Headlights in the Heat
It was a night so sweltering that a single fan could never hope to keep up. Sprawled face-down and wilted, I pressed the button with my toe and cranked the wind higher.
“Teach me how to study a bit.”
The face of the man I had broken up with only the day before yesterday barged uninvited into my head. Irritated, I turned the fan all the way up. A lukewarm clump of air poured into my open mouth.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have refused.”
Aunt had an uncanny knack for sensing these things. Mom, busy with the salon, had room to stay indifferent, but Aunt—who tirelessly hauled over gifts of fruit, dried seaweed, and yellow croaker—never stopped watching my every move.
A man had once put a permanent bend in Aunt’s life, and so she prayed every day that her niece, who was as good as a daughter to her, would stay safe and happy. Sometimes it felt excessive, yet I usually obeyed her. I knew her family history and background well enough. I also knew that her peculiar fretting was love.
Still, I worried whether the man who didn’t even know the basics of hangul was managing his studies alone. I wanted to go check on him at his place, but he might ask why I’d come when I wasn’t even going to teach him anything.
Homework towered like a mountain, yet I spent time like water fighting the stubborn impulse. Lying in front of the living-room fan and simply holding my feelings together was all I could manage right now.
Ring-ring-ring.
When the clock hands pointed to nine at night, the house phone rang. Figuring it was Mom calling to say she would be late again, I crawled over sluggishly and picked up.
“Hello.”
The phone beside the ancient television had been there even before we moved in. This relic, the sort you only saw in antique shops, was one of the things I had begged and begged to replace.
“Yeah. Ji-eon.”
“…Teacher?”
The tutor who had left after the afternoon lesson was calling for some reason. Knowing I had no cell phone, he must have rung the house line.
“Did you leave something behind?”
Wanting summer vacation to end quickly had a lot to do with the tutor. Before, the cigarette smell alone had been an ordeal; yesterday and today a sour sweat smell had joined it. Every time he took off or put on his university-logo jumper I held my breath. By the end of class I even had a headache—that said everything. I had half-seriously considered sprinkling soy sauce on him as he walked by just to force him into a shower.
“Uh, Ji-eon. I think I left the teacher’s lighter there.”
“A lighter?”
My gaze, which had been roaming mainly around the living room, snagged on a purple lighter. He must have dropped it coming out of the bathroom. Still, didn’t they sell lighters like that at the convenience store? Not thinking of it as anything important, I felt a little sulky. I was so sensitive to heat that I always took a cold shower the moment I came back inside.
“Can you bring that up to the bus stop?”
“What?”
It would take a full thirty minutes to walk to the stop. Even as the thought that I was screwed settled in, I didn’t want trouble with the tutor.
“Okay. Please wait a moment.”
The second I hung up I picked up the purple lighter that had fallen in front of the bathroom. I smoothed the stray hairs, tied my hair back, and changed into long pants. Finally I grabbed a hand fan and stepped outside, feeling as if I had just climbed into a hot fishbowl.
Dragging my slippers with a shuffle, I went out the front gate. Sweat trickled down my spine; my arms turned sticky. I quickened my pace to escape the buzzing of winged insects.
Yet even after passing two houses with lights on and reaching the bus stop, there was no sign of the teacher. Wondering if he had left without waiting, I was looking around when a pair of heated headlights stabbed straight into my eyes.
What lit me up was a powerful car headlight. At the loud roar of the engine starting I squinted and stepped back. The face and silhouette of the person opening the door and climbing out were familiar.
“…Teacher?”
I didn’t know much about car models, but I could tell at once that this one did not suit his age. It was the sort of car a middle-aged man of advanced years would drive. My heart pounded in an unpleasant rhythm. The teacher squared his shoulders, leaned against the car, and stood with one leg crossed. Wanting to end this meeting that already felt like it had different purposes, I held out the lighter I had brought.
“Here it is, Teacher.”
“Thanks, Ji-eon.”
