#38
“But is this really okay?”
The voice I finally managed to get out was half-swallowed by the loud noise.
“What? I can’t hear you.”
“Isn’t this dangerous?!”
It was my first time riding a motorcycle in my life. It was completely different from the delivery scooters I often saw around the neighborhood. With a bit of exaggeration, it felt like getting on a small sports car.
It was fascinating and fun, but just as scary. Bae Taeseong might feel less scared since he’s bigger than me and has longer legs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was dangling in the air with both legs hanging, clinging to him.
‘Of all times to say that when starting the engine.’
The words he said without even looking back still rang clear in my ears.
‘You’ll fall if you don’t hold on properly.’
While the motorcycle briefly stopped at an intersection signal, Bae Taeseong tapped my arm.
“Yoo Sanho. You’re not planning to burst me, are you?”
“This much doesn’t even hurt……”
“That’s true though.”
I must have been hugging his waist too tightly. I loosened the tension in my stiffly tensed arms a little.
“I was worried I’d fall.”
“Hey, that was a joke earlier.”
He burst into laughter.
“As if I’d actually let you fall.”
Unlike mine, which was like a cap that you put on and buckle under your chin, Bae Taeseong’s helmet covered his entire head. Maybe because of that, his voice came through with a rumbling echo.
“I’m driving carefully, so don’t worry.”
After arriving at the lake park, Bae Taeseong, who pulled off my helmet for me while I fumbled, asked.
“Still, it was fun, right?”
“Yes. Even though it was scary, it was good.”
“But if anyone tries to put you on a motorcycle next time, kick their shins.”
“Why?”
“Because it is dangerous.”
I followed behind him to the bicycle rental shop.
“Even if they drive carefully?”
“Of course. On the road, an accident can’t be avoided just because I alone drive well. No matter how much gear you wear on a motorcycle, it’s not much different from being bare-bodied.”
Still, he said he also switched to a car.
“Han…… no, my X didn’t like it. Riding motorcycles. So I’m going to ride it one last time today and dispose of it.”
I was so surprised that even though I knew we’d come too far to see it anymore, I turned around to look back. Then I hurried to catch up with Bae Taeseong, who had moved far away.
“Dispose of it? You’re selling it?”
“Yeah. I won’t ride it anymore. I need to take care of my body too. If my arm gets blown off, my career would be ruined.”
“That’s true too……”
I thought for a moment and asked.
“How long has it been since you broke up with your X?”
“A year? More than that?”
“But what that person dislikes is still important?”
“Yeah.”
Bae Taeseong answered without hesitation.
“Of course it’s important.”
“Even after breaking up, you don’t become strangers?”
“Even if we become strangers and never meet again.”
“……”
“Even if we’re strangers, the fact that he genuinely worried about me doesn’t disappear.”
It was a tone full of conviction.
“It’s naturally as important as my own decisions. What kind of meaning he had to me.”
I thought Bae Taeseong was amazing. It meant he had stayed by Han Jiwon’s side with that kind of conviction for 7 years. I also envied his strength.
“I’m telling you this a bit late, but I’m not very good at riding bicycles.”
What we rented was a bicycle for two. Since the accident, I’d hardly ridden anything like this, so I was worried whether I could maintain my balance well.
“It’s okay. I’ll do almost everything from the front. You just need to pedal well.”
“……”
“If you don’t want to, should we do something else? Or should I change to a single bike and carry you on the back?”
After hesitating for a moment, I shook my head.
“No, I want to try riding.”
I’d done enough of being scared, reading the room, and being careful about everything. I wanted to make a choice I wouldn’t normally make.
“Take it easy.”
“Yes.”
We rode the bicycle and made a big loop around the lake. As he said, it wasn’t that difficult. Maybe because he maintained the balance well from the front, it was really enough to just pedal diligently.
“……Wow.”
I leaned back slightly and looked around. The lake where April sunlight shattered and settled, trees with cherry blossoms in full bloom, cool and refreshing wind. Bright and relaxed people…….
It was just as Han Jiwon had said. It really felt like coming out to play. My insides, which had been clogged and stuffy from holding too much, opened up and I even felt relieved.
