An Impolite Kind of Pity

There were plenty of things I could have said. That Jeong-i Halmae must have had her reasons for scolding him. That even if he didn't know what he'd done wrong, if he just apologized, she would have forgiven him. That when an adult scolds a child, there must be some fault the child doesn't understand — the same lectures my mother and father used to give me.

But I couldn't say a word.

The words Jeong-i Halmae had poured out were nothing but a thick, clinging malice. Even eavesdropping, I hadn't been able to figure out what this boy had done wrong. I stood there frowning, saying nothing, and the boy — who had already reined his emotions back in — pulled his gaze away from me. I spoke in a rush.

"You have to tell an adult. My grandfather will help you."

"Don't be ridiculous. You think I'm putting up with this for fun? Don't tell anyone. Not unless you want me dead."

"What?"

There was another door at the back of the study. He grabbed the knob and pulled, and a lightless inner room opened up beyond it. Even at a glance, there wasn't a single window. I panicked.

"You're not actually going in there, are you? You'll suffocate!"

"I won't. If I was going to die, I'd have been dead a long time ago."

It was June, and the early heat was particularly brutal that day. Jeong-i Halmae hated the feel of air-conditioning, so she only ran it in the kitchen and her bedroom. The humid air alone was enough to choke on. Shutting himself in a windowless cubby of a room would be unbearable.

"Wait, hey—"

"Get lost."

The door shut, leaving me standing alone — I'd never even made it inside the study. Only after some time had passed did reality finally sink in. That was when I realized the cicadas had been screaming loud enough to split my eardrums.

What should I have said? Should I have offered to treat his wounds? Should I have asked if he was okay — or was that the kind of empty question better left unasked? I should have been less of a coward and gone to Jeong-i Halmae and asked her if she'd lost her mind...

But in that moment, I couldn't do any of it.

Even after I went home, my head was full of that boy. The red forearm he'd tried to hide by tugging down his sleeve kept nagging at me. I couldn't forget him — a boy trapped in air so hot it scorched all the way down your throat, so thick you couldn't even draw a proper breath.

I confess: the beginning of my long unrequited love was an impolite kind of pity.

Fifteen-year-old Min Chae-yoon stepped into it without even knowing what it was.

From the day I dropped the book and ran, I found it hard to look Jeong-i Halmae in the eye. She never imagined I might have witnessed that scene, and she was deeply hurt by the distance I tried to keep. Even so, I couldn't shake the discomfort.

"Did Jeong-i do something to upset you?"

"It's not like that. I just..."

Grandfather asked me this one weekend when I'd come to visit. Even though Jeong-i Halmae made me uncomfortable, I was still curious about that boy — still couldn't stop thinking about him — so I kept turning up at Grandfather's house constantly. I'd lie on the sofa pretending I wasn't interested, then prick up my ears and hold my breath the moment Grandfather so much as started a phone call with her.

He must have known I was acting strange. I'd never refused an errand, no matter how annoying — and yet the moment he so much as started to say Jeong-i Halmae's name, I'd make an excuse and run off.

"Jeong-i is a lonely person. Even if she hurt your feelings without meaning to, I hope you'll forgive her with a generous heart."

"That's not it, I keep telling you. Halmae is good to me."

And she really was good to me. That was the problem.

I was still confused about whether the Jeong-i Halmae I knew and the old woman with the switch were the same person. As if to speak for that confusion, every book I'd been reading lately dealt with the duality of human nature — things like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island.

Grandfather glanced at the book I'd pushed aside and spoke.

"Jeong-i says she has a favor to ask of you. Will you hear her out?"

"...I'll hear it first."

The favor Jeong-i Halmae sent through Grandfather was a weekend job. Something simple: sit beside her during her afternoon nap and read her a short book, one at a time. The "job" was probably just an excuse. She'd noticed I was avoiding her and wanted to summon me over and soothe my feelings. Ever since I was little, whenever I got sulky, Halmae would coax me back with pocket money and snacks.

I felt like I might cry. I didn't know which one was real — the kind Halmae I'd always known, or that demon of an old woman with the switch. I was so confused.

"I'll go. I'll do it."

