#26
Should I bring this up or not? The dilemma that had started from the moment he opened his eyes still hadn’t reached a conclusion. If he had been alone, he would have pulled at his hair, but with Taeseong in front of him, he couldn’t even do that. Bonoh, who had been trembling his legs while agonizing, ultimately couldn’t endure the current silence of sitting face-to-face when food hadn’t even come out yet.
“Do you… remember what happened yesterday?”
“What? You suddenly making strange probing remarks?”
“That…”
“Or putting on a 19+ movie?”
“No…”
“Then what?”
Does he really not remember? Bonoh didn’t know that Taeseong, distracted by the alcohol in front of him, had only poured the drink but hadn’t actually drunk it. There had even been continuous unintended incidents, leaving no time to pay attention.
Moreover, Taeseong’s attitude was too nonchalant. If it weren’t for the dried semen stuck to his crotch when he woke up, or his nipples that still stung whenever they touched his t-shirt from being pinched, Bonoh might have thought he’d just had a bizarre dream. The sensation of Taeseong roughly fondling him seemed to remain on his body, so Bonoh, who showered with hot water even in midsummer, even doused himself with cold water.
So naturally, his thoughts leaned toward Taeseong having forgotten last night’s events. Could he really act this nonchalant after doing such things? Of course, Taeseong occasionally revealed unexpected thought processes, but still.
If he had forgotten, there was no need to bring it up and make things awkward. Just as he was about to brush it off, bone soup was placed in front of Bonoh at the perfect timing. At the appropriate moment to end the conversation, Bonoh inwardly cheered.
Normally, he would skillfully pick the bones clean and scrape up every bit of the soup, but today the bone soup wouldn’t go down well.
Bonoh stealthily stole glances at Taeseong. He looked so clean that it was hard to believe he was the same person who had suddenly done such things yesterday. Even though they had ordered the same menu, his bone-picking movements were neat without any crude aspects. But yesterday, those hands had been so lewd…
To think he was doing a review when he should be forgetting it. Bonoh shook his head so violently his hair seemed to fly. Then he demonstratively began eating his bone soup. Unaware that Taeseong was watching him with sunken eyes.
However, his joy at being able to bury it and move on, at not having to bring up last night’s events verbally, was brief. What happened that day kept coming to mind at random times.
When putting on a t-shirt, he would remember Taeseong making him bite the hem with his mouth, and even while showering, the sensation of his chest being fondled would come back. The more he tried to forget, the more the scenes seemed to be drawn before his eyes. He had even bitten his chopsticks while eating because he thought of it.
Was this kind of thing really okay? A puzzled feeling crept in. He was dying of curiosity about whether other guys in their twenties experienced this sort of thing, but he couldn’t ask anyone about it.
Meanwhile, time steadily passed and the summer semester began. Since summer courses cover a semester’s worth of classes in a short time, he had to go to school every day. Thanks to that, Bonoh was already exhausted even though it hadn’t been a week since classes started.
Bonoh, who arrived at the lecture hall 10 minutes before class started, slumped over his desk. He was very tired from tossing and turning the night before. It was because that day’s events, which he had barely begun to forget, suddenly came to mind. With Taeseong sleeping in the bed right next to him, he couldn’t even kick the blankets freely.
Why is someone who’s not even taking summer classes holed up in the dorm… Recently, Taeseong hadn’t gone to his family home even on weekends and was staying put like an earthbound spirit. Since Taeseong had no special schedule, Bonoh and Taeseong ended up eating almost every meal together after vacation started.
For a while after that day, Bonoh was awkward by himself, but now he had gotten used to it and eating together had become natural. As a result, the time spent with Taeseong naturally increased. Except when attending lectures or when Bonoh briefly went out, he was almost always with Taeseong.
At the beginning of the semester, Bonoh never dreamed he would be living this kind of daily life. Being with the roommate who had been the most uncomfortable in the world all day long now felt natural. How did it come to this?
“So do you share a bed with your roommate?”
Bonoh, who had been lying face down with his eyes closed, suddenly sat up at the sound. The source of the voice was two men chatting right behind Bonoh’s seat. Bonoh began eavesdropping on their conversation inconspicuously.
“No, it’s not sharing one bed, we push two beds together!”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“But we push the beds to one side so the space opens up and it’s nice. We turn on a beam projector on one wall and watch movies…”
“You must get along really well with your roommate.”
“Well, being stuck together all the time.”
