#22
“Do you mean we should just be friends?”
“Ah, hyung.”
He burst into laughter as if he found it absurd.
“Do you think what I want to do with hyung is just being friends?”
I had nothing to say to his question asking why I’d ask when I already knew the answer. Of course I knew that wasn’t it. Even I thought it was a really stupid and cowardly question.
“Not just knowing each other’s three-character names, age, and face. Getting to know each other with good intentions. That’s what I’m suggesting.”
“……”
“You said you can’t date right now, right? Actually, I’m in a similar situation too.”
“So you must be disappointed.”
“Mm. It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t disappointed, right? But I decided to change my perspective.”
He took both my hands and helped me up. A comfortable sensation supported me, as if there was a soft carpet laid under my feet.
“We’ve gained time. Time for us to learn about each other, test each other, and peel back layers to face each other’s true selves.”
“Jin Woohyeon-ssi.”
“Seriously considering your answer to this proposal—that’s the price of the sneakers.”
I fidgeted with the stiff paper rustling between our overlapped hands. I had thought he might ask for my contact information, but it was the opposite. What he wanted wasn’t my phone number, but my choice.
“What happens if I don’t contact you?”
“I’ll be very disappointed and wait for an amazing coincidence.”
“What about a deadline?”
“Deadline?”
He grinned and let go of me. Jin Woohyeon lightly tapped his shoulder with a loosely clenched fist and said,
“I have good patience. So don’t worry and think it over thoroughly.”
While I hesitated, he gestured toward the old sneakers.
“Since we bought them anyway, wear those home, hyung. I’ll ask the staff to take care of those.”
“……No.”
I came to my senses and shook my head.
Contacting him—in other words, leaving open some possibility for our relationship—was indeed a matter that required consideration. I was timid, and this change that seemed like it would break even my long-standing inertia frightened me a little.
“I won’t take those.”
But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to change.
“Could you throw them away?”
The staff member who was standing at a distance nodded.
“Yes, I’ll dispose of them for you.”
When I walked out of the store first with confident steps, Jin Woohyeon followed me with quick little steps. He had a face deep in thought the whole time, but by the time we crossed over to the hospital building and arrived at the underground parking garage, he was grinning broadly.
Wondering what made him so happy, I was staring up at him intently.
“Hyung, do you know?”
He asked while opening the passenger door for me.
“The meaning of giving shoes as a gift?”
“There’s such a thing?”
“You’re really clueless about how the world works.”
When I bent down, Jin Woohyeon naturally placed his hand on the upper part of the car. It was a spot where I might have bumped my head if I moved carelessly.
“It means taking someone to good places.”
“……You didn’t give them to me with that meaning, did you?”
“But I did put them directly on your feet. So it has that meaning too.”
He grinned and said to me,
“If hyung wants, I’ll take you anywhere, to good places.”
Thud, a sound rang out.
It was hard to tell whether it was the sound of the car door closing or my heart sinking.
* * *
“You’re going to catch a cold doing this……”
I heard a tsk-tsking sound, then my body was gently lifted. It was so soft and careful that I remained sprawled out, still feeling like I was dreaming.
I had only gone to the hospital and department store, but I started nodding off from when I was preparing dinner. I put water on the stove to boil thin noodles for soup and dozed off, so An Lei, who had just returned home, had to shake me awake.
‘You look tired, Sanho hyung.’
‘……’
‘Want to go to your room and sleep? I’m going upstairs to hang out anyway, so you can rest quietly.’
At first I thought An Lei was teasing or testing me, but after spending time with him, it didn’t seem like that. He just had a cheerful personality and liked people.
He would have known from the beginning that I was Lee Chan’s ex, but at least his curiosity and fondness for me were of a pure kind, I thought.
‘Maybe he doesn’t even know that he’s a transfer target……’
Perhaps because of that, now when I looked at An Lei, my chest didn’t ache sharply or my heart didn’t beat anxiously and restlessly. I just thought, let’s see people as people. Of course, this was completely separate from my feelings about Lee Chan.
We all gathered to eat dinner and had time to prepare for the first date. Both the partner and location were decided randomly, and my partner was Choi Eungi.
‘The location being a national park is a bit concerning though.’
Bukhansan National Park—in other words, a mountain. I didn’t want to reveal personal details through the broadcast, so I preferred not to talk about my ankle injury if possible, but I’d have to discuss it well with Choi Eungi separately later.
I hadn’t brought a single pair of sneakers, but fortunately Jin Woohyeon bought me sneakers today. It might not have been a gift with that meaning, but unintentionally, they were shoes that served many roles.
I was thinking such thoughts while lying face down on the dining table when I dozed off.
“Mmm.”
