4. The Trans-Siberian Railway #6
The more Taekjoo drank, the calmer his nerves became—they had been on edge all day.
Even his physical senses began to settle.
Zhenya topped up Taekjoo’s empty glass. At some point, the glass kept getting refilled and was never left empty.
“Can you hold your liquor?”
“Not sure. I’ve never been drunk, so I don’t really know my limit—but I can definitely handle this much.”
“Hmm?”
Zhenya pretended like he doubted Taekjoo to agitate him, but Taekjoo didn’t fall for the easy trick.
Zhenya threw him dirty glances, but Taekjoo ignored them and drank at his own pace.
He didn’t like being vulnerable when drunk.
Of all people, he couldn’t afford to pass out before Zhenya.
There was no reason. It was just a feeling.
Maybe nothing would happen, and Taekjoo was just overreacting.
Maybe he was just being paranoid. But even if that were the case, Taekjoo wasn’t about to let his guard down around someone he hadn’t figured out yet.
There was no meaningful conversation. There was only the repetition of emptying and refilling their glasses.
It almost seemed like they were playing a boring game where one player would have to pass out for the game to end.
Taekjoo could stop drinking, but he wanted to get Zhenya drunk and resolve the persistent unease inside him.
His tongue gradually turned numb. Taekjoo could no longer taste the bitterness of alcohol.
Neither could he sense the aroma or the richness of the liquor.
He felt like he was drinking water. His insides burned with thirst, and before he knew it, he had drunk so much he couldn’t even remember how many drinks he’d had.
His consciousness didn’t waver easily. Kwon Taekjoo knew how to hold his liquor, and he could hold down a lot. The problem was, so could his opponent.
Somewhere down the line, Taekjoo’s sight turned blurry.
Zhenya wasn’t himself either. Sometimes, the two would pour the liquor everywhere but a glass.
The table, carpet, and their clothes were wet and messy.
Empty bottles rolled around the floor. This was their fifth bottle, and they’d been drinking straight from the bottle the whole time.
Taekjoo could tell he was drunk. He felt lightheaded.
The two exchanged silly jokes, trying to out-silly each other.
Taekjoo banged on the table and snickered like a madman.
He would open the window and scream at it.
He did things he would never have done while sober, and having lost his hold on reason, he kept doing them.
“Lim would keel over if he saw this.”
Taekjoo mumbled, smirking. He was topping off his drink when he tilted his head in confusion.
It had turned silent. The only sound Taekjoo could hear was the constant noise of the train wheels rolling on their tracks.
That was it. It seemed he was the only one talking.
Taekjoo noticed Zhenya had fallen quiet when the liquor he was pouring had flowed over his glass, completely soaking his knees.
Taekjoo looked up and saw Zhenya. His eyes were closed, and his arms were crossed.
The steady rise and fall of his chest, the deep rhythm of his breathing, and the stillness of his eyelids told Taekjoo that Zhenya had fallen asleep.
Taekjoo reached out and pretended to poke Zhenya’s eyes, but got no reaction.
A grin appeared on Taekjoo’s face. It was a smile of victory.
“That’s all you got? My, my, a pampered little prince.”
Taekjoo shook his head left and right, mocking Zhenya. It wasn’t a competition to see who could drink more, but still, it made Taekjoo feel good knowing that he’d outdrunk Zhenya. And even this smugness was because he was drunk.
Taekjoo raised his glass, filled to the brim with vodka, and toasted himself. Half of the content of the glass spilled, and the right arm holding it was soaking wet. His arm danced left and right as he barely managed to bring the glass to his lips. The remaining half-glass of vodka filled his mouth.
Taekjoo’s body, which had been swaying, fell forward. BAM—his upper body collapsed on the table. His hand, which had been holding the glass, went limp.
There was no movement inside the compartment for a brief while. Finally, Taekjoo began to breathe in and out in a steady rhythm. He barely got sleep the night before, and he was drunk. It was enough to knock him out. Taekjoo’s back, which faced the ceiling, rose and fell slowly.
“...”
How long had it been, no one could tell. But Zhenya, who’d fallen asleep sitting, opened his eyes. His eyelids fluttered open effortlessly, as though he had never fallen asleep. His eyes, empty of all emotion, only took in Taekjoo. It was a calm and serene gaze.
Zhenya picked up the remaining body of the cigar he’d been smoking earlier.
The end was singed soot-black, and Zhenya snipped it off with the cigar cutter.
He pulled out his torch lighter and relit the neatly trimmed cigar.
It quickly burned itself, releasing thick smoke.
