Chapter 51
[That’s because I was worried about interfering with your work.]
[That may be so, but it seems like I was always the one who sent messages first… but since hyung says so, I’ll believe you.]
I didn’t know if he planned to keep calling me hyung, but right now it was clearly part of his teasing to make me smile. And since I was actually continuously chuckling foolishly, his joke had worked properly.
[I was in a meeting so I just heard the news. You can talk now, right?]
[I finished the contract and now I’m… at home.]
I could sense his somewhat quick footsteps in his breathing, as if he was moving somewhere. The air’s resonance was mixing in like noise. The sound of opening and closing a not-too-heavy door followed, after which the resonance was cut off.
[Hmm, let me guess. As soon as you came out of the meeting room, you got a report about my casting article, immediately called me while walking through the corridor… and you just entered your office?]
Just by listening carefully, I could roughly picture his movements. I laid out more of the situation that came to mind.
[And probably the office is… a structure with glass walls and glass doors.]
[Where are you right now? Are you in my office?]
At his voice joking without any laughter, I giggled again and buried my face in the pillow.
[If you’re watching me from somewhere, come out. Don’t just laugh.]
Saying that, he finally burst into laughter too. Seeing how we both enjoyed exchanging what others might call nutritionless chatter… we were definitely getting closer to dating.
[Wasn’t this a role you really wanted? You seem too calm. I think I’m more excited.]
His voice with a slight trace of laughter remaining was pleasant to hear.
[It’s my personality… I don’t show it, but inside I’m in a very very excited state. Now that the tension’s released, I’m getting sleepy too… It’s past 8 o’clock, but Lee Han-ssi seems to still be working.]
[Hmm…]
Not believing my claim of being excited, he exhaled a sigh full of suspicion and instead of answering my question, brought up a different one.
[What’s your schedule today?]
[No special plans. I’m meeting a friend tomorrow morning, so until then I’ll just… look over the script at home?]
My voice became languid from the drowsiness washing over me. I adjusted my pillow more comfortably and pressed the phone close to my ear.
The bunk bed had the disadvantage of feeling narrower than it actually was due to posts at every corner, but it also had the advantage of coziness like burrowing into a cave or tent. Even with the fluorescent light on, when I lay on the bed the light was blocked and it was appropriately dim.
Listening to his low, smooth voice with its comfortable resonance, I felt like my eyes would slowly close. It seemed like on sleepless nights from now on, I could call him and ask him to let me hear his voice. Though since he’s a busy person, I probably couldn’t actually make such a request.
[Meeting a friend from morning?]
[It’s called a late-night restaurant… do you know it? It’s a restaurant that operates from dawn until morning. Since business ends at 10, we agreed to meet then and have a drink. To celebrate the casting…]
[Hmm…]
This time it was a groan like he was anxiously calculating something in his head. After pausing briefly, he opened his mouth again with a light sigh.
[I tried to secure time somehow… but it seems difficult to leave work before 11. I really want to see your face and congratulate you today… can I come after work? I’ll just see your face briefly and go.]
[You don’t have to go that far. You’ll be tired. We can celebrate when we meet next time.]
[That would be ordinary congratulations between ordinary people.]
[……]
[Anyway, I want to be the first to congratulate you.]
Whether he was embarrassed by what he’d said earlier or regretting it, he quickly changed the subject.
My lips tickled. Whether it was from hearing his voice, my hearing seemed to become sensitive along with the erogenous zones of my ears. My shoulders, nape, and behind my ears lightly shivered.
As I turned to the other side and moved the phone to my other ear, the vibration sound rang briefly twice. It was probably a notification that a message from Ian had arrived. Outside the door, it seemed like Hyunsoo was coming out of the bathroom and entering his room.
[I already got congratulations from that younger guy last time.]
[Did you get a bouquet? Or at least a gift? Greetings that are just words don’t count as congratulations. I want to be the first to give you real congratulations.]
