“Chihuahua?”
When Jaehyuk called out to Junghyun amid the suddenly paused conversation, Junghyun, who had been blankly staring at his phone, quickly moved his hands to change the subject.
“…I want ramen for dinner. From that place we ate at before.”
“If you can walk, that is.”
Jaehyuk’s look said, “At your current pace, it would take you 10 years to reach the ramen shop.”
“I took the muscle relaxant, so I’ll be fine soon.”
“Sure. Since you look like you could eat not just the ramen but the bowl too, we’ll go out in the afternoon if you’re feeling better. I want to see the ocean anyway.”
“…You really do love the ocean.”
“Don’t you like it too?”
As Jaehyuk smiled, saying that must be the case given how much he surfs, Junghyun’s hand paused again.
If asked whether he liked the ocean, he had no particular preference either way.
He surfed because Seojun did, and the ocean was just the ocean to him.
Sometimes scary, sometimes pretty, sometimes tiresome.
“…I’ve never thought about it that way… I hope I’ll come to like it in the future.”
“Then we’ll have another thing we both like.”
Feeling his heart sink again, Junghyun rubbed the screen and responded a beat too late.
“…It’s already problematic enough how many things we share.”
“Maybe so?”
While trying to appear casual and continuing their usual conversation, Junghyun focused on the messages on his phone, attempting to regain his composure.
The messages were as expected:
A few from his uncle and Yoonho hyung asking if he was okay, several from Yongwoo and Jisung asking why he wasn’t responding, dozens of useless notifications from alumni groups and supporter group chats, and finally, a few messages from work colleagues.
First, he sent a message to his uncle saying his heat had ended well and he was currently recovering, then he opened Yoonho hyung’s message.
The first message that appeared was from three weeks ago:
[Yoonho hyung: I clearly warned you that you would regret it.]
He had told his worried hyung that he was already regretting it, but that wasn’t true regret.
It was just an excuse because he thought things would become troublesome.
But now he was truly regretting it.
He should never have gotten any closer to him.
The reason he tried to stop back then was because he had sensed this would happen.
After seeing how Jaehyuk looked at Yeonwoo, he thought “I want to be loved like that too” because his gaze and touch were so gentle.
He had always thought love was a hassle and troublesome, but seeing Jaehyuk’s kindness made him want to be loved that way for the first time.
So when he met him at the bar a month and a half ago, he instinctively knew.
That he would eventually fall in love with him.
That’s why he tried to draw a clear line by deliberately being more cynical, but love had already begun.
Like a wave – fast and massive, impossible to avoid or resist – it had instantly swallowed him whole.
All he could do was flail about in it.
He had made a tremendous mistake.
A mistake that should never have been made.
* * *
“Can you really walk?”
“I took medicine, so I feel a bit better.”
After the sun had set, Junghyun bundled up in layers and went out for a walk and dinner. He hunched his shoulders as he walked along the beach.
The wind was definitely cold. But he felt good.
The complex thoughts that had been circling his mind were suffocating, but breathing in the cold sea air gave him some relief.
The sound of waves, the cold air, and the unique briny smell of the ocean were all pleasant.
Enough to make him regret having to leave tomorrow.
“We came all the way to the ocean but couldn’t even surf properly.”
“It’s okay. We can go abroad in winter.”
Junghyun laughed incredulously at Jaehyuk’s response that he was already preparing for a winter vacation.
“Will you have time?”
“I’ll make time. Since I couldn’t take a summer vacation.”
“If you like it that much, you could have gone to an indoor place.”
“I’m thinking of doing that from now on. Especially since you’re here too.”
“…This really was training camp after all.”
“More precisely, it was an entrance test.”
“So did I pass?”
“With flying colors.”
As they exchanged meaningless conversation while walking on the sandy beach, Junghyun’s gaze suddenly lifted toward the ocean.
With the changing season, only the soft moonlight and starlight fell over the quiet sea.
Though darkness enveloped the deserted shore, the waves remained clearly visible.
Junghyun unconsciously stopped walking as he watched the high waves rolling in through the darkness. While he stood there, momentarily lost in thought, Jaehyuk, who had stopped alongside him, asked:
“Are you okay?”
“…Huh?”
“You’ve been looking unwell for a while.”
At his tone, tinged with poorly disguised concern, Junghyun quietly looked up at him.
His feelings for Jaehyuk were surging like waves.
Feelings he had no power to control.
He could only be helplessly swept away by their force.
