The next morning, despite the stiffness in my body I got for sleeping in a slide, I still couldn't find it in me to return home. For all I knew, my running away had worsened the calamity back home. So I was caught in an ever worsening dilemma: the longer I stayed out, the angrier my father would be, but going home meant facing that wrath. So I kept putting it off.
I had picked a good time to be a runaway. It was late spring, and the days and nights were mild. Despite my lack of resources, the nights were warm enough to endure without cover. Last night sleeping under the stars was actually a pleasant experience compared to the anxious, light sleep my mother and I suffered at home, never knowing when my father would appear in the middle of the night, wasted or angry.
My boldness at asking Mr. Park for a job yesterday gave me a sort of direction. I was fifteen now, and it was possible for me to find a job. I washed my face and arms as best as I could in a public bathroom to try to make myself as presentable as possible and set off on the search for work.
I tried first at the convenience store where I had robbed a man of a samgak last night. I asked the girl at the counter if they were hiring.
"Not here specifically," she replied. "At least I don't think so." I thanked her and started to leave. "Wait," she called out, "7's always hiring at some location or the other. Just send in your application and resume to their website."
I thanked her again but again felt a wave of apprehension crash over me. I had no job experience, and no idea of how to make a resume, or even what one looked like. Growing up with minimal exposure to internet, it didn't even occur to me that I could search up how to make a resume then.
Unfortunately it seemed that every chain store seemed to require a resume. I tried looking at restaurants instead. My mother worked in one, and I thought I'd be able to find a job at one if she could. But at every restaurant I tried, the managers cast a critical eye over my bedraggled appearance and said they weren't hiring. The more polite ones asked me to come back with a resume, but the look in their eyes told me that even if I did, they would probably throw it into the garbage the moment I left.
After a day of job-searching, I found myself back at the playground, thoroughly discouraged. I was able to quench my thirst at the water fountains but pain of my empty stomach was even more insistent tonight. The samgak from yesterday had barely sated me yesterday, and today I had not eaten either.
I eyed the convenience store across the street but for some reason I couldn't bear the thought of stealing again to get food tonight. It's fine, I thought to myself. I won't die just from not eating one day. Tomorrow I would try other places. And even if nothing came out of it… the idea of searching for scraps of food from bins wasn't appealing, but I'd done it before. Tomorrow the bakery would clean out it's unsold stock, and I could probably get a pretty good meal then.
To distract myself, I started making a mental list of the places I'd try to find work at tomorrow. It worked, so well that I didn't notice when someone walked up next to me.
A soft clearing of the throat interrupted my thoughts. I flinched and turned to look at the source of the sound. I flushed red to see that it was the man from yesterday. Had he noticed the missing money and come to reckon with me?
"Hi," he said, politely and gently, as though he was trying not to frighten me off. I instinctively tucked my knees to my chest so I could protect myself if he decided to strike. He was too close to run away from. He could snare me by my shirt or by my arm before I could take flight.
He bent and I flinched away. But he wasn't bending towards me. He set down a dosirak, warm and freshly heated from the convenience store microwave. I flickered my eyes over to it covetously.
"It's for you," he said. "I'm sorry that you have to steal to eat. Tonight, please take this instead."
I flushed. So he had noticed the missing won from his wallet.
"I'm not mad," he said, gently. "Thank you for giving it back in the end." He started to leave but stopped. "I don't know what your situation is, but I hope things get better for you soon." He walked away.
As the distance increased I realised he really had bought and left the dosirak for me. Before he got too far I suddenly remembered my manners. I jumped to my feet and called out after him. "Ahjussi!" He stopped and looked back.
"Thank you!" I shouted as I dropped into a low bow. He smiled and waved at me and continued on his way.
I eagerly cracked open the container. The fragrant smell of meat, rice, and kimchi wafted up into my face. Strangely enough, as I put the first piece into my mouth I started to cry again. I didn't know why. Perhaps I felt overwhelmed at the generosity and forgiveness of the total stranger. I thought of the two boys in his wallet. They were lucky to have such a man as their father.
With an entire dosirak for me to consume, I ate much more quickly and greedily than my conservative nibbles at the samgak yesterday. As I scraped the last grains of rice off the container, I felt satisfied and full… stuffed, even. So much food made me feel wonderfully comfortable and warm. The feeling was intoxicating, and I felt sleepy and heavy. In my mind, I thanked the man again. I wished him a long and happy life.
I climbed into my slide again and curled up. It was an unexpectedly pleasant end to my first day away from home, and it felt as though the universe was telling me that I was on the right path after all. With optimistic thoughts filling my head I drifted off to sleep.
__
Perhaps my full belly caused me to become overly complacent and comfortable because I overslept. I was awakened to the sound of someone rapping on the slide. The echoes boomed around me and I woke in a fright, heart racing. I caught my head on the lip of the slide and the collision caused my vision to spark and go white for a moment. When it cleared, Mr. Park was staring down at me with an unimpressed look on his face.
I scrambled to my feet and blurted out a greeting before he could scold me for not doing so again.
He flicked his spent cigarette butt off into the distance (illegal in a playground but I wasn't about to tell a gangster he was doing something illegal). "So this is where you've been hiding, Jaehyun-a. Your mother's worried sick of you."
"She told YOU that?" It felt unrealistic that a literal loan shark would check in on my family and my mother would ask about me.
"Watch that tone, kid," he snapped. "I went to your house to collect. You weren't there and her anxiety was written all over her face."
"She was probably more anxious about having enough money to pay the week's interest," I muttered bitterly.
"Oi." Mr. Park gave me a light cuff to my ear. It didn't even hurt. "That's your mother you're talking about. Have some respect."
