Between Earth and Elsewhere

The sandwich shop girl held up a bag as Yeomyung walked in. It seemed she had prepared his order knowing he would come.

He took the bag and handed over his card. While processing the payment, the girl said, “If you hadn’t come, these would’ve been my dinner.”

“Take care,” he replied.

“Have a nice day.”

Thanks to her preparation, the whole interaction was quick and efficient. A strange sense of disappointment brushed his heart.

He mounted his bicycle parked outside and headed back to the dumpling shop. As the wind rushed past, Yeomyung released it all—her smile, those three seconds when his heart raced, the hollow feeling as he’d walked away. This was his habit. When emotions drifted in like seeds on the breeze, he swept them away before they could take root.

Most people cherished their emotions, giving them meaning and nurturing them carefully. But what meaning did emotions truly have? A young man’s excitement at seeing a pretty woman, the desire to linger and talk, to build something more—wasn’t it all just biology, the drive to mate and pass on genes? Was there anything unique to the individual, or was it all just human nature playing its ancient game?

Emotions were anchors, Yeomyung believed. They made you cling to burdensome people, feel sympathy for those who treated you like dirt, keep pushing when you should rest. Better to let them fly away before they could settle.

He let out a small laugh. The fact that the sandwich shop girl could excite him proved something—he no longer associated her with Arin at all.

“Ah, my mistake.”

“…”

“I just thought the dumpling shop owner would probably be a man. But that’s just my prejudice, right?”

Since that moment, he’d never again thought the girl might be Arin. They were separate people in his mind now, and Arin was fading from his memory entirely.

***

“My mother-in-law yanked my hair, calling me a barren harlot, drying up the family line. But it’s not like I wanted to be…”

“Oh, you’re here?”

Yeomyung hesitated at the entrance. An old woman was muttering at the counter, but the sandwich shop girl seemed unfazed.

“I didn’t prep the sandwiches today,” she said. “Thought you might want to cool down after cycling in this heat.”

“Oh…”

“Though if I’d known Mrs. Park would be here, I might have made them ahead,” said the girl, her voice carrying a note of regret.

Yeomyung glanced at the old woman. Her clothes were stained and unwashed. She wore a loose pair of work pants and fluorescent green slippers, like those that belonged in a bathhouse. She kept scratching her head as she talked, and Yeomyung looked away quickly, not wanting to invite conversation. He caught a whiff of something unpleasant and stepped back.

“Just a moment,” the girl said. “I’ll make them quickly.”

Meanwhile, the old woman kept rambling.

“Living with my hair pulled every day… I had to do something. So I found a boy. Someone else’s child. Pretended to be pregnant for nine months and eight days in front of my mother-in-law.”

“That long? Pretty brave of you,” the girl commented.

“Had to be, if I wanted to live. She treated me so well after that. My body was finally at peace, but my mind… the guilt of deceiving them…”

“At least it made up for the hair-pulling.”

“That’s what I figured. When the time came, I brought Euncheol—that boy I adopted—home like he was my newborn. Lucky my mother-in-law’s eyes were going bad from cataracts or glaucoma. Anyone could see he looked nothing like my husband.”

“Sounds like you were lucky.”

The girl worked steadily, her hands making sandwiches while her mouth offered gentle responses, her ears catching every word of the old woman’s tale.

Yeomyung thought of his own grandmother at home. Why did age make people so talkative? Did words accumulate like sediment over the years? And why the same stories, over and over, like a broken radio?

The girl emerged with a bag and placed it in the old woman’s hands. “Here’s your sandwich, Mrs. Park. All ready to go.”

“What? You rushed it, didn’t you?” Mrs. Park accused. “That’s why it came out so fast…”

“Come on now, I made it extra special since it’s for Myeongjin.”

“Myeongjin?”

“Yes, you said he loves our sandwiches,” the girl pointed out.

“Oh, right. Oh my, what time is it? I need to feed him.”

“You’re not late. Just walk slowly—we don’t want you falling.”