Bonoh naturally pictured the room the voice’s owner would use. Since all dorm room structures were the same, it wasn’t difficult to imagine moving one of the beds attached to either wall and connecting it to the other bed.
In a dark room, two beds are connected to make one, and two faceless men climb up and sit on it. They’re looking at the opposite wall. A familiar movie is playing on the wall via beam projector, and one of them suddenly grabs the other man’s dick. The faces of the two men change to Bonoh and Taeseong’s as the acts from the night they drank to celebrate the end of semester begin to unfold.
When the faces of the two men in his imagination changed to Taeseong’s and his own, Bonoh was startled and broke out in cold sweat like a child who had done something wrong. His heart was beating so hard he could hear it.
“Hey, honestly, are you two dating?”
The mischievous voice was full of playfulness. However, Bonoh found himself waiting for an answer with a pounding heart.
“Ah, fuck off.”
“Why? If you sleep stuck together every day, feelings that weren’t there before would develop. This hyung has no prejudice, so honestly spill it.”
“By that logic, are all guys living in dorms gay? You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
Bonoh unconsciously felt relieved at those words. He didn’t know why he felt at ease, but the things that happened with Taeseong that day began to feel like no big deal. Even though the owner of the voice he heard from behind hadn’t experienced the same thing as him.
When class ended, Bonoh left the lecture hall and called Taeseong with familiar movements. Not long after the signal went through, Taeseong answered immediately.
-Class over?
As soon as he picked up, Taeseong asked without even saying hello.
“Yeah. What should we eat today? Kimchi stew? Or jjajangmyeon?”
-We had kimchi stew the day before yesterday and I’m sick of jjajangmyeon now too. How about sushi?
“Ah, but we had sushi not long ago too.”
Even though Bonoh and Taeseong had been to all the restaurants around school, they had reached the point of being sick of them all.
-Then let’s eat the pork cutlet you like.
“Yes! Then let’s meet at the main gate in 5 minutes.”
-Okay.
Taeseong answered briefly and hung up. Even without making specific plans, eating lunch together was natural, and the process of deciding on a menu flowed naturally. Bonoh’s steps were unusually light.
“One tenderloin cutlet and one sirloin cutlet, please!”
As soon as Bonoh entered the restaurant and sat down, he shouted. The tenderloin cutlet was Taeseong’s and the sirloin cutlet was Bonoh’s portion. The two ordered the same menu every time regardless of which restaurant they went to.
At Japanese restaurants, Taeseong ate avocado rolls while Bonoh had the lunch special menu, and at kimchi stew specialty restaurants they ordered for two and shared. At Chinese restaurants, Taeseong, who disliked greasy food, ordered oyster jjamppong while Bonoh had jjajangmyeon, and at rice bowl restaurants Taeseong ordered sake-don while Bonoh ordered cube steak rice bowl.
The only place without set menus was an Italian restaurant. Taeseong usually pondered between bongole and gnocchi but sometimes ate risotto, while Bonoh alternated between tomato and cream sauce orders. After each ordering their own menu, some days they would order thin pizza and other days cobb salad to share. Except for those cases, their menus were set, so Bonoh would order without discussing it separately.
After ordering, Taeseong laid out tissues on the table one by one and neatly arranged the utensils on top. Bonoh got water from the water purifier. After filling his own cup with cold water, he changed the option to ‘purified’ and filled Taeseong’s cup with lukewarm water while drinking his own water. When Taeseong’s cup was full, Bonoh filled his own cup with cold water once more. A systematic division of labor was carried out as if they had planned it.
The division of labor with Taeseong hadn’t been smooth from the beginning. Taeseong had just watched Bonoh pour water and arrange utensils as if he were some noble aristocrat. Bonoh, who had grown up under strong-willed hyung and noona, was someone who had mastered taking care of such things. However, he was also a meddlesome young man who had grown up in Korean society where Confucian customs and sentiments were prevalent.
Unable to just let it pass, Bonoh decided to fix Taeseong’s personality a little, thinking about the various crises he would face in society in the future. Bonoh had prepared about 52 reasons why “you shouldn’t just sit there like a master,” but before he could even bring up the reasons, Taeseong, sensing Bonoh’s uncomfortable mood, began acting on his own. Bonoh had very easily changed Taeseong’s social skills that no renowned psychotherapist had been able to correct. Bonoh was bewildered, but it was a good outcome anyway.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
