Closed Door

Cha Yeseung.

Definitely, I had seen that face somewhere, but I can’t remember where.

One could simply think that it’s a common face, or that I had seen her in passing, or that she was once a visitor. But there was something unpleasant about just leaving it at that.

Back home, I sat in my room, long recalling the past.

Most of the people I had met in my 20 years of life were customers who came to the restaurant.

The education system had collapsed long ago, and now that basic compulsory education takes place at home via the internet, I didn’t have school friends like in the old days. Due to poor security in the area, I didn’t play on the street either as a child or now, so I didn’t have neighborhood friends either.

Therefore, the only people I met were restaurant customers, people from nearby shops, or neighbors who dropped by from time to time.

And what about the period after twenty years?

Could it have been a meeting during my wanderings, after I sold grandmother’s restaurant and was kicked out by Lee Dongjae, when I was living day to day?

As I rubbed my nose bridge with my fingers, recalling events before returning to the past, suddenly one scene surfaced.

“Yes, that woman.”

It wasn’t someone with whom I had a relationship or whom I constantly communicated and met with.

Once, just once. A woman I had never seen before somehow contacted me and arranged a meeting.

“XXX has died. I want to meet to give you what he left behind.”

When Lee Dongjae abandoned me, I didn’t even have money for food or a place to sleep. I was in a situation where I could die on the street at any moment, let alone think about revenge. I had no one to turn to for help, and no one offered their help.

I wandered around the area where my grandmother’s shop used to be, looking for old acquaintances, but there wasn’t a single person who offered me a helping hand; everyone just clicked their tongues seeing how I had gone bankrupt in a year.

People my grandmother had helped, people who had borrowed money from me after grandmother’s death, people who had eaten free meals promising to pay me back when their situation improved – none of them even pretended to know me. They didn’t even look back, as if afraid I might cling to them.

To survive, I looked for unfamiliar day labor. Without any skills. The only thing I could do was physical labor.

That’s how I lived day to day until I ended up at a monster meat processing factory. The job was to butcher and process monster carcasses used for food. I never wished that I would directly touch them, although I saw them every time in the restaurant.

At first, I did simple work – moving monster carcasses from the factory to the workshop and packaging the butchered meat. The labor intensity and daily pay were not much different from a laborer, but since housing and food were provided, I had no other choice.

Only after two years was I first given a knife in my hands, and they acted as if they were passing on a family secret. They made me not butcher the meat, but just trim the fat, and they scolded me several times a day.

The call from the unknown woman came about six years later, when I had already passed the stage of messing with fat and started learning real butchering.

「”Are you Cho Roy? Your grandmother ran a seolleongtang restaurant. She died about seven years ago.”」

Maybe she was trying to remind me of past connections? Now I had nothing left that could be squeezed out of me. I thought this was a person with very belated news when the woman asked:

「 Do you know XXX?」

I don’t remember the name she mentioned then. I only remember that it was a person unfamiliar to me.

Hearing my answer that I didn’t know, she was silent for a moment.

「 He said your grandmother helped him in the past. He left a message saying he wanted to pass on his belongings to you after his death… He has died. If you name a convenient time, I’ll come to hand over the belongings.」

It was unexpected, but the woman’s extremely official and dry voice made me think that she was, at least, not a scammer. If she had been one, she wouldn’t have spoken so dryly, at least to evoke sympathy.

The woman I met at the appointed place was thin and nervous. She had an unhealthy complexion, like a sick person, and looked very emaciated, as if poorly nourished.

I heard her name when we greeted each other, but again, I don’t remember it. At that time, I didn’t have the mental strength to pay attention to a completely unfamiliar woman or an unknown deceased man.

「 I came, but I don’t know who XXX is.」

The woman had an ambiguous reaction to my words.

「 I don’t know what a completely unfamiliar person wanted to pass on, and I don’t understand the reason.」

「 Do you remember that there was an orphanage near your grandmother’s restaurant? XXX was from there. He said that until he came of age, he often ate at your grandmother’s restaurant and was close to you. He said those were the warmest and happiest memories.」

「 If those were such warm and happy memories, it seems he never came once.」

Everyone said so. I received great help, I will never forget this kindness, I will definitely repay it someday. They said so to my face, but left and never returned.

「 XXX had not very good circumstances.」

The woman quietly sighed and wrinkled her nose.

「 The government bound awakened from state orphanages with contracts. Unfortunately, the orphanage where XXX lived was run by the state. As soon as he awakened, he was taken into a government hunter team. They fed, sheltered, and raised him on state money, so now they demanded he work it off. In fact, it was almost a slave contract. It was a forced contract with no right to choose, and the contract term was calculated based on the time spent in the orphanage, so XXX was supposed to be bound for about fifteen years.」

「 Was he kept in confinement? Raised and sent only to gates? Kept locked up without personal time?」

No matter where he was, it’s not a reason to never visit the restaurant once.

「 Although they talked about a contract with the government, we were treated differently than official state awakened. There was neither glory nor wealth. People say that for one trip to the gates, they earn at least a month’s living, but we didn’t have that. All rights to the gates belonged to the government, and all monster by-products or obtained artifacts were also taken by the government. Our daily life was to be sent as the first advance group into spontaneously appearing gates or to replace in urgent gates when someone dropped out. We were hired workers who didn’t know when we would die.」

「 …」

「He said he couldn’t come to grandmother and you because he didn’t know when he would die. Roughly speaking, he could come to say hello today, and tomorrow news of his death could come. He thought it was better to just forget and live on, and that he would come to meet when the contract term ended. Sometimes he came and watched from afar. He smiled, happy that you were doing well, and with each passing year, he was happy that only a few years remained.」

「 I didn’t live very well.」

Look at me now. Can this be called a good life?

Hearing my words, she smiled an ambiguous smile, as if laughing and crying at the same time.

「 He died before you became like this.」

「 It was more than six years ago.」

「 Yes, about then. He said that at that time you looked normal. No, you looked like you could manage, although you were saddened by grandmother’s death.」

「 How could he know that…」

「 XXX came to the restaurant when he heard about grandmother’s death. He was very worried about you, left alone, and regretted not coming earlier despite the circumstances. But he returned without even speaking. He said that surprisingly, you looked quite good.」

「 He… saw me together with the scammer?」

「 Yes. If he had known it was a scammer, he wouldn’t have left. But then neither you nor XXX knew about it. He smiled, saying it was for the best. Although he seemed to grieve a little, he said it was good for you.」

It wasn’t good. Rather, it was very bad.

「 After that, he often came to see how you were doing, but at some point learned that you had sold the restaurant. And moved to a safe area. He said with relief that it seemed you had found stability, maybe because there was someone you could rely on nearby, and that it was good that there was a good person next to you.」

「 He… continued to watch me until the restaurant closed?」

「 Yes. On days when he wasn’t entering gates, he always came to look at you. Although he said he was ashamed to appear so late, after so many years without contact. But he was satisfied just seeing that you were living well.」

Tears that I thought had long dried up started flowing.

I thought that after grandmother’s death and losing all property to the scammer, I was left completely alone, with nothing. When I learned that there was a person who worried about me and watched over me, even when I didn’t know about it, my heart trembled.

I couldn’t understand whether this feeling was joy, gratitude, resentment, or sadness. But the heart that I thought had died began to beat slowly again.