All the while, Zhenya’s eyes were still fixed on Kwon Taekjoo—on his hand, to be precise, which was stretched straight, reaching out for Zhenya.
Zhenya clicked on his cigar cutter out of habit.
Two metal blades snapped and clicked against each other.
Zhenya caressed Taekjoo’s hand with his long fingers, tracing the curved parts and straight digits of the man’s hand before he looked away.
All throughout, the cigar cutter snapped eerily—click, click—in his other hand.
With his index finger, Zhenya gently lifted Taekjoo’s ring finger.
A sinister smile spread across his face.
His eyelids felt so heavy that he could barely lift them.
When he finally did, he saw a familiar sight—though it was turned sideways at a right angle.
There was a door in front of him. He could hear the sound of a train running.
He felt his cheek pressed against the surface of a table.
One by one, his senses returned to him. He’d been wondering why his cheek was so damp when he smelled the cognac. That must be it.
Taekjoo groaned as he lifted his upper body. The table his face had been resting on was soaked with liquor. He didn’t have to see to know how wasted he looked right now.
Taekjoo rubbed his damp face in frustration and looked around.
Zhenya must have gone somewhere. He wasn’t there When Taekjoo tried moving his body, his foot kicked empty liquor bottles lying on the floor.
If he was up already, he might as well have cleaned up.
A complaint started to rise in him, but it faded before it could take shape.
He realized it didn’t make sense for him to expect human decency or the least amount of civility from Zhenya.
He pushed the empty bottles to the side and started walking toward the shower when he heard the sound he hadn’t noticed earlier. Is that Zhenya inside? He might’ve just woken up, thought Taekjoo to himself.
Taekjoo wanted to take a shower right away.
His felt gross all over. But since the shower seemed to be occupied, he just lay down on the bed.
His entire body felt sore, and he guessed it was because he hadn’t drunk that much, that hard, in a long time.
His body melted into the bed, sinking deeper and deeper.
The sound of water continued, and the way it drummed against the floor was so consistent that it felt like a lullaby.
Taekjoo’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and his hearing started to fade into the distance.
Am I falling asleep again? Taekjoo found negligence of duty unacceptable, but he couldn’t keep his hold on his consciousness.
He couldn’t win against the overwhelming drowsiness.
Soon, the bathroom door opened. But the strange part was, the sound of the water hadn’t stopped. Taekjoo’s awareness slipped further away as his body began to float weightlessly. It was a peculiar sensation.
A pair of wet feet walked toward Taekjoo, and in an instant, a giant shadow was cast, swallowing Taekjoo whole. I really need to get up. Taekjoo tried to move his body, but the only thing he could do was twitch his eyebrows a bit.
Against his will, his arm was lifted into the air. A long finger, chill to the touch, brushed the back of his hand and between his fingers. It felt like a snake was licking his hand. Taekjoo’s hair stood on end.
‘Ну ты и глупая зайка[11].’
Taekjoo heard a sour, unsettling voice speak—it was Zhenya’s.
There was a hint of glee in the voice, but it was far from warm.
In fact, it sounded so cold it could freeze the air around it.
The hand that was touching all of Taekjoo’s fingers now only held the ring finger.
The pressure around it was so strong that Taekjoo didn’t even dare resist it.
He couldn’t move his entire body as if he was having sleep paralysis from a nightmare. His primal instincts blared a warning.
Click. Click. The familiar sound grew louder as his ring finger—held hostage—was fed into something.
Taekjoo tried to pull out, but Zhenya didn’t let go of him.
Zhenya watched Taekjoo squirm and twitch.
Then, his eyes lit up with glee, drawing a smile.
At the same time, the cigar cutter clicked again and bit down on Taekjoo’s ring finger.
NO.
“Ah!”
Taekjoo sprang up. His vision cleared all at once, and the room was so bright that it hurt his eyes. He shut them again and grabbed his head. He was dizzy. His vision slowly adjusted after being blurred by the brightness.
Taekjoo’s hands were shaking. He brought them up to his eyes. Both his hands were fine, and he still had ten fingers. Even the ring finger—the one Zhenya had targeted—was intact.
Was it a dream? It all felt so real that Taekjoo was left baffled.
He looked around. A filthy table, empty bottles on the floor, messy beds—everything was exactly the same as it had been in his dream.
Even the sticky residue of the liquor on his cheek.
The only difference was a small pile of cigar ash in the corner of the table.
Zhenya seemed to have smoked an entire cigar in one sitting.
Where did he go? Taekjoo wondered. He checked the time and saw that it was almost breakfast time. Zhenya might have gone to the dining car by himself just like he always did. Or maybe he decided to be helpful today and check in on Hong.