Chapter 106

The weekend had arrived.

I remembered my promise with Hwa-won, which I had completely forgotten, because of a message she sent on Saturday morning. The content was nothing special. It was just asking when we would meet.

I hesitated to respond at first. Hwa-won had said she could do whatever she wanted, but I was still half-captured by my father. I didn’t want to suddenly cancel our meeting, given that I was forcing myself to find time for it.

The problem was that I wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t as bad as I thought I would be, but naturally, I couldn’t be in a cheerful mood. Hwa-won would notice my condition as soon as we met, and that wasn’t the situation I wanted. Of course, I had no intention of hiding the fact that I had just attended a funeral, but I didn’t want to appear conspicuously gloomy.

A sigh escaped me naturally. It had been only a few days since the funeral, and I felt guilty about hanging out with a friend.

Suddenly, the thought of Albert Camus’s “The Stranger” came to mind. The protagonist, Meursault, goes to the beach with his girlfriend the day after his mother’s death and even sleeps with her at night. Later, he ends up killing an Arab and goes on trial.

Considering the situation and the era, he should not have received a harsh punishment in general (though I’m not saying it’s right). However, the trial turned into an argument that he was a cold-blooded man who didn’t mourn his mother’s funeral, and he ultimately received a death sentence.

The reason this novel suddenly popped into my head was that I felt there was a slight similarity in our situations. Of course, I would never kill anyone, but if I went out with a friend just after the funeral, there would likely be quite a few people who would criticize me.

Fortunately, no one so shameless had posted a picture of me at the funeral, so anyone seeing such a photo wouldn’t catch on, but you never know.

Despite that, I thought it would be too much today, so I postponed my response, saying today was not a good day.

I hadn’t really been in contact with people around me for the past few days, so I exchanged a few words with those who were concerned about me.

The gloomy feeling hadn’t faded. In fact, I didn’t really want it to fade.

I hoped it would rain tomorrow. But the weather was already getting colder. In the first place, I was going to buy new clothes because of that, so I couldn’t expect much.

Eventually, I responded to Hwa-won’s message late at night.

[What do you think of Meursault?]

It was a sudden and nonsensical question. No matter how I thought about it, it seemed like a strange question, but Hwa-won didn’t throw me any jabs. In fact, we had talked about this kind of topic a lot back in college.

[The Stranger?]

[Yeah]

[Literarily? Or humanly? From what perspective?]

[If I had to say, the latter]

[He’s a madman]

I frowned a little.

[Why?]

[Literarily, the story completely changes] [Anyway, Meursault is a murderer, and that murder can’t be justified] [There may be room for self-defense, but] [Meursault didn’t commit murder with that intention] [Of course, I think the logic criticizing Meursault in the trial is wrong] [If it weren’t for the era, such flawed logic wouldn’t exist, and he would be a man worthy of the death sentence] [But then this gets into a topic about the legitimacy of the death penalty]

[No] [Not that] [I’m asking about what he did the day after his mother died]

[You and I both know this] [Parents aren’t sacred] [He could be cold-blooded] [But considering the relationship between him and his mother] [At least I don’t think it’s a crime worthy of death]

Hearing Hwa-won’s words made me realize something crucial. There was a big difference between Meursault and me. In fact, there were many differences, but the one similarity that stood out was different in one aspect.

To Meursault, his mother was not sacred. Neither was she to me. However, it was my director who had passed away, and he was someone who held a sacred place in my life.

[Actually, something happened]

[What happened?]

[The director passed away recently. I went to the funeral yesterday]

The conversation paused for a moment, and a while later, a reply came.

[May the deceased rest in peace] [Are you okay?] [If it’s tough, you don’t have to force yourself to meet]

I was truly grateful for Hwa-won’s consideration. I was also willing to accept her thoughtfulness.

[Yeah] [Sorry] [I think I’m okay] [More than I thought]

[Good, rest then]

However, it was hard to do as Hwa-won suggested. At the point where my promise with her broke, I was thinking about going out separately on Sunday.

[I think I need to go somewhere tomorrow]

[Where?]

[The orphanage I used to go to] [House of Love]

The director had told me to visit there once before. If I couldn’t forgive my mother.

And I still couldn’t forgive my mother. Just like the director’s son couldn’t forgive the director.

Was there some related information I needed to uncover? Something that had been hidden from me until now?

Not wanting to waste any more time, I decided to go check it out right away.

[Why there?]

[The director told me to stop by before he passed]

[Hmm, where is that place?]

The location of the orphanage I used to go to was not in Seoul. It was in a nearby province, but it still took quite a while to get there. When I told her the name, Hwa-won made a suggestion.

