Water of the Womb p3

The day flew by. After a quick tour of the shop, Mr. Do picked up a set of tools. "For the first day, just watch and see what I do."

Despite the seemingly easy task, I tried to memorize everything he said and did that day. I constantly struggled with the urge to ask questions. I wanted to look interested and focused on the task he was doing, but also didn't want to ask too many for fear of disturbing him.

At last the shop closed for the night. Mr. Do asked me to wait, then went into the little makeshift room that served as his office. He came out with an envelope, which he handed to me. It felt surprisingly thick. "I trust you won't run away, so here's your first two weeks pay in advance."

I muttered a stunned thank you and bowed until he waved me away.

As Mr. Do rolled down the garage doors, I peeked inside. What I saw inside made me feel light headed. It was much more than my usual two week score, even if I managed to snag a particularly nice watch. I hadn't even done anything today.

"Seuseungnim," I thrust the envelope back at him. "I can't take this. I haven't done anything for you at all yet."

His expression softened. "You're a good kid, Jaehyun." He pushed it back at me. "Park Bonghwan told me about your situation at home. Take it. I know you need it."

I trembled at the thought of going home. But perhaps a money offering this substantial would be enough to extinguish my father's anger.

"But Baek Jaehyun-a." Mr. Do put his hand on my shoulder. His voice dropped a bit lower. "A word of advice. Don't give it all to your parents. Hide some, either for yourself, or for your mother to buy food and things like that."

I was absolutely thunderstruck at the idea of hiding money from my own parents. Since the time Taejun had still been around, it was clear that all earnings went to my parents. That an adult was telling me now to keep some hidden from them shocked me to my core. It was true that they didn't use the money well. Despite my mother's attempts to budget, most of it was eventually seized by my father to spend recklessly. And yet I had never questioned the concept that money was solely my parents' duty to delegate. Had Taejun-hyung done the same thing?

I thanked Mr. Do again for his generosity and now his advice. He smiled and patted my shoulder and walked off.

I found myself walking towards my home despite my previous reluctance to return. I hovered at the entrance to our apartment. A chill ran through me as I remembered what Mr. Do had told me to do. I took the envelope out of my pocket and slid a few notes out. They were smooth, unbent and new. They must have come from the bank. I felt a strange discomfort as I folded them and slid them into my pocket. I'd find a more permanent hiding spot for them later. If I kept them at home, my father would eventually find it out.

Nervously, I knocked on the door. We usually kept it unlocked during the day (we had nothing of value to steal), but this time of the night, my mother locked the door. I just hoped my father wasn't home tonight.

He opened the door. No such luck. Immediately his face swelled with anger at the sight of me. "Finally come crawling back? You damned son of a bi-"

I quickly took out the envelope of money Mr. Do had given me and thrust it at him. His cursing cut off as he took the envelope. I dropped into a deep bow. "Please forgive me, Father," I begged in the most respectful tone I could. "I'm sorry for running away. I'm sorry."

I could hear him taking out the money and flicking through it quickly. Irrationally, my heart leapt into my throat at the idea of him realizing it was less a few bills, even though there was no way he could have known what the original total was. He sucked in an excited breath at the sum of it. "What's this? Where did you get all this money?"

"I got a job."

"A job," my dad cried. Though I was still bent over I could imagine the greedy glint in his eye. He pulled me into a tight embrace that suffocated me. "That's my boy!"

Happily, he marched us back into the house. "Saemin! Throw that shit away. I'm going out to buy us fried chicken. Jaehyun's got a job!"

My mother looked up in surprise. She let out a choked sob when she saw me, and rushed over. Like my dad, she also enveloped me into a stifling hug. My dad gave an exasperated TSK!

"Don't be so dramatic, woman. He was only gone for a day." He whistled merrily as he left. I wondered if he would actually return with chicken, or if he would forget on the way there and end up celebrating by himself at a card table.

My mother continued to hold me, and I could feel my shoulder growing wet with her tears. I patted her back awkwardly, unsure what to do in this situation. "I'm sorry for running, Ma."

My apology inspired another choked sob from her and she gripped me yet tighter. I shifted uncomfortably in her grasp until at last she let me go.

