#8
“You?”
‘Huh, really…’
Honestly, I didn’t expect him to still be standing there. I had even said goodbye, but Kang Jihan didn’t leave and instead asked something unfamiliar. Nam Seonwoo answered in a daze.
“…What am I doing today? Just staying at home, I guess?”
Kang Jihan, who had asked first, closed his mouth again. Nam Seonwoo continued to eat the omelet rice while looking at Kang Jihan. He thought that Kang Jihan, whom he was seeing after a long time, looked particularly handsome in his thirties. The silence wasn’t awkward anymore, so the food went down smoothly.
Even after finishing all the rice, Kang Jihan showed no sign of leaving. Was he waiting until I finished eating? Did he think eating alone was lonely? Did he not realize that standing like that would make me feel sick? As the silence continued until only the last spoonful was left, Nam Seonwoo suddenly asked.
“Can I follow you to the hospital?”
It was an impulsive remark. Since he was dreaming of Kang Jihan at thirty-four, he wanted to visit the workplace where Kang Jihan worked. To be precise, he wanted to see Kang Jihan in a gown rather than the hospital itself.
“Being alone at home is boring.”
Kang Jihan just threw a glance without answering. Nam Seonwoo expected what he would say. He would say it’s not a place for you to visit. It was a valid point, so he had nothing to say. His body was always busy with overflowing consultations and surgeries, so even before, visiting the hospital seemed to bother him.
“I have surgery in the afternoon.”
As expected. Nam Seonwoo nodded indifferently and put the last bite in his mouth. Since it was a dream, there was no need to do the dishes, but since Kang Jihan was standing there like that, he thought he should clean up a bit. He stood up to take the container to the sink.
“Okay. Ah, I ate well. It was much tastier than eating alone.”
Nam Seonwoo, who was about to say “Have a good day” out of habit, hesitated. It seemed somehow inappropriate for the situation.
“Take care.”
After saying it, the feeling was strange. Even though he knew it was a dream, it felt like saying goodbye to the real thirty-four-year-old Kang Jihan. Even though he would see Kang Jihan in front of him when he woke up from the dream, he felt a bit sentimental. So he thought for a moment. Since it’s a dream, should he just hug him tightly and run away?
“…After it’s over.”
At the voice that reconnected the ended conversation, Nam Seonwoo’s eyes widened. Kang Jihan was looking at the kitchen, not the entrance, as if he was about to go to work at any moment. With his gaze on the empty container on the table, he said.
“Let’s have dinner together.”
—
The dream lasted longer than expected, and Nam Seonwoo bit the inside of his cheek hard. Still, he felt no pain.
Kang Jihan really came to pick him up at the end of work. It seemed a bit unrealistic because it was a dream, but the quiet car interior was just as he remembered, desolate. After Kang Jihan asked if Japanese food was okay and Nam Seonwoo said it was fine, the conversation had been cut off for a long time.
The passenger seat was warm from the moment he sat down. As he continued to sit, it got a bit hot, so when he took off his coat, Kang Jihan slightly opened the window. The scene somehow overlapped with April Fool’s Day, and Nam Seonwoo looked at the driver’s seat.
‘He is handsome…’
But he seems a bit rude. His skin isn’t rough, but it’s definitely different from a twenty-one-year-old.
Originally, he would have just glanced sideways, but now he wanted to fully take in the thirty-year-old Kang Jihan with his eyes. Moreover, comparing him with the twenty-one-year-old Kang Jihan was quite fun. As he openly stared, Kang Jihan turned on the radio.
‘Wow.’
Kang Jihan turned on the radio first. Nam Seonwoo quietly admired it. Because he was the one who always turned on something when the silence in the car was uncomfortable. He looked at the fingers adjusting the volume and the profile facing forward, and then Nam Seonwoo opened his mouth.
“Jihani.”
Kang Jihan responded with his gaze. Nam Seonwoo smiled and sent that gaze forward again.
“Aren’t you going? The light turned green.”
He thought he was looking ahead and paying attention to the front, but it seemed he was focusing on something else. The car, which finally moved again, smoothly crossed the road. He thought they were just going to any nearby Japanese restaurant, but it seemed they were heading to a place quite far away.
As he lowered his gaze to the console box, he saw a cigarette pack. Maybe because he hadn’t seen Kang Jihan smoking since returning to the past, even the familiar brand of cigarettes felt unfamiliar. Come to think of it, he remembered that Kang Jihan around this time smoked less.
“You don’t smoke much these days.”
So he asked, and Kang Jihan asked back a little later.
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“Rather, it seemed like you didn’t smoke.”
