I didn’t always run at the same time of day. Sometimes I went out at dawn, sometimes in the late morning, and other times in the late afternoon. But at night I could run freely without anyone getting in my way, without bumping into someone gazing at the scenery. If I fell over, I wouldn’t be embarrassed. Today was the first time I’d gone out at this time, right after sunset.
Police cars sped by, maybe because of the murder. I noticed taxis from other cities. People were walking in pairs or groups. The first was a man and a woman, followed by three women and two men. They were all holding bags of sugar pancakes from Yongi’s.
Near the First Dongjin Bridge, a bright light shone from behind me. I glanced back. A police car was following me. The way it was slowly moving forward made me think that the officers were going to stop to ask me some questions – where do you live, maybe, or where are you going, or why are you out running at night? Did you know someone has been murdered?
Aware of the officers inside the car, I made an exaggerated gesture of wiping my face with the towel around my neck. I ran so that it would look like I was a professional athlete going about my usual business. When I got to the pedestrian crossing, the police car turned on its siren, made a left, and disappeared toward the marine park. As I waited for the light to turn green, I tried to peer into Yongi’s across the road to see if he was in.
‘Yu-jin,’ Mr Yongi called out from his shack as soon as I crossed over.
I tried to pretend that I was on my way to somewhere else.
‘Come here for a second,’ Mr Yongi said, waving. ‘I have something to tell you.’
I stepped inside the shack, still acting like I had somewhere else to be.
‘Are you out for a run?’
I nodded and looked down at the grill. On the edge was a stack of sugar pancakes.
‘You’ve been out late for the last few days, haven’t you?’ Mr Yongi picked up a pancake with a pair of tongs and handed it over.
I accepted the hot delicacy. ‘No.’
‘No? I haven’t seen you around in the afternoons.’
‘I’ve been coming out at dawn.’
‘I see.’ He nodded. ‘So did you come out at dawn yesterday, too?’
‘No, not yesterday. I didn’t go for a run.’
‘I see.’
I waited patiently.
‘Going to the observatory again?’ He rubbed his hands on his trousers and picked up a paper bag.
I stared at his clothes and raised my eyes to his woollen winter hat. Behind him a change of clothes hung inside a transparent zip-up bag – a grey coat and a hunting cap. A clean shirt, necktie and suit were probably tucked inside the coat. Below the hanger stood a large suitcase.
I’d seen him in that hat, coat and suit, wearing his polished shoes, dragging his suitcase onto the 11.30 p.m. Ansan-bound intercity bus after closing his shop. His outfit made him look like a middle-aged office worker going home after a long trip, not a man selling sugar pancakes in a small shack. I’d also seen him get off the bus at nine in the morning wearing the same things. He would open up his shack, change into his work clothes and get down to business as the town gossip and pancake maker.
‘I wouldn’t go today,’ he finally said, unable to wait for me to respond. ‘I don’t know if you heard the news. They found a body at the dock this morning.’
‘What does that have to do with the observatory?’ I asked.
‘What are you talking about? The police are all over this place! Don’t you see those two cars over there? They’ve been patrolling at ten-minute intervals, but they haven’t found a single clue yet! So only the residents are being inconvenienced. I haven’t done any business today. The police come and go, the plain-clothes guys come and go. They ask the same things. What time did you close up shop yesterday? Did you see anyone suspicious hanging around? Do you know the people who frequent this road at night?’
I looked down and took a bite of the pancake, barely able to contain my curiosity about his answers to those questions.
‘And I tell them I haven’t seen anyone other than the same people who always stop by late at night, and they grill me and want to know who those people are.’
The hot sugar slid straight down, burning my throat and making my eyes water. My throat felt tight.
Mr Yongi quickly handed me a cup of cold water. ‘Hey, hey, take it easy!’
I poured the whole cup down and managed to prise my eyes open again.
‘Oh, you can just give me three thousand won,’ Mr Yongi said, shoving the nine remaining pancakes in a bag. ‘I’m giving you a huge discount! I haven’t seen you in a while.’
I would have to take the bag without protest if I wanted to hear what else he had to say. I held out my 5,000-won bill.
‘So you know how you come out late at night to run sometimes?’ Mr Yongi flattened the bill and slid it into his money belt. ‘If they discover that, they’ll really get up your ass. Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything. How would I know everything about every person I see? Right? All I know is that you live in Moon Torch.’
How did he know that? Moon Torch wasn’t near the sea wall. I’d never told him where I lived. I stuffed the rest of the pancake in my mouth just to keep up the act of doing something normal.
‘Remember that girl I introduced you to over the summer? The one who was wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night when it was raining? Her hair was long, all the way down her back. She sat there.’ Mr Yongi pointed at the white plastic stool in the corner. ‘You remember?’
I did remember.
‘So yesterday she gets off the bus by herself. It wasn’t that late, maybe it was right after nine, maybe just before. Anyway, she comes in and sits down on that stool like it’s hers, crosses her legs, and asks if you’ve been out today. I say no and she looks so disappointed. So I figure she likes you or something. She tells me you live across the road from her, and she lives in ePurun, so you must be in Moon Torch.’