The old woman shuffled out in her small slippers, the door tinkling shut behind her.

“Let’s air this place out a bit.” The girl opened the windows and door before returning to make Yeomyung’s sandwich.

“She talks a lot, doesn’t she?” she said.

“A bit…”

“Comes in every day with the same story. Her mother-in-law’s torment over not bearing a son, the adopted boy she passed off as her own, her mother blackmailing her for money to keep quiet…”

Yeomyung’s head snapped toward her.

The girl continued casually, as if discussing the weather. “In the end, when the mother-in-law found out, she threw her four-year-old grandson into a well. He survived, but with brain damage—lived impaired his whole life. Her husband had an affair and left. Then her daughter ran off with whatever was left.”

The girl caught Yeomyung’s stare and offered a slight smile. “Stories like that make you wonder about family, don’t they? Sometimes strangers seem kinder.”

Yeomyung stood still, not knowing what to say.

“If God promised no one would know—not heaven, not earth, no one…” The girl’s voice was eerily calm. “Sometimes I feel like I could just kill them.”

“…”

“Do you like kiwi juice?”

“…”

“The boss said to give free kiwi juice to the dumpling shop guy. That okay?”

“Yes…”

Yeomyung struggled to follow the conversation’s jarring turns. How had they jumped from murder to kiwi juice? And why was she telling him any of this?

The girl emerged from behind the counter with his order.

“Was I too harsh?” she asked, handing him the bag.

“No, not really…”

“You’ll still come tomorrow, right? I even threw in a freebie,” she teased.

Yeomyung stood there, unsure whether to laugh or run. But the sandwich shop girl just smiled, unfazed.

“Take care on your way back.”

***

“If God promised no one would know… Sometimes I feel like I could just kill them.”

The words haunted Yeomyung all afternoon. Through every mundane task—packaging dumplings, swiping cards, tucking radish and chopsticks into bags—they echoed. They stuck because they mirrored his own hidden thoughts.

These were the kinds of thoughts Yeomyung buried deep, glancing around nervously even though no one could read his mind. Thoughts that must stay hidden. If people knew, they’d recoil in horror. How could anyone think such things about family? What terrible wrong could justify such thoughts?

I can’t live like this…

He’d always wondered: Did normal people never wish their family dead? Did they somehow find ways to love them just because they were family? How did they manage that? Wasn’t family the hardest to love? What was this twisted feeling he carried?

He’d never dared ask these questions. People would look at him like he was already a murderer.

But now there was someone else who thought like him. Was the sandwich shop girl also broken? Or did even normal people sometimes harbor such thoughts? Did she hate her family? Or somehow love them while wanting them dead?

“Are you staying until closing?”

“…Pardon?”

The dumpling shop owner’s voice yanked Yeomyung back to reality. Eight o’clock already.

“Oh.”

He quickly removed his apron. The owner handed him an envelope with his wages.

“Thank you,” Yeomyung said, accepting it with both hands.

“This too,” the owner added, offering a bag.

Yeomyung took it, surprised. The owner retreated inside without another word.

In the bag, Yeomyung found two packs of dumplings.

Yeomyung peered into the shop, wanting to thank the man for the dumplings, but the kitchen was empty. After a moment of hesitation between the shop and the bag, he left silently.

The walk to the bus stop felt darker than usual—the days growing shorter.

A thought nagged at him: I wonder if she’s gone home.

The sandwich shop’s owner usually came for closing, didn’t they? The girl probably left earlier. Their hours were shorter than the dumpling shop’s…

He considered taking the route past the sandwich shop. She probably wouldn’t be there this late. Even if she was, he wouldn’t say anything; he just wanted to know. The detour wouldn’t take much longer.

Yeomyung changed course.

After ten minutes, he spotted the sandwich shop, its windows dark. As expected, it closed early. He wasn’t disappointed, just confirming what he’d thought. Time to catch the bus.

As he passed the shop, a voice called out behind him.

“Dumpling?”

Yeomyung turned. There was the girl from the sandwich shop, sitting at a table outside the convenience store.