You-jeong Jeong - The Good Son

I screamed as though I needed his immediate assistance. ‘I’m cleaning, hurry up!’

Finally, he moved. One step, then another, then a smattering of steps. When he neared the door to Mother’s room, I realised it wasn’t locked. Shit. I reached over and locked it at the same time as Hae-jin tried to open it. I must have been a tenth of a second faster. The lock clicked.

‘What the hell?’ Hae-jin’s voice shot up. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ll be right out,’ I said. ‘You go do your thing for a bit.’

‘What the fuck? First you scream at me to get down here, and now you want me to wait outside?’

‘I just took off my clothes. I’m hopping in the shower.’

‘So?’

I didn’t answer. It was best not to say anything at all, since there was no explanation for my behaviour.

‘Why are you taking a shower down here anyway?’

‘Mine’s broken.’

‘Oh. Where’s Mother?’

‘She’s gone on a church retreat.’ It would be so nice if that really were the case; then I wouldn’t need to worry about anything or stress out about how Hae-jin was going to react to what had happened.

‘That’s so last-minute. She didn’t say anything about it when she called,’ he mumbled.

I was completely over this. I hated having to carefully choose every single word that left my mouth. ‘I only found out when I came downstairs this morning. There was a note on the fridge.’

‘Oh,’ Hae-jin said, sounding suddenly reassured. Did he know something I didn’t? ‘Why are all the windows open?’

‘I cleaned the whole place. Mum left a note saying I should have everything sparkling by the time she came back.’

He banged on the door. ‘Open up. It’s ridiculous, trying to talk through this.’

There was a key to every room in the house in the key cabinet in the hall. Hae-jin could fetch the key to Mother’s room if he wanted to. I just hoped he wouldn’t. ‘Give me a second, will you?’ To cover up my audible irritation, I quickly added, ‘Don’t close the windows. Otherwise the place’ll stink of bleach.’

‘Then why the hell did you use bleach? There are a ton of cleaning products in the laundry room. I guess you have no idea, since you’ve never cleaned anything.’

I nibbled on the inside of my lip. Just give me a break.

‘By the way, I couldn’t find your mobile at Kkosil’s.’

Damn. He wouldn’t let up.

‘Maybe you left it somewhere else. Did you stop at Yongi’s on your way home?’

I didn’t know what to say. ‘Oh… actually, I found it in my room.’

A brief silence. I could practically hear the lecture about to erupt from his mouth.

‘I literally just saw that it had fallen between my bed and the bedside table.’

Hae-jin finally snapped. ‘Seriously? Why didn’t you call me, then?’

I didn’t answer. Keeping him mad was easier than trying to explain. Hae-jin didn’t fight or argue; if he was really angry, he gave the other person the cold shoulder until he was ready to forgive them. What I needed right now was for him to refuse to speak to me. I needed to avoid a confrontation until I finished taking care of everything.

I stood behind the door, my ear plastered against it, waiting for him to move away. Thankfully it didn’t take long. I heard him closing the windows. Had he forgotten that I’d asked him to keep them open? Or was he just doing it to show me how pissed off he was?

A few minutes later, I heard the door of his room open, then close. Finally! He would place his bag on his desk, change into comfortable clothes, then come back out into the living room. It wouldn’t take him more than a minute, but that was enough time for me to dash upstairs. I opened the door. All I needed was half an hour to clean my room and have a shower. I could grab the key from the cabinet, lock Mother’s room, and clean that when I had a chance.

I hadn’t expected Hae-jin to come out of his room without changing. His door was flung open as soon as I slid a foot out, and I was forced to retreat. I heard him head towards the kitchen. Something rattled, maybe a dish or a cup. Was he making coffee? Was he making himself another ramen? Either way, it didn’t look like he was going back into his room any time soon. I had to change my plans.

I relocked the door quietly and took off the pad from under the steam cleaner. I erased my footprints and fingerprints methodically, going from the bedroom door to the bathroom. It was deathly quiet outside. It was making me nervous. But there was nothing I could do. I turned on the shower and stepped inside. I used half the shampoo in the bottle to wash my hair, soaped and rinsed my body four or five times and used Mother’s toothbrush to scrub the blood from under my fingernails. From time to time I turned off the water to listen for Hae-jin’s movements. Still no sound. I was so nervous that I wanted to rip my ears off my head.

After I’d finished showering, I lifted my left arm in front of the mirror and discovered Mother’s parting gift. A large dark bruise stretched from under my arm, past my armpit, to my chest. Small teeth marks were printed in my armpit. Pain suddenly crashed over me, the nightmare of last night vivid again. I shuddered and lowered my arm.

With the damp towel hanging around my shoulders, I went to the writing desk. The clock indicated 11.40. Hae-jin had been home for forty-five minutes. He could have made another ramen, eaten it, finished the remaining broth with a bowl of rice, done the laundry and drunk a cup of coffee in that time. There was still no sound from outside. I went to the door and put my ear to it. I finally heard something. Not words, really, but staccato sounds. Hae-jin must be channel-surfing. He must have been waiting for me all this time, lying on the couch.

Did he have something to say to me? Did he detect that something was off? Had he seen something I’d neglected to scrub away? Suddenly, laughter rang out from the TV. Hae-jin snickered along. Maybe he wasn’t waiting for me to come out after all.

I returned to the writing desk. Before I left Mother’s room, I needed to find something to wrap the cleaning pad in; it had turned dark brown with blood. I opened the first drawer and dug around. Writing implements and stationery. The second drawer held Mother’s red wallet and a thick black journal, the kind with rings so you could insert additional pages. I’d never seen it before. I glanced at the pen on the edge of the desk. Perhaps Mother was writing in the journal at her desk, then stood up in a rush and shoved it into the drawer. I lifted the cover, curious to see if I was right.

The first page was labelled ‘December’. Underneath were three entries.

Tuesday 6 December

He’s not in his room. He’s started going out through the roof again. It’s the first time in a month.

Wednesday 7 December

Second day in a row. I was waiting but I missed him.

Friday 9 December

I don’t know where he went. I looked for him until 2 a.m. but I couldn’t find him. I know I saw him. I’m cold and scared and terrified. Now

The line cut off there. Below was a completely different sentence: Hello is barking. He’s back.

The ‘he’ she was referring to must be the same ‘he’ she had caught outside the front door last night. If she’d gone around looking for me until two in the morning, that meant she’d called Auntie and Hae-jin while she was out. She would have got drenched in the rain. That would explain why her shoes had been wet. But was she really roaming the neighbourhood, in the rain, in the middle of the night?

She wouldn’t have done that. At least not on foot. Much of Gundo was still under construction, and more than half of the existing flats in our district remained empty. The road along Dongjin River, which marked the boundary between Districts One and Two, was always deserted and dreary, like the road into a cemetery. People didn’t like to walk down there by themselves. Most residents didn’t come out of their homes after nightfall.