I was sullen. I still keenly felt my hatred that had arisen from the day I ran away.
Mr Park was watching me. "Something about you has changed," he said slowly. "But you still look the same. Actually, no. You're much dirtier. Come on. Let's go."
"I'm not going home." I planted my feet defiantly. I wouldn't be able to resist if he decided to drag me home but I'd give him a good fight over it.
"I'm not your errand boy or babysitter. I've got no reason to take you to your home. We're going to mine."
My curiosity won over my wariness. "Why?" I asked.
"Because you need a damn bath and a change of clothes," he said matter of factly. Mr. Park walked off, clearly not caring if I followed or not.
I did want a bath, so I ended up following him. I was feeling grimy after two days, and the prospect of a possible bath was temptation enough for me to enter the lions den.
He didn't talk much on the way back to his house. He came to my home often, but I'd never had reason to go to his. I wondered what kind of house a gangster would live in. Surely it was luxurious and filled with ill gotten trophies and illegal goods.
It was an apartment. Surprisingly it was only slightly larger than our two room hovel, but it was much better furnished and kept. I looked around curiously. It was well kept, but disappointingly normal. There were no racks of guns, no knives or swords on display. In fact it seemed plain and barely lived in, like the home of someone who had just moved in.
"You're nosier than I thought you'd be," Mr. Park grumbled. He grabbed a towel from a linen closet and tossed it at me. "Bathroom's on the left. Go shower. I need to look for something you can wear."
Mr. Park was easily half a foot taller than me, and his build was probably as thick as two of me. He must have caught my disbelieving expression before I turned to go to the bathroom, because he chuckled. I could barely hear him mutter something under his breath.
Even the bathroom was normal, though I honestly didn't know what I was expecting to see. I didn't dare to peek into the cabinets to see if there were any illicit drugs like in the movies. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to work the shower and when I did, I was ecstatic to find that it had hot water. It should have been normal, but the last few years we hadn't been able to afford to turn on the water heater and had to take cold showers. I turned it up as hot as I could stand, and lavished in the feeling of streams of heat flowing over me, not quite burning but still hot enough to feel almost painful. I drank in the hot steam rising off the water. I imagined it filling my lungs and cleansing me from within.
"Jae- SSI BAL." Mr Park had cracked the door open slightly and probably choked on the heavy steam now saturating the room. "Turn on the fan if you're going to use up all the hot water," he said crossly. He reached in to flick a switch, and a ventilation fan rattled to life. It had been so long, I had forgotten that step. "I found something for you to wear. Get out of the shower and wear it before it gets damp from all this steam." The door clicked shut again.
His drop in had surprised me and reminded me that I was indulging in luxuries that didn't belong to me. I turned the hot water down significantly and finished up quickly. I found the clothes he had left for me. Surprisingly the pants fit well enough, but the shirt clearly belonged to Mr. Park. It billowed around my narrower frame and hung down well past my hips. Despite the bad fit, it felt surprisingly comfortable to be wearing clean clothes. I sniffed gratefully at the fresh smell of detergent still lingering in the clothes. We used plain soap at home.
When I came out, Mr. Park laughed at me. I must have looked comically small in his shirt. But apparently it wasn't that. "Those are my girlfriend's pants," he grinned. That was embarrassing. The fit was nearly perfect. Now that he said it, I noticed the more feminine cut of the suit pants. There was much more flare at the ankles, and the thigh area was tighter.
"Tuck the shirt into the pants," he suggested. I did so. Mr. Park gave me an approving look as he gave my (his) shirt collar a hard jerk to straighten it. "You clean up well enough for a gutter rat," he said.
"Ok, let's go." I didn't know where we were going, but I didn't have much other plans, so I followed. Besides, it would have been strange for me to wander off with his clothes that I assumed were on loan only. He stopped just before an auto shop. "Stand up straight. Be on your best behaviour," he instructed me. He gave me a good clap on the back that snapped me upwards. I winced but held my posture as stiff and straight as I could.
"Do Hoon-ssi," Mr Park called out. A man's head popped out from under a car.
"Park Bonghwan-ssi! You're late," the head boomed cheerfully. With a scraping sound, the man fully slid out from under the car on what looked like a jury rigged creeper.
"The kid needed a bath." He dipped his head as Mr. Do walked towards us and Mr. Do returned the the greeting.
Being much younger, I dipped into a deep bow. "Hello, Mr Do," I greeted him politely.
He hummed in approval. "This the boy? He's got good manners. But…" Without warning he reached out and gave me a firm pinch in the arm. I barely kept from wincing visibly. "You warned me he was scrawny, but this kid barely has any meat on his bones!"
"He'll work hard," Mr Park said. I looked up at him in surprise. He hadn't mentioned anything about work, and the last time I asked he had seemed mad that I had asked.
"You're too young to work for me," he grunted. "But Mr. Do has been kind enough to take you on as an apprentice as a favor to me. Now, what do you say?"
"S-seunbae! I'll be in your care, Do Hoon-nim." I bowed again, holding it longer this time.
"He's got surprisingly good manners, being Baek Seung's kid." I blushed. So even he knew about my father. I hoped his reputation wouldn't tarnish Mr. Do's impression of me.
"He'll be a far better man than his father," Mr. Park agreed. "Anyways, I'll head off for now. I have other things on my schedule."
"Lots of people to shake down, eh?" The informal way Mr. Park and Mr. Do spoke with each other must mean that they were good friends. We waved him off.
"Bet you've never touched a car in your life," Mr Do said.
"There was an auto shop class in my school, actually," I replied.
"Eh! Not bad. So we're not starting from scratch. Good! Come in, I'll show you around the shop."
I followed him into the shop. I had been given a rare opportunity and now it was up to me to make the best of it.