Runner-up's Revenge

Dahye was dressed neatly, as if she had just gotten off work. She tapped the cat pen Hana was now holding.

“That’s cute. Do you like cats, Hana?”

Hana’s insides squirmed with discomfort. Why was Dahye trying to be so friendly? Hana couldn’t fathom why this woman, who had made it her life’s mission to belittle Dowon, was being so nice to her.

Hana examined Dahye's face, looking for any hint of reason hidden there. It was a clean and pretty face, framed by neat hair, and accented by a crisply ironed blouse. She had said she worked at Hanban Bank. Even Hana, unfamiliar with the world of prestigious careers, knew that getting into Hanban Bank was extremely difficult.

“I like dogs more than cats,” Dahye continued. “I think I’ll get this one instead.”

She pulled out a dog pen from the space beside the cat pens, her face maintaining its mask of friendliness. Hana hated being trapped in such a bizarre, awkward situation. She wanted to pretend she’d never bumped into Dahye and bolt past her, back to the safety of her home.

People like Dahye, who seemed to have everything in life and no hardship in sight, always sent a creeping depression through Hana’s mind. The pen she was holding began to tremble.

“Actually I’m not much of an animal person.”

Hana returned the cat pen back to its place, then she looked straight at Dahye.

“Did you come to buy a pen?” she asked, thinking of Dowon to bolster her courage.

Dahye fiddled with the pen she held for a moment. “Yeah, I thought I had one in my bag, but it disappeared.” She stuck the dog pen back into its place.

“I see,” Hana replied stiffly.

Dahye shuffled as an uncomfortable cloud settled on the two women. Her fingers went in search of another, more practical pen.

“How long have you known Dowon?” Dahye asked after a few painful seconds. “You didn't know him in high school, right?”

“We've known each other for a while… We met after we graduated high school.”

Another pause. Then Dahye spoke again. “You must get scouted by agents on the street with a face like that.”

Dahye continued to hover too close to Hana for comfort as she clicked the new pen. With each click, Hana bit down harder on the inside of her cheek.

“No, that doesn’t happen.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Dahye said with a shy smile. “I've never seen anyone as pretty as you. I mean, seriously!”

Dahye’s eyes roved Hana's face.

“You should be more confident. You're pretty, fit, and have a good personality.”

“I’m not that great. You're prettier, Dahye.”

“Hana, don’t lie. Do you not look in the mirror?”

Dahye stopped clicking the pen and put on a playfully angry expression. She brushed the hair from Hana’s face with her fingertips.

“Speaking of confidence, Dowon once said something similar to me.”

Dahye let her eyes flicker away, as if recalling a distant memory. Hana stayed silent, scrutinizing Dahye’s face.

“He said the way I solved the workbook problems was chaotic, and if I had more confidence, I wouldn't second guess myself so much. He said it was obvious I was bad at academics and gave me some advice that wasn't really advice. At the time, it was upsetting… but now it's just a memory.”

Hana didn’t reply at first, digesting Dahye’s words, and then chuckled.

“Maybe he was trying to cheer you up.”

“…What? How?”

“Maybe Dowon was trying to be helpful in his own way. He probably thought his advice might hurt your ego, so he said it in a joking way.”

***

Dahye almost blurted out, “What kind of nonsense is that?” Maybe Hana was able to misinterpret the story so thoroughly because Dahye was speaking too politely. She hadn’t conveyed Dowon’s tone well enough. It certainly wasn't as lighthearted as Hana imagined.

“I doubt that,” she snorted. “You should have seen Dowon's face when he said it.”

“Dowon is like that, you know,” Hana said, nodding. “He’s not very good at expressing himself. That's why he always seems so awkward.”

“No,” Dahye responded, shoving her irritation back. “He made his meaning very clear. It seemed pretty obvious.”

“His face can sometimes look upset, but that’s just his expression. He’s very gentle on the inside.”

As if Dahye had opened the floodgates, Hana went on to ramble about all of Dowon’s wonderful qualities. Dahye wanted to plug her ears with the squishy toys in the next aisle, but went along with it halfheartedly.

