We were truly reckless people.
After graduating high school and being discharged from the military, I married you, who had waited for me all that time.
Neither side's parents approved, but we were no longer at an age where we needed parental consent to marry.
We had no money, so there was no wedding. Submitting the marriage registration was our wedding ceremony.
There was no honeymoon, and the hastily rented monthly room became our newlywed home.
Marriage is reality, what are you doing getting married the moment you're discharged from the military, it won't last long, you're crazy getting married without even a job, it's pitiful that you couldn't even have a proper wedding.
People judged our marriage, picked at it, tore it down. They brought up other people's flashy, splendid weddings. They whispered stories of people who prepared luxurious apartments as their newlywed homes into our ears.
As if you two who married so recklessly were supposed to be unhappy. As if they wanted our misery.
But the time we spent looking at each other was too good to bother looking around, and each other's voices were too loud to listen to other people's stories.
We couldn't even tell whether our poverty was that serious. Stories of people poorer than us, stories of people richer than us.
We were too busy listening to each other's voices and looking at each other to see or hear them. So we couldn't know.
"I'm home."
Night.
When I came home from work and opened the door, you were inside doing housework, and when I was doing chores, you came home from work and opened the door.
"Hello, you're exactly my type, could I get your number?"
"I'm married—hey! Do you want to die?!"
Sometimes we ran into each other in the elevator on the way home and pulled jokes like that.
"I can't even see the bean sprouts anymore."
"Yeah."
Soup that turned bland after repeatedly adding water and re-seasoning it. A cold room from saving on heating costs.
Monthly rent and maintenance fees that drained away every month. Efforts to cut food expenses. Cold showers in winter. A one-hour-and-ten-minute walk to and from work. Items picked up from the recycling center.
Poverty didn't pass us by.
It's just that all those things that make others miserable, wretched, and tormented were nothing more than jokes we giggled over together.
"@#$@!%@#$@!#!!!"
"AS@#1245%^@!%"
We fought often too. The words thrown back and forth were pretty vicious. Neither of us had a temper that would back down from the other. The neighbors even called the police.
What I still remember is that even while we were angry at each other and snapping, you washed the dishes we had eaten from together, and I cleaned the room we had dirtied together.
From the start, our fights never lasted a full day. The old bed we shared was far too small for that.
The next morning, when we opened our eyes to the alarm on that narrow bed, we exchanged awkward smiles and got ready for work, and when we came home at night, that was the end of it.
You'll regret it. What will you do marrying without a plan. It won't last. We're worried about you.
There were times when people said things like that. Some were family, others were friends. After about three years of married life, those words, whether advice or a curse, began to fade away.
"...."
We had no plan, we were crazy about each other, and whenever we stuck together, we burned like mad. They say intense emotions don't last long, but we were the kind of people who made it last.
If only we had been unhappy. If we had grown weary of poverty and come to loathe each other. If, like others' wishes or worries, we had truly gotten divorced.
Then would you still be alive?
The stench of blood that stabbed at my nose, dried blood seeping through the crack of the door, beyond the shattered door you with your abdomen split open, your torn-out organs, broken fingernails, a bent kitchen knife clutched in your hand, soybean paste stew spilled over dried blood, eyes rolled white, your lower jaw gone, broken teeth scattered across the floor.
When my eyes, which always looked at you, lost their place to look, and your voice, which I always listened to, disappeared, things I don't want to hear start reaching me.
My beloved wife died that day.
Everything changed. The magician of my life, who made everything happy, enjoyable, okay, and bearable, disappeared.
Was this how Cinderella felt, looking at the carriage that had turned back into a pumpkin and the dress reduced to rags?
The room grew colder, the meals grew more meager, and the pitiful paycheck from a garbage job became unbearable.
I drank. Unlike back then, when we would play a movie on an old laptop and sip a bottle of soju together, leaving half of it, I drank a lot.
When I was sober, this shabby studio apartment that caught my eye was nothing but reminders of you, wherever I looked.
A few months later, in the emergency room where I was brought in, my liver enzyme levels reached 5,700.
I had been unconscious for so long that I couldn't tell how much time had passed.
"Are you coming to?"
And then I woke up.
The place I woke up in wasn't a hospital, but I was lying in a bed receiving an IV, and I could hear the soft beeping of a machine nearby.
