-46-
At that moment, all Kim Bunhong could do was, instead of answering, feel Ido’s collarbone rising and falling through his thin forehead skin while holding Jeong Ido’s back for such a long time.
Finally breaking away from the sheet music due to the persistent embrace, his lover turned around and stared at Bunhong. It was eye contact that was brief but felt like eternity.
“……”
“……”
Then Bunhong, who had been enchantedly gazing at the cigarette smoke pouring from his mouth, finally lifted the corners of his mouth toward Ido as if he had been waiting for his lover’s gaze that lingered on him, showing just an innocent smile. It was an artificial smile he made to desperately hide his inner feelings that he could never confess to the person involved, even if it killed him.
Why was he so obsessed with the song? Even while holding his lover like this, even though he could vividly feel the warm body temperature from their touching skin, he finally gave up in frustration at the terrible loneliness that ultimately enveloped him. Though he wasn’t hungry, he was dominated by such terrible hunger that he wanted to chew up and devour everything about Ido, and actually, Kim Bunhong had already intuited it once back then.
If hell exists, would it be here? Ah. I will never be able to have this man forever. After showing brief interest in such Bunhong, Ido quickly lost interest and began concentrating again on fixing the sheet music placed in front of him.
Bunhong, who felt bitter about being pushed aside by these mere pieces of paper, grumbled while fiddling with the sheet music Ido had piled up beside him.
‘Do you like working that much? More than playing with me?’
‘……Mm.’
Ido neither affirmed nor particularly denied Bunhong’s question. In Ido’s mind, which had already begun immersing himself in work, there wasn’t even the slightest gap for him to squeeze into.
Bunhong muttered while biting his nails.
‘I’m lonely. What is this? Even though we’re together, it feels like I’m alone.’
That murmur, which his lover who was anyway distracted elsewhere couldn’t hear, just became meaningless soliloquy and scattered into the air, mixed with the cigarette smoke rising from Ido’s hand.
Bunhong’s trembling thumb briefly lingered on the sheet music. He traced the musical notes that had become terrible like doodles from being constantly redrawn. Then, seeing the pencil marks naturally rubbing off on his fingers, he laughed helplessly. If he could cover his body with Ido’s traces like this, could their relationship, which seemed meaningless and only vague despite being lovers, eventually remain deep? He thought such things.
And at some point, he desperately realized it. The fact that there was no place for him in Ido’s heart from the beginning.
It was Jeong Ido’s world, cold and heartless, where Kim Bunhong could never belong.
* * *
Only after taking several breaths did Kim Bunhong finally knock softly. Then there was a clicking sound as the door opened.
Bunhong closed his eyes and thought.
‘……This too is putting me to the test.’
When the door opened, the inside of the studio looked similar to before. The producers happened to be reviewing his audition video, and Bunhong’s face was displayed large on the monitor screen.
‘As expected, they recorded it.’
As he looked around the interior expressionlessly, Jeong Ido, who had been sitting in the highest seat among them as if waiting for him to come, lifted the corners of his mouth toward Bunhong.
Perhaps it seemed even more so because the place happened to be here? Why did that smile feel familiar? It was bittersweet on one hand as the fresh and sweet smile like a boy in love that he had rarely shown him like rain in a drought in the past overlapped on that face.
Because he had once considered him, who had been Kim Bunhong’s world and creator, to be quite a wonderful person.
‘Now that I look back, it was all a misunderstanding.’
Still, the appearance of Ido in his early twenties that he came to see after returning to three years ago was exactly like what Kim Bunhong had loved, so he couldn’t help but be shaken. If he had returned with the same face darkened by cynicism over the years since his regression, the emotions he wouldn’t have felt surged up like a fountain in Bunhong’s chest when he faced that face.
Some day in the past. The young man who embraced his trampled dreams that no one acknowledged, whose world inside the studio was all he knew, cried sorrowfully.
‘I wish I could live doing only what I like. How wonderful would it be to live freely making the music I want to make.’
Because he couldn’t even muster the courage to reach out and wipe away Ido’s tears, Bunhong pressed down on his trembling hand with his four fingers and had impure imaginations.
