JKA 3

“Seeing as this got approved right away, it seems our boss has been quite generous in many places.”

Unable to raise any questions, as if possessed, Mrs. Yoon just muttered things like, “The young man is doing a lot of good work,” and the man’s posture somehow grew more and more arrogant. He naturally crossed his legs, of course, and leaned his back deeply into the sofa, a faint smile on his face as he looked at the small ornament hanging on the wall behind Mrs. Yoon.

“Trust is truly important.”

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

“Then I’ll consider the matter settled. Please pass this information on to the students who live here. For any homes that refuse because they find it unsettling, we will provide support for their moving expenses. I’ll stop by again later to handle those costs.”

The man naturally picked up Mrs. Yoon’s business card from the table. Her bank account number was also written on it. After confirming this, the man held the card between his fingers and with a flick, tossed it upwards, and the card vanished as if by magic.

“I’m told you should keep that faith of yours unchanged in the future, and pray often. They say the eldest son hasn’t been praying much lately. You should check on that.”

“Yes, yes. Thank you.”

With Mrs. Yoon repeatedly offering her thanks, the man turned his back on her and left the real estate office. Then, he slightly lifted his head toward the dazzling sky, squinted, and muttered.

“1129, Myeong Jiwoon’s latest civil complaint has been processed.”

The faces of the department students, with their first-semester midterms ahead, were all a complete mess. This was inevitable, as taking an exam after enrolling in the Department of Film and Media was synonymous with being tormented by ruthless deadlines. There were assignments, and on top of that, there was a separate video submission to replace the midterm exam.

In short, it was a continuous series of deadlines every day. It was no use saying things like, ‘I’m not just taking your class, you know?’ It was a relief that there were no group projects among the classes this semester. If there had been, Jiwoon probably would have declared his escape by taking a mid-semester leave of absence without a second thought.

Since all-nighters were the norm, half of the students sitting there were in a near-death state. They had managed to drag their bodies to the classroom with the sheer will not to lose attendance points, but their souls had not arrived. Jiwoon, too, was severely sleep-deprived from juggling a part-time video editing job and editing his final submission video.

He sat in front of the now-loathsome monitor and attended the lecture half-asleep, with the crappy editing program open. He mechanically moved his hands to search for materials and pressed shortcut keys, muddling his way through the lesson. The crazy stunt from that morning added to it, making his eyelids feel as heavy as a thousand pounds.

—If someone said they’d grant you one wish, what would you ask for?

Half-dozing, Jiwoon recalled something that had happened about a month ago. It was a time when he was passionately editing in his dark room, just like any other day, while chugging an energy drink. It had been shortly after the semester began, so he had a little bit of time, and doing part-time editing work until almost dawn was a daily routine.

‘I’d have to ask them to increase it to a hundred wishes.’

When you’re editing alone until dawn, you’re bound to get sleepy. Besides, even when you followed the guidelines for video editing, there were parts that needed to be revised here and there. The person who gave Jiwoon editing work was a sunbae from a club he’d been close with in high school, named Shin Seung-yoon. He was a pretty famous YouTuber now, so they would often work together while chatting like this.

It was true that you felt less sleepy when you worked while talking, and it was fun to laugh and chat about this and that. It was also possible because the sunbae had a full-time editor, and he mainly had Jiwoon edit shorter videos.

—That’s not allowed. What if you could only say one thing?

‘You’re trying to play another one of your weird “would you rather” games, aren’t you? Like, in exchange for granting the wish, I have to do something else.’

The sound of laughter came from over the headphones at Jiwoon’s voice, which sounded like he knew it all. As if to prove he was a streamer, it was that sunbae’s specialty to always ask strange questions. It was also a common occurrence for him to ask Jiwoon the very same questions his viewers had asked.

—First, just tell me the wish. Then I can add something to it, can’t I?

‘Ah, no. I don’t want to. It just gives me a headache for no reason.’

—Hurry up.

At Seung-yoon’s urging, Jiwoon narrowed his brow and let out a small sigh. They’ll grant any one wish… It was unlikely such a thing would ever happen, but it was human nature to ponder it deeply when asked such a question.

Lost in thought as he continued to edit in silence, Jiwoon suddenly looked away from the monitor and glanced around his small room. It was a complete mess, enough to put a junkyard to shame, and a musty smell was even wafting from it. The clothes and belongings he had worn and just thrown off had now invaded the area near his bed, and it had become routine for him to sleep wrapped tightly in his blanket, pressed right up against the wall.

He couldn’t even remember when he had last washed that blanket, which made him wonder if this was any way for a person to live. Perhaps that was why Jiwoon, after downing the rest of his energy drink, spoke in a rather serious voice.

‘…Right now, I’d just like it if someone would do the housework for me. Do the cleaning, and the laundry. It’d be nice if they cooked for me, too.’

—Myeong Jiwoon, if you’re a human, you should be doing those things yourself. It’s the most basic of basics, isn’t it?

‘I’m thinking about it because I can’t even do the basics. You said it was a wish. I’m only saying it because I know there’s no one who’ll grant it.’

Jiwoon said, his voice drained of energy. He had insisted on coming all the way to Seoul to live alone for the sole reason that he didn’t want to live with his parents, who did all those things for him. The only thing he knew how to do properly was work while sitting in front of a computer; he was failing at the tasks truly necessary for life.

Things like eating proper meals and wearing clean clothes were among them. He couldn’t distinguish between clothes that needed to be taken to the dry cleaner and those that didn’t, and he couldn’t even choose the right detergent.

