Yeonwoo and the Oversized Suit
Yeonwoo had a peculiar compulsion—one that gripped him every time he tried to buy clothes. He could never quite shake it off. Each time, the pressure would mount until, in the end, he surrendered to it, doing exactly what that quiet obsession demanded.
In his childhood, Yeonwoo’s parents ran a large clothing store in the bustling heart of town. It was more like a department store of its time, offering everything from children’s wear and men’s and women’s fashion to accessories, sundries, cigarettes, and even intercity bus tickets. The shop was big, and so was its staff—six or seven people working at once. Those who weren’t married lived in the residential quarters behind the store, known as the anjip, making the place feel like a giant extended family.
Oddly enough, Yeonwoo—the eldest son of such a fine establishment—insisted on wearing old clothes. His mother, the matriarch of this upscale store, would argue and plead with him, often at her wit’s end. She couldn’t stand the sight of her boy stubbornly clinging to worn, faded garments. She coaxed and scolded, creating a scene whenever she could, but he would always dash off, refusing to wear anything new. It weighed on her heart. Though no neighbor ever said it aloud, she could hear their imaginary clucking in her ears.
“She sells such fine clothes, yet her own child looks like that.”
“Saving money is one thing, but this is just stingy. Tsk, tsk.”
Yeonwoo loathed the way people looked at him when he wore new clothes. Back in those days, when poverty was common, fancy children’s wear easily drew attention. And new clothes—they always felt stiff and scratchy. Only after several washes, when the elbows and knees started to crease just right, did they finally feel like his own. That stretch of time felt unbearably long. So he hated new clothes. The sleeves might be too short, and the pant legs might ride up awkwardly, but the well-worn hand-me-downs clung to his body like Iron Man’s suit—fitted, familiar, perfect.
There was also something else—something more unsettling. The obligation to always wear clothes at least one size too big. Slipping his soft body into those stiff, baggy shells made him feel like a turtle crawling inside the wrong shell. He had two younger brothers, so passing down perfectly fitting clothes should have been easy—but it wasn’t. The brother two years younger was already larger than Yeonwoo, who was painfully thin. And the youngest, six years his junior, was simply too far behind. So he continued to live, quite literally, inside clothing that always felt too big.
Then came his twenties. And still, Yeonwoo wore clothes that were too large. Even though no one stopped him now, even though he could buy any size he pleased, he couldn’t bring himself to buy a snug fit. That old habit—of surrendering to the oversized—had rooted itself in him, functioning like instinct. Whenever he considered buying a well-fitting garment, a strange anxiety would whisper: What if it shrinks? After all, he planned to wear his clothes for at least a decade. And someday, in his thirties or forties, he might gain weight like everyone else. He told himself it was wise to prepare for that eventuality. So he kept buying bigger sizes, haunted by the same old compulsion.
I saw Yeonwoo recently—now in his mid-fifties—and to my surprise, his physique hadn’t changed much since his youth. Unlike me, who had long surrendered to the softened curves of middle age, Yeonwoo remained lean, lively, almost untouched by time. He joked—half proud, half modest—that he weighed about the same as he did in his twenties. Maybe that explained his buoyant demeanor. And yet, something felt off. His clothes still looked a bit loose.
I asked him, “Did you lose weight recently or something?”
“No,” he chuckled.
“It’s just... every time I bought clothes, I thought, ‘Someday I’ll gain weight.’ So I always got a size up. But the weight never came. So here I am—forever wearing slightly oversized clothes.”
Then, as if confessing a minor regret, he added, “Maybe preparing for the future isn’t always so wise. They say to plan instead of worry, but I think I overdid it. All these years, I’ve lived in baggy clothes, trying to be ready for what never arrived. But hey—at least I didn’t gain weight, right? I look good, don’t I?”
His laugh was light, but behind it, I caught the briefest flicker of wistfulness. A faint shadow that vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. I looked at him—this man still living in the space between his body and his clothes—and said,
“Well, your wife must be thrilled. Life’s a trade-off anyway. You win some, you lose some. Look at me—I may have a little belly, but I wear it well, don’t I?”
And just like that, my joke seemed to smooth over Yeonwoo’s momentary regret, drowning it beneath a ripple of laughter and the imagined echo of his wife’s voice telling him—gently, yet persistently—to do something about that belly.
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