A twenty-day trip around the country.
It was so good.
I was happy.
I saw a world I’d never seen before.
I experienced a world I was seeing for the first time.
I saw how all kinds of people lived.
I came into contact with all sorts of environments and cultures.
I guess this is why people need to travel.
After traveling, I realized what I was lacking.
What I lacked, more than anything, was experience.
I learned that through this trip.
There were so many worlds I didn’t know.
I also had a lot of new experiences.
For starters, I rode a plane.
I thought I’d never get to ride something like an airplane in my whole life, but I did.
There was no one to joke that you had to take your shoes off before getting on a plane, so I didn’t make the mistake of taking mine off.
I thought it was a relief that I didn’t have friends.
Jeju Island was nice.
Except for the black pork belly full of fat that cost 20,000 won per serving.
I went there prepared to get ripped off, but they said they wouldn’t serve me because I was alone.
That was a relief.
Jeju Island was fascinating.
People pay this much money to eat this?
What kind of noodles cost over 10,000 won?
Grilled cutlassfish was over 50,000 won,
and raw fish was market price, apparently.
They even refused to take me at restaurants when I said I was alone.
I mean, I never thought there would be a world where I said I’d pay money to eat, and they still wouldn’t sell me food.
Refreshing.
I really was right to go on this trip.
When I came back from Jeju Island, I took a ship instead of a plane.
That, too, was a new experience.
The ship was huge.
So huge it was honestly amazing that something like that could float on water.
It was completely different from seeing it on YouTube.
It felt majestic.
The inside of the ship was even more fascinating.
Inside the ship, there wasn’t just passenger cabins, but a food court, convenience store, karaoke room, arcade, café, and all sorts of other things.
An elevator inside a ship.
I was shocked.
At this rate, they’d build a water park on a ship too.
What was even more shocking was that I spent 30,000 won on a claw machine I started playing as a joke while wandering around.
I couldn’t stop.
When I arrived in Mokpo, I stayed there for a night, looked around here and there, and ate.
They said soy sauce marinated crab was famous, so I ate that too.
They call it a rice thief, and I felt like I understood why it was a thief.
I was a hostage captured by the thief.
I liked that time.
That hostage-like time.
A new place and new food.
New words, and even though it was Korean, the dialect made it hard to understand, which made it feel like I was overseas, so I liked it.
I liked that feeling, so I took intercity buses, bought tickets for whatever city stood out the most at the bus terminal, and traveled around.
I went from the night sea of Yeosu to Jinju, Busan, Ulsan, Gyeongju, and Pohang, then passed through Ulsan, Andong, and Samcheok, went through Gangneung, and returned to Seoul.
In unfamiliar places, I tried taking buses, subways, express buses, and the KTX,
went to places said to be famous in those regions,
and ate things said to be delicious.
After wandering around like that for over twenty days, I slowly started getting sick of it.
At first, everything had seemed new, but now it all started looking the same.
And it was too hot.
I thought it would be nice to have a car.
I’d been feeling that painfully ever since Jeju Island.
I need a car.
At the very least, I need a driver’s license.
In Seoul, there was nothing inconvenient about not having a car, but the moment I left Seoul, it was way too inconvenient without one.
A car wasn’t just for getting around; it could also be used as a place to rest.
In a summer this hot, a car was essential.
In an emergency, it could even be used for lodging.
And, you know, it might never happen, but I could get a girlfriend someday.
So let’s get a driver’s license.
And buy a car.
I made up my mind. Definitely.
That was how the trip came to an end.
I did spend quite a lot of money, but it was still an expense I could handle.
And I even earned some money along the way.
There was a stone octopus I bought because it looked so fresh.
I’d put it in my inventory,
and when I was passing through Andong, some lady at the market said she needed a live octopus for a memorial rite but couldn’t find one, so I sold it to her and added it to my travel expenses.
She seemed very satisfied, saying it was fresh.
There was only one conclusion to the trip.
There were too many worlds I didn’t know.
So I should go around a lot and experience a lot.