The hands that carefully adjusted my tossing and turning body were gentle. Only then did I realize I was being held by someone. A slight smell of gunpowder, leather scent, and a cool fragrance like bamboo tickled my nostrils.
Who was the person with this scent……
“Taeseong hyung, when you go out to smoke, let’s go together…… Huh?”
I flinched at the familiar voice. It was a voice I couldn’t help but recognize. It was Lee Chan.
“What’s with you two?”
“What do you mean.”
Bae Taeseong answered while holding me firmly against his body.
“I’m moving him to his room.”
I heard a rustling sound. Without me knowing, Bae Taeseong had apparently covered me with the leather jacket he often wore.
“I mean.”
Lee Chan asked in a tone that suggested he couldn’t understand.
“You could just wake him up and send him upstairs, so why are you holding him like some precious treasure? He’ll wake up on his own if you leave him alone.”
“He’ll catch a cold if I just leave him.”
“I don’t know about the living room, but the kitchen wasn’t cold. No wind comes in.”
Bae Taeseong hesitated for a moment. I felt his pheromones become strangely sharp. It was a subtle change I wouldn’t have noticed normally, but perhaps because I was approaching my heat cycle, I could sense it more clearly.
‘I’ll have to take a day off after finishing the first date.’
Even though I got an IV drip, I’d probably feel chilly and achy for about a day, so rather than stubbornly enduring it and causing worry, I should step aside separately. I was having such thoughts.
“You knew he was sleeping in the kitchen?”
Bae Taeseong’s cool voice rang out.
“The kid was sleeping face down and you just passed by? He was shivering in just a thin shirt?”
Did I shiver in my sleep? I didn’t know. I was just drowsy and lacking energy, so I had just stuck myself somewhere people weren’t around. I didn’t want to go upstairs and run into An Lei and Lee Chan together.
“You have less manners than I thought……”
“Why does just thinking ‘he’ll probably wake up and take care of himself’ and passing by become a matter of manners?”
Lee Chan asked indignantly.
“It’s Taeseong hyung’s business that you like Sanho. I don’t have as much fondness for Sanho as Taeseong hyung does for him, so that’s how it is, right? Conversely, if it were someone I liked, I would have done that. It’s uncomfortable that you’re suddenly making me out to be a bad person.”
“……”
“Anyway, even if I passed by, hyung took care of him. You can’t just leave him alone even though he’ll wake up soon on his own, covering him with clothes and carrying him. He’s not even a patient, why go that far.”
“Hey.”
Bae Taeseong said in a growling tone.
“This kid was sick a few days ago……”
“Taeseong-ah.”
I had woken up but it was a bit awkward to open my eyes and butt in, so I was still pretending to sleep when a voice rang out from a distance.
Han Jiwon, who had been looking down at us from upstairs, intervened with good timing.
“Take Sanho to his room and let’s talk for a moment.”
“……”
“Sanho will be cold. Are you going to keep doing that?”
“……No.”
“Then hurry up and come back.”
Bae Taeseong sighed and started walking again. He went straight to my room and laid me down on the inner bed.
“Yoo Sanho.”
He must have known I was awake. I slowly lifted my eyelids.
Bae Taeseong, sitting by my bedside, looked down at me. Perhaps because he was shrouded in darkness, I couldn’t see his expression well.
“What exactly did you find pretty about Lee Chan that made you date him?”
“……”
“He’s so cold to you like that.”
After hesitating for a moment, I smiled.
“He was affectionate once upon a time.”
Looking at us now, no one would believe it, but it really was true.
There was a time when Lee Chan was affectionate toward me too. There were times when he insisted we absolutely had to hold hands when walking, stubbornly interlocking our fingers, and times when he even got into fistfights on my behalf, getting angry at kids our age who teased me. On my parents’ memorial days, he would always go to the columbarium with me, and when I cried all night, he would lie next to me and constantly rub my swollen eyes with his cold hands.
Now that kindness just isn’t my portion anymore. Our love had an expiration date too, and the permitted time has all run out.
The fact that my heart and Lee Chan’s heart live at different speeds—as Lee Chan said, it’s not his fault.
“So don’t hate Chan. He’s a good kid.”
“Do you want to take his side even in this situation?”
“I’m saying this for hyung’s sake. Don’t look at him through colored glasses because of me.”
Bae Taeseong said reproachfully,
“Pushover.”
“Hehe.”
“Ridiculous, man.”
He roughly tousled my hair with a somewhat coarse touch.
“Meet a good guy. Okay?”
I answered Bae Taeseong while closing my eyes.
“I might try to.”
Instead of an answer, I heard a small laugh.
“Sleep.”
That curtly dropped word was warm.
I felt like I could sleep soundly without dreams tonight. Really.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