He really had a talent for making me laugh. Even while I buried my face in the pillow and laughed quietly, he remained serious. I wasn’t planning to tell him yet, but when he was like this, he was a bit… cute.
[Really, 5 minutes is enough. You can spare 5 minutes, right?]
He was delicate enough to take care of parts I didn’t even pay attention to first, yet why couldn’t he think at all that seeing each other’s faces for just 5 minutes and parting might be regrettable for me too?
I cleared my throat and fiddled with the soft fabric at the edge of the pillow.
[I think I’ll be buying a car soon.]
[……]
[When I get a car, in situations like this I’ll come to where Lee Han-ssi is.]
[……]
[Are you speechless with emotion?]
Ahh. He exhaled a sweet sigh. Maybe he was collapsing his upper body and resting his cheek on the desk. If my guess was right, I only hoped his team members wouldn’t see him like that. All for the sake of his dignity as a team leader.
[Imagining hyung driving directly to come see me… I like it so much.]
[I don’t know if it’ll look like you imagine, but for today Lee Han-ssi is coming. If you’re not tired… you can stay longer than 5 minutes.]
The words I brought up were embarrassing. If Taeyoon heard this, he might ask who I was with a serious face. It was a side no one around me, not even I myself, had expected, but I didn’t want to leave the role of leading the relationship entirely to him. I wanted to let him know that I was also sufficiently attracted to him and equally wanted to secure time together.
[I have good stamina. I won’t be tired from getting off work at 11. I’ll call when I leave. Your voice sounds tired, so rest a bit.]
The call ended with his calmed voice as the last thing I heard.
Even though no laughter was heard, I could picture his face smiling. The situation with my face wasn’t much different. I rubbed my face with my palm – a face that Seohae hyung would have definitely teased saying “you’re dying of happiness” if he’d seen it – and opened the message window with Ian.
《Hyung, I found this too in the treasure box~~ Can I bring it to my room? Your smiling face looks so good.》
Besides what I’d asked for, there was one more photo attached. It was a Polaroid photo Yui had taken with Times Square in the background on the first day I’d arrived in New York. The twins had been to New York several times before, but it was my first visit so we took it as a commemorative solo shot.
The Polaroid photo had spent a long time in the box, and since it was re-photographed with a phone camera, the quality was terrible.
Still, I could tell that I was smiling brightly in the photo. With a face that had become ghostly white from excessive light reflection, I was grinning with extremely tourist-like anticipation for Broadway theater viewing, gallery tours of the unique galleries in southern Manhattan and Chelsea, and lunches of hot dogs on Central Park benches.
I pressed back to escape from the enlarged photo, wanting to shake off dark thoughts. I didn’t want to taint today, which was like one of the best days in recent years, with gloomy past stuff.
I touched the second file Ian had sent. It was the photo of the note I’d requested.
“……”
I who had been lying down slowly sat up.
While zooming in on the screen and checking carefully several times, my breathing was becoming rough without me knowing.
Still holding the phone, I got down from the bed and pulled out the shoe box again. I opened the lid and took out the memo he had left in Bangkok. My fingertips were trembling finely. I struggled to unfold the note with one hand that wasn’t functioning properly. I could have put down the phone and used both hands, but I was too confused to even think of something that simple.
No matter how many times I checked repeatedly, even the positions where dots were placed between words matched perfectly.
int.heb.eginn.ingthe.rew.asyou@gmail.com
In the beginning there was you.
I couldn’t understand the meaning of that grandiose-seeming phrase. The meaning wasn’t even an important issue.
The fact that the two emails had the same owner. There seemed to be no room for doubt about that. However, having no room for doubt didn’t mean I could immediately accept the phenomenon before my eyes.
Those two people being the same person.
What were the odds of such a thing happening?
No matter how faded it had become, that child in my memory wasn’t the type who could skillfully make moves, lead dates and bedtime with such ease. I couldn’t imagine even more that child acting so comfortable, even brazenly, toward me.
I leaned against the wall and rubbed my face with my hands several times.
