All human beings are equal.

I was reminded of it again at a highway rest stop on the way home.

However expensive the imported sports car you drive, a rest stop does not discriminate between people.

Having money meant nothing at a highway rest stop.

I bought a hotteok and ate it, and I used the same restroom as everybody else. (TL Note: hotteok — a griddled pancake stuffed with brown sugar, cinnamon and nuts, sold hot from a pan at stalls and rest stops.)

I was hungry, so I ate a Chungmu gimbap and ramyeon set too. (TL Note: Chungmu gimbap — plain rice rolls with no filling, served with spicy squid and radish kimchi on the side; a specialty of the southern port city.)

The same daily life for everybody.

Having money doesn’t let you stuff down ten meals a day.

You get constipated, and if you eat too much you put on weight.

I promised myself again: however much money I had, people are equal, and I was not going to forget it.

Dead, we all end up the same handful of ash anyway.

Still…

“That was a killer!”

I drove the Gyeongbu Expressway in Black Tiger for the first time.

I stayed at the limit, but every time I leaned on the pedal for a second, my hair stood on end.

And I got to my apartment very fast.

“Home really is the best.”

When I walked into the apartment, a spotlessly cleaned living room welcomed me.

The wide window took in the Jangju River and the whole of downtown at a glance.

In Seoul I had stayed in a first-class hotel, and it was nothing next to home.

I stood at the window a while, looking out, enjoying the ease of being home.

“Mom and Dad and the twins are doing all right, I suppose?”

I missed my family.

I still hadn’t been out to the remodeled country house.

My parents didn’t ask many questions.

When I said I needed one they went and got the certificate of seal impression, and they handed over the registered seal itself.

Being a minor was never a reason for them to hold me back.

Neither of them knew what I was doing, and both of them trusted me.

In my first life I never knew my parents trusted me like that.

Which made me all the more grateful.

“I’ll call and say I’m here, and then maybe get the guys out for once~.”

Back home, at least, I put the money man away.

I called the house first.

“Hello?”

“Mom~.”

“Oh~ son, did you get home?”

“Yes. I just got in.”

“What do you want for dinner?”

That’s Mom for you.

I could feel the deep love of a mother who wants to set out a full table the moment her son arrives.

“I’m going to see my friends for the first time in a while, so I’ll play today and come tomorrow. Don’t wait up.”

“Don’t be too late. Your dad and the twins are going crazy wanting to see you.”

“I’ll come tomorrow afternoon.”

“All right. Love you! Son~.”

“Yes, Mother. I love you too.”

Hearing Mom’s voice warmed a corner of my chest.

Mom is a warm nest, always.

I hung up and dialed a friend’s number.

“Dae-seon, what are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing, digging a hole in my room! You shit! Fun going to cram school on your own in Seoul, is it? You traitor! After all the porn I’ve passed you, look at the cold-blooded bastard who threw our friendship away!”

“Yeah? Nothing to be done about it, then. Cold-blooded me will call Hyeong-cheol and tear into some soy-sauce chicken with a Coke. And for dinner, maybe the glutinous-rice sweet-and-sour pork from Junghwawon…”

To high schoolers, chicken and sweet-and-sour pork were on the same level as God.

Charming hungry souls has always been far too easy.

“F-Friend! Buddy!”

“Friend? Am I a friend, when I threw our friendship away?”

“Come on. Buddy~ some Seoul water got into you and your voice sounds classy now. Hahahaha.”

Dae-seon’s fake laugh was good to hear.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got the new stuff. I’ll give it to you first! A token of my special friendship!”

The level these kids operate at…

I’ve already seen all of it, in the past, punk!

And I’ve kissed an incredible beauty in Hong Kong!

“Never mind that. Call the guys out. I’m treating everybody tonight, and treating them big.”

“Woooooooooah! Jang Tae-san, my friend! I love you, intensely!”

Same words, so why is it so different from Mom saying she loves me?

That turncoat’s love, full of ulterior motives.

I liked it anyway.

Friends are precious just by existing.

These were the guys who kept me going right up to the day I died, who split money they did not have to feed me and slipped me spending money on top.

“Shall we run tonight~.”

Tomorrow is Ye-rin sunbae‘s graduation.

Ye-rin sunbae, who still hadn’t called.

I shook off the heaviness rising in my chest.

My one-sided love and my first love, the one I could never say a word about in the past.

Wanting too much is the strange thing in itself.