Now I think I could think about Lee Chan without it hurting so much. The heart that had been throbbing as if there was a thorn that would never come out seemed like it could heal too.
I thought the world would collapse if we broke up, but it’s not like that at all. I burst into laughter. I can be this happy even with someone else. Why was I so blinded by just one person?
It was truly a long-awaited sense of liberation.
“Let’s spread out over there. How about it? There’ll be a good space for filming too.”
“Yes. Should we eat our lunch boxes?”
“Yeah.”
A cheerful atmosphere flowed throughout our sharing of the lunch boxes I’d worked hard to prepare.
“But you really do have unusual tastes, Sanho.”
“Why?”
“Anchovy jerky. You like stuff like this.”
When I looked at him with a calm face, Bae Taeseong tilted his head.
“Why aren’t you laughing now?”
“I laugh when something’s funny.”
“What I do isn’t funny? Old man karaoke. Winter solstice dumplings. The words are the same, aren’t they?”
“Come on. What kind of magic spell is that? Just because the words are the same doesn’t make everything funny. You know, the atmosphere, the tone. Hwang Yeonwoo really makes anything funny no matter what he says.”
“What? Now I have to match the mood lighting too?”
“Mood light…… what did you say?”
“Lighting, temperature, humidity. How is it that you don’t even use the internet? Don’t you look at SNS or anything?”
“No. I don’t really use the internet…… I don’t even have SNS accounts. Maybe YouTube a little? To look up recipes.”
“Huh. Then what do you do with your life normally?”
“Look at recipes. Research recipes? And listen to music a little? Oh, and read books.”
“You’re so like yourself in every way……”
After eating lunch and taking another lap, we decided to rest at a nearby cafe before returning to the dormitory.
It turned out Bae Taeseong had received contact asking him to move to a different location in the late afternoon. The production team had sent that text last night, but I hadn’t received any contact.
“You must be doing an interview.”
“That’s strange. Do they do interviews that far away? My X didn’t get any contact either.”
“Is it a solo one? That’s interesting.”
“Right. Should we start moving?”
“Sounds good.”
It was around then that I staggered as I tried to get up to pack up. I thought I was fine since there wasn’t any particular pain, but the moment I stepped on the ground with my left foot, my ankle lost strength and twisted deeply.
“……Yoo Sanho!”
Bae Taeseong, who urgently grabbed my shoulder to steady me, frowned.
“What’s wrong with your foot? Does it hurt? Are you injured?”
“No……”
“Tell me straight. I’m asking if you got hurt while riding the bicycle earlier.”
It was an unprecedentedly firm attitude. I newly realized that he was an athlete who reacted as sensitively to injuries as he did to achievements.
He probably didn’t know when we were riding the bicycle together because I was on the back seat, and after that, he probably just thought I walked slowly.
I was caught by Bae Taeseong and sat back down. Since he didn’t look like he’d let me go until I told him everything properly, I eventually had to sigh and explain the whole story.
“I was in a traffic accident when I was 8. At that time, my foot was trapped under the crushed car body…… and I was discovered late. The bones all healed, but the damaged nerves apparently can’t recover.”
“An 8-year-old child was trapped in a car but discovered late? Didn’t the people in the car report it?”
I opened and closed my mouth, then lowered my eyes.
It’s been a long time. It’s already been 20 years. Even though my memories of the accident are clear, I have almost no memories from before. My life after the accident has been much, much longer than my life before it.
But I was still scared to talk about it. No matter how much I tried to hide and endure it, my hands trembled.
I clearly got out of the half-destroyed car.
“From outside…… another driver must have reported it.”
“……”
“Both my parents passed away then.”
If there was anything fortunate, it was that both of them didn’t suffer for too long and passed away immediately. I called out to the dead people and just waited for someone to get me out. No, I think I rather hoped they wouldn’t get me out. Because even if I got out of here, I didn’t know how I should live. Because it was so sudden to be thrown into a life I’d never imagined even once…….
“But now I’m fine……”
At that moment, Bae Taeseong pulled me into a tight embrace.
It was a force strong enough to take my breath away.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
I know the Ml is the Ml but would it be so wrong to want Taeseong too 🥲💜