Chapter 4: The Golden Dog and the Blue Uniform

At dusk, Grandma would send Haejun outside, pressing a single 1,000-won bill into his hand.

That man came home around twilight.

Four or five days a week, the front door would bang open, and the smell of alcohol always followed.

Each time, his face and neck were flushed deep red, and he held a soju bottle the way you’d grab a chicken by the neck.

Back then, Haejun took “go out and play” literally, but looking back now, he thought Grandma was sending him far away so his father wouldn’t catch sight of him.

At that time, there was a lot you could do with 1,000 won.

Haejun usually went to the stationery store in front of his school to play the arcade machine.

On his way home once, he’d watched kids his age playing over their shoulders, and it had looked pretty fun.

One round cost 500 won. With 1,000 won, he could play twice.

When he first grabbed the joystick, Haejun couldn’t even clear the first round before the game over screen popped up.

But as the days passed, he got better.

Then one day, he focused until the sunset had completely faded and cleared the final boss.

He jumped up from his seat, face bright red.

He looked around with shining, excited eyes and realized there wasn’t a single person watching to share his joy.

Maybe because it was in front of an elementary school, the machines were crowded with kids during the day.

But at the late-afternoon time Haejun came, nobody else was around.

This unfamiliar fact surprised him, and he scratched his cheek rather sheepishly.

After setting a new record, he typed some random letters into the initials slot.

Then he carefully put the remaining 500 won back in his pocket.

From the next day on, he stopped visiting the arcade machine outside the stationery store.

Instead, he went to the mart near his house and looked at the ice cream.

It cost the same as one round of the game.

If you lasted long, you could play for thirty minutes.

But even if you ate an ice cream slowly, it wouldn’t fill ten minutes.

No matter how he calculated, this was more of a loss.

In the end, though, Haejun picked the ice cream.

Being bored was better than being lonely.

After finishing the ice cream, he still wasn’t satisfied, so he wandered around with the wooden stick in his mouth.

He didn’t want to go to school, so he walked the other way, and before he knew it, he’d ended up in the next neighborhood over.

It was a place that smelled like money, unlike his own neighborhood, where tarps were laid over leaky roofs and held down with stones, and squeaky gates were left broken.

There was one house that seemed enormous and pretty even to a child’s eyes.

It had white walls and a vermilion roof.

From the outside, it looked like it had at least ten rooms, and the yard was spacious too.

The grass was a fresh green, and flat stepping stones were laid along the path.

Haejun peered around through the iron gate, which was taller than he was.

No sound came from inside.

‘I wish this were our house.’

A jealous thought suddenly welled up.

It was because his father sometimes screamed that this crappy house, the size of a booger, never looked clean no matter how much he swept and wiped it.

If the house were this big and nice, Dad probably wouldn’t get angry.

But then Grandma would have to work even harder cleaning it.

Haejun seriously thought about how tiring it would be to clean a house this size.

‘Bark! Bark!’

That was when a huge dog came bounding out from the yard.

Its golden fur rippled like waves with every movement.

When it spotted Haejun outside the fence, the dog panted happily, its long tongue hanging out the side of its mouth.

Haejun stumbled back in surprise.

The large breed was as tall as him when standing on two legs.

But the dog’s bright, innocent face made it clear it didn’t intend to hurt him.

It just seemed happy to see him.

As proof, its thick tail was wagging in the air.

‘Oh, hi?’

When Haejun greeted it in a small voice, the dog rested its front paw on the iron fence.

Even one paw was enormous.

When Haejun touched it lightly with his fingertips, the soft paw pad erased every bit of his wariness.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Woof!’

‘You’re really cute.’

The dog couldn’t use human words, but it barked as if it understood everything Haejun said.

It was cute, and smart too.

Haejun slipped his hand through the fence.

He wanted to pet it, but the more he reached toward the dog’s head, the more the dog tilted its neck back.

