NCT : The Dream Lab

XXVII : Fire Truck + Without You

Seoul, South Korea. 2016.

Yuta was never a brilliant man, nor did he have a lot of certitudes about his existence. There were two things he knew for sure, however : he loved money and women. A lot. Probably too much for his own good.

Conscious of his greed, it's a shame he didn't watch out when one super hot Korean chick approached him, the type you could never find around the factory he used to work at in Osaka. He should have wondered why a woman of her standards was suddenly interested in him. But he was too busy spending his money on her : she was one quality woman after all, so he needed to keep up with her expectations.

There are times when, looking back at it, he doesn't even regret his foolish behavior because in exchange, and for the year their relationship lasted, she gave him the most mind-blowing sex ever. And that has no price, right ?

He had never slept with anyone anywhere near her league and it was enough to cloud his mind, enough for him to believe that she loved him sincerely. For this reason, he didn't hesitate a second when she asked him to leave everything behind and follow her in Korea. Things went down for him as soon as he stepped into this cursed country. He couldn't speak a word of Korean and got homesick very quickly. With the pretext of obtaining a work permit in very brief delays from the administration, she made him sign a few contracts he couldn't even read. And the fool he is signed, convinced they were no harm just because she told him so. A few weeks later, she left him brutally with no other explanation apart from "you're pointless" and his bank account was mysteriously empty.

This is how he ended up on the streets, without any work permit and a status of illegal immigrant in Korea. For a few months, he squatted in a sleazy tunnel with four or five other homeless guys who were more of a nuisance than a support. They peed and defecated inside the poorly ventilated tunnel, stole his very few properties, fought and mocked him for his bad Korean... They were more beasts than humans, in his opinion. Even if you gave them a decent life tomorrow, they'd still pee on their mattress because they had lived like animals for so long that they forgot how to be humans. This fact frightened Yuta tremendously.

Would he end up so barbaric ? How much time was left before he lost his civility too ? Before he'd forget how to address elders ? Before his manners become so loutish that no woman would willingly share his bed ? The fear tormented him so much that , as long as he stayed on the streets, he refused to drink a single drop of alcohol, afraid that it would only accelerate his decay.

Also, there was one thing he discovered he hated on the very first days he spent on the streets : begging. He was no beggar. No matter how necessary it was, he refused to reduce himself to this. At first, he stole what he needed left and right but he had no talent for this, which almost got him caught. That's when he made the resolution to find a job. With the very restrained Korean vocabulary he gathered, he asked his fellows about places that hired illegal immigrants. Preferably one that wouldn't involve organized crime.

That's how he ended up handling the toxic dejections of a factory. The job was dangerous, paid off barely enough to eat and the conditions were unbearable. Yuta estimated he wouldn't survive this more than a few years, considering how the other workers spat blood and fainted around him.

Was his girlfriend conscious that he would fall so low when she scammed him ? Did she realize she could indirectly kill him by doing so ?

He often thought about the causes that could push such a beautiful woman into the pit of scam, manipulation and illegality. Was she just greedy ? Did someone force her ? If she was that poor, wasn't it easier to just live a modest life pretending to love him ? However, he avoided those ruminations as much as he could since it made him want to cry and that was not very manly.