Chapter 29

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Consciousness
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As he slipped on his shoes and got into the car, the village chief, already in the passenger seat, was rubbing his chest in shock.

“Good heavens, I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest. That old woman gets more vicious by the day.”

Taeseo started the engine and drove away from Kim Kkotnim’s house.

“I thought you’d be a help, Chief, but you weren’t any help at all. I just ruined my socks running out barefoot.”

He said that, but the chief hadn’t been entirely useless. Making An Yuna’s great-uncle aware of the land issue and establishing himself as the compensation manager was a definite gain.

“Hmph, you’re lucky it was just your socks. That old woman is the type who wouldn’t hesitate to cut someone with a sickle. My heart’s still pounding. I thought I was going to wet myself.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve never seen a grandmother that scary either.”

The chief was still holding his shoes in his hands. Only after they were far from Kim Kkotnim’s house did he finally put them on.

“More importantly, Manager Kwon.”

“Yes.”

“An old saying goes that a startled heart should be soothed with liquor. If you don’t have anything to do today, why don’t you come over to my place for some makgeolli?”

The chief seemed to regain his composure only after they reached the middle of the village. Judging by the way he was talking about drinks, his fear of Kim Kkotnim must have been half a joke.

“I drove here.”

Taeseo tried to use his car as an excuse to decline the invitation, but the chief wasn’t easily dissuaded.

“What’s a car? The drink is what matters.”

“You can get in serious trouble for drunk driving these days.”

“What kind of man lets a little thing like driving stop him from having a drink? Just have a little and take the rice paddy roads instead of the main one.”

“I might drive the car into a paddy.”

“I’ll pull it out with my tractor. Hell, I’ll even give you a ride home on the tractor, so let’s have a drink, what do you say?”

“But you said the police set up DUI checkpoints at the edge of town on rainy days.”

“The police have common sense. They don’t pull over commercial vehicles.”

“A tractor is a commercial vehicle?”

“If you use it for work, it’s commercial.”

Taeseo accepted the invitation, deciding to leave his car at the chief’s house.

As he parked outside, the savory smell of pancakes drifted from an open window. Inside, a table was already set for drinks.

As soon as Taeseo took a seat at the low table, the chief filled his glass to the brim with makgeolli.

Taeseo downed the glass in one go and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“About Kim Kkotnim.”

“Yeah. What about her?”

“It seems to me she’s unusually harsh with her granddaughter.”

It wasn’t just about the land expropriation; Kim Kkotnim’s reactions became particularly extreme whenever Yuna was mentioned. It seemed too severe to be just because of some past incident.

“It’s not harshness, it’s fear that Yuna will fall for some outsider and run away. They can’t make ends meet without her. Who else in that family is actually living a proper life? It’s just Yuna.”

“Talking about Yuna again?”

The chief’s wife casually joined them. The chief spoke as if to make sure she heard.

“Yuna’s grandmother. She was telling Manager Kwon she’d gouge his eyes out or cut his thing off if he messed with Yuna.”

“Oh dear. That grandmother is at it again.”

“Has this happened before?”

“A few months ago, I think? She saw Yuna giving directions to an out-of-town customer at the convenience store and grabbed her by the hair.”

Taeseo laughed in disbelief.

“She says she hates outsiders, but are any of the guys in this town any better?”

“You’ve got a point. Guys like Yunho and Jaeseop are still unemployed even after graduating from college.”

At the mention of Jaeseop, the chief’s wife spoke as if she’d just remembered something.

“Speaking of Jaeseop, I saw him come home drunk the other day and act horribly toward his mother. It was terrifying. A big guy like him, screaming at his own mother… And yet Yuna’s grandmother is dead set on setting Yuna up with him.”

Hearing this, Taeseo choked on his makgeolli and put his glass down.

“She’s trying to set her up with that Jaeseop guy?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

Just this morning, Jaeseop had called Yuna his woman.

After hearing what the chief’s wife said, his claim didn’t seem so baseless. The chief spoke, his voice laced with frustration.

“Like I said before, the grandmother’s doing it because she’s afraid Yuna will marry an outsider and there’ll be no one left to support her. Neither Yunho’s dad nor Yunho can function as proper adults, so they’re just clinging to Yuna, dragging her down.”

With a heavy expression, Taeseo ran a hand over his makgeolli glass.

