#017
Was it because of the dawn atmosphere? Han Taegu carefully brought up something he normally wouldn’t do—especially to a fellow entertainer—about his concerns regarding Yeonwoo’s screen time.
“What do you think, PD-nim?”
“I am thinking positively about Yeonwoo-ssi’s screen time, but…”
At those words, Shin Gihyeon’s brow furrowed briefly. He had the absurd thought: Am I the only person in the world who dislikes Lee Yeonwoo?
While Shin Gihyeon and Han Taegu were having their quiet conversation, a grandfather entered the yard.
“Excuse me.”
The two immediately stood up and greeted him. Though this grandfather was meeting Shin Gihyeon for the first time, Han Taegu was acquainted with him.
It was Grandpa Jongsu, who was married to Grandma Suni. Han Taegu ran over to him and asked about his business.
“Hello. What brings you here so early in the morning?”
“Ah, I’m on my way to the farm, but Suni has a message for Yeonu, so I stopped by briefly.”
“He’s probably still sleeping… I’ll pass it along for you.”
“Then please tell him that Kkamie seems like she’ll give birth soon. I’ll be going now.”
Grandpa Jongsu left like that, and Shin Gihyeon asked Han Taegu:
“Who’s Kkamie?”
“Ah, she’s a dog who seems about to give birth.”
Han Taegu informed him based on the information he’d heard from yesterday’s conversation between Yeonwoo and Kang Dojun.
“Yeonwoo-ssi said he’d go watch… I should wake him up and let him know.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you. Then I’ll go call the VJ!”
Shin Gihyeon left Han Taegu behind, who was taking out his phone to contact the VJ, and went inside the house.
When he opened the bedroom door, he blinked once at the scene that unfolded before him.
Next to Kang Dojun, who was sleeping with his body stretched out straight without a trace of dishevelment, Yeonwoo was lying there clinging to him like a cicada on an old tree, staring wide-eyed.
“…What are you doing?”
“Waking up.”
Yeonwoo looked at Shin Gihyeon with a calm expression as if asking what the problem was, and greeted him.
“Good morning. You got up early?”
Shin Gihyeon swallowed the words “because of your thrashing around” and nodded, getting to the point.
“That… Kkamie? She seems about to give birth.”
“Really? I should go see.”
“Kkamie?”
“Sunbae-nim. Are you awake? Good morning.”
“Yeah…” Kang Dojun muttered quietly, but couldn’t lift his lying body. Yeonwoo’s arms and legs were casually draped over his chest and legs.
He looked at Yeonwoo with a quite troubled expression, but Yeonwoo, who didn’t seem to have any intention of moving away, patted Kang Dojun’s firm chest and said:
“Hyung, Kkamie’s about to give birth. Let’s go watch together.”
There was no particular schedule today. Han Taegu had given them the day off, saying he’d mainly film them wandering around the peaceful rural village.
“Let’s do that.”
Only at Kang Dojun’s words did Yeonwoo finally jump up.
“I’ll get ready quickly and come out!”
Kang Dojun also got up and followed behind Yeonwoo, saying:
“Then I will too.”
“Yes. Go ahead!”
Shin Gihyeon nodded vigorously but then felt puzzled. No one had invited him to come along, but… he was included in the “going,” right?
His guest filming was until this evening, and moving together with Kang Dojun seemed right to him.
Kang Dojun followed Yeonwoo, who had gone in to brush his teeth. When he knocked on the bathroom door, he heard Yeonwoo’s “Come in” and opened the door.
Even during the brief time of brushing his teeth, Yeonwoo seemed to dislike standing, so he had put the toilet lid down and was sitting cross-legged on top of it. He was brushing his teeth while touching his phone with one hand.
“Do one thing at a time.”
He habitually ruffled Yeonwoo’s hair while squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush. Then, noticing Yeonwoo’s messy bedhead, he put his toothbrush in his mouth, wet his hand with water, and tidied his hair.
“Hmm, do they have things like this in Seoul too?”
Yeonwoo mumbled with his toothbrush in his mouth, showing Kang Dojun his phone screen. It was scones of various shapes, a popular dessert these days.
“They have pretty much everything.”
“I have a friend who worked on a deep-sea fishing boat together, but he got off the boat last year and lives in Seoul now. He sent me photos and they look really delicious.”
“Deep-sea fishing boat?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated briefly, puzzled by the unfamiliar term that suddenly came up in his conversation with Yeonwoo.
“Ah, there’s a friend named Kim Haseon who boarded the boat with me a few years ago. If you search ‘Wonseon’ on YouTube, he’ll come up.”
“…You were on a deep-sea fishing boat? You?”
“Yes, didn’t I mention it? I boarded the boat right after graduating high school.”
Yeonwoo got up from the toilet, spat out the toothpaste in his mouth, and swished water around. Because of this, his white cheeks repeatedly puffed out and deflated.
Though he didn’t have double eyelids, he opened his big eyes even rounder and looked at Kang Dojun with a blank expression as if asking what was wrong. Soon he spat out the water in his mouth, finished washing his face thoroughly, and wiped his face with a towel.
During this time, Kang Dojun was lost in thought.
‘Come to think of it, there was a fishing rod in the wardrobe…’
He never dreamed that the reason for its presence would be revealed here.
