“Aren’t you going to academy? You go to one.”
“I told them I was sick.”
Sluuurp.
Gwon Jua answered while eating the ramyeon.
As a result, I didn’t get to eat even a single chopstickful.
“Do you have kimchi?”
“You think I would? Aren’t you expecting too much from an orphan?”
“No... That’s not what I meant...”
“Forget it. Eat that and go.”
“Sorry... I guess I saw the necklace wrong.”
“Yeah. I accept your apology.”
“But you’re really good at making ramyeon. It’s the best ramyeon I’ve ever had.”
“Even if you say that, I’m not making you more. There’s no ramyeon. That was the last one.”
At my words, Gwon Jua suddenly looked incredibly apologetic.
“Sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll buy you ramyeon next time.”
“It’s fine. I can treat you to that much.”
I only ate ramyeon because you’re here.
If you weren’t, I would’ve eaten sashimi or meat.
I couldn’t bring myself to say it, so I swallowed the words.
I figured Gwon Jua wouldn’t be able to keep eating if I sat there staring at her, so I went and gathered some branches that had fallen on the mountain.
Then I lit a fire.
Crackle, crackle—the wood began to burn.
As the sun set, the dark yard grew bright.
Since there’s no electricity in my house, I sometimes make a fire like this when I’m outside.
“Wow~ The atmosphere is so nice. It feels like we came camping.”
What the hell?
Did you come here to hang out?
Aren’t you leaving?
If you leave, I need to hurry up and eat sashimi, meat, and anyway, stuff like that. Hurry up and go.
“What’s it like living alone?”
“It’s shitty. Or maybe I’m the shitty one? Anyway, none of it’s good. My wish is to go to an orphanage, you know. Haha.”
“You’re the first kid like you I’ve ever met. You’re really interesting.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know. You just seem a little unusual.”
“Enough. If you’re done eating, go. It’ll be dangerous if it gets any darker.”
“Can’t I stay just a little longer? Sitting here, looking at the bonfire and the night view, it really feels healing. Do you have anything to drink?”
“Did you come camping?”
“This is better than a campsite.”
I agreed with that too.
This was better than a campsite.
Not that I knew what a campsite looked like.
But something to drink?
I quickly scanned my inventory.
There was only beef.
There weren’t any drinks that were especially suitable.
And if I gave her something to drink too, it felt like she’d stay even longer.
I should send her off now.
“I don’t.”
“Really? That’s too bad.”
Gwon Jua really seemed disappointed.
How much more are you planning to ruin my already nonexistent household?
Was one ramyeon not enough?
“Huh? What’s that?”
Gwon Jua, who had been looking around with hawk eyes as if she was still unsatisfied, found something.
“Huh?”
That was there?
Coffee.
I had brought it back from the mart because YouTube kept going on about coffee, Americanos, and espresso, and I’d gotten curious.
Out of curiosity, I took one sip, spat it right back out, and left it there.
After drinking one mouthful of that, I’d been filled with a serious question.
People pay money to drink that bitter stuff?
Why?
Incomprehensible things were happening in the world.
Gwon Jua trotted over and brought back a bottle of espresso.
There had been six in one pack, and I’d only opened one.
“Oh~ It’s espresso concentrate?”
“You drink that?”
“Yeah. Not the espresso concentrate by itself, but as a hot A or iced A.”
Hot A? Iced A? I felt like I’d heard those somewhere, but I didn’t know what they were.
“You have water at home, right?”
Why wouldn’t I? Of course I did.
I had Arisu I’d collected from a public restroom.
“Should I bring it?”
“Yeah.”
Gwon Jua poured water into the kettle and lit the burner.
When the water boiled, she poured hot water into a cup and added a little espresso concentrate.
Compared to the amount of water, it was an absurdly tiny amount.
Ah, fuck.
So you’re only supposed to pour that much.
No wonder I cursed when I’d put my mouth straight to the bottle and drank it.
Gwon Jua held the mug in both hands, blew on it, and took a sip of coffee.
“The coffee’s good. I should buy this too. It’s exactly my taste.”
Seeing Gwon Jua drink it, it really did look delicious.
I copied Gwon Jua, blew on it, and took a sip.
It tasted bad. I’d been deceived.
Of course, it was better than drinking espresso concentrate straight, but it still wasn’t something worth bringing into my inventory.