"You must be hungry. Come eat." I wasn't actually that hungry, as Mr. Do provided lunch for his employees. I had already eaten today, but at least sitting at the table meant she wouldn't be clinging onto me anymore.

She watched me as I picked at the food. Uncomfortable under her gaze, I slipped my hand into my pocket and took out a couple of the bills I had saved earlier. "Ma…" I pressed them into her hand discreetly under the table even though my father wasn't even home. He probably wasn't coming back.

She looked down in surprise. Her eyes welled up with tears again as she took the bills. "I don't deserve to have sons as good as the ones I have," she whispered, her voice unsteady and pitched with emotion.

I didn't say anything because it was true.

__

Mr. Do wasn't the best teacher but I did my best to learn as quickly as I could anyways so I wouldn't be a burden. He often forgot what he had taught me, and would reteach me things he had taught before while also expecting me to know things I hadn't been taught yet. Sometimes on a busy day he lost his temper with my awkwardness or my inexperience and would yell at me over the smallest mistakes. But he never raised a hand towards me and for that I was grateful. I never made the same mistake twice.

Months passed. I never ended up going back to school. I figured that it was far too late to try to salvage my grades and that going to university like my brother was a hopeless dream for me. I often thought about him, but every time I did, my thoughts would inevitably slide towards our last conversation, where I had acted as an agent for my dad to ask him for money. The abruptness of his leaving the phone call and the guilt I felt at putting him in the spot in front of his friends left a painful mar in our relationship.

Eventually I got the courage to try to talk to him again. After all, he was still the only brother I had, and the good memories still outweighed the bad. I asked Mr. Do to borrow his phone during lunch break (I didn't care to try to call at home again) and dialed his number. After so many calls I knew it by heart.

I waited nervously but to my surprise it was picked up instantly. "H-hello! Hyung, it's-"

The voice on the other end of the line wasn't my brother's. "… the phone number you have tried to reach has been disconnected. Please hang up and try your call again." My blood ran cold. Perhaps I had misdialed. It had been a while, after all.

I hung up and redialed, taking care to slowly punch in each number to ensure I didn't make any mistakes. Again I got the stiff, automatic answer. I put the phone down, stunned. It wasn't possible that I had forgotten the number. I'd dialed it so many times before. I gave it one last try, and as the automaton voice apologized to me again, reality set in. This wasn't Taejun's number anymore.

I inhaled a shaky breath and tried to rationalize. Maybe he had lost his cellphone. Maybe there was an issue with the cell service. Maybe he was serving his draft. That answer soothed me the most. It was the most probable answer. He was that age. Maybe they didn't let you take cell phones into the military?

I walked out of the office. Mr. Do grinned. "How did your call with your brother go?" He asked. He had also been encouraging me to try to talk with him again. The look on my face must have given him an answer. "Maybe he's busy right now." He gave me a comforting pat on the back. "Come on, help me with this tire here."

I didn't have the heart to tell him Taejun's number wasn't working anymore. Work helped to distract me, but that only lasted until the end of the day.

That night I asked my mother if Taejun ever contacted her. She gave me a surprised look. "I thought you were still talking to him." She handed me a rag to wipe the table down with and I took it and started on the task. "He sent a letter a month ago. He said he was fulfilling his draft."

I was relieved. So he was in the military. That was probably why his number had changed. Despite my relief, an irritated little voice in my head asked why he hadn't reached out to leave his new contact information.

"Oh." I looked up at my mother. "Did he leave any contact information?"

My mother shook her head. "No, he didn't. But his number should still be the same, right? You told me it was a cellphone."

Well that crushed any last hope I had of Taejun's disappearance. So he really had decided to shake me off too. Just like he shook off our parents. I felt angry again. I asked him one time for money in the two years (three now) he had been gone. And he knew it was because my father had forced me to. And just like that he had cut me from his life.

I helped my mother with some more chores then went for a walk to clear my head. Despite the cool light of the stars and moon beaming down on me, I didn't return home any less angry than when I had left.

—

Time continued to pass as steadily as ever. I worked out a system for my earnings. The majority went to my father, or my mother if he wasn't home. I kept a little back. Some of that I would secretly slip to my mother for her to hide. The rest I hid myself.

