Closed Door

I was released with words of encouragement from the case investigator, saying that I had done a very good deed and that it was dangerous, considering I was an ordinary person.

I trudged back to the store, one foot after the other.

I was greeted by a mess reminiscent of the recent chaos: shifted tables, overturned chairs, scattered bowls, the floor covered in seolleongtang broth. The store doors were wide open, all the customers had disappeared, and amusingly, none of them had paid for their food.

“Even in such things, you can see the level of people in this area. And yet grandmother stayed here until the end.”

Even if grandmother were alive and saw this now, she would wave her hand and just laugh.

Are we in business for money? If people ate a good bowl, that was enough.

I knew grandmother would say something like that, even without hearing her.

「People should help each other.」

Grandmother always said.

「Look at the character for “person”. Don’t you see how one stroke supports the other? We are called people because we help each other.」

As a child, I nodded in response to grandmother’s words.

But now I know.

Grandmother was wrong.

Even if we disregard the academic view that the oracle bone script depicting a working person was transformed into the character (人) meaning person in our time.

We are not people because we helped each other and lived together, but because some people took something from others, and some people inevitably had something taken from them by others. Therefore, the strokes didn’t support each other, but one stroke unilaterally pressed on the other.

Grandmother’s life was a small stroke pressed from below.

She always gave to others and believed in human kindness. Even if she didn’t receive immediate gratitude, she said that someday good deeds would return as blessings.

Grandmother was wrong.

The reward for kindness was not a blessing. In the end, only the malice of others remained.

Grandmother’s end, my end… as a result, we couldn’t avoid the hatred of those around us.

∞ ∞ ∞

I thought it was a dream.

I thought that in hell, I was being forced to relive the worst memories of my life, starting from the very beginning.

If it wasn’t life and it wasn’t death, then maybe it was what they called a near-death experience, I thought.

I remembered Lee Dongjae’s face, which I saw with a blurry gaze right before death.

I had been looking for him for almost ten years and finally found him. I even came with a sharp kitchen knife, intending to kill him upon meeting.

But like a fool, I was defeated and killed.

Yes, I deserved to die.

With the determination I had, I should have immediately lunged at him and stabbed him.

I deserve death just for asking stupid questions like “Why did you do this to me?”.

And what’s the point of listening to his reasons? If the reason turns out to be valid, would I forgive him?

The one who actually deceived me, took my parents’ inheritance and all the property left by grandmother, and ran away without even asking for forgiveness. He didn’t even express regret or remorse.

Why did I, like a fool, ask him why he did it?

Even remembering this now, I thought I really deserved to die then.

I should have stabbed him to death.

I should have beaten him to death.

I should have torn him to pieces.

I died because like a fool, I couldn’t do that.

And yet I came back to life.

When I opened my eyes, I saw grandmother’s memorial photo in front of me.

I was confused for a long time.

Was this a dream, hell, or a near-death experience?

With a clouded mind, I conducted grandmother’s funeral, spent the day in a daze, and out of habit, cooked seolleongtang and opened the store doors.

Despite ten years passing, the faces of the visitors still seemed familiar to me. Their words of comfort and encouragement seemed like I had heard them somewhere before. Everything seemed familiar, and at the same time foreign, as if I had already experienced this in the past.

So is this a dream or hell, or a near-death experience?

In this still unabated confusion, I met Lee Dongjae, just like ten years ago.

At the moment when I saw Lee Dongjae’s face, dropping tears with an expression of overwhelming sympathy and speaking words of concern with such a kind voice, I understood.

I’m alive.

I came back to life to see his face again.

I returned to this moment, to this place, because I wanted to cut this knot that was the beginning of all the vicissitudes.

And I tore it apart.

I cut off the reason that made me blame myself, reproach, get angry, and despair for ten years. I cut the knot without letting it tightly intertwine.

But… strangely, I didn’t feel any relief.

Only emptiness and melancholy.

He was ridiculously pathetic and miserable. I didn’t want to admit that my life was ruined by such a nobody. It seemed that if I accepted this, I would have to admit that the problem was not with Lee Dongjae, but with me.

“No, I need to admit it.”

I really…

“Was a fool.”