Even in our tiny little country, there were this many different cultures.
It made me wonder how many new cultures there would be if I went out into the whole world.
I wondered how far other climates, other religions, and other foods would guide me into new worlds.
I think this trip was enough just for making me realize that.
******
I enrolled in a driving school.
Fuck, why is this so expensive too?
It’s one million won.
It was so expensive that, if I could, I wanted to ask someone to teach me,
but there was no bastard who would lend a car to someone like me, and no bastard who would spend that much time on me.
Even less so anyone who had a driver’s license.
With no other choice, I signed up for driving school.
As it happened, my depressing birthday had also passed.
I was now past eighteen years old.
Now I was an adult, and legally, I didn’t have to rely on anyone.
I could live my own life.
I hated that it was my birthday, but I liked that from now on, I wouldn’t be told to bring my parents every time I tried to do something.
There was no problem with getting a driver’s license either.
The driving school taught me this and that,
but I had no idea why they taught something easy in such a difficult way.
Don’t you just drive and park?
Why do they keep telling me to line my shoulder up with the line,
and to turn the wheel when the curb appears in the side mirror?
And they take a million won each for doing this?
They’re all thieves.
When I make a lot of money later, I should open a driving school or something.
I should become a thief too.
*******
School had already started again,
and the second semester had begun.
My life was still the same.
In the morning, I went to school, and when school ended, I would stop by the mart and then go to boxing class.
But now, instead of boxing, I started a part-time job.
A delivery job.
As soon as I got my driver’s license, I bought a motorcycle and started doing delivery work.
The store owners liked me.
Because the food I delivered got good reviews, saying it felt like it had just come out of the kitchen.
Of course the reviews were good, since I was delivering through my inventory.
I worked from 8 p.m. to midnight, but there were times when it was hard to even make 100,000 won.
Whenever that happened, I thought of the ice cream part-time job.
If I’d only done it during summer break, I probably would’ve made about thirty million won.
But this ordinary, plain life wasn’t that bad either.
I especially liked the motorcycle.
Now I didn’t have to walk around.
.
.
.
I went to school.
I didn’t want to walk, so I rode my motorcycle.
I parked it roughly near the school and went in, and Yang Jeongwon must have seen that while coming to school.
No matter how I think about it, that bastard isn’t a delinquent.
For a delinquent, he’s too earnest and diligent.
As soon as I entered the classroom, he spoke to me.
For a while, he’d been pretending not to see me even when he did.
“Is that motorcycle parked over there yours?”
“That? Yeah.”
“Where’d you steal it from?”
“Steal what?”
“Where would a beggar bastard like you get something like that? You must’ve stolen it.”
What the hell, did he eat something bad today?
Why was he suddenly picking a fight?
Did he learn some martial arts over break or something?
Was he picking a fight to test it out?
Now that I looked, his body did seem a little better.
When someone picks a fight, returning one in kind is the proper way of a gentleman.
“What, are you jealous because a beggar bastard is riding around on a motorcycle when you don’t even have one? Want me to give you a ride? Don’t grab my waist, though. It’s disgusting.”
“You crazy bastard! Hey, are you insane? Have you lost it?”
“I’m saying I’ll give you a ride on my motorcycle, so why are you asking if I’m insane? Shouldn’t you say thank you first? Are you the kind of guy who repays kindness with enmity?”
“You fucking bastard, you talk like shit.”
“What a weird bastard. You looked like you wanted to ride a motorcycle, so I said I’d give you a ride, and you curse at me instead. Your rough words and behavior will come back to you like shit later. So be careful.”
“You fucking bastard, seriously...”
“If you’re jealous of the motorcycle, go ask your dad to buy you one. That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Whenever something happens, you run straight to your dad and tattle. I heard the only thing you learned by senior year was how to tattle to your dad. There’s even a rumor that you still can’t do the ABCs.”
After hearing that much, Yang Jeongwon must not have been able to hold back his anger, because he immediately threw a punch at me.