“…”

The cool view outside.

The proud Jangju River was flowing by without a word.

“The mayor is presenting a special award to Miss Lee Ye-rin, who has been accepted into the law department at Hanguk University on a scholarship. Let us all encourage Miss Lee Ye-rin’s glorious future with a round of applause!”

“Wheeeeeeeeet~.”

“Unnie is the best!!!”

Clap clap clap clap clap clap.

At the graduation ceremony in the indoor gymnasium at Jangju Girls’ High, she shone brighter than anyone.

Applause broke out fiercely on every side.

There wasn’t an entrance-exam student in our city who had done better this year than Ye-rin sunbae.

She had put the uniform on for the last time today, and it suited her far too well.

Her hair had grown out a lot since I saw her.

A light touch of blush on her cheeks made her look a step more grown-up.

Her hair, braided neatly down, made that clean girlish beauty of hers detonate.

She walked proudly too.

With a small smile, she took the award.

“Miss Lee Ye-rin, say a word for the alumni and the parents waiting here.”

“I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to my beloved parents, who made it possible for me to stand here today, to the principal and all the teachers whose passion for teaching never runs out, and to my friends~ and to my seniors and juniors. I leave the school today, but in my heart I will always remain a proud alumna of Jangju Girls’ High. And my friends, who cried and laughed with me… let’s not forget each other. Let’s remember.”

Her clear, ringing voice carried beautifully.

“Lee Ye-rin! Lee Ye-rin! Lee Ye-rin!!!”

“Friend~ I love you!!!”

Ye-rin sunbae came down off the platform to cheering that a superstar couldn’t have matched.

“Then, as the last item on the program, the principal will give his address, and with that we will close the 48th graduation ceremony of Jangju Girls’ High.”

The ceremony was ending.

I watched Ye-rin sunbae from the very back of the gymnasium.

The smile never left her mouth.

“…, we hope all our guests get home safely.”

With the principal’s address, the graduation ceremony ended.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The girls screamed in a register no boy can reach.

But for sheer power it was a screech as good as anything the boys do.

Even so, there was no flour and no eggs.

Jangju High and Jangju Girls’ High are the pride of the region, so that kind of stunt had never been allowed in the first place.

And then photographs starting up everywhere.

They took pictures in the ceremony hall before going to the classrooms.

Parents and relatives found their own children and bunched up around them.

“Excuse me.”

Just then I heard a voice calling me.

“Yes?”

“Could you give me your cell phone number?”

A high school girl standing next to me had turned and asked me for my number.

That made three already, today alone.

I’m still a student, so I had gone neat — jeans, sneakers, an ivory scarf and a check coat.

I had even put a little essence in my hair.

I had made an effort for once, and I could feel people looking at me.

“I’m sorry. I’m here for my girlfriend’s graduation.”

“Ah… I see.”

The girl showed her disappointment and turned away.

“See? I told you he’d have a girlfriend.”

“…, I’m jealous.”

“Isn’t he really something? Since when has our city had a guy that good-looking?”

“You think he’s an idol trainee?”

The girls whispered as they looked at me.

The more training I put into the Taegeuk Five Elements Dual Intent Mind Art, the taller I got and the more my eyes, nose, mouth, ears and face changed.

The five features, as they are called, had straightened out.

My height had broken a hundred and eighty-five centimeters a few days ago.

I walked toward Ye-rin sunbae.

Other graduates and a crowd of people were packed around her.

All I could see was her.

I moved closer to her.

“Councilman, thank you for coming all this way with your National Assembly schedule as busy as it is.”

“Haha. Not busy at all. I’ve been down in the city lately to look after my constituency. You’re the branch court chief judge — no, the presiding judge at the Seoul High Court now, aren’t you. I hope we can go on working well together.”

Two middle-aged men were quietly exchanging greetings.

Our local National Assembly member and a high-ranking figure in the courts.

Presiding judge at a high court is a considerably high post.

That middle-aged man looked familiar.

Justice Lee Gang-seok?

He was in my memories of the past.

A political judge who would be appointed by President Jo Geun-yeong in the future and become a Justice of the Supreme Court.

And he was making small talk with a National Assembly member of the Hanguk Freedom Party.

“You’re too kind. I’m nothing but an ordinary public servant.”

“I can’t tell you how lucky we are that my nephew is a senior of Miss Ye-rin’s at school. I hope you’ll look kindly on it, Presiding Judge.”

