# Chapter 2
The man was wearing a mask like Haeseung. Though it covered more than half his face, Haeseung recognized him immediately.
“Oh? You…”
“Lee Haeseung. What are you doing here?”
He removed his mask with one hand and smiled as if pleased to see him. Haeseung returned an awkward smile as he looked at his old friend standing before him.
“I’m waiting for someone.”
His friend’s gaze soon fell on the standee.
“What’s that? Why is it randomly sitting in the middle of the street?”
“I don’t know either. It’s been here for a while.”
Haeseung quickly squeezed out an excuse, feeling cold sweat breaking out, his voice trembling.
“For a while? How long have you been here?”
His friend’s eyes narrowed. Haeseung bit the corner of his lip, thinking that his luck had turned particularly bad. Running into his noona on the stairs when leaving home had indeed been a sign of bad luck.
“Me? I just got here. It’s cold, hurry up and go inside.”
Haeseung urged, pushing his friend’s back, but his friend remained planted to the ground, not budging at all.
“What’s wrong? You seem a bit flustered. Meeting a girlfriend?”
“Where would I get a girlfriend?”
“Then who are you meeting?”
The way he kept pressing, dragging out each question, didn’t seem right—he clearly had no intention of backing down easily. To avoid the worst-case scenario of his friend meeting the standee buyer, Haeseung grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. The standee of athlete Kang Mugyeong stared blankly at the two of them. Haeseung kept his eyes on the standee while speaking half-heartedly.
“Go wait in the rooftop room. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”
“Why? Let’s go together.”
“Hey, come on! Just go inside like I said.”
Haeseung finally burst out in irritation. His friend, unfazed by Haeseung’s outburst, just grinned as if finding the whole situation incredibly amusing. As Haeseung looked at his friend with anxious frustration, his face suddenly froze as a realization dawned on him. Something felt off. It couldn’t be… With a sinking feeling, Haeseung called the standee buyer, his most recent call. The call went through, and shattering his hopes that it couldn’t possibly be him, a vibration sounded from inside his friend’s jacket. His friend, without breaking eye contact with Haeseung, put the smartphone to his ear and said:
“Oh? I’m getting a call? Hello?”
“…”
“I’ve arrived at the station entrance. Ah, I see you right in front of me.”
Glaring at his friend, who was casually answering the phone while pinching his nose with his index finger, Haeseung let out a deep sigh.
“It was you?”
His friend burst out laughing. The laughter came through vividly through the smartphone as well. He took out a bundle of 50,000 won bills from his wallet and handed them to Haeseung. Haeseung looked back and forth between the money and his friend’s face, his own face turning pale.
“Sorry I’m late. Training finished late.”
“…”
“By the way, I changed my number this morning, so save this new one. The previous one got leaked again.”
After stuffing the bills into Haeseung’s jacket pocket, his friend walked over to the standee, which was exactly his height, and easily picked it up with one arm.
“Lee Haeseung, what are you doing? Let’s go inside, it’s cold.”
Despite his inner turmoil, Haeseung couldn’t move a step from where he stood. He looked with confused eyes at his friend, who had become the new owner of the Kang Mugyeong standee. The bills carelessly stuffed in his pocket felt unbearably heavy, making it difficult to take a step.
“Hey, Kang Mugyeong.”
When Haeseung called the name, both the Mugyeong in the standee and the Mugyeong holding it turned to look at him simultaneously. A fallen leaf from the roadside tree dropped onto Mugyeong’s shoulder in the cold wind. Haeseung’s vision was completely filled with Kang Mugyeong. Mugyeong, who had turned to look at Haeseung, smiled with his characteristic eye-smile as if he understood everything.
Realizing he couldn’t just stand there stupidly, Haeseung reluctantly followed Mugyeong. He deliberately walked a little behind Mugyeong. The questions ‘why’ and ‘how’ floated around in Haeseung’s head. Why had Kang Mugyeong bought the standee? And how had he discovered Haeseung’s post less than an hour after he uploaded it to the secondhand trading site? Haeseung fingered the bills in his pocket that had come from Mugyeong’s hand. It felt as if the guilt he was feeling had been directly converted into the amount of money.
Mugyeong stopped at a point between his house and Haeseung’s. Mugyeong’s house was right