TL: Hanguk
Bang!
“Nothing ever goes right on a snowy day! Nothing!”
I vented my anger on the car door, slamming it as I stepped out.
It should have taken only 2 hours to get to the hospital, but it took more than half a day due to the heavy snowfall.
It was already getting dark.
What’s worse, the snow I disliked and cursed so much showed no signs of stopping.
I hate snow. Both of my parents passed away on a day like this, and even during my final job interview in 1998, which I regretted so much, heavy snow poured down as well.
Tap Tap
I didn’t need to search for Seung-woo’s memorial hall; there was only one room with the lights on in the funeral home building.
‘Sigh…’
Even considering the COVID situation, it was pitiful that there wasn’t a single visitor for the funeral of the once-wealthy orchard family’s only son.
“You’re here?”
Chunho was all alone, taking care of the funeral rites.
It wasn’t the time to ask why Chunho was managing everything.
“What happened?”
I stared at Seungwoo’s portrait for a long time. The young Seungwoo in the picture was smiling brightly, wearing a mortarboard. The only photo they could find was from his college graduation…
“Light the incense first. I’ll pour you a drink.”
Led by Chun-ho, I was dragged to the memorial hall, feeling sticky and uncomfortable.
After lighting the incense, Chunho filled my cup with soju. I swirled the cup above the incense flame and placed it on the altar. As I was about to bow, tears welled up and poured out instead.
I never imagined I’d be offering a drink and bowing at Seungwoo’s altar like this.
“What happened?”
“Let’s go to the coffin. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive. We should see our friend’s face before he goes, right?”
“What happened?!”
“Suicide.”
“Su…suicide? Why?!”
Drip. Drip. Splatter. Splatter.
“…You’ll find out. Have a cigarette.”
Chunho went outside the funeral parlor and lit a cigarette first.
He threw the entire pack of cigarettes at me.
“……”
It had been three years since I quit smoking, but I couldn’t resist.
I lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. The ground spun around me.
Although it was unpleasant mentally, the physical sensation of floating in the air… suddenly, I remembered the first time I smoked a cigarette.
Today, it feels like my head is not my own, as if it doesn’t belong to me.
Not only is the headache unbearable, but even old memories are surfacing on their own.
On the evening of the college entrance exam, we held a coming-of-age party and a celebration in Seungwoo’s backyard. Alcohol and cigarettes were present.
Chun-ho and I were smoking and coughing continuously, but Seung-woo calmly rolled up corn husks and smoked them instead.
He found a solution between the taboo of students smoking and the celebration party.
Although he could have acted like a rich man’s son, he didn’t show off. His only indulgence was bringing snacks from his family’s store for the three of us to share.
It may have been nothing special, but at the time, I promised to repay him a hundred times over as I chewed the dried fruits soaked in the homemade liquor that Seungwoo brought from his house.
‘Such a person committed suicide…’
Lost in old thoughts, I saw someone far away waving a flashlight up and down at us. It was a signal for us to hurry.
Chunho rubbed his cigarette butt on the ground and pushed my shoulder, gesturing towards a building more shabby than the funeral home.
‘The morgue…’
The unique smell of the morgue. It’s similar to the disinfectant smell of a hospital emergency room, but mixed with the scent of death… an extremely unpleasant smell, whether rationally or emotionally.
That was the reason why Chunho offered me a cigarette.
“Is everyone here?”
“Yes, officer.”
Surprisingly, a police officer was waiting in the morgue.
Seungwoo, tightly wrapped in a shroud, was already inside the coffin, only his face exposed for identification.
“Seung… Seungwoo!!!”
No matter how much I touched his body, it was as cold as an icehouse. His body had long hardened like a rock.
“Using a car with a charcoal briquette stove for asphyxiation, a suicide note was also found. Therefore, this case will be concluded as a suicide. Do you, as a relative… no, as an acquaintance, agree to the handling of the body?”
“…I agree.”
“What do you mean you agree… What about his wife? His children? We need to contact them right away! Whether it’s Australia or New Zealand, we need to contact them!!!”
