-14-
Wait. I’ll come if you sleep for twenty nights. So I counted to ten. Of course, he didn’t come. Because the promised time hadn’t arrived yet. So I counted on my fingers and counted to ten again. But even after once, twice passed, he didn’t come. In the end, like that, he never returned.
Perhaps the moment he opened the page, Kim Bunhong thought he might have known the ending of this book. Because it was something he had already experienced once before. Among those who said to wait, that they would return, how many actually came back?
Still, just in case. And, as expected.
When you realize that far too many, countless years have passed to come back now, naturally then wouldn’t you know?
That love has ended.
Duho stared at Bunhong with an expression of being flabbergasted, mouth agape as if listening to an absurd, empty lie, at the smile shown while saying he was fine.
However, even though he had said that to Duho, Bunhong actually knew. The fact that he was lying.
They say liars chase illusions. That’s why they keep telling lies.
But those illusions are just mirages, so no one can see the truth, and the words spoken inevitably become lies.
Kim Bunhong thought it was fortunate that the tteokbokki was spicy. Because it was spicy, even if tears came, he could just use that as an excuse.
Sniffling, Bunhong thought to himself:
“What is this…”
Kim Bunhong had suddenly become a kid who burst into tears while eating tteokbokki in front of strangers, two of them no less.
“They must think I’m strange.”
Even knowing that, he couldn’t stop the flowing tears. When will they stop? A faucet that’s been locked all winter long, once turned on, doesn’t know how to turn itself off, so it ends up overflowing like this.
Kim Bunhong was already too worn out and exhausted to start over. Even if he had come back three years in time, Bunhong concluded that not much would change.
“What’s the point of regression? I’m still the same, nothing will change.”
Then Hangeul next to him started grumbling:
“The tteokbokki is spicy enough to bring tears. They must have put too much gochujang in it.”
However, Bunhong, who had already seen Hangeul eating tteokbokki without any problem until just now, quickly realized that this was something he had instantly made up for his sake.
Hangeul was still grumbling to himself as if angry:
“It’s supposed to be a famous restaurant, but to make such a mistake! I’ll have to give them a sharp word later.”
They had clearly bought tteokbokki from just any store visible on the street because no places were open. In other words, since they had never been there, they couldn’t know if it was a famous restaurant.
However, none of the three people in the car bothered to point out that fact.
Hangeul, who had roughly scanned the finished tteokbokki spot with his eyes, stroked Bunhong’s head and said:
“I’ll clean up, so sleep well. I’ll wake you when we arrive.”
Then he immediately went to the passenger seat, entered Bunhong’s home address into the navigation system, and urged the manager to drive.
The manager glanced at the back seat, then went to sit in the front seat and finally started driving.
“Huh? Ah.”
Swoosh, along with the wheels starting to move, Bunhong really fell asleep. For him, he had already fallen asleep once in the changing room, so he wasn’t particularly tired, but Hangeul’s words to sleep well worked like magic, making his eyes close by themselves.
Before long, the car arrived at its destination. For Bunhong, who was still drowsy and rubbing his eyes in a half-asleep state, Hangeul opened the car door first and carefully pulled him outside.
Then their eyes met. Hangeul, who had been carefully looking at Kim Bunhong’s face with narrowly opened eyes as if gauging something, suddenly smiled brightly and said:
“Actually, I realized it not too long ago.”
He waves his palm, then clenches it into a fist.
“…”
“Where we encountered each other once.”
The hand that opened again gently touched Bunhong’s trembling hand. At that moment, Bunhong let out a small gasp.
“…Ah.”
He had thought maybe, but perhaps because male fans in school uniforms weren’t common. As Bunhong expected, Hangeul had noticed long ago.
“During the performance, our eyes met, didn’t they?”
As he said, Bunhong had also felt that their eyes met each other. However, Bunhong thought it was just his own delusion.
Because it was very common for fans to mistakenly think that a singer made eye contact with them and get excited about it.
Moreover, since Kim Bunhong had also performed before regression, he knew that connecting with the audience while on stage was only possible with great skill. Usually, they would be desperately focused on digesting the songs and pressed for time.
However, black pupils gazed at him as Hangeul’s whisper continued:
“Just like this, right now.”
Kim Bunhong, who had been shaken and lost his bearings at the suddenly met gaze, was captivated by that light.
―They were eyes that sparkled just like stars.
Bringing both hands to his face and pretending to cry cutely, Hangeul said:
“Earlier, you crying.”
Then he looked at him with a bright smile, and that smile was so innocent that Bunhong couldn’t even get angry asking if he was teasing him.
Without stopping, Hangeul asked Bunhong with a voice full of passion like someone whose heart was overflowing with something:
“It wasn’t because you lost it, but because you forgot it, right?”
“…”
“That playlist.”
“…”
Looking at Hangeul’s purely innocent face, Kim Bunhong recalled words he had once glimpsed in passing:
“Only honesty can completely change our lives.”
However, it was a story far from Kim Bunhong. That’s why he yearned for music and leaned on music. No matter how elaborately the narrator tells their story, making the listener able to empathize. That was the power of music as he thought of it.
He had seen people who would surely leave him if they saw his actual crumbling state, yet shed tears and be moved when listening to songs.
For Bunhong, who had been busy living by hiding himself while thinking like that all along, Hangeul’s attitude came across as refreshing. Oh Hangeul showed words and actions that Bunhong could never do.
“And, at that performance then,”
“…”
How can a person express their heart so honestly like this?
Two eyes sparkling with curiosity, right now, at this moment, in this place, looking only at him with such fervor as if only the two of them were left in the world… Kim Bunhong felt dizzy.
Knowing this, Hangeul expressed his feelings without hesitation:
“I saw your eyes. They say eyes are the windows to the soul.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