I suddenly remembered the crimson umbrella rolling along the road. And the woman I’d seen at the crossing last night. Was her umbrella crimson?
Mr Yongi continued. ‘So she sits here for close to an hour but she doesn’t eat a single pancake! She says she’s allergic to flour or whatever. I mean, if you stay that long, shouldn’t you buy a bag? Just to be polite? I don’t care if you throw it on the street on your way home. Anyway, finally a man walks in and they leave together.’
‘So she’s the one who died?’ I asked, swallowing the pancake down. I sure hoped so. If she was the victim, then I was clearly irrelevant to the incident. Another man had left with her last night.
Mr Yongi, who was holding out my change, tapped the bills on the back of his hand. ‘What? Are you listening? When did I say that?’
‘Oh… no?’ My voice crawled into my throat.
‘The plain-clothes police officers who came showed me the dead girl’s picture and asked if I’d ever seen her, had she come into the shop… I looked at it, and honestly, I nearly had a heart attack!’ He stopped and put the change back into his money belt.
It was clear that if I wanted to hear why he had nearly had a heart attack, I’d have to forgo my change to make up for the pancakes the girl didn’t buy last night. I blinked in agreement so he would go on.
‘I remembered her. She’d come in a few times. She wasn’t a regular, but I remembered her instantly. Because she wore an earring on the outer rim of her ear, but only on one side. I asked her about it once – I couldn’t help myself, I was so curious – and she said it was her late mother’s and she’d lost the other one. I told the police, and they asked me what the earring looked like.’
Without realising it, I put my hand in my pocket. The sharp end of the earring grazed the tip of my finger, and I flinched.
‘No point in describing it really,’ continued Mr Yongi. ‘It was just a simple earring with a single pearl on it.’
The world spun. Mr Yongi’s voice faded and returned. ‘Man, those dirty fl
ies are back.’ He was looking behind me.
I looked back too. A black car had stopped in front of the shack. Two men got out and strode inside. The first had short hair and eyes that were set far apart. The other was older, middle-aged, and wearing a dark coat. They both looked at me.
‘We’re closing,’ Mr Yongi said.
The one with the goat eyes looked at his watch. ‘It’s still early.’
‘I’m all out of batter,’ Mr Yongi said, throwing his tongs into a plastic bowl with a clatter.
‘Are you a regular customer?’ the one in the dark coat asked. It was clear they were detectives.
‘He’s a student who lives around here,’ Mr Yongi answered for me.
This was the perfect time for me to leave. ‘See you later,’ I said to Mr Yongi, and walked out before the detective could start asking questions. It was only a few steps to the crossing, but I nearly fell over several times, my knees were shaking so hard.
It was just a simple earring with a single pearl on it.
I looked back at the shack. Mr Yongi was gesturing and making grimaces as he delivered some sort of fiery speech to the two men. I took out the earring. It had a single pearl on it. I closed my fist quickly. It couldn’t be. I shook my head. My mind started babbling. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a coincidence. Any woman would have at least one pair of pearl earrings.
Bright light shone from the bus stop. I turned and saw a bus drawing up. It wasn’t raining hard, but the windscreen wipers were on. A woman and a man got off the bus, and the woman opened a red umbrella and walked towards the crossing. The man followed, his hands in his coat pockets and his shoulders hunched, heavy. They weren’t together. He looked like he was drunk.
I started to cross the street and passed them. Behind me, the man, slurring, began singing loudly, something about a girl in the rain who he couldn’t forget. He must have had at least four or five bottles of soju.
Something felt off. The man’s bellowing song was all around me, but I didn’t hear any footsteps. In the centre of the road, I looked back. There was nobody there. Not the woman or the man. Not even the bus. Only the song rang out in the fog.
I looked over at the shack again. The detectives were standing side by side, facing Mr Yongi. Had they not heard the singing? I broke into a run. Everything was spinning; dozens of crimson umbrellas flapped like a colony of bats. The singing followed me all the way home. I must be slowly going crazy.
I got a text from Hae-jin as I stepped inside the flat.
On my way to Muan on the KTX. Just got asked to fill in to film a wedding. I’ll be back tomorrow night. Did you talk to Mother? Her mobile’s still off. Text me when you do. Sorry I can’t celebrate with you tonight.
I sent my reply. No worries. Take your time. I had so much to do too.
I trudged up the stairs. Nothing made sense. I still couldn’t remember what had happened. But now I was starting to realise something. The things that had seemed unrelated to one another and the clues I’d shrugged off or ignored were beginning to come together. I just had to figure out what had happened during the two and a half hours between midnight and 2.30 in the morning.
I took off my jacket and hung it on the back of my chair. I sat down. I put the bag of pancakes and the pearl earring on my desk. It was just a simple earring with a single pearl on it. I thought of the sentence in the news article that had made me go to Yongi’s in the first place. Police sources said that the possibility of homicide was high; the body had been damaged by a sharp object.
I took out the razor from my desk drawer. I unfolded it. You, Yu-jin… You don’t deserve to live. What should I do? Where should I begin? Even the thought of doing something frightened me. It seemed that anything I could do would result in putting shackles on myself. I was just falling further into the hell I’d glimpsed earlier. Wouldn’t it be better to sit still and not do anything at all?