Even so, I didn’t say out loud that it tasted bad.
I had at least that much tact.
The crackling of the bonfire could be heard,
the night view of Seoul could be seen,
and with warm coffee in my hands, it felt new.
It was my house, but it really felt like I’d come to some campsite.
Gwon Jua, who had been looking into the distance without saying anything, quietly spoke.
“Being here makes me feel at ease. It feels like I’ve become free. I was feeling really suffocated. Even breathing was hard, but now that I’m here, it feels like I can breathe.”
“Isn’t that the kind of thing you’re supposed to write in a diary?”
“Maybe? You can just be my diary.”
“It’s already hard enough being Yang Jeongwon’s errand boy. Don’t push it.”
Gwon Jua looked at me and asked.
“Can I come here sometimes?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous, and it’s not like you and I are close... Anyway, no.”
“But I really like being here...”
Gwon Jua truly liked this place.
She had gone to every place that was supposed to be nice with her parents.
Even so, no place had given her this sense of liberation.
So this was what it felt like to truly breathe, she thought.
So this was what it felt like to escape from someone else’s gaze.
After a brief pause, Gwon Jua continued.
“I know I shouldn’t say something like this, but sometimes I envy you.”
“Why me?”
“I live to meet my mom and dad’s expectations. I’ve never thought about the life I want or my own future. Ever since I was little, my parents set the goal of medical school for me, and I’ve only been walking that path. I absolutely can’t stray from it, and I’m not even able to.”
“For someone like that, aren’t you acting out too much?”
“This is my first time doing something like this. Things like this really never happen, but both my mom’s and dad’s schedules happened to overlap, so they both went on overseas business trips. They’ll be back tomorrow. So for just today, I’m free. Can’t you give me one more hour of this freedom?”
“Fine. I’ll give you an hour.”
“Thanks.”
Gwon Jua took another sip of coffee.
I carefully watched her profile.
Was it that a human life is a comedy from far away and a tragedy up close?
Gwon Jua, who had seemed smart, confident, and perfect, looked different now.
She looked tired, fragile, and precarious.
I could see how many expectations that small body was living under.
Because I was close,
because we’d talked, I could see things I hadn’t seen before.
.
.
.
Gwon Jua touched her cheeks, which had turned a little red from the bonfire in front of her.
She hadn’t come here intending for this to happen.
She had genuinely been curious about the gold necklace that had disappeared in an instant.
She had been so curious about how he’d done it.
She had thought that if she told him to take her to his house and let her search, he’d get scared and tell her how.
If it were Gwon Jua, that was what she would have done.
Because Gwon Jua was timid.
But she hadn’t expected him to bring her to his house so easily,
hadn’t expected one chopstickful of ramyeon eaten here to taste this good,
and hadn’t expected this space itself to be healing.
Being here gave her a sense of liberation.
It felt as if all the restraints that had been tightening around her were undone,
as if she had been freed from the pressure that had been weighing her down.
The Americano she usually drank like water drew out the stories inside Gwon Jua today.
They were just words she’d blurted out without order, but Inbae was the first person she had ever told these inner thoughts to.
She couldn’t even say things like this to Ji Minseo, her closest friend.
They had appropriately given each other the title of best friend, but she had never opened her heart.
But with that Inbae, she felt like she could say anything.
It felt like she had gained a new hideout.
It felt like she had gained a new friend.
*******
I still hadn’t spent the three million won I received as settlement money.
Since I’d charged my transportation card, was it 2.99 million won now?
Whenever I got money, I used to be busy buying food, but now that I could bring back anything I needed from the mart, I didn’t really have anything to spend money on.
After thinking about what to do with the money, I decided to learn fighting.
Shouldn’t I at least stop being an errand boy before graduating high school?
There were a lot of options like judo, jiu-jitsu, boxing, MMA, and so on, but what I chose was boxing.
Because I felt like I’d seen somewhere that boxing was the best for fights between weaklings.
As a weakling myself, it was only natural that I chose boxing.
When I signed up at the boxing gym, they gave me a jump rope.
I jumped rope endlessly and learned the jab.
I looked in the mirror and kept practicing my jab.
What was nice about the boxing gym was that I could shower there too.
Since there was no running water at home, all I could do was go to a public restroom and wash up roughly, but here I could use as much warm water as I wanted.