What kind of taste would there be if he licked along those pitiful tear tracks flowing down his distorted face?
Hoping that someday when he became close to him and could kiss his tear-wet eyes, he could speak then, that day’s Kim Bunhong just thought silently while looking at Ido’s crying face instead of putting his wishes into action.
He thought that if those eyes sunken in grief would look only at him without caring about other people’s gazes, if they could cover their eyes and stay together just the two of them, no matter what kind of pit it was, they could be happy there.
Pushing the disheveled hair behind his ear and confessing everything by bringing out all the sincerity he had tried so hard to hide – would his lover be able to smile beautifully for him again after seeing such a self? Past Bunhong wanted to ask Ido that.
That’s why throughout their relationship he couldn’t reveal his true feelings and only confessed lies, Bunhong thought at the end of his recollection.
Jeong Ido slowly stood up from his chair, squeezed through the gap between the gathered producers, stood blocking the front of the monitor and said.
“You’ve seen it, so that’s enough, right? I told you we don’t need tests or anything like that from the beginning.”
“Hmm……”
“Me. I want to go with that guy.”
Ido’s voice pointing at Bunhong standing at the door, not at Kim Bunhong singing in the video, was bright and cheerful like talking about a toy he wanted to have. Yet in that voice, there was an authority that absolutely would not allow anyone to deny his choice.
The producers, who smiled somewhat awkwardly, exchanged opinions with each other.
“Well, it wasn’t bad, right?”
“Ido, your choices have never been wrong so far.”
Watching this, Kim Bunhong thought.
‘Hmm, Ido hyung. So that’s how you’ve been winning people’s favor all this time.’
As he had already expected, Jeong Ido was thoroughly utilizing his unique advantage of knowing the future.
Right, is this why the joke came about that people die when they change? With a disgusted expression, when Bunhong secretly glared at him,
their eyes happened to meet as if he had been looking at him. Startled by this, Kim Bunhong turned his head away first. Then Ido shrugged his shoulders, ran his hand through his hair, and asked the producers.
“But hyungs, aren’t you going to eat?”
Though Jeong Ido’s words of unclear intent were directed at the producers, his gaze was fixed on Kim Bunhong.
“Time has already gotten like this. Ah. We should go. What about you?”
“I have some things left to discuss with this guy. So I’ll take care of food later by myself.”
Kim Bunhong couldn’t figure out what Ido was thinking when he said that, so he bit his nails and calmly observed the unfolding situation.
Leaving the very flustered Bunhong behind, they continued their conversation.
“But did you two know each other originally? I was surprised because you called him so familiarly. Ido, you don’t even speak casually to us hyungs, but the more I think about this, the more hurt I feel?”
When one producer expressed doubt, the rest began to speak as well, naturally making the atmosphere noisy.
“Right, you bastard! That guy even goes to that corner by himself when we go smoke together.”
“I counted and he goes through at least a pack a day easily, right? Anyway, he’s a heavy smoker but strangely hates alcohol. Even when there are drinking gatherings, never attending even once is a bit much, isn’t it? Hey, dude. Men should have loyalty with each other.”
“Eh, I think I saw him secretly drinking in the studio last time. He’s not even an outsider, what’s with……”
“As expected, it’s incredibly difficult to get close to Ido……”
Then Jeong Ido, who quickly put on his social mask, answered them with the utmost politeness in a shy voice that was the first time Bunhong had heard.
“No. I saw him for the first time at the audition venue. He probably can’t grasp the situation yet, so I should let him know. Ah. And I’ll think about the drinking gatherings once, hyungs.”
At those words, the producers all burst into laughter as if they couldn’t stop him.
“Alright. Pass it along well. Everything must be new to him, how nervous he must be. The kid.”
As they passed by Kim Bunhong, who was frozen stiff from being both absurd and getting goosebumps, some of them patted his shoulder a few times saying congratulations before leaving.
After everyone rushed out leaving Jeong Ido and Kim Bunhong behind, the door slammed shut. As if that was some kind of signal flare, Ido raised his hand and began adjusting his clothes as if he had been waiting.
Brushing off the last spot that one of the producers had touched, he frowned intensely.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