Exhaustion rushed at me. I wanted to crawl into my bed and sleep, even if it was just for a moment, until I reached the catastrophic end. I closed my eyes and pressed my hands to my forehead. There were things you couldn’t avoid in life – being born, becoming someone’s child, and for me, the events that had already transpired. Still, I didn’t want to speculate; I wanted to take control of my destiny. No matter how this fucking situation was going to end, I would make the decisions in my life. That meant I had to do what I could and uncover the two hours and thirty minutes shrouded in darkness.
I put the razor down next to the earring. I took my iPod, earphones, key to the roof and car key out of the drawer. I touched each one. I opened Mother’s journal. It was the best place to start.
I flipped through it from beginning to end. It was longer than I’d thought; blue tabs separated the years from 2016 to 2000 in reverse chronological order. The records were separated into months, also in reverse order, from December. The notations on each page were in chronological order, though. Some months she had written nearly every day, while in others she’d written only a few times. Sometimes she’d skipped entire months. The entries ranged from a single line to long ones that ran to two or three pages. Nothing was standard. That was probably why she kept it in a binder, so that she could add pages easily. There was another benefit to this: I could check for specific months in a particular year, like a library catalogue.
The notations had started sixteen years ago, on 30 April 2000: Yu-jin is sleeping peacefully, deeply.
I flipped forward and looked at the most recent records again, from December 2016. She had written on the 6th, 7th, and 9th. They were all about me. Was the whole binder like this? If so, it would be fair to call it a record of my every movement. I shuddered. Why did she take these notes? Was it so that she could report to Auntie everything I did and said without forgetting anything? Why did she have to keep it all written down?
Tuesday 6 December
He’s not in his room. He’s started going out through the roof again. It’s the first time in a month.
Wednesday 7 December
Second day in a row. I was waiting but I missed him.
Friday 9 December
I don’t know where he went. I looked for him until 2 a.m. but I couldn’t find him. I know I saw him. I’m cold and scared and terrified. Now
Hello is barking. He’s back.
Three things were true. Mother had followed me. She and I had met somewhere. The thing that had made her cold and scared and terrified had occurred between 12.30 and 2 a.m. Ominous and incomprehensible blank spaces loomed between the sentences. I couldn’t work them out, at least not right now.
I turned to November.
Monday 14 November
He went out through the roof. I didn’t expect it – everything was fine the last few months. If I’d gone out when Hello started barking I would have caught him.
Something made me open his drawer and check on his pills. There are exactly eleven days’ worth left. Does that mean he’s taking them like he’s supposed to?
I picked up my desk calendar and flipped the page forward to check the date. I had placed small dots on the days from 11 to 15 November. That was when I stopped taking the pills for the oral exams; it was the second time since August. Instead of popping a pill in my mouth at each meal, I flushed it down the toilet. That was the best way to keep everything straight and not get caught. But it was clear that she suspected I wasn’t taking them, and she’d drawn that conclusion from the fact that I’d gone to the roof – another action out of my usual pattern of behaviour. That meant that she knew those two actions were linked. Maybe there had been a precedent that led her to that conclusion.
I thought carefully about possible precedents. Nothing remotely plausible came to mind.
Tuesday 15 November
I feel like I’m playing hide-and-seek with the wind. I ran out when Hello started barking but I didn’t see him. The security guard by the back gate said nobody had gone by in the last thirty minutes. Same thing at the main gate. I tried the side gate and
bumped into Hae-jin, coming home from work. No Yu-jin.
So Mother followed me all the time. Why? Sure, she retained absolute command over my life, but it still didn’t seem normal. Most mothers didn’t tail their sons just because they left the house in the middle of the night, unless they were insane or they had a good reason to. The security guard at the back gate must have known about her abnormal obsession. Maybe everyone who lived in our building knew about the widow who wandered around the neighbourhood looking for her son. But unlike last night, on 15 November she probably didn’t go all over the place, since she had bumped into Hae-jin.
I wasn’t sure if the dates matched up, but I did remember seeing Hae-jin in the street a few weeks ago, probably around then. It was late, and I was running towards the sea wall along the footpath by the river. Near the First Dongjin Bridge, I heard a phone ringing in front of me.
‘Yes, I’m on my way home,’ said a voice.
I could pick that voice out in a street filled with a hundred people talking in a hundred different voices. Hae-jin. Should I say hello? Then he’d ask what I was doing out at this hour. If I told him I was going for a run, Mother would hear about it and I’d be giving her a new reason to nag me.
‘No, no, that’s okay,’ Hae-jin said, about ten metres in front of me. His dark shadow appeared out of the fog.
I swiftly hid behind a street lamp, in the tight gap between the lamp post and the railing along the riverbank. It wasn’t a bad place to hide; it was dark back there with the neck of the lamp stretching out toward the road, and I imagined I had some cover from the fog coming off the river. He was far away enough not to see me.
‘Yes, I’ll be in Sangam-dong by two tomorrow.’
The Good Son Page 11