I Have the Right to Destroy Myself Read Online Free PDF Page A

stops.

    The snowfall has become heavy by the time he gets to Sadang Station. K parks and ducks into a makeshift bar, set up on the side of the street. "One bottle of
soju
and some boiled squid, please," K orders.
    The squid is lying quietly on the plate. It's tame, its body cut in horizontal strips. K remembers the time he went to Jumunjin with Se-yeon. Before sunrise the squid boats came into the brightly lit docks. The squid, thrown in heaps on the docks, moved about, tangled together. A few squirted black ink. He and Se-yeon drank
soju,
eating raw strips of squid. She seemed to be at home at the harbor. He asked her if she was from Jumunjin, but she didn't answer. She smelled like C's lotion. He asked her if she'd slept with his brother. She nodded. The scent of C's lotion cut through the fishy smell of the ocean, and K started to feel sick to his stomach.
    There aren't any customers in the bar. Perhaps it's because of the snow. K throws back two shots, then eats some of the squid. The bar where he first met Se-yeon is somewhere around here. He and the other drivers had gone there
for karaoke. The five men entered a room and ordered beer, and Se-yeon came in to peel fruit for them. She peeled apples awkwardly. She looked young, despite her dark purple eye shadow. She didn't laugh once. The drivers got pissed and cursed at her, a woman selling a good time who didn't laugh. The owner of the karaoke bar came in and cursed at her, too. He dragged her outside, and they could hear him slapping her. A bit later, when she came back in, she laughed endlessly. She laughed at a lame joke, when someone groused about the taxi dispatcher, and when someone said that the Korean soccer team was likely to get to the World Cup. The drivers got pissed again. Someone called her a crazy bitch. She laughed at that, too, and was dragged out again.

    After all the drivers went home, K went back to that place, paid, and took her out. It's my birthday today, Se-yeon said. So they drank some more and slept together in a motel near Sadang Station.
    "Why didn't you laugh at first?" K wondered.
    "Because nothing was funny."
    "Then why did you laugh afterward?"
    "Because it was all funny then."
    She said it was her birthday whenever he went to see her, so each time they drank and slept together.

    That very morning, she'd said it was her birthday again. So K had sex with her before going to work. He gets aroused when she says it's her birthday.
    "I don't have any more Chupa Chups. This is the last one," she said during sex.

    "I'll get you some when I get off work," K told her.
    In the bar, K fumbles with the bag of Chupa Chups next to him. He takes one out, peels off the wrapper, and puts it in his mouth.
    But where is she now? Is she with C? C always takes everything. K is used to this. Some people take things as if that's the most natural act in the world. When he thinks about his older brother, all of his memories are about having things stolen from him. When he was very young, before he started going to school, they had a puppy. The puppy was cute, with fluffy brown fur. It was always in C's arms. K tried hard to win its affections, but the puppy would always run back to his brother. Even to this day, K doesn't know why; he doesn't want to know.
    That puppy disappeared one summer day. After the rainy season it was found in the mouth of the drainpipe coming down from the mountain. The adults said that it must have crawled into the narrow sewer and was unable to come back out again. Fluffy had rotted, his guts burst, in the corner of a drain for an entire summer. Nobody removed his body. K couldn't understand C, who was able to finish his bowl of rice the night they found Fluffy. K couldn't eat for two days.
    Their father was in the military, so they always lived in the military compound. Whether he hated or loved him, C was K's only friend. But he had to pay a price to play with C.
C would always want to bet when they played Chinese chess or