But no matter how I thought about it, this bastard really was stupid.
Last time, I told him so clearly not to open up his shoulder like that before throwing a punch, but he still hadn’t fixed it.
If you’re this stupid, you should just quit.
You learned martial arts for nothing.
I couldn’t let myself get hit by a punch like that.
Unnecessary praise doesn’t make whales dance; it’s like a drug that leads teenagers down the path of empty dreams.
I lightly dodged and threw a one-two.
Tap, tap.
I didn’t put any strength into it.
It was just enough to tell him, There’s a fist here, you know?
It wouldn’t hurt, but it would piss him off like crazy.
Because I hit him with my palm, hand open.
Like a slap.
Yang Jeongwon’s face, having taken that slap, turned bright red.
He looked furious.
Strength entered his body.
With his fist clenched tight, he threw another punch at me.
I’m telling you, if you put that much strength into it, your body stiffens and you can’t throw a good punch.
His learning ability really was fucking terrible.
Where did you learn how to fight?
You’ll have to learn again.
Should I introduce you to our boxing gym?
I dodged the punch that was once again loaded with nothing but strength and threw a short hook.
Still without putting any power into it.
Tap, tap.
Another one-two.
Jab, jab, one-two.
At first, I was just dodging punches and throwing one-twos.
But now that I was doing it, it felt like practice.
So while I was at it, I practiced boxing.
I hadn’t even been able to go to the boxing gym lately because of my part-time job.
As expected, Yang Jeongwon was a tsundere.
He even gave me this opportunity and time.
As expected, the only person in this school who thought of me was Yang Jeongwon.
Yang Jeongwon tried to avoid my fists, but he couldn’t do it at all.
No, rather than dodging, he instead stretched out his fists and tried to hit me.
The best defense is offense? Did you pick that up somewhere?
But even if you attack, you have to keep your guard up.
There are too many openings.
With no choice, I threw another one-two. Hook. Uppercut.
I was getting out of breath too.
Stop. Time to rest.
I sat down on a chair beside me.
A boxing match is decided during the breaks.
By how much stamina you can recover in thirty seconds.
After resting for thirty seconds, I approached Yang Jeongwon, who was still standing behind me.
“We have to do round two, right?”
One-two. Hook, two.
One-two, jab, jab, one-two.
One, two, body hook, hook.
Jab, body hook, two.
One-two, back, one-two.
Ah, fuck, I shouldn’t be getting excited.
But I was.
Was it because of this feeling that Yang Jeongwon hit me?
The impact transmitted through the ends of my hands was thrilling.
I continued to freely show Yang Jeongwon boxing combination techniques.
If he’d seen anything, he would learn something too.
I wasn’t hitting Yang Jeongwon.
I was merely teaching Yang Jeongwon the techniques he lacked.
Seeing how out of breath I was, it seemed another three minutes had passed.
Time went by faster than I thought.
When I sparred in the ring and got beaten up, time didn’t pass at all.
But when I was the one hitting, time flew.
I sat down on any chair again.
When I stopped hitting him, only then did Yang Jeongwon make a relieved expression, as if it was over.
But after thirty seconds passed and I stood up again, Yang Jeongwon’s face turned ashen.
“Round three begins. You know boxing goes up to twelve rounds, right?”
“You fucking bastard, that’s for pros.”
He screamed with an expression that looked almost tearful.
I hadn’t intended to go this far either, but since I’d already warmed up, I should do it properly.
I needed to engrave it clearly into his body so this bastard would never dare raise his head at me again.
Because I’d gone easy on him like it was a half-assed joke, this kind of scuffle happened again.
I had to make it so he could never even meet my eyes again.
So that when he saw me, he would tuck his tail by habit.
After all my long years as a bread shuttle and an outcast, I knew very well where you had to mess someone up to make it hurt, to make it difficult, to make it scary.
Today, I’ll teach you my know-how.
Fuck, where would you find a better friend than me?
I teach you boxing. I teach you know-how.
Always be grateful.
Here comes the lesson.