I don’t know what I’ll be like in the future, how I’ll look in my forties or sixties, what kind of words I’ll hold on to, what kind of beliefs I’ll live with. Maybe it’s not the circumstances that change, but the person. If so, how can someone remain the same? At the end of the postcard, you wrote, “Even though time goes by, it seems like the old days remain.” Today, which will soon become the past again, is looming in front of me like this. You know, I still have her messages saved on my old cell phone: “Teach, the atmosphere here is great! That’s how it’s supposed to be.” “Teach, I’m hungry, buy me a meal.” “Teach, why are you ignoring my texts?” “Teach, call me.” “Teach, where are you? Just call me once.” “Teach, please get me out of here . . . ” I don’t know if I can send this letter. If you’re reading this right now, I probably went to the hospital where Hyemi is. And if not, it means I’m still holding back, not getting anywhere. Thank you for remembering me. And for thanking me. I’m not the kind of person who deserves to hear those words. I really don’t . . . I’m writing this letter to tell you what I got from you today, even though I’m sure you already know. Because what you gave me might be different from what I got. Be well, Seonghwa. I really hope you’re doing well. If I get a chance . . . if I can, I’ll write again.