But whatever Halmae's true face was, the blood drawn across that boy's white forearm was the truth. In the face of that truth, all my judgments of right and wrong were useless. What I had seen that day had actually happened. A bleeding child existed. And the one who had made him bleed was the neighborhood grandmother I loved.

That summer I was fifteen, I went to Jeong-i Halmae's house every weekend. And in the hour while Halmae slept, I made a friend.

A neurotic, picky, foul-tempered, cat-like friend.

Kang Sa-eon, who I'd have sworn was younger than me, turned out to be the same age. As Jeong-i Halmae's grandson, he was the third-generation chaebol heir who'd one day inherit Gangju Group — the kind of person I'd only ever heard about. But to me, Kang Sa-eon was a neurotic wreck of a personality, a boy who got abused by Jeong-i Halmae every week.

When we first met, he was shorter than me, slight and pale, so of course I'd assumed he was younger. But as if to laugh in my face, Kang Sa-eon shot up like bamboo. He attended one of Seoul's most elite middle schools, and he was so good at studying that of course he'd never once given up the number-one spot in his year.

"Wouldn't it be weirder if I wasn't first? It's just a middle-school exam."

"Wow. Aren't you special."

Once I brought him a math problem I couldn't crack for the life of me, and he treated me like an idiot. I'd chased him around so persistently, trying to start conversations, that he'd finally started giving me a few words — but after the math incident, he treated me like an idiot for three weeks straight and didn't answer me even once. That haughty pride of his was practically Mount Everest.

Still, I kept at it, and after about a year he gave me his number and actually picked up when I called. The day I got his number, I was so exhilarated I couldn't sleep — like I'd just cleared a hidden stage in some impossibly hard game. Dopamine is a dangerous hormone.

"Don't call me. I won't pick up."

"If you don't pick up, I'll just keep calling until you do. Let's see which happens first — your battery dying, or me giving up."

"I'm changing my number."

"Aw, whyyy."

Another time, I showed up in Seoul out of nowhere and called him out to meet me. Whether he was too stunned to refuse or just being capricious, he came out for a little while, ate a meal with me, and left. He only kept me company for exactly one hour.

That was the unspoken rule between us.

From the day we first met, I never once asked him if he was okay. That was the one thing I simply couldn't get out of my mouth.

He came to Halmae's house in Gyeonggi-do Gwangju of his own accord every week, even while being abused and verbally torn apart. He needed, he said, to show the outside world that he was the grandson his grandmother acknowledged and loved.

Jeong-i Halmae passed away the year we turned twenty-one, and truly, right to the very end... even in the moment she closed her eyes, she despised Kang Sa-eon.

Ah, Halmae.

Jeong-i Halmae.

What did I even say back? I couldn't remember clearly. Did I say, "You too"? Or not. I think I just cried.

It would have been easier if Halmae hadn't loved me.

To this day, I still haven't opened the letter Halmae left me before she died. If I opened it, no matter what was written inside, I'd feel like I'd betrayed both Jeong-i Halmae and Kang Sa-eon. It sat unopened, stored deep in my desk drawer.

Jeong-i Halmae tormented Kang Sa-eon with relentless persistence, but honestly, from where I stood, it was nothing more than a battle of pride between a grandmother and her grandson. Both of them held out, waiting to see how far the other would go. Watching them, they were carbon copies of each other. They despised one another, and yet they were the most alike.

Kang Sa-eon threatened me that the moment I told anyone how he was being treated, he'd bite his own tongue and die — and so I ended up with a secret I could tell no one. Jeong-i Halmae probably knew I was close with him, but she never said a word to me about him, as if she couldn't even stand to have his name in her mouth.

And Kang Sa-eon, truly, from the depths of his heart — perhaps even more viscerally than Jeong-i Halmae despised him — despised her. Because of Jeong-i Halmae, he came to see not only humanity but women themselves as a species not worth associating with.

And this is the result.

A third-generation chaebol with misanthropy mixed with gynophobia.

The owner of the Mouth of Terror.

My princess, Kang Sa-eon.

If I'd known I'd still be gasping under the weight of this unrequited love at thirty-three, I would never have kept that summer meeting going, no matter what. They say curiosity killed the cat — but this one left the cat alone and killed a person instead. I guess old sayings aren't always right.