And the person speaking to me wasn't a nurse, but a man in a pitch-black suit.
"Kim Sangseon."
I looked at the suited man with tired eyes. Was this the National Intelligence Service or something.
"I am with the Ministry of Environment—."
The moment I heard that, I tried to sit up. The bed rattled. My limbs were restrained.
"You sons of bitches! You, because of you! Aaaaaaah! Untie this, untie it, you fucking bastards!"
Something was injected, and when I passed out and woke up again, that same fucking guy from the Ministry of Environment was there again.
The cycle of being injected, passing out, and waking up continued. It went on until I no longer had the strength to move even a single finger.
I realized there was nothing I could do, but I still resisted, and... when I finally stopped my meaningless struggle.
"I am sorry about your wife."
"Sorry to the tune of fifteen million won?"
The man fell silent for a moment at my question.
"It was a condolence payment based on the disaster compensation standards for victims of contaminated zones."
"Yeah. Make sure you get exactly that much when you die too."
I already knew there was no point in acting like this toward this man. After briefly flipping through some documents, he listened to his in-ear device for a moment and said shortly, "Understood."
Then he looked at me.
"The state needs you."
"That's nice. Nice that I can refuse that need."
The man let out a small sigh and pointed at my chest. On my exposed chest was a vivid red pattern engraved.
"Kim Sangseon, the manifestation of your stigmata has been confirmed. This means you are now among the very few who can enter contaminated zones from the outside. You understand what that implies."
Contaminated zones, stigmata manifestation. I know what those words mean.
"Environmental cleaners. The bastards who were absolutely useless when I needed them."
They rambled on about contamination levels exceeding limits, about how the environmental cleaners did their best. They bragged about their incompetence as if it were some great achievement.
Boasting about being superhumans, about having superpowers, yet unable to do anything.
"Wouldn't it be different if you became an environmental cleaner, Kim Sangseon?"
"Why should I be different? Why should I do that?"
The sunglasses turned toward my eyes. I heard the thud of a folder being closed.
"Because of your wife, right?"
"Don't put that in your fucking mouth."
"How about the possibility of revenge. Contaminated zones that fail to be cleaned eventually reappear somewhere, someday."
Sharp, informal speech.
At those words, I clenched both fists tightly. Then, in a somewhat gentler tone, the suited man spoke again.
"The probability is not high. That contaminated zone was a dissipation type, and its contamination level was extremely high."
They said it would take a very long time before it could reappear.
"And if I refuse?"
"Stigmata manifesters not affiliated with the state are disposed of due to the risk they pose."
"Ah, proud Republic of Korea. Such an advanced country. You've really fucked human rights."
A brief silence. The suited man must have decided he'd given me enough time to think, because he opened his mouth again.
"I can't guarantee a high probability that you'll encounter that contaminated zone. You might even die while working as an environmental cleaner before then. But won't you regret it?"
Be disposed of right here, or become one of those bastards I so deeply despised for the sake of that slim chance.
The scene of your death flashes through my mind again.
My wish was your resurrection. An impossible illusion.
But another wish, a wish that wasn't actually the form I truly wanted, might be something I could obtain.
"Fine."
In a calm tone, I answered the suited man in front of me.
"I still don't like you people. But that's fine. If I can just find that contaminated zone, I'll do it."
Someday I will find the contaminated zone that made me lose you and erase it completely.
And after that....
The suited man nodded.
"Welcome, Kim Sangseon."
The Korean government and the cleaners are no exception. Someday I will place them on the scales of my revenge and judge them.
I will find out whether there truly was no way to save you, or whether they simply chose not to. If there was no way, I will forgive them. But if not.
I am not confident I can forgive.
"As you know, Kim Sangseon, unlike in the past, the foundation of civilization has long since become magic. Thanks to this, humanity has been completely freed from traditional environmental pollution, but a new form of environmental pollution has emerged. Contaminated zones are the residue of used magic...."
The explanation continues. I nod occasionally as I listen to it.
I crushed, suppressed, and crumpled all my hatred, rage, and loathing and hid them away. Knowing that this was not the time, I buried them deep at the bottom of my chest.
Waiting for the day I can draw those emotions back up.