‘Hold still…’

Haejun asked, but the dog kept tilting its head back until its long snout pointed straight up at the sky, panting happily.

He’d just thought it was smart, but maybe it was actually an idiot.

‘Woof! Woof!’

Then the dog suddenly dropped its head forward.

It barked cheerfully, staring at something.

Haejun froze, still hanging onto the fence.

Come to think of it, this was someone else’s house.

The moment that forgotten fact came back to him, Haejun turned his head around.

A boy in a school uniform was looking down at him, tilting his head.

His gaze naturally lowered to the name tag on the uniform’s chest.

‘What the f*ck, little punk.’

Moon Sijin muttered to himself.

“How long has it been since the semester started? How can coming to school be this annoying?”

“That’s why I told you not to sign up for that class.”

Haejun walked out of the business school building, trading pointless banter with Kang Hangyeol.

Unlike Haejun, whose classes were all over for the day, Hangyeol still had to go to another lecture in the afternoon.

Haejun let his whining about wanting to go home go in one ear and out the other, then checked his phone.

Behind the cracked screen was a messenger chat window.

He’d woken up this morning from a dream full of longing, and the first thing he did was check his phone.

There was a message from Sijin.

It said he’d gotten home safe, and ended with good night.

Haejun forced down his pounding heart and sent a late reply, and somehow they’d been talking ever since.

Sijin kept asking all sorts of small questions, making sure Haejun had eaten and gotten to class.

Haejun had always felt awkward talking about his day to anyone other than his grandmother, sharing things like what he ate today and what he did.

But in just a few hours, he’d confessed his entire schedule.

There was no helping it.

The other person was Moon Sijin.

He was someone who soothed Haejun’s heart almost as well as Grandma did.

No sooner had he thought that than his phone rang.

On the cracked screen was a name he’d saved yesterday: ‘Sijin Brother’.

– Haejun-a.

The moment he answered, a soft voice called his name, melting warmly.

Sijin’s actual voice was low and firm, but the voice over the phone had its own strange charm.

For some reason, Haejun thought Sijin must be smiling as he said his name.

The sound was that pleasant.

– I figured your class would be over around now.

He really had just finished class and was on his way out.

Haejun thought maybe Sijin was nearby and had seen him, and he looked around.

Then he remembered he’d sent Sijin his schedule earlier.

“Yeah. I just finished, so I’m heading to get something to eat.”

– Want to have lunch together, then?

He’d again blurted out his situation without any wariness, then stopped at Sijin’s offer.

Haejun had planned to go home, eat alone, and get ready for his evening tutoring job.

But if he ate with Sijin, Sijin would probably insist on paying again.

‘He already bought me ice cream yesterday. And it’s not like I can buy him cafeteria food.’

Anyway, he’d said he was going to make Haejun properly treat him later, so Haejun needed to prepare for that.

His part-time wages would come in two weeks, so in the meantime, he’d probably have to take on more day jobs or short-term gigs.

It was the start of the semester, so there were a lot of things to spend money on anyway.

Having a bit more cash in hand wasn’t a bad idea either.

“Sorry. I already promised a friend I’d eat with them today.”

– Ah, is that so? Looks like I was too late.

When Haejun mumbled awkwardly, Sijin let out a light laugh, as if he’d noticed the embarrassment.

– Okay. Enjoy your meal.

“Mm. You too, Brother.”

His voice shrank on its own because he felt guilty lying, but luckily he hung up without getting caught.

As soon as the call ended, a sigh slipped out.

While he was mulling over Sijin’s last words, “See you tomorrow,” Kang Hangyeol, who was standing next to him, nudged him in the side with his elbow.

“Did I agree to eat with you today?”

“…Why do you assume I don’t have any friends besides you?”

“So you don’t?”

That remark jabbed both his side and his sore spot.

Haejun clamped his mouth shut.

Kang Hangyeol already seemed to know who Haejun had been on the phone with.

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