Right, that child had certainly been handsome too. He did have a nice body toned by exercise.
But memories from 7 years ago weren’t much help. That child’s face in my memory had a much more boyish atmosphere than his current appearance, and his eyes and smile had reminded me of an unripe green apple.
“Boyish immaturity” that didn’t know what to do because he couldn’t properly handle his own existence or his own emotions – that was the clearest image I had of that child.
The same went for that body that had changed my preferences. Though it was solidly muscular, it wasn’t as large a build as now that brought martial arts fighters to mind.
Right, 7 years had passed since he was twenty, closer to being a boy. He would have graduated college, worked in society, maybe even completed military service during that time. He could have become more masculine during that period. It was entirely possible. Men who already had an auntie-like air at twenty-seven weren’t uncommon. Going from twenty to twenty-seven was that much time. The scope of growth was different from going from thirty to thirty-seven.
Then why didn’t he acknowledge knowing me in Bangkok?
Maybe… he had continued to resent me for not sending emails?
But his attitude toward me since our reunion was far from resentment.
I shook my head. I swept my hair back then messed it up completely. The more I thought about it, the less clearly I could see this situation.
I had considered our meeting in Bangkok as the start of our relationship, but if that wasn’t a first meeting but a moment of reunion…
The reason he was aggressive when seducing me at the bar, but seemed to be pondering when standing in front of my hotel room door. The expression that made it unclear whether he was looking forward to sleeping with me or reluctant. The rather affectionate skinship for treating a one-night stand partner…
『”Where have you been? Who has been doing this for you until now? Were you satisfied?”』
It wasn’t meaningless words spat out while not in his right mind at the peak of pleasure.
『”Just how many ‘darlings’ have there been until now?”』
It wasn’t words thrown because he had a taste for showing jealousy and possessiveness even to one-night partners. It was probably his sincerity.
Darling – that was the safe word I had used in bed with him in the past, and had never used even once since then.
If so, he would have recognized me from the beginning. Assuming that, many things became clear. Not just the first day in Bangkok. The words, actions, expressions he’d made since our reunion. The meaning of everything became completely new.
After confirming that the child from the past and the current him were the same person, light goosebumps rose on my back, sides, and forearms. I rubbed my goose-bumped arms while looking down at the two email addresses in my hands.
Now how should I react? Should I be glad to see him? The fact that he recognized me but deliberately didn’t bring up the past – does that mean he doesn’t want the past me?
I couldn’t be certain of anything. I had never once sent an email to this address in my hands.
“……”
The memo from Bangkok was just written more hastily, looking more mature in handwriting, but there was no strain in seeing it as written by the same person. It was just a difference of whether it was written with more leisure or not.
The past him who was a traveler had said he planned to stay in Paeli for about two weeks. But the actual number of times we met was much less than that. It was only enough to count on my hands.
The childish sense of superiority I’d felt seeing him blush red to his ears and neck while avoiding my eyes, the heart that beat fast having him who I could have had just by reaching out nearby, the square where he had chased after the guy who called me ‘vino da tavola’, the creaking of the old hotel bed where he was staying… the impressions and emotions of such fragmentary scenes were still vivid, but the detailed memories of each one had become too faded.
I, more accustomed to defensive attitudes, had thought we would never meet again.
“Hyung. Hyung, come out for a moment.”
I had been deeply sucked into a whirlpool of thoughts. I became aware late of the bustling sounds outside the door and Hyunsoo knocking on the door. I jumped up in surprise like someone who had been watching porn in their room and hurriedly opened the door.
“Uh… uh… why, what’s wrong.”
Because I opened the door so abruptly, Hyunsoo who had been standing in front of the door stepped back in surprise with wide eyes. Then he pointed toward the entrance.
“I think someone’s here for hyung.”
“……”
The man holding a colorful, bright bouquet was someone I didn’t know. The unknown man bowed politely.
“Hello. Team Leader-nim sent me.”
“Ah… yes… hello.”
I reflexively bowed back and approached the man hesitantly.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