“His name’s funny too. He boarded the ship but his name is Haseon [getting off the ship]. I teased him asking if his hyung’s name was Seungseon [boarding the ship], and we got into a big fight at our first meeting.”
Yeonwoo chuckled as he recalled the past. It was certainly reason enough to fight.
“His Chinese character name uses summer ‘ha’ and beautiful ‘seon,’ but the beautiful ‘seon’ can also mean fish ‘seon’ in another context. I think he was just destined for deep-sea fishing boats.”
“What about you?”
“Huh?”
“What Chinese characters do you use?”
At his question, Yeonwoo rolled his eyes around.
“Swallow ‘yeon’ and feather ‘woo.'”
Kang Dojun, having finished brushing his teeth, took the towel Yeonwoo was holding and wiped his face.
‘Swallow and wings…’
It was a name that perfectly suited Yeonwoo.
“Free-spirited.”
“My paternal grandmother named me. She didn’t know many Chinese characters, so she even looked through a dictionary to give it the best possible meaning. She said swallow ‘yeon’ and feather ‘woo’ had some significance.”
Though Yeonwoo grumbled as he spoke, it was clearly visible that he was embarrassed by Kang Dojun’s compliment.
“Wasn’t the deep-sea fishing boat hard?”
“Fuck, it was incredibly hard.”
At the sudden profanity, Kang Dojun quickly covered his mouth.
Starting with “damn it, really” and then “fuck and incredibly”… When he first heard it, he let it slide because it was cute, but his language was rougher than he looked. Like his personality, his mouth was too free. This definitely seemed like something that needed to be fixed.
It was fortunate there were no cameras in the bathroom, but if Han Taegu had seen this, he would have been delighted and obviously put it in the broadcast.
When he gave Yeonwoo a light flick on the forehead, his black eyes filled with hurt feelings.
In his own way, he had just expressed the scale of difficulty regarding the deep-sea fishing boat, but he got scolded. Yeonwoo whined, drawing out his words:
“Hyuuung. That hurts.”
“Ah, sorry.”
He naturally apologized at his whimpering and was about to rub his forehead when he stopped.
‘I hit him because it would hurt? And I hit him gently anyway.’
His forehead wasn’t even red, and he didn’t look particularly hurt. He just seemed full of hurt feelings about the fact that he’d been flicked.
“Hyung?”
“…No.”
Now that he looked at it, he was quite skilled at acting cute. They were already in a hyung-dongsaeng relationship. It was natural to scold a dongsaeng when they did wrong, yet he had almost comforted him without thinking.
Did the village elders feel these same emotions toward Yeonwoo, so they couldn’t really scold him… He glanced sideways at Yeonwoo, who was looking in the mirror above the sink to check his forehead.
‘How could anyone find fault with such a cute kid.’
Kang Dojun was already completely smitten.
“Did you go right after graduating high school?”
“Yes, after getting off the boat, I went to the military.”
“You enlisted immediately?”
High school, deep-sea fishing boat, military, beekeeping in the countryside?
Even though Kang Dojun had graduated from Seoul Performing Arts High School and immediately jumped into the broadcasting industry, running non-stop, he felt infinitely small compared to Yeonwoo’s track record.
In his eyes, Yeonwoo was truly free.
He had said his friend lived according to his name based on the meaning of his Chinese characters, but rather, it was Yeonwoo who lived according to his name.
Compared to Yeonwoo, who had done various physically demanding jobs from a young age, he felt that what he had done so far was nothing.
“You’re admirable.”
He ruffled Yeonwoo’s hair.
‘Right, how could I scold such a praiseworthy kid.’
* * *
“Ooh, it’s coming out!”
“Be quiet! You’re disturbing Kkamie!”
“Both of you being quiet would be…”
“Sorry, sunbae-nim!”
Inside Grandma Suni’s house, in a small side room, three men and a VJ were crouched down watching Kkamie give birth.
Then, when a small puppy came out and they saw the amniotic sac surrounding the puppy, Yeonwoo made a shocked expression.
“…Isn’t that the uterus protruding?”
Kang Dojun, who was also seeing animal birth for the first time in his life, showed some confusion.
“Wh-what do we do? Is our Kkamie dying? Grandma Suni! Kkamie is strange… mmph!”
“I told you to be quiet, didn’t I? Look carefully, that’s not the uterus, it’s the amniotic sac!”
Shin Gihyeon, who frequently watched animal videos on YouTube, covered Yeonwoo’s mouth and shouted.
“Gihyeon-ssi, if you could also speak a little more quietly…”
“Yes, I’m sorry, sunbae-nim!”
Shin Gihyeon was startled and apologized at Kang Dojun’s request. Then, Yeonwoo, who was quite irritated from having his mouth covered several times today, bit his hand hard, forcing him to scream once again.
“Agh!”
Seeing the two who had no intention of quieting down, Kang Dojun quietly sighed.
Shin Gihyeon glared at Yeonwoo while soothing his bitten hand. As expected, he was a strange and annoying kid.
“Don’t do mean things again.”
Kang Dojun was about to flick Yeonwoo’s forehead but hesitated and stopped his hand.
If he also caused a commotion here, it seemed like it would become uncontrollably loud, so he moved his extended hand to Yeonwoo’s black hair and just lightly ruffled it instead.
And no matter how much he thought about it, he really couldn’t find any reason to hit him.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
