he thrusted. He came before she finished her candy. He immediately stood up and went to take a shower. He faintly remembers hearing her laughter behind him and, for some reason, wanting to listen to Mozart.
The fuel gauge shows that there's only a quarter of a tank left. They will freeze to death when the gas runs out. C turns down the heat. The snow isn't stopping. It's coming down heavily, like the fake snow used in movies. Judith is touching up her makeup, using the mirror on the sunshade.
"Why do you bother fixing your makeup?" C asks.
"I have nothing else to do."
"We're running out of gas."
"Are we going to die here?" she asks, penciling in her eyebrows. She looks serious, probably unsatisfied with the eyebrows she's drawing.
"It's possible."
"Cool. We'll be smothered to death by snow."
"Maybe we should walk and try to find a village. There must be something if we walk along the road."
"I don't want to." Done with her eyebrows, she's touching up her lips.
"Why not?"
"It's cold out."
"When we run out of gas it's going to be cold in here, too. And aren't you hungry?"
"A little, but I can wait. Turn on the radio."
Finished with her makeup, she smells like an apple. After his mother's body was embalmed it also smelled of apple. Apples emit an intense scent as they rot. On the radio, a dance music group is laughing with a female DJ. She's talking about the weather. "I hear that a snowstorm has hit Yeongdong and Yeongseo. Are you going to go skiing?"
"It's hard to find time because we're so busy. We all really like to ski but we haven't been in a while."
"Oh, that's too bad!" The DJ sounds hyper. "Okay, let's hear a song, then we'll continue our conversation." A song by the group that had just been joking around comes out of the radio. Compared to the upbeat rhythm, the lyrics are dull, going on about first love.
"Do you remember your first guy?" C leans his face on the steering wheel.
"No. It was one guy out of two, but I don't exactly remember which one it was. I was sixteen and the three of us
lived together for about a month. I ended up sleeping with both but I can't really remember who was first. I'm always like that. I never remember anything once it's over. I mix up movie plotlines, and a lot of times I watch a video I've seen before because I don't remember the title. I guess there hasn't been anything worth remembering. But sometimes weird things stay in my memory for a long time. TV shows like
Heo Yeong-ho's North Pole Expedition
or
Animal Kingdom.
I don't like dramas or novels. The only thing I watch religiously is
Animal Kingdom.
Did you know the lioness is in charge of hunting, but the male lion always eats first? After the males are full, the females and the cubs eat. My mom was the breadwinner in my family, too. Maybe because of that my dad always crept around like a loser. Once he was caught sleeping with a bar girl and my mom clobbered his face with an ashtray. But now I can't really remember either of their faces."
"Why did you leave home?"
"At school my teacher asked me why I didn't have my book with me. I told him my dad ripped it up, and he asked me why. So I said he rips up books whenever he drinks, and he told me I was lying. I yelled that I wasn't, and he hit me, saying that I was being rude. I didn't go back to school after that. The teacher called when I missed classes several days in a row, and then my mom beat the hell out of me. So I ran away. It was great. Nobody bothered me and I could drink and buy clothes and sleep with boys."
"Don't you miss your mom?"
"You're just like everyone else, asking that kind of question. You don't understand. Don't ask things like that. I hate people who ask questions. Guys who ask questions have a lot to hide. Instead of saying something about themselves, they always want someone else to talk, to reveal something about themselves."
The radio weather forecast says that over thirty centimeters of snow are predicted to fall before it