Her grandmother, An Yunho, her great-uncle. An Yuna was living her life carrying a weight unimaginable to most people.

“Well, anyway, let’s just empty our glasses for now.”

Taeseo drained his glass as if to shake off the heavy thoughts about An Yuna. One by one, the makgeolli bottles began to empty.

* * *

The rain that heralded the start of the monsoon season fell ceaselessly all day. The sun had vanished, and the wet wings of the cicadas were silent.

The once-faded ground and the dust-covered grass and trees revealed their true colors, drenched in the downpour.

After sharing seven bottles of makgeolli with the chief, Taeseo drunkenly stumbled his way back to his studio apartment.

A bitter laugh escaped him at the thought that there was no difference between him and the local louts, staggering around drunk in broad daylight.

Once he reached his room, he took a lukewarm shower and, unable to fight off the weariness, drifted into a light sleep.

The sound of rain flowing through the open window showed no sign of letting up. It wasn’t a downpour, but a constant drizzle that soaked the earth.

The patter of raindrops, the splash of footsteps in puddles, and the sound of human voices continuously tapped at his window.

A daytime drinking party was underway below his room. The young men from the village, who had woken up in Yuna’s room, had not dispersed and had started drinking again.

With nothing to do at home during the farming off-season, they were simply killing time.

“Pour me a drink.”

“I can’t, I have to watch the store.”

“This morning I saw you sitting outside the store, eating and doing whatever you wanted.”

“I only ate outside because it was stuffy in there.”

Yuna’s voice was mixed in with the others. Deep in his drunken stupor, Taeseo heard their voices.

“Wasn’t it because you wanted to eat with that bastard?”

“Don’t make things up.”

The tinkling of a wind chime reached him. Even in his sleep, he was reassured by the sound, knowing An Yuna had gone into the convenience store, and he fell into a deeper slumber.

* * *

He woke up late at night.

Dumbfounded at the thought that he had slept away the entire Monday in a drunken haze, he clutched his aching head and got out of bed.

He felt nauseous despite having eaten plenty of side dishes with the makgeolli.

He considered going down to the convenience store for some ramen, but it was already past one in the morning.

In a town with such a small population, the convenience store wasn’t open 24 hours. It closed at 1 AM, so he couldn’t buy any ramen.

Taeseo put a cigarette to his lips and stood before the open window. The humid air made his whole body feel sticky.

After finishing his cigarette, he went into the bathroom to shower, but the light wouldn’t turn on when he flipped the switch. He flicked it a few more times, hearing the clicking sound, before cursing and sitting back down on the bed.

The bathroom was so small that showering with the door open would splash water outside. But he didn’t want to stumble around and wash in the pitch dark with the door closed either. Then he remembered he had rented the room next door as well.

Taeseo grabbed a towel and underwear and went to the adjacent room. He had set the same passcode for both rooms, so he was able to get inside right away.

As expected of an unused room, the bathroom light in the middle unit worked properly.

He entered the bathroom, bar of soap in hand. As he reached for the lever to turn on the water, a strange sound came from beyond the wall.

It sounded like rain at first. But listening closely, he realized it wasn’t rain but the sound of water flowing from a showerhead.

Along with the sound of water, a low singing voice drifted into his bathroom. It was Yuna’s voice, humming along to an old pop song.

She wasn’t singing loudly. And yet, her softly sung melody pierced his ears with perfect clarity.

The reason she had warned him against choosing the middle room was the poor soundproofing. Just as she’d said, the sound of the shower from the adjacent room was effortlessly passing through the thin wall and into the bathroom of the middle unit.

Taeseo took his hand off the shower lever. If he turned on his water now, the sound would carry into Yuna’s room. And if that happened, An Yuna would stop her shower.

He had never lived his life considering the circumstances of others, but here, his behavior was veering far off its normal course. Soon, the singing stopped, and the water stopped. He heard the click of a door opening and closing.

The sounds were gone, but the scene that followed played out in his mind. An impure fantasy.

A fantasy of An Yuna drying the water from the ends of her hair with a towel, of her slipping a dry shirt over her pale, delicate shoulders.

His body reacted to the thought that had surfaced without his consent. A part of his body that had been dormant for quite some time tensed with energy. A dull ache rose from below his waist.

“Ha, this is insane.”

Taeseo cursed and looked down at himself.

Was it because it had been so long since he’d satisfied his desires? His body was throwing a fit just from hearing someone else’s shower.