HYYH 1 Notes (ENG)

I Must Survive

NamJoon
17 December Year 21

I continued to slow my pace and
finally came to a stop. It was dawn in
a country village where even the buses didn't run frequently. The entire village was blanketed under luminous snow that had fallen all night. The trees were hunched up like massive white beasts and shed hair-like snow every time the wind blew. I knew without looking back that I was the only one leaving footprints across the snowfield in the village. Both of my feet had long been soaking wet because of the cracked soles of my sneakers. I once heard a saying that God makes us lonely to lead us to Him. But I was not lonely. I was not following the path towards myself. This was a retreat. I was running away from myself.

My family arrived in this village last fall. The amount of belongings we brought continued to get smaller each time we moved to a new town. Now
we only needed a small delivery van
to move. We were in no position to
be picky about where we lived. There were only two conditions. One was
a hospital for Dad, and the other was
an employer who was willing to hire someone without a high school diploma.

The village had both. The bus that
ran twice a day stopped in front of
the country-run hospital, and a series
of small eateries lined the stream behind the town. These eateries sold stew and fries made with small fish caught from the stream, and the summer months were their high season.

Crowds seeking a waterside excursion poured in from nearby cities, and the demand for deliveries to those staying at the village with the rest area on the mountainous ridge was high. During winter, when the stream froze solid,
the eateries used preserved fish caught in summer. There were not as many tourists as in the summer, but calls
for delivery remained steady. I was one of the town's delivery boys.

Of course, there was competition here, too.  Most of the households subsisted on farming, and, as can be guessed, were not that wealthy. Delivery service was the only part time job available for the boys on town. Eatery owners made us compete against each other. "Isn't it natural that I hire whoever impresses me the most?" For them, it didn't
matter that we were minors and
didn't have driver's licenses. The
boys who'd already been hired
acted very territorial. They were
only a few, but they threatened
me with harsh hazing.

During vacation, the competition became fiercer. We voluntarily and competitively ran errands and took
out the trash for the owners. Their connivance only drove us further.
And yet, almost unexpectedly, we
came to develop a sort of solidarity among us. We were rivals, but we
had a sort of sympathy for one another. If one of us didn't show up, the rest wondered what had happened. They also reminded me of the time I spent in that classroom-turned-storage room at high school. Some of them were similar to YoonGi, and some to JiMin. I couldn't help but wonder. If my friends from school had met here in this village, would we have competed against
and tried to out rival each other?
If I had met these delivery boys at school, would we have become friends?

Snow fell heavily when our competition, territorial instincts,
and strange sense of solidarity all reached their peaks. Then, the competition subsided instantly. A
motor scooter was a must to make deliveries to the village with the rest area, but it was very dangerous to
ride a lightweight motorbike along the snow-covered mountainous trail. The trail that led to the village with the rest area was steep and unwinding. Delivering on foot was not an option.

In the end, it was a showdown
between TaeHyung and me.
TaeHyung was two years younger
and lived on the outskirts of the
village near the orchard. TaeHyung wasn't his real name. It was either JongSik or JongHun. But he reminded me of TaeHyung. He didn't have that silly smile or easily open up to anyone
with his gentle, naive nature. Rather,
he always seemed aggressive, angry, and discontent. On the outside, he
appeared similar to YoonGi, but,
oddly enough, he reminded me more
of TaeHyung.