Come to think of it, his clothes were strange too. I had never understood how he stubbornly wore a jumper even in the heat of summer, and the outfit he had on now was just as hard to understand. Seeing the black tank top paired with a gold necklace left me speechless—because two extra eyeballs seemed to be attached to his chest.
Embarrassed to point it out, I dropped my gaze; the teacher let out a short laugh.
“This look’s different, huh?”
I didn’t know why he was the one feeling more embarrassed, but the purpose of the meeting—handing over the lighter—was finished. With an ambiguous smile I tried to send him on his way.
“I’ll be going in now. See you tomorrow.”
So this was what university students who dressed freely with their hair and clothes were like. Understanding his little rebellion in another sense, I bowed my head. Just as I turned to leave, the teacher suddenly snagged my wrist.
“You’re going in already?”
“What?”
“I’ll take you for a drive. You’ve never ridden in a car this expensive, right?”
As for cars, I had ridden plenty last winter and this spring. Mom had come to pick me up in front of school for supplementary classes, in front of the reading room, everywhere. Was it naive or simply stupid to believe that speaking in a tone that looked down on someone could win their favor?
“I’m fine. I’m tired today, so I’ll go in.”
“Hey, Ji-eon. The teacher wants to buy you a nice meal because he’s grateful.”
I lived in the countryside; that did not make me an idiot or a fool. The teacher who claimed to attend university in Seoul had clearly forgotten his own origins. He had chatted about how ignorant and closed-minded country people were as if it were casual talk. Of course at the end he would always clean it up by saying not all of them were like that—pouring oil on a forest fire. As one of the country people who appeared in his prejudices, I could not help feeling foul.
Did he think a country high-school girl wouldn’t know that offering a drive was a ploy? I should go straight home and tell Aunt I was quitting the tutoring. Only when the moths drawn to the headlight light began to multiply exponentially did the teacher finally catch on.
“Is the teacher making you uncomfortable?”
“Yes.”
“No. Since we’re teacher and student we can go into town, eat some meat, and I can listen to your study worries—that kind of thing, Ji-eon.”
Facing my expression that was cooling in spite of the heat, his attitude shifted. The teacher who had only been working his tongue hard now swayed left and right, blocking my path. In the swaying, black hair poked out from under his arms.
“It’s burdensome.”
“Me? Ah… because of university? It’s okay, Ji-eon.”
The teacher had clearly gotten heatstroke today. Otherwise how could he interpret every word only the way that suited him?
“You don’t have to feel burdened. If you try with the teacher, you can come to this university too.”
That was another sizable piece of his misconception. He knew perfectly well which university I was aiming for, yet he was busy showing off.
“I’m fine. I’m really not in a good mood today….”
“Ah, Ji-eon.”
Throwing a tantrum unsuited to his age, the teacher alone performed a three-piece set of laughing, chattering, and muttering curses. My goal was to twist my body quickly and slip past the heat-stricken man. But reading my face, he seemed to aim for an image change and took off his silver-rimmed glasses.
“Yang Ji-eon. I like you.”
“Ah, yes.”
With the flow having come this far, I blurred my reaction. He seemed shocked by that and stammered. I was shocked too. Was the old car parked beside the fields and the black tank top really meant for me? I respected his tastes, but I hoped he would respect mine as well. I sincerely felt not even a speck of romantic feeling toward him.
“Is that all? Ah, yes?”
“I don’t like you, Teacher. I don’t want to date. I’ll tell Aunt myself. You don’t have to come from tomorrow.”
I tried to end it cleanly, but he grabbed the wrist of me as I turned to leave. Being a man, the grip made my wrist ache.
“Let go.”
“Just talk for a bit. The teacher….”
I thought it was fortunate that this was a neighborhood full of people I knew. If I screamed, someone would come out. The only thing I hadn’t counted on was that adults went to sleep by ten, so every house had already turned off its lights.
“This is…!”
The opponent’s petty, base attitude of trying to settle things with force when words failed called for a fist. But behind the gray car he had brought, a person was walking past. They, too, were watching our scuffle standing in the yellow headlight glare.
It was that man.