이 포스팅은 쿠팡 파트너스 활동의 일환으로, 이에 따른 일정액의 수수료를 제공받습니다.
# Chapter 122: The Speed of Mold
Staring at the ceiling of her goshiwon, Seo-ah had finally learned to measure time with precision. The speed at which mold grows. It was slow enough to go unnoticed, yet undeniably present. Week by week. Month by month. Eight months had passed since Seo-ah moved into this room, and the mold had spread from the left corner of the ceiling toward the center. If she stayed here much longer, it would eventually consume the entire ceiling. And by then, Seo-ah would have become part of this room just like the mold.
Jangpan—the cat—cried against her chest with a rattling, mechanical sound. Like an engine. Or like a distant train. Seo-ah stroked the cat’s head. Its fur was soft. The softest thing alive. Not leather, not fabric, not water. Only life possessed such softness.
“Were you outside yesterday?”
She asked the cat a question. The cat didn’t answer. Instead, it licked her hand. A tiny tongue. It traced between her fingers. Seo-ah looked down at her own hands. Her fingernails had grown long. When had she last trimmed them? A week ago? Two weeks? Her sense of time had been blurred for a while now.
Her phone rang. Dohyun’s name flashed on the screen. Seo-ah saw it but didn’t answer. What would she say if she picked up? Could she explain where she was? That she’d left the hospital and come to the goshiwon, that she was staring at the mold on the ceiling right now? How could she prove that this was her normal routine?
The call ended. She set the phone down. Seconds later, a text arrived.
Dohyun: Noona, are you okay? Mom keeps asking. I’ll call after school.
Seo-ah read it. Read it again. She chewed on each word as if there were a hidden code embedded in the message. But there was no code. Only Dohyun’s worry. And that worry was the hardest thing for her to bear.
She didn’t reply. Instead, she set the phone on the nightstand. The screen went dark. It felt as if the phone didn’t exist anymore. It was an illusion, but she needed that illusion.
When it turned 11 p.m., Seo-ah left the goshiwon. The streets of Hapjeong-dong were quiet. It was Friday night, but Friday nights here were different from Friday nights elsewhere. No one celebrated here. No one drank. The people in this neighborhood were all waiting for something. Waiting for tomorrow. Waiting for next week. Waiting for the day they could leave for somewhere else.
Seo-ah headed to the convenience store. A GS25 near Hapjeong Station. That’s where she worked. Or used to. Now? Seo-ah couldn’t define her occupation. She’d notified the company when she filed the report. Indefinite leave of absence. That was the official reason. But in reality? She didn’t know.
When she entered the store, the employee was a stranger. A new part-timer. Probably someone sent to replace her. The employee saw Seo-ah but didn’t register her. That was natural. Seo-ah had done work that required no presence. Heating up triangle kimbap. Making coffee. Ringing up purchases. All of it was done by nameless hands.
Seo-ah stood in one corner of the store. In front of the instant noodle section. She did nothing there. Just stood. Looking at the ramen boxes. Shin Ramyun. Jin Ramyun. Neoguri. Jjapagetti. All neatly arranged. Perfectly. Without a single misalignment. That was part of her job. Arranging things. Maintaining the arrangement.
Her phone rang again. This time it was Hae-neul. A call. Seo-ah answered.
“What are you doing?”
Hae-neul’s voice came through. In the background was the sound of a tattoo shop. Machine sounds. Behind that, someone’s soft moans. Hae-neul was in the middle of a tattoo.
“At the convenience store.”
Seo-ah answered.
“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Until when?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence flowed through the phone. Silence on the other end. Hae-neul didn’t speak. Instead, the machine sound continued. The sound of a needle piercing skin.
“There are three weeks left until court.”
Hae-neul finally spoke.
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do for those three weeks?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you just… going to stay at home?”
“Yeah.”
“Seo-ah.”
Hae-neul’s voice changed. No longer the voice of a tattoo artist, but a friend’s voice. A more dangerous voice.
“Yeah.”
Seo-ah answered again.
“You’re heading somewhere bad right now. Do you know that?”
“I didn’t know.”
Seo-ah answered. It was a lie. She knew. She knew where she was going. Downward. Only downward. Like falling into a deep hole.
“Have you thought about your mom? About Dohyun?”
“Yeah.”
“Even so?”
“Even so what?”
Seo-ah asked.
“Is it still okay?”
Hae-neul asked.
Seo-ah didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at the shelves of the convenience store. Above the ramen were cup noodles. Above those were drinks. Above those was bread. Everything was arranged. And this arrangement was waiting to be broken. Someone would come and take something, creating a gap, and someone would try to fill that gap, and another empty space would form. This would repeat. Forever. Or until this convenience store disappeared.
“Seo-ah. Answer me.”
Hae-neul spoke again.
“…I’m okay.”
Seo-ah answered slowly.
“That’s a lie.”
Hae-neul said.