“Uh-huh… Yeah… Sure, it’s possible I misinterpreted it…”

You should have seen the expression on Dowon's face. He looked like he was ashamed to even be in the same classroom as me. As if I was too pathetic to even associate with. Try as she might, Dahye couldn't comprehend how Dowon had managed to pull the wool so completely over Hana’s eyes.

As Hana moved toward the register, Dahye followed close behind her, determined not to give up.

“Speaking of honest opinions… Dowon was more truthful and straightforward in high school. Maybe because he was younger and had less of a filter.”

“Was he?” Hana said, sounding disinterested.

“Yeah, for example…” Dahye placed a finger on her chin, and cast around for a harsher incident.

“One time, one of our classmates was really sick and kept making these groaning noises because he felt so awful. But he couldn’t go home because he had to maintain his attendance record. So he just lay on his desk, miserable. The nurse wasn’t even in her office that day. Everyone was really worried about him because he seemed like he was in so much pain.”

“What happened to him?”

Dahye schooled her features into a troubled look.

“Dowon, um… said that having someone grunting and groaning in class was distracting and he couldn't concentrate, so the sick kid should stop disturbing the class and just go home. Dowon asked why he was even at school if he was sick and said he should be at the hospital.”

“He did?”

Dahye nodded. “He was very blunt. Everyone else in the class was busy worrying, but Dowon was annoyed.

Hana frowned, her brow furrowing. Dahye, relieved, thought she had finally gotten through to her.

Until she said, “Going to the hospital was the right thing to do.”

“Exactly, he should have—What?”

“No matter how worried you are about attendance, you should go to the hospital if you’re that sick. Dowon always says that to me too, pestering me to see a doctor if I'm sick. He says a hospital is there to treat sick people, not resurrect dead ones.”

“Well, that's… true, but to say it so harshly….”

“You said everyone was worried. It may have been cruel, but in a way, he was breaking the tension,” Hana said, tilting her head. “He might have said it assertively, but it needed to be said. What happened to the classmate?”

“Uh… He went to the hospital. It turned out to be a serious problem.”

“That's good.”

After Dowon said that, it was true the kid had gone to the hospital and was, fortunately, able to get treatment in time… But after that, he walked on eggshells around Dowon, worried anything he did might affect the class. So, yes, Dowon’s words were true, but there was no need for him to say it like that.

“Hana, you see Dowon in a very positive light.”

“He's just a good person.” She shrugged.

Shit… Dahye gritted her teeth and paid for all the pens she had accumulated. It wasn't that Hana had been brainwashed, it was clear she was fully out of her mind.

***

Dahye lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling as usual. She mulled over Hana's words; that Dowon couldn't express himself well, but he was a kind person on the inside.

She thought about the high school version of Dowon. She brushed aside the memories of his usual jabs, and tried to recall others she had shoved into the corner of her mind.

“Performance assessment…”

Was it during the second year? She could remember the day of the PE performance assessment. The assessment was based on how many baskets you could get in a game of basketball, and since Dahye wasn't the best at sports, she had been practicing furiously after school each day.

“You keep missing because you’re not keeping your eye on the ball the whole time.”

Dowon had appeared out of nowhere. He's here to make fun of me again. She heaved an internal sigh, but greeted Dowon with a smile.

“You're afraid of the ball bouncing back and hitting you in the face,” he went on. “You need to watch the ball till the end to know where it's going.”

Dowon’s advice gave her pause. Aren’t we competitors?

As she stared at him, puzzled, Dowon always added, “I'm telling you because you'll be second place no matter how much I help you, so it doesn’t really matter to me.”

Just when things were starting to almost feel nice, he had to go and say something to provoke her. Dahye remembered her competitive fervor that day, practicing shots until the security guard asked if she was having some kind of mental break. Despite that, she remembered getting a perfect score on the assessment.

“Was that him helping?”

Now that she was thinking about it, Dowon was always hovering around Dahye, mocking her under the guise of giving advice. But more often than not, they actually turned out to be useful suggestions.

“Even the No 2. pencil…”

When she lost her No 2. pencil through an unnoticed hole in her pencil case, Dowon gave her his, saying it was because of her carelessness that she was second in the class. When she asked what he was planning to do without a pencil, he said that, if the top student in the school didn't have a pencil, the principal himself would appear to deliver one.