“…Do you remember the first time you surfed?”
“Well… it was too long ago. But I remember being excited.”
“I first learned to surf in my freshman year of college, and the senior who taught me said: ‘No matter how much you try to run away from waves, you can’t escape them, so just ride them and follow their flow. That’s what surfing is.'”
“That’s how everyone learns at first. It’s impossible for humans to beat the waves.”
“Then I should ride the flow, right?”
“If the wave is already right in front of you.”
“Yes… that’s right.”
He never intended to resist in the first place.
There was no way to avoid, escape, or refuse it anyway.
Now he had no choice but to entrust himself to this flow.
Eventually, the wave would wash over and pass.
As if it had never surged, it would disappear into the water without a trace.
It was just a fleeting moment.
Love is nothing more than a hormone-induced sensation, a delusion.
Once you get used to the raging hormones, love disappears as if it never existed.
Leaving only a faint scar.
So for now, he just needed to follow the flow of emotions.
He planned to carefully contain these feelings within himself, making sure no one noticed, making sure they never overflowed.
Cherishing them preciously, quietly.
Until that emotion dissolved into the vast ocean.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go quickly.”
With his thoughts now calmly organized, Junghyun urged him to continue walking, grabbing Jaehyuk’s arm.
Along with the briny scent of the sea, Jaehyuk’s sweet winter rain-like scent flowed in.
He liked that smell. And he liked his body heat too.
Even if the emotion disappeared, he would probably remember his scent for a very long time.
Until the moment he died.
Chapter 12
It was definitely a dream.
He was aware of that.
In the dream, his body was submerged in deep water.
He kept sinking in warm, comfortable water.
Going deeper and deeper…
* * *
“How about finally getting up now?”
In the same room, right beside him, Jaehyuk was holding his phone and nagging Junghyun to get up already. But Junghyun, with his phone in hand, showed no signs of rising.
The only encouraging sign was that he had at least woken up enough to hold his phone.
Though he seemed to have no intention of answering any calls.
“It’s time you should be heading to work.”
Despite his boasts about correcting Junghyun’s habits, it was Jaehyuk who first gave up in their morning wake-up battles over the past three months.
Over the last three months, he had tried coaxing, pleading, even threatening; he got so frustrated he contemplated throwing things at him and actually tried, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to kick or throw Junghyun out of bed.
Instead, he tried rolling him around the bed a few times…
But as he rolled the sleeping Junghyun back and forth, he thought, “I’m not making kimbap here, what am I doing?” and felt dejected.
So he finally surrendered.
“Do whatever you want.”
They compromised that Junghyun wouldn’t even dream of waking up at 6 AM but would get up before work hours, and since Junghyun said he usually wakes up after 7-8 hours of sleep, they agreed that unless something special happened, he would go to bed before midnight without fail.
And that promise had been faithfully kept.
By the time Jaehyuk got off work, Junghyun was usually already asleep. Yesterday too, when he returned home around 11 PM, Junghyun was already passed out.
And now it was 7 AM.
He should be getting up by now.
But he just couldn’t move his body.
Come to think of it, yesterday was the same.
It wasn’t surprising that this guy couldn’t get up in the morning—it had been that way forever—but lately it seemed even worse.
“Lee Junghyun…”
As Jaehyuk called his name in a pleading tone, telling him to get up already, Junghyun finally responded.
“Just five more minutes…”
At least he was talking.
That meant he was awake.
Now he just needed to get his body up.
“Get up already. It’s time for work.”
“…I can go in late…”
“No. Today you need to leave work with me.”
One of the agreements they had reached after numerous attempts and trial and error over the past three months was that on days when Jaehyuk left work early, they would leave together without fail. And since they needed to use one car, they also had to commute together. Having confirmed that Junghyun was awake, Jaehyuk grabbed his wrist and forcibly lifted his body.
Junghyun sat up abruptly like a roly-poly toy with his eyes half-closed and mumbled irritably:
“…I can leave work early regardless of when I go in.”
“We have to take the same car.”
“I’ll crawl there…”
“No. Get up. And how many hours are you sleeping these days? I think you might need to go to the hospital at this rate.”
“It’s because it’s cold…”
It was February. And an unusually cold one at that.
Until January, abnormally warm temperatures had made spring flowers bloom on the streets, but when February arrived, a cold wave suddenly hit.
But in this house, that was just an excuse.
Since December, the house had been consistently maintained at 27 degrees.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
Oh noes, big emotions!!!