The four o’clock sunlight barely cleared the barely twelve-inch windowsill of my studio, turning only the corner of the plastic storage bin at my feet yellow. I sat on the cramped floor with my knees pulled up beneath my chin. I was in the middle of clearing out all kinds of odds and ends, but the room was still suffocating. I had to bend my legs to lie down, and whenever I stood up, I had to be careful not to slam my thigh into the corner of the desk.
What I’d put in front of the camera today was a thick ivory canvas tote, its front pocket packed with brass badges.
In the spring of my twentieth year, after grilling patties and frying potatoes at a fast-food restaurant until I came home drenched in the smell of grease, I held my first part-time paycheck in my hands. Instead of buying expensive brand-name clothes, I spent the whole day wandering through little independent bookstores and gift shops in the alleys of Hongdae. In the end, I bought one crisp, sturdy No. 10 canvas bag and twelve metal badges, each carrying a different story.
“A whale drifting through space,” “a little coffee cup and time spilling away,” “a cat crouched beneath a midnight streetlamp,” “an old book spread wide open.”
I could still vividly remember the night I carefully pushed each badge through the fabric with tweezers, arranging them across the front of the bag like my own private Milky Way. Back then, I carried that sturdy bag stuffed with textbooks, dreams, and the vague expectation that someday I’d become a wonderful adult. Years passed. The corners naturally grew worn, and the bottom softened a little from bearing heavy loads, but it was still weighty and solid, without a single stitch coming undone.
“I still couldn’t bring myself to throw this away.”
I traced the outlines of the cold metal badges with my fingertips. It felt as if the footsteps of my twenty-year-old self heading to the library, and the beads of sweat from my twenty-three-year-old self gripping the handles on the way to my first interview, were all still embedded in the weave of the fabric. But now that I was unemployed and barely even dragged my slides on when I went to the convenience store, the bag that had once given me the courage to carry something heavy was nothing more than another piece of clutter gathering dust in the corner of the clothes rack.
I picked up my phone and photographed the bag in the natural light. Click. The dry shutter sound rang through the room.
[For Sale] Thick canvas tote + 12 metal gift-shop badges as a bundle (Grade A condition) * A sturdy bag I treasured and saved up for with my first part-time paycheck. * The fabric is thick, so it won’t lose its shape even with heavy textbooks or exam prep books inside. * The badges are also from independent designers and aren’t easy to find. Selling all 12 for 12,000 won. * Preferred meeting spot: the bus stop in front of Sinrim-dong Hyundai Apartments
Less than five minutes after I hit the post button, a bright notification tone shattered the silence.
*Carrot!*
[Username: Bluebird3] “Hi. Is the price with the badges included? Would an in-person pickup work today?”
When I tapped the profile, I saw that the manner score was the default 36.5 and that the account had been created fairly recently. The message was concise, without a word of fluff.
“Yes, the badges are all included. I can meet in front of the bus stop at 7 p.m. today.”
“Thank you. See you at seven. I’ll stop by on my way to the study room.”
The moment I saw the words study room, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu. As dusk settled in, I carefully folded the dusted-off tote and placed it in a shopping bag. Then I rummaged through a corner of a drawer, took out two glucose candies and a bottle of vitamin drink, and packed those along with it.
At 6:50 p.m., as the streetlights flickered on one by one in the deepening twilight, I changed my slides for sneakers and headed to the meeting spot.
Beneath the streetlamp in front of the bus stop, acrid bus exhaust mingled with the damp smell of earth peculiar to a summer night. I checked my watch. Two minutes until our meeting time. Just as the paper shopping bag handles in my hand began to grow slightly damp with sweat, a boy wearing a huge backpack came striding toward me in long steps from the distance.
His shaggy hair covered half his forehead, beads of sweat clung to the back of his neck, and there was a little dust on his sneakers beneath the hems of his dark navy school uniform pants. The black backpack hanging from his back bulged as if it might burst, crammed with mock-exam workbooks and thick exam prep books. Its shoulder straps looked like they were stretched taut and screaming. The deep exhaustion and taut tension unique to a high school senior seeped from every inch of him.
The boy spotted me standing beneath the streetlamp and slowed down. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the screen once, then approached, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Excuse me… are you the Carrot Market seller with the tote bag?”
His voice was slightly husky, as though the last rough edges of puberty had not yet been worn away.
“Yes, that’s me. You’re Bluebird3, right?”
I took the thick canvas bag out of the shopping bag and handed it to him. The student accepted it carefully with his rough, callused hands. Then he pressed each brass badge on the front pocket with his thumb, one by one. His finger paused over the “whale drifting through space” badge.
“The badges are really pretty. They look much sturdier in person than they did in the pictures.”
“It’s No. 10 canvas, so it’s incredibly durable. You said you’d be using it for the study room, right? Even if you put in three or four thick practice-exam books, the bottom won’t tear. I used to carry it around stuffed with my college textbooks.”
A faint smile crossed the student’s lips. But soon, perhaps embarrassed, he moved his lips soundlessly and fumbled in the pocket of his uniform pants. He handed me one neatly folded ten-thousand-won bill and two one-thousand-won bills. The bills were bone-dry against my fingertips.
“All my books don’t fit in my backpack, so I’ve been carrying them in my hands. They get completely soaked every time it rains. I was going to buy any bag I could find, but… I liked the badges, so I got this one. I’ll put it to good use.”
The student casually hooked the weighty tote handles over his wrist, then bent at the waist in a full ninety-degree bow. It was clumsy yet straightforward, the kind of earnest politeness only possible at that age. As he turned and walked toward the crosswalk, I caught sight of his hunched back, his bursting backpack, and my tote, newly hanging beside it.
“Hey, student!”
Without thinking, I called out and stopped him. The student turned around, startled. I pulled the two glucose candies and vitamin drink I’d prepared from the bottom of the paper shopping bag, hurried over, and pressed them into his hands.
“Have this when your blood sugar drops while you’re studying. You don’t have much longer, right? It’s hot out, so don’t wear yourself out. Hang in there.”
The tips of the boy’s ears turned red, as if he didn’t know how to react to the sudden kindness. He gripped the bottle with both hands and answered in a much clearer, stronger voice than before.
“Thank you! I’ll really work hard. Get home safely!”
The boy crossed at the light and disappeared into the darkness in the distance, his steps lighter than before. On his right shoulder as he headed toward the study room, the Milky Way badges glittered and swayed in the streetlamp’s glow.
When I returned home and opened the door, the bluish light from the hallway stretched across the room, where I hadn’t turned on the lights.
In the farthest corner of the clothes rack, the tote had always taken up a thick, bulky space that made the room look even smaller. Now, in the place where it had been, there was an empty space the size of my fist. I wiped away the pale layer of dust that had settled in the little gap with a wet wipe.
The twenty-year-old me, who had felt as if I’d gained the whole world after receiving my first part-time paycheck, and the nineteen-year-old boy, who was only just making his way through the heaviest, darkest tunnel of his life. That crisp canvas bag that had once firmly supported a piece of my youth would now help him endure his long, heavy nights.
As if I’d set down one of the burdens pressing on my shoulders, the air in the cramped room felt lighter and cooler. I sat down at my desk and opened a drawer, searching for the next thing to clear out.