Of course. He wasn’t a smoker in the first place. Even in the early days of dating, he was a ‘Kang Jihan-limited’ smoker, but he hardly touched it in his thirties. As memories of the past surfaced like a panorama and he revisited the misunderstandings accumulated over a long period, his heart suddenly felt uneasy.
“Hey. I actually hated the smell of cigarettes.”
So his mouth moved on its own.
“I only smoked a few times to be with you, and I still don’t know why people pay money to smoke that.”
There was no meaning in saying this to the dream Kang Jihan. But because of that, he thought he could confess more comfortably.
After a brief silence, Kang Jihan asked.
“Why don’t you smoke these days?”
“Smoking with you wasn’t fun.”
“… “
“You just kept smoking without saying anything. It couldn’t be fun.”
Ah, this feels really good.
Although Kang Jihan’s mouth was tightly closed, Nam Seonwoo was no longer swayed by Kang Jihan’s expression.
“Ah, I’m not telling you to quit. I’m just saying it. It’s all in the past, so it doesn’t matter.”
“…In the past?”
“Yeah. And there’s one more thing. About the morning. You always made breakfast lightly and left without saying anything, but it was really sad. Even families who have lived together for decades don’t live like that. Don’t they?”
The accumulated grievances poured out like a broken dam. So Nam Seonwoo realized belatedly that the car had stopped.
Had they arrived? But there was no sign of a restaurant on the side of the road where the car was parked. As Nam Seonwoo looked out the window with a puzzled face, Kang Jihan muttered.
“So, you want to break up?”
“…What?”
“I wondered what you were doing from the morning.”
Kang Jihan, who had muttered, flicked the handle with his fingertip.
“I thought you were trying to end things nicely. Let’s skip the process and just tell me the conclusion.”
Kang Jihan, who said that, was perfectly expressionless. Nam Seonwoo blankly recalled the previous conversation. He couldn’t understand how he reached that conclusion.
“What are you suddenly talking about…”
Vroom—
The sudden vibration sound didn’t stop at once but continued. Eventually, Kang Jihan said in a dry voice.
“Answer it.”
He didn’t feel like having a pleasant conversation in this situation. As he took out his phone to end the call, Nam Seonwoo couldn’t help but be startled when he saw the screen.
[Kang Ji]
‘What is this…?’
Kang Ji. This was the saved name set by Kang Jihan. In other words, it was the twenty-one-year-old Kang Jihan, not the Kang Jihan beside him. He knew it was a dream, but he hadn’t thought that Kang Jihan could exist as two, so he was flustered.
At that moment, Kang Jihan’s gaze fell on the phone. Nam Seonwoo hurriedly hid it so that he couldn’t see the screen and said.
“It’s okay. It’s not urgent.”
He quickly pressed the button to end the call, but soon the vibration rang again. No matter how many times he refused, the vibration didn’t stop.
‘This crazy, stop!’
In the heavy silence inside the car, only the noisy vibration sound continued to ring without stopping. Feeling like he was sweating, he just turned off the phone, and finally, the inside of the car became quiet.
Nam Seonwoo sighed. As he tried to have a conversation again, Kang Jihan spoke first.
“Did you meet someone?”
“…What did you say?”
“So, was it a mistake this morning?”
He didn’t know what nonsense this was, but from the following words, he could roughly guess what this guy was thinking. Morning, mistake. It seemed he was talking about what happened in bed this morning.
At this point, ‘Nam Seonwoo’ and ‘Kang Jihan’ slept in the same bed only a few times, and even then, they often slept apart. So, when ‘Nam Seonwoo’ suddenly clung to him and whined about breakfast, it was understandable to think he mistook him for someone else.
He could understand the process by which he reached that conclusion, but that didn’t mean he understood it. Nam Seonwoo asked with a dumbfounded face.
“Hey. Aren’t we dating?”
If he thought that, he should have been angry. But Kang Jihan asked if he was dating someone else as if it was nothing. So he asked back, but there was no sign of ‘anger’ on Kang Jihan’s face.
“At this age, I need to settle down.”
“…Huh.”
He was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t even laugh. Yeah, Kang Jihan at thirty-four was like this. That’s why I was going to break up with him. He was angry for a moment, but he knew what Kang Jihan meant by ‘settling down’ and in what context it came out, so he barely suppressed his anger.
“Do you have someone you’re seeing? Yeah, I do.”
But he was still angry.
“Like you said, I’m at an age where I need to settle down, so I’m going to settle down with that guy.”
That guy is you, so understand what I’m saying, he said, looking at Kang Jihan. But Kang Jihan frowned instead.
“Guy?”
For the first time, emotion appeared on his face, which had been expressionless throughout.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