Seungwoo may not have had relatives since he was a fourth-generation only child, but he still had family. Even if he was a Goose Dad¹, we couldn’t just send him off like this.
“Due to the family relationship being severed after the divorce, they refused to claim the body. Therefore, the deceased will be treated as a person with no relatives.”
“What? Refuse? Handle? Are you done talking?!!!”
I was outraged to hear that the family refused the funeral, and again by the officer’s mention of handling the body.
Why should my friend Seungwoo be treated like trash that needs to be disposed of in a hurry?
“Wait… I didn’t refuse.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, officer. My friend is just emotional…”
Chunho quickly signed the documents and sent the officer away.
At a glance, it seemed like he slipped something into the officer’s pocket.
It was a merchant-like move, but today everything looked blurry and ridiculous to me.
“What’s going on? What happened?!”
“Calm down. Seungwoo’s debt seems to be over 800 million won. From his wife’s perspective, cutting off the relationship after the divorce is protecting the children.”
Chunho spoke after sending the officer away.
“800… 800 million won?”
It’s an enormous amount, even more than my entire life savings.
At our age, approaching fifty, it might be easier to die than to pay off that debt.
“…He boasted about getting a franchise bakery next to CGB… It seems like that business went up in smoke all at once.”
“…Oh my…”
Chunho’s words brought back memories.
I couldn’t help but cover my face, as I indirectly experienced the despair Seungwoo must have felt.
Right before the coronavirus outbreak, Seungwoo had bragged about finishing his retirement preparations. He had taken out loans, even putting his soul on the line to start a bakery. I had paid for our drinks back then.
He bought the commercial property right when the prices were at their peak…
“Seungwoo, this guy. He had such terrible luck with business, and on top of that, he had to be a Goose Dad. How could he have endured it? Sigh… this guy’s luck…”
It’s clear without looking.
Seungwoo must have struggled, even during the COVID-19 outbreak, to cover the salaries of his employees and the interest from the bank for an extended period.
At that time, he should have quickly laid off employees, sold the store, and brought back his family members who were studying abroad. In difficult times, everyone should have struggled together, but Seungwoo suffered alone.
“Oh my… Have you seen our friend’s face? Let’s send him off now.”
After a while of being dazed, an old man came in with a hammer. He seemed to be about to nail the coffin.
Since it was a funeral without family, it seemed that the cremation would be done right away.
The old man skillfully covered Seungwoo’s face with a thick hemp cloth and tied it tightly around the back of his neck.
I took out some bills from my wallet and put them in Seungwoo’s hand. I had to properly pay for his ferry to the underworld.
“Please leave my friend’s ferry fare untouched.”
I handed a 50,000 won bill to the old man.
“I will grind the ashes finely for you.”
The old man made a strange expression, finished nailing the coffin, and tied it tightly with a hemp rope. From the way he tied it tightly, it didn’t seem like he was planning to open it again and take out the money.
Seungwoo, who had been unlucky all his life, seemed to have a smooth journey to the afterlife. The coffin was immediately loaded onto a cart and moved somewhere without a separate farewell ceremony. It must have gone to the crematorium behind the building. It seemed like a facility dedicated to handling the unclaimed dead within the building.
“Phew…”
When I came to my senses, I was already smoking.
A strange smell was carried by the snowflakes. Of course, there’s no way that such a shoddy facility would reprocess cremation smoke.
My friend’s body was turning into nothing but charcoal black, and his soul must have already scattered in all directions like that smoke.
“Sang-sik, why are we so unlucky? You were good at studying too.”
Chunho added a lament to my sigh.
He’s right. We were really unlucky.
It seemed that the word “luck” had always bypassed us throughout our lives.
It seems to be because we were born in ’73, the Year of the Ox. We’re like cows, enduring endless suffering, sacrificing ourselves for meat and leather until our last breath.
“That’s right… Hehe…”
My answer is absolutely correct.
Our sin was being born in 1973 and being the 92nd class.
We experienced the highest ever college entrance competition rate, as the generation that witnessed the transition from the school exams to the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). Just as we finished military service and were about to graduate, the IMF financial crisis hit unexpectedly.