On top of that, there was no limit on workout time.
Every day after school, I went to the boxing gym.
I stretched, jumped rope, practiced the jab, one-two, and hook, and did simple strength training.
I felt like my stamina was improving.
The head trainer and the coach also patted my shoulder and told me I was doing well.
Maybe because it was my first time hearing someone tell me I was good at something, it made me feel good.
I wanted to do better and work harder.
For two months, without missing a day, I went to the gym every day.
I usually worked out for two hours, and on longer days, three hours.
That day too, I was diligently shadowboxing in front of the mirror when,
“Inbae, you’ve improved a lot.”
“Thank you. It’s because you taught me well, sir.”
“Come to think of it, didn’t you get a little taller? You’ve put on some weight too.”
“Really?”
“Want to measure yourself?”
“Yes.”
I’d vaguely felt that something about me had changed a little. Was it that I’d grown taller?
When I measured my height, I was 176 cm.
At the physical exam early this year, I’d been 170, so I’d grown 6 cm in almost ten months.
I thought I was done growing. It felt good to be taller.
I’d thought I seemed to be getting a little taller lately, and apparently I really had grown.
I didn’t know if I’d grown because I’d been living without enough to eat, then started eating well thanks to my inventory,
or if I’d grown because starting exercise had stimulated my growth plates.
I didn’t know the reason,
but the cause was definitely one of those two.
Because I wanted to grow a little more, I decided to work harder at both.
I ate better,
moved more,
and exercised harder.
And before I knew it, winter break had arrived.
In the past, I would have hated winter break.
Because it was a cold and hungry season.
But now, it was fine.
Because I had my inventory.
After Gwon Jua came and taught me the romance of camping or whatever,
I stopped by big supermarkets, warehouse stores, and camping specialty shops and stocked up on a lot of camping gear.
Life at my house wasn’t any different from camping.
No electricity, no water, no gas.
And it was on a mountain too. This was camping.
Before, I’d focused on practicality, but after Gwon Jua visited, I switched to products that were a little more stylish and had better designs.
When I watched YouTube, there were a lot of introductions to excellent products.
I also kept earning money little by little.
When I stole pens from stationery stores, they weren’t very popular,
but camping gear was pretty popular.
Especially things like tents, since their selling price was high, made me a decent bit of money.
Having money kept making me think about other things.
It wasn’t that I wanted to spend money recklessly.
If I needed something, I could just put it in my inventory and bring it back.
I wanted to learn something with money.
Studying was hopeless.
I was bad at it anyway, and I didn’t want to do it either.
Boxing was enough for exercise.
If I ever wanted to learn another sport, I’d probably only think about it after my boxing reached a certain level.
At that point, I did have the desire to learn something like MMA or jiu-jitsu.
But not now.
Right now, boxing was enough.
Then I started thinking, what if I learned a foreign language?
Even if I was bad at studying, a foreign language wouldn’t be bad.
Even when I was young, I’d envied kids who were good at English so much.
Maybe I’d be able to use the inventory ability I had even better too.
It was a global era, after all.
So I signed up for an English academy.
The registration fee was expensive.
I wondered if I’d done something pointless.
But they said the textbook was in PDF form.
They said I needed a laptop or tablet.
What the hell, couldn’t I just scribble on paper?
It didn’t matter.
I could go to an electronics store and bring one back.
I confidently entered an appliance store.
Huh? This won’t work?
At warehouse stores and big supermarkets too, electronics like these weren’t displayed openly.
You had to tell an employee, and they brought them out for you.
Of course, there were display models, but if I took one, it would be too obvious, so I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
In the end, I had no choice but to buy a tablet.
I bought a pencil too.
It cost a lot of money.
Living in a house without electricity, yet going to an English academy.
Studying English, and for that, a tablet.
Even I didn’t understand it, but still, I felt proud, like I was doing something.
I had no interest in grammar, vocabulary, or things like that.
I just needed to communicate.
I studied mainly conversation.
But studying English was more fun than I’d expected.
I also thought buying the tablet had been a good decision.
Watching YouTube made English even easier.
During winter break, my daily routine was to go work out during the day when the boxing gym was quiet,
stop by the English academy,
take a bus or subway to a big mart and pick up the things I needed,
then come home and camp.
I could say it had been a productive break.