It had taken me a while to find a good hiding spot for my emergency stash. I needed my parents to help me open a bank account, and if I did, they would know that I was keeping money from them. So I had to hide it. Digging a hole felt silly, and besides, we didn't own any land, so I'd have to bury it in someone else's garden or a park, and it would be hard to hide a hole that kept being dug up and refilled every two weeks. At first I kept it in a lockbox under a pile of rubbish and old building material in the alley of our apartment. But as the amount inside increased, I became more and more worried that someone would find it and I'd lose everything I had saved until now.

Eventually I shared this concern with my boss, Mr. Do. He was shocked. "Good god, you've been hiding your money in an alley?" he cried. "Why don't you just keep it in your room like a normal person?"

"I don't have my own room," I said, embarrassed. The next confession was even more embarrassing. "And my father searches the house all the time to see if my mother is hiding any."

Mr. Do was quiet. "The more I hear about your life, the more I feel for you. That father of yours…" he cut himself off before he could say something rude. "I've got an idea, why don't you keep it here? You could keep it in your locker."

One of the walls of Mr. Do's garage was lined with lockers for his employees to use. Most people kept coveralls or a change of clothes in there so they didn't get their clothes covered in motor oil stains. All my clothes were basically stained rags at this point, so I hadn't bothered and my locker had been empty this whole time. I hadn't even really thought of it as mine.

It was a good idea, so I did so. If anyone else noticed the contents of my locker, they didn't say anything. We were all friendly with each other at the shop, and I felt like I could trust them.

—

I had been working at the shop for a year and a half now. One day Mr. Do called me over. He was standing next to a beater of a car.

"Jae, how old are you now? Seventeen, right?"

I nodded; my birthday had just passed a few weeks ago.

He patted the roof of the car. "Get in. It's downright strange to have a mechanic in my shop who can fix a car but doesn't know how to drive."

I grinned. Of course, my dad didn't have a car, and I'd never gone to driving school, but I'd always longed to learn even though it wasn't likely that I would have one any time soon either. I tried not to run over too eagerly.

My excitement peaked as I sat down in the driver's seat for the first time in my life. Reverently, I touched the steering wheel. When Mr. Do made no sound of discouragement, I boldly gripped both sides of the wheel. The view from the driver's seat was different from the perspective I was used to. We were lower to the ground, and the lines painted on the road angled fiercely away from us. I imagined cruising between them, watching the road fall away under and behind the car, taking me far away in a minute or two. In my eagerness, I pulled at the wheel impatiently like a child playing with a toy wheel. This wheel was locked solidly, however, because the car hadn't started. I sheepishly reached for the start button.

Mr. Do laughed. "Hold up. This may be a beater car but let's not send it to the scrapyard before you even learn anything. Before you start, let me talk you over the controls." He walked me through the various buttons and levers. I knew what they were; during my time in the shop, I'd already worked on them. But there were things that working at the shop hadn't taught me, like how to swivel your foot between the brake and the gas pedals, and to always remember to flick the turn signal before you turned. "Though truth be told, Jae, half the bastards on the road never do. But those are the guys who bring us business, eh?"

We laughed. I felt strangely touched at this scene. It was definitely a fatherly thing for him to teach me how to drive. Teaching me how to fix a car was too, but in the setting of his shop, it was a much more teacherly experience. He had no reason to teach me to drive, yet he had decided to take time out of his day to do so. At no small risk, either. Sitting in the passenger seat of a first time driver was a nerve wracking experience for anyone, father or not.

"Do Hoon-nim," I said softly. For some reason I wanted to share the sentimental moment I was feeling. "You've been a better father to me than my real one." I felt flustered and embarrassed and immediately regretted saying so. He might not have ever thought of me as a son, just an employee.

But his eyes crinkled up with emotion and took on a glossy shine. "Baek Jaehyun-a." He reached over and ruffled my hair. "I only have daughters, and I often find myself wishing I had a son like you." He pulled out a kerchief and dabbed his eyes. "Ok, let's take this lemon for a ride around the parking lot. Slowly. Baek Jaehyun, I said SLOWLY!"