“Please tell the councilman I’m grateful he thinks well of my daughter. That’s exactly what worries me. When a child is grown, does anything go the way I want it?”

“Then I’ll take it that you’ve given your consent, Presiding Judge. It’s a little early for their age, but look how much they like each other already…”

Where the two middle-aged men were looking.

Sunbae…

A middle-aged woman with sunbae’s own face and a tall man with open, easy good looks stood close beside Ye-rin sunbae, having their picture taken.

Ye-rin sunbae was looking at that man with warm eyes.

It was the fondness only a woman in love gives off.

A jolt.

Pain came into my chest out of nowhere.

I was a man who had been through three breakups in my past life.

I knew at once what the two of them were to each other.

I took one more step toward her.

“Mother, take a picture with Ye-rin, please. I need to spread this around to the guys in my year. My head hurts from how many of them are after Ye-rin.”

“Sunbae! And what if I never get married because of that!”

“Married off? Don’t worry. You’ve got me~.”

“Pfft~ forget it!”

I had never known Ye-rin sunbae had a personality that lively.

She was only a college freshman now, and the words going back and forth between them were full of warmth.

“Ye-rin, go stand next to Dong-seong. Even I can see how well the two of you go together~.”

Dong-seong…

He was a man I had seen on TV, too.

The third son of the Ana Group.

A prodigy who got into the law school at Hanguk University, passed the bar exam, went into the group and had the title of Managing Director at a young age.

A playboy who turned up in internet gossip all the time.

He put his hand on Ye-rin sunbae’s shoulder as if it belonged there, and they took the picture.

Jolt. Jolt.

My chest hurt as if a knife had gone into it twice.

Ye-rin sunbae’s messages getting shorter and shorter finally made sense.

I had guessed roughly.

Neither of us was in anything serious, so it was hard to ask and be sure.

The girl I had loved one-sidedly, who stayed in my memory all the more for being innocent.

Her whole face was overflowing with happiness.

“!!!”

Ye-rin sunbae was in the middle of the photograph with the man called Oh Dong-seong when she spotted me.

She jumped.

I saw her body flinch and go stiff.

“What’s wrong? Nervous because I’m next to you?”

The man called Oh Dong-seong didn’t see me.

“What? Yes…”

“Yeah? Then be a little more nervous for me~.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Ye-rin had taken Oh Dong-seong’s arm.

She looked straight at me.

You would have to be an idiot not to know what that meant.

Ye-rin sunbae had grabbed a better rope than me.

It is instinct for a woman to be drawn to a successful man.

Nobody looking at the two of us today would have put me anywhere near Oh Dong-seong.

The son of a conglomerate and the son of a farmer.

However well I studied, Oh Dong-seong was a senior at the Hanguk University law school anyway.

It’s done.

The thought went through me that it was better this way.

The consoling line came back to me too — a love that goes one way is the more beautiful because it never gets to happen.

Strangely, my heart was clear.

I bowed my head and greeted Ye-rin sunbae.

It was short, but because of her I tasted happiness.

That alone was enough.

I turned my back.

I never handed over the big bouquet in my hand, or the finest perfume I had picked up for her in Hong Kong.

Handmade, with a fresh scent they said was gathered off wild flowers, and it went straight to your head.

I did not look back once.

That was when a girl came into my sight.

A girl with a clear, lovely face.

Enough to stand level with Ye-rin sunbae.

But there were no friends and no relatives around her.

It was a graduation, and nobody seemed to have come for her.

Her uniform and her coat were worn out, and her face was full of sadness.

But…

She was not alone.

A young couple hovered around her.

They lifted their hands to her hair, stroking it, and they were crying.

They were not the living.

And I knew.

That they were the parents of a girl who had nobody beside her.

Step, step.

I walked over to her.

“Congratulations on your graduation.”

“Yes?”

“Your dad and your mom say so. They’re grateful you grew up good… and they say please live happily in the world, for their share as well as yours.”

“!!!”

The girl was startled.

Her eyes were very clear.

And I held out the bouquet in my hand and the graduation gift.

Hands shaking, the girl took the bouquet and the gift without thinking.

It seemed to be the first time in her life.

The gift had its own owner after all.

The couple, standing beside the girl, bowing their heads to me and thanking me.

I could see their transparent tears.

A grin.

All at once my heart went endlessly light.

A clear laugh spread quietly at the corners of my mouth.

(End of Chapter 43)