I always grumbled about why grandmother only gave to others, why she let someone use her, couldn’t these people really not afford to buy even one bowl of seolleongtang. But the fool who was used turned out to be me. I wasn’t just used, I was stripped bare.

“I really was a fool, a complete idiot.”

The words of comfort and encouragement from people who turned away in my difficult time turned out to be just empty sounds.

From small lies to scammers trying to deceive and clean out.

The world was neither kind nor pure.

“Grandmother, people don’t help each other.”

If someone tried to help, there were always people who tried to deceive the first one. A world where kindness was returned with kindness never existed in the first place. Such is human nature, but grandmother saw the world differently. Incredibly kind, beautiful, and peaceful. Such can only be found in paradise. And paradise is paradise because it didn’t exist in reality.

“They won’t deceive me anymore. They won’t deceive me no matter what. And if after this incomprehensible return, I fall for deception again, I’d better drown myself in a spoonful of water.”

And to hell with compassion. I feel most sorry for myself. I have no parents, and now no grandmother. I’m alone in this world, so I should feel most sorry for myself. For myself, I should be in the first place.

If people who never showed kindness only waited for it, I’ll scold them. Although grandmother said that one shouldn’t expect it first. A life where you only give and receive nothing in return is so futile. It should be “give and take,” but my past life ended only on “give.” Now it should definitely be “give and take.”

No, I’ll refuse such a thing. Isn’t this a world where people survived, ate, and slept as they could? Living in such a world, is there any point in trying to give something to others or, conversely, to get something from them? You just need to live within your means.

There’s no longer a grandmother who would shake her head, tsk-tsking that her grandson has acquired a bad temper.

Well, who would want to die like that?

Parents said so many times that this area is dangerous, what did you expect, doing business here? In the end, as father feared – it all ended badly. If you die like this, leaving me alone… what should I do?

“You promised that you would live with me for a long, long time…”

This happened just a few days ago, but for me, ten years have passed since then, so parting with grandmother didn’t become such a big shock. But the sadness remained. No, it felt even stronger. The sadness and loneliness that accumulated at the bottom of my heart for ten years seemed to be making themselves known belatedly.

When my parents died, grandmother hugged me and comforted me, but when grandmother died, there was no one around. The grief and bitterness I experienced ten years ago washed over me again in a wave.

Why, why on this day, why during grandmother’s funeral? If I had returned even a week, no, even three days earlier, I could have prevented her death.

I don’t know who or for what reason brought me back to the past, but I only felt resentment.

2

“Roy, you opened the store. Yes, when you work, you can forget about the heaviness in your heart. You’re doing well.”

A regular customer, entering through the door, looked around the store and said this, as if proud of me. It’s been a week since I reopened the store, taking one day off after grandmother’s funeral, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll have to hear such words.

“Seolleongtang for you?”

The store only sold seolleongtang, so the question was meaningless, but I asked it to say “shut up and just eat.”

Kind words are good once or twice, but when you hear similar words of comfort ten, twenty, hundreds of times from every visitor, they start to seem so empty.

I’m tired of it.

They pretended as if they were saying this for my benefit, but weren’t they coming here only because there was nowhere else to eat at such a price? Why were they talking about their good deeds as if it would somehow help me?

Hiding my frowning expression, I went to the kitchen and came out with a tray containing a bowl of seolleongtang and a portion of rice.

“I was worried that you would close the store, but it seems you’re handling your feelings well.”

The concern, which could hardly be called concern, didn’t even reach my ears. Although he spoke in a tone as if he was worried about me, in reality, he was one of those who didn’t even show up at grandmother’s funeral.

“Please eat.”

“Wow, the broth is so white! You really learned this well from your grandmother. She has nothing to worry about.”

The visitor scooped up a spoon of white seolleongtang broth, tasted it, and nodded.

Who is he to judge whether I learned well or not? Is he a restaurant critic? As if he would refuse to eat if I cooked poorly. Wouldn’t these people change their “favorite” restaurant in a second if they found a place where they could simply fill their stomachs at a lower price? Although it’s unlikely such a place would be found where they sell even cheaper than here.

Grumbling to myself, I sat down on a chair behind the counter.

When values changed, the world transformed in a completely different way.