[Do you want me to give you a ride?]

~

That’s why I was now in Hwa-won’s company, despite the broken promise. I was currently riding in Hwa-won’s car. In the passenger seat.

“You look refreshing after getting a haircut,”

“It feels a bit lighter.”

Hwa-won glanced at my short hair and only said that one line. Naturally, it was obvious she wouldn’t say anything like my hair looked nice, so it was understandable. It made things comfortable.

Hwa-won drove quite steadily, seeming more skilled than before. Usually, we would have been chatting continuously at such moments, but perhaps considering my gloomy state, Hwa-won didn’t talk much today.

She knew very well how I felt about the director. So Hwa-won didn’t offer awkward consolation. He always was that way. That’s why I found comfort in Hwa-won.

We stopped the car briefly at a rest area. We had set off just before lunchtime, and I was starting to feel a bit hungry. I put my cap back on that I had taken off earlier because it had been stifling in the car. This new cap covered my white bob haircut to an extent but could not hide my face. If my hair was longer, that might have been a hassle.

“Why did you change your cap?”

“Because I look ugly.”

“I think the old one was a bit better.”

“This one is more comfortable.”

There were many reasons for needing a new cap, but none of them was easy to articulate. Hwa-won’s comment was probably worrying about the troubles my exposed face would cause.

However, I didn’t want to hide my face anymore. I wasn’t a criminal after all.

Hiding my face as if I had done something wrong was strange in itself. If my face attracted attention or troubles, so what?

Of course, since those troubles would happen to me, it was my business, but it was a bit stubborn of me, and I am someone who tends to stick to such stubbornness. That’s just who I am.

Now, it felt more natural to head into the women’s restroom at public toilets. I let out a small sigh. Fortunately, it seemed no one had noticed my identity. I felt embarrassed thinking that way, as if I were overly self-conscious, but it was difficult not to think about it, having been secretly photographed before.

After taking care of our business, we gathered at the rest area restaurant to order food. Rest area food is not usually anything special, but I quite liked it. Since I didn’t often go out, that plain bowl of udon I occasionally had when I stopped by was somehow very pleasing.

Previously, a single bowl of udon would have been a slight shortage for me, but thanks to my current state, one bowl was more than enough to fill me up. Hwa-won ordered both katsu and udon.

“Are you a pig?”

“I didn’t eat breakfast.”

“Usually, even if you skip breakfast, you wouldn’t eat that much.”

“If you leave some, you can help me eat it.”

“Are you crazy? It’s hard enough to eat all of mine.”

“Really?”

After becoming like this, Hwa-won asked again as if I had never eaten. He seemed to have forgotten that I used to order fried chicken and eat two or three pieces.

“Don’t you remember that you liked it when I was smaller and ate less, saying I could finish a whole chicken by myself?”

“I think you can eat more now that you’re in your growth spurt.”

“Shut up.”

As I was eating, Hwa-won’s nonsense kept circling in my mind. Does a growth spurt mean getting taller? Now that I think about it, I hadn’t paid much attention to it, but the size was a bit small when we went shopping for clothes.

“…Is that true?”

“Hmm? What’s true?”

“That I’m in a growth spurt.”

“That was obviously a joke… although looking closely, you do seem to have grown a bit.”

“Really?”

“This part is the truth. Have you grown taller?”

“I’ll have to measure later.”

Humans are so simple. That statement about growing taller somehow eased a bit of my gloom. At the same time, I felt pathetic for feeling happy about such a thing, and my disgust with myself for having any happiness from such trivial matters made me feel gloomy again. It was a loop.

“Why does your expression go from happy to back to sour?”

“Just one of those things.”

Hwa-won finished off all the katsu and udon. It wasn’t that he couldn’t eat it, but it was foolish to do so out of a sense of money-saving. It was pathetic, especially since he had plenty of money.

“I feel a bit bloated.”

“Then stop eating so much.”

“If you had helped a bit, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“I already ate two pieces.”

“In the past, you would have helped me finish half, right?”

Perhaps because we had opened the conversation during the meal, after we got back into the car, we started talking about trivial things, unlike before. It was less than usual, but it wasn’t awkward.

We left the highway and entered a road with traffic lights, gradually getting closer to our destination.

Even though nearly ten years had passed since I had last been there, familiar streets and buildings began coming into view. Things I had once found annoying now caused a pang in my heart when I saw them again.

After parking in a suitable spot, we headed toward the location of the orphanage. Initially, I wondered if we might get lost, but that didn’t happen at all.

Without wasting a single moment, we arrived at the orphanage via the optimal route.

My chest felt somewhat, no, extremely tight.