“Yeah.”
Seo-ah admitted it.
“Then what’s the truth?”
“I don’t know.”
Seo-ah answered. That was the truth. She didn’t know what she was right now. A victim? A witness? A reporter? Or just a convenience store part-timer? Everything was simultaneously right, and everything was simultaneously wrong.
“What are you wearing right now?”
Hae-neul suddenly asked.
“What?”
Seo-ah repeated.
“Your clothes. What are you wearing?”
“…Oh, this. A black sweater.”
Seo-ah answered.
“When did you last wash it?”
“I don’t know. A week ago?”
“Do you have any clothes you haven’t worn?”
“Yeah. Lots.”
“Then go home and change into clean clothes. And eat something. Properly. Not ramen.”
Hae-neul commanded.
“Okay.”
Seo-ah answered.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Seo-ah lied.
“Seo-ah. I’m going to hang up once I finish this person. You go home right now. You hear me? Right now.”
“Okay.”
Seo-ah answered.
The call ended. Seo-ah left the convenience store. Turning away from the ramen aisle.
The night streets had grown even quieter. As midnight approached, people were disappearing. Or hiding. Night was like that. Some people stayed awake, some slept, and some existed somewhere between waking and sleeping.
On her way back to the goshiwon, Seo-ah saw a trash bin outside the convenience store. Someone’s leftover food was thrown there. A half-eaten triangle kimbap. It definitely came from this store. Someone had bought it, eaten part of it, and now it was in the trash. That was the fate of food. Sold, consumed, discarded. Music would have been the same. Seo-ah’s music too.
## Rain Falls, and Is Discarded
Rain fell. And was discarded. Music would have been the same. Seo-ah’s music too.
Maybe it was a fate written from the beginning. Fingers that learned piano as a child, destined to one day leave the keys. Those moments of performance under the bright lights of a music academy, destined to blur like dark clouds. Seo-ah was accepting it. No, she had no choice but to accept it. Because acceptance was the only way to survive.
When she opened the door to her goshiwon, Jangpan was already asleep. At the entrance. As if tired from waiting for Seo-ah.
Seo-ah paused for a moment. She leaned against the doorframe and looked at the cat. Jangpan—the name she’d given to this cat. A strange name for a strange-looking, shabby, yellow-furred mutt. One discarded thing had picked up another discarded thing. Sympathy between the same kind. Comfort from shared circumstances.
The cat didn’t wake at the sound of her footsteps. Its breathing was rhythmic. Deep and peaceful breathing. Listening to it, Seo-ah felt something twisted inside her. Why did she live so noisily? Why did she waste time every night staring at the ceiling? Why couldn’t she sleep as simply as this cat?
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Seo-ah murmured unconsciously. Words no one would hear. But important words. She carefully picked up the cat. Its body was lighter than expected. Weight made of nothing but bone and fur. Seo-ah liked that lightness. The only thing in the world she could lift. The only thing she could take responsibility for.
The cat didn’t wake even as she moved it to bed. It remained deep in sleep. Seo-ah carefully placed it next to her pillow. The cat’s body was warm. That was a blessing. Sleep. Dreams. The ability to pause reality for a moment.
Lying next to the cat, Seo-ah looked at her own hands. Hands with long fingernails. Hands that once seemed capable of doing something. Hands that could make music. Hands that could embrace someone. Hands that could create something.
But now?
Seo-ah extended a single finger. The nail was slightly uneven at the tip. It had been two weeks since she’d done her nails. It seemed pointless to care for her hands anymore. Who would see them? Who would care what these hands did?
What could those hands do? Could they make music? No. She couldn’t even touch sheet music anymore. When she sat at the piano, her fingers trembled. Nothing would play. No sound came out. Well, sounds did come, but they weren’t music. Just noise.
Could they hold someone? Seo-ah opened and closed her fist. To hold someone, that person would need to be in front of her first. But no one was. Dohyun was at school. Mom was at the hospital. Kang Ri-u was at the police station. And she was here, in the goshiwon. All in different places. All separated. People drifting apart by the distance between them.
Or were they just there? Hands that exist but do nothing. What did it even mean for such hands to exist?
Seo-ah put her hand down and picked up her phone. The screen glowed brightly. Her eyes hurt. But even that pain didn’t matter.
Dohyun’s text was still there.
Dohyun: Noona, sleep well? I have a test at school tomorrow. But I can’t concentrate. How did you handle stuff like this? I’m worried.
It was from days ago. Still unanswered. Seo-ah started typing a response. Her fingers moved across the screen. One letter at a time. Slowly and carefully.
Seo-ah: Yeah. I’m okay. Work hard at school.
That was the best she could do. No more words came. No more advice existed. How could she give advice to her younger brother when she didn’t know what she was doing with herself?
She sent the message. The screen displayed “Sent.” It was a lie. But lies were necessary. For Dohyun. For Mom. And maybe for herself too.