It was a good thing that electricity, water, and internet were all included in the management fee; otherwise, his water and power might have been cut off long ago. Had he ever even looked at a bill and paid it? He’d struggled even to cook rice with the rice cooker that had arrived on his first day of moving in, so that said it all.

The same went for the fact that a fan used in the summer had to be cleaned and stored properly, or else a thick layer of dust would accumulate on its blades, and that the bathroom didn’t automatically get clean just by showering in it. With things like this, there was no way his hovel of a home could be clean.

—So you’re saying your wish is for someone to always keep your house clean?

‘Well, it’d be nice if they did this and that. Just an all-purpose person, something like that. They don’t necessarily have to be human.’

—That’s hilarious. What if they did all that for you, but they were a cockroach? Would you still be okay with that?

‘See, there you go again, hyung. I told you not to add those extra conditions, didn’t I?’

At Jiwoon’s words, Seung-yoon burst out laughing as if he couldn’t breathe. And then he started adding conditions, one by one, to an absurd degree.

—It’s a cockroach bigger than you. It walks around confidently on two legs, but it’s really good at housework. Its cooking is to die for, too. When you’re not around, it shrinks down and roams around the building, picking up fallen 100-won and 500-won coins and stuff, then comes back and says, ‘Honey, this is the money I earned busting my a**,’ and even builds up a nice sum for you.

‘Are you kidding me, seriously? And why does it call me honey?’

—Hey, it lives in the same house with you, does all the housework, gives you money, and takes care of your whole life?

‘And in return, I have to do what, fall in love with it or something?’

—You have to do whatever it asks. But in return, it lives only for your happiness. If it says it wants to be loved, you have to love it.

‘That’s ridiculous…’

A cockroach that walks on two legs and calls him ‘honey’—he truly didn’t even want to imagine it. Jiwoon shivered and showed his utter disgust, but the more he did, the more excited Seung-yoon seemed to get.

—Hey, honestly, if someone were to search your place right now, there’d be a ton of bugs. It’s not like your house could be a mess and not have them. One of them could fall for you, grow up big, and do everything for you.

‘That’s not my wish.’

—Didn’t you say it didn’t have to be human?

‘I don’t like bugs. Would you do it, hyung? Could you live with a cockroach that walks around on two legs and calls you honey? If you wanted to break up, what would you do, call CeXco?’

—Yah… That’s horrifying. Wouldn’t you have to pay a special fee for that? That’s on the level of a contract killing.

‘The day it finds out you called CeXco, it’s all over. You can’t even win in a fight.’

—So you can’t call them, you have to talk it down and get it to leave. You’d have to say, ‘Honey, please leave now.’ Then it would spread its wings wide, slap you across the face, and get angry, asking if you were just playing with its feelings.

‘If it got to that point, it would be true that I was playing with it… I wouldn’t be able to call someone to solve it, and since it can talk, if it heard the whole story, I’d be the one who’d have to drink insecticide.’

—That’s right. If you can’t live like a human, there’s only death. Don’t make a wish like that, and make sure you clean up after yourself today. Got it?

‘You have a d**n creative way of nagging.’

The conversation, which had not a shred of substance, ended with a nag. As Seung-yoon’s voice spared no harsh words, saying he should look things up if he didn’t know, Jiwoon said he was going to bed now and turned off the voice chat. Not a single thing he said was wrong, from start to finish, but not all true words were pleasant to hear.

Most importantly, it wasn’t because he didn’t know. His room had only reached this state relatively recently. It wasn’t as if he had started living in a pigsty the moment he moved up to Seoul. While it had been messy in many ways because it wasn’t organized, there was a good reason why it had gotten this bad.

But he didn’t want to tell Seung-yoon that reason. In fact, it was something he didn’t want to tell anyone. Because it wasn’t a particularly grand affair. Jiwoon just hated himself. That feeling was simply growing day by day.

If you were to ask why he hated himself, the reason was even more trivial. He had almost no one he could call a friend throughout elementary, middle, and high school, and he hated his parents, who meddled and interfered with him to an excessive degree. So he had come all the way to Seoul with the intention of starting a completely new life, but he had miserably failed at adapting to university life as well.

He had thought he was talented and confident in his current major, but once he actually came to university, kids who were at his level were a dime a dozen. Since his skills weren’t particularly outstanding, his grades weren’t that good either. In the midst of that, he had spectacularly failed at the various part-time jobs he’d started to try and overcome his shyness. It was because he was often fired for not having a knack for the work.

The rent was expensive, and the cost of the equipment he needed was not to be taken lightly. He didn’t feel right about constantly asking his parents, who had already spent a lot of money on him, for more. Besides, the most important problem was that he was lonely. Life in Seoul, where he knew absolutely no one, was endlessly lonely.

He had thought of it as a land of opportunity. This was because Jiwoon liked men. Finding people with the same orientation in the neighborhood where he had lived was a somewhat scary thing. So he had stubbornly come all the way to Seoul. Because it was the place where the most people lived, he thought that if he played his cards right, he might be able to experience what it was like to date.

But there was no way that would happen. Going around looking like this, there was no way he could meet anyone, man or woman. It was the same even when he tried his best to dress up. It was hard for him to even make eye contact with people, so how could it be easy just because it was another man?

Furthermore, there was also a terrible mistake he now didn’t even want to recall. In fact, it was fair to say that it was the biggest reason for the depression that had overcome him. It would have been the same for the other person as well.

Thinking about it like that, the cockroach that demanded his love didn’t seem so bad. For a very brief moment, he thought that if even something like that would live with him… If it wouldn’t find this version of him pathetic…