“That bastard, now that I think about it, he was a complete weirdo.”

More memories came rushing back, times where Dowon may have actually been trying to help her. Each time, what had Dahye thought as she stood in the wake of his aid?

It feels… bad.

She hadn’t been pleased by his attention nor his assistance. The memories of Dowon helping her were hazier than those of his mockery because his help actually made her feel worse than his insults.

“Maybe Hana was right. He didn’t know how to express himself.”

Dahye let out a hollow laugh. As if trying to physically fan her thoughts away, she waved her hand through the air.

“He probably wanted to mock me openly, but couldn't, and pretended to be nice instead. That’s why his help felt so bad. Like he said, I would have been second place forever, even if he helped.”

There was no way Dowon could be as kind a person as Hana said. Dahye was justified in her criticism and ridicule of Dowon. She was giving back what she had received. Exactly three years’ worth of torment, nothing more, nothing less.

“People should know that bastard's real face.”

***

“Yes, I understand. Don’t worry about it. I'll do my best… Yes. Keep me posted.”

For a long time Dowon stared at the word “Mom” displayed on his phone screen. He gripped the phone tightly, lifted it up into the air as if to throw it, then put it down again. He wanted to ignore any other incoming calls and pretend nothing had happened.

Dad had run off with the money. Not just the money Mom had hidden away, but also money he borrowed from relatives. He took it all and ran. They found him at last, but the money was long gone.

That wasn't all. Mom had forgiven Dad. Again. Dowon didn't even have the strength to ask her why. Mom was trying to repay all the money by herself, and in the process, injured her back and ended up in a hospital bed.

Dowon let out a sound of disbelief.

He had decided to quit his job today. He had thought he could finally leave the convenience store, begin to build up his qualifications, and get himself ready to find a real job. But now, he needed money, fast. For Mom's hospital bills and the money his worthless father had borrowed.

Of course, Dowon didn't need to pay it back. It didn’t matter to him whether Dad lived or died. Dowon had no intention of helping his father get away with his wrongdoing. Yet, Dowon couldn't abandon his mom. The woman who had always sacrificed herself for him. Just hearing Mom's voice made Dowon feel trapped, unable to breathe.

Why do I have to live like this?

I need to find another part-time job as soon as possible and start saving money. One job won't be enough to cover her medical bills and the debts. My only asset is the fact that I’m able-bodied, so I'll take two or three jobs. Maybe I can even do some night shifts.

Then when will I be able to build up my resume, get a job at a company, and live like everyone else? Am I asking for too much? Why is there a limit to what I can hope for? Do you have to be qualified to even have hopes and dreams?

A hot lump rose in Dowon's throat, and he felt tears welling up in his eyes. He threw his head back and gazed at the ceiling, trying to blink back the tears.

He hated everything. His determination to work hard for his single goal had crumbled in the span of a single phone call. He’d be useless for the rest of the day, trapped in a vortex of hopelessness. He didn't think he could go home to Hana today.

Right now…

Right now, he was on the edge. Even the smallest pebble—No—Not even a pebble. If someone so much as tapped him with a finger, he would shatter. Everything would fall apart.

But misfortune has a way of bringing its friends. After all, misery loves company.

“Hey.”

Had his misery called Dahye, or had Dahye called his misery? Dowon didn't have the energy to respond. He just stood there, head down, and Dahye silently handed him a piece of paper.

“Remember that class I told you about? I put your name down.”

His eyes darted across his shoes, flicking from side to side.

“You should at least start attending those kinds of things and think about what to write on your resume. You can't work part-time forever. I heard that, if you do part-time work for too long, you start to get comfortable with the idea of working part-time for the rest of your life. Jihyeong mentioned that one of his friends is still working part-time at a convenience store even though he's over thirty—”

Dowon slammed his fist down onto the countertop. Dahye flinched, retreating a step back.

“Dahye,” Dowon mumbled without looking up.

She didn’t answer

“Why are you doing this to me? Do you want me to kill myself?”