An unprecedented national bankruptcy. Unlike our seniors who got jobs at large companies just by participating in protests without attending classes, we even had the absurd experience of having our already-passed job offers canceled.
Naturally, the ’92 class began to delay graduation or enter graduate school en masse, starting a competition of credentials.
Seungwoo and I joined the competition of credentials as well. When I came to my senses, I had a useless physics doctorate, and Seungwoo had an even more useless business administration doctorate.
A Ph.D. in business administration only makes sense in a wealthy family with a company to run. Even if he was the son of a wealthy orchard farm owner, it would be like putting a pearl necklace on a pig’s neck for a rich man in the countryside.
What was even more annoying was that when we finished our doctorate program, the dot-com bubble burst, and the world economy fell into another abyss.
As large companies suspended hiring altogether, I clearly saw the unprecedented situation where doctorate holders massively applied for 9th grade civil servants.
It was fortunate that I was able to join Dongman Semiconductor at all. Since it was a semiconductor company, there was no problem in making a living.
Of course, it wasn’t until recently that I realized I had devoted my passion and research achievements for a meager return.
“It’s cold…”
“Let’s warm up in the car. It will take approximately two hours to complete the funeral procedures.”
Yeah, it’s better to rest in the car with the heater on. The mortuary is cold, without an ounce of warmth, and there’s no reason to go back in.
‘He changed the car…’
Chun-ho, unlike the rest of us, opted to enter the workforce instead of going to college. He obtained his driver’s license first, and even though it was a beat-up car, he was the first among us have a car.
His first car was a Bongo van, now it’s a Starex. It suits his sturdy physique and his preference for cost-effectiveness.
‘…It seems like Chun-ho’s fitness center has also failed…’
Instead of the fitness center logo, there’s a chicken shop logo. Unlike Seung-woo, he seems to have quickly changed his business.
You can feel his will to survive the coronavirus crisis.
“Read this. It’s Seung-woo’s suicide note. I saw it in front of the police.”
Chun-ho rummaged through a memento box and handed me a piece of paper, which he said was a suicide note. It was a picture of the three of us at Seung-woo’s graduation, and there was writing on the back.
「Dear friends, I’m leaving first because it’s too hard. I’m sorry for breaking the promise. Be happy on my behalf and come as late as possible.」
Seungwoo’s handwriting was neat, as befitting a model student.
Even his last words in life didn’t show any signs of distress.
“This damn bastard… What’s there to apologize for…”
There was no need for such apologies.
Twenty years ago, we made a promise that we would succeed in life and embark on a world tour by the time we turned 50.
Now it seems like a childish promise, but back then, a world tour was the most luxurious event we could imagine.
“Damn it… Let’s just go for a drive.”
Chunho began to drive, and I curled up in the passenger seat, closing my eyes. I didn’t feel sad so much as I felt wronged somehow.
‘It was like this 20 years ago too. Chunho drove us through the snowy streets like this, telling us he’d treat us if we got accepted… If only we had buttoned that first button properly back then…’
February 1, 1998, a Sunday when the Lunar New Year holidays were ending.
It was the final interview day for the 1998 new recruits at Daehan Semiconductor. That day, I had to choose whether to accept the offer as an irregular intern or to reject the offer and receive compensation for my canceled acceptance.
At that time, Seungwoo and I made the worst choice of accepting the compensation and using it to cover our graduate school tuition.
‘We should have endured it then… There would have been plenty of opportunities after joining the company… No, all we needed to do was secure some funds to invest in real estate.’
When I realized the truth that time and money should be invested in real estate instead of myself, it was already too late.
Maybe it was because of the alcohol, but my mind became hazy. Chunho’s driving felt as comfortable as a limousine.
Whether it was then or now… Comfortable… Even in this state… Comfortable….
*****
1. Goose Dad – A gireogi appa (Korean: 기러기 아빠, literally “goose dad”) is a South Korean term that refers to a man who works in Korea while his wife and children stay in an English-speaking country such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or New Zealand for the sake of the children’s education.