Lies were necessary evils. Without lies, the world would crumble faster. With lies, you could at least endure another forty-eight hours. With lies, you could think about the next meal. With lies, you could anticipate tomorrow’s sunlight.
When she set the phone down, the time was 3:47 a.m. Morning. Dawn. Still night.
Seo-ah loved this time. The hour when no one was awake. The hour when no one expected anything. The hour when no one called. At this hour, she didn’t have to exist. Or existing didn’t matter. What mattered was breathing, the heart beating, time passing.
Seo-ah looked at the ceiling again. The mold was still there. Green. Like a living organism. Not moving, but growing. It had definitely gotten bigger over the past month. What had started as coin-sized was now the size of a fingertip. It kept growing. Slowly, but certainly.
Was Seo-ah the same? Not moving on the surface, but growing inside? Or decaying? How could she tell the difference? Where was the boundary between growth and decay? Was there a way to distinguish between them?
Seo-ah’s fingers moved unconsciously. As if playing piano. In the air. Making no sound. It was muscle memory. The habit of fingers that had spent ten years at a piano. A habit that never slept. A habit of endless movement.
Through the window, she could see feet passing outside. Even in the early morning, someone was passing by. The sound of a delivery driver’s motorcycle. Or the footsteps of someone heading home after a night shift. They all had somewhere to go. People with direction. Their steps had purpose.
But Seo-ah? Where was she going? Did her steps have direction? Or was she just being pushed along? Pulled by gravity? Drifting with the current of water?
4 a.m. Seo-ah was still awake. She hadn’t slept. No, she couldn’t sleep. Something was blocking her. The connection between her head and body had been severed. Her brain kept thinking, but her body wouldn’t move. Her eyes were open, but her consciousness was somewhere else.
This had become normal. Not being able to sleep was her new state. Wakefulness was her new form. If this continued, someday Seo-ah would become something completely different. Like the mold on the ceiling. Or worse. Something not human. Like a ghost. Like a shadow. Something that exists but has no substance.
Seo-ah raised her hand. She counted her fingers one by one. Thumb. Index. Middle. Ring. Pinky. Five. Correct. Ten total. Correct. She was still human. At least anatomically.
She checked the time on her phone again. 4:47 a.m. Exactly one hour had passed. Or hadn’t. Her sense of time was breaking down. She felt it clearly. Time didn’t seem to be flowing. She knew the hands of the clock were moving, but she couldn’t understand what that meant.
Everything was frozen. The world. Time. Her breath. Only she kept falling. Toward the bottom. Toward the end. Falling without knowing where she was going.
In that moment, Seo-ah realized what she should have said in Kang Ri-u’s hospital room. When the lawyer asked. When the prosecutor asked. When everyone asked “why.”
Instead of answering the lawyer’s question, there was something else she should have said.
“Because I don’t know either.”
That was the truth. Seo-ah didn’t know why she’d reported him. For justice? No. She hadn’t thought about justice. To protect herself? It was already too late. The wounds were already deep. Or simply to hurt Kang Ri-u? That seemed right. But it wasn’t all of it.
Everything was tangled. Her motives weren’t clear. There was nothing pure. Nothing clean. Everything was gray. A gray where you couldn’t tell what was right and what was wrong. A gray where you couldn’t distinguish justice from revenge.
And that was the most terrifying thing.
Fear washed over her. Like waves. Like ocean waves. Fear crushing her chest. Fear suffocating her. The fear that this would continue forever.
5 a.m. Seo-ah was still staring at the ceiling. The mold was still growing. And so was Seo-ah.
Beside her, Jangpan twitched in its sleep, paws moving. It seemed to be dreaming. Do cats dream? What did a cat’s dreams contain? Something free? Or warm food? Or did she dream nightmares too, just like Seo-ah?
Seo-ah reached out and stroked the cat’s back. Soft fur. Warm body heat. It was the only proof of life she could feel at this hour.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Seo-ah murmured again. Not knowing who she was speaking to. Dohyun? Mom? Kang Ri-u? Or herself? Everyone. She was sorry to everyone in the world.
Her phone screen lit up again. A text from someone, maybe. But Seo-ah didn’t look. No matter who it was from, she had nothing to say. She had no words to give.
The mold on the ceiling kept growing. Green. A color full of life. Growing while decaying. Reproducing while dying. That was Seo-ah’s reality. Growing while decaying. Living while dying.
5:47 a.m. Still night. Still no one awake. Still no one looking for Seo-ah. And probably never would.
Seo-ah held the cat. A warm body. Proof of life. Evidence that she was still connected to something.
“Let’s stay together. At least until the night passes.”
The cat didn’t answer. That was better. Without an answer, it wasn’t a lie. Without an answer, it became a promise.
5:47 a.m. Time kept flowing. Seo-ah kept living. Living without dying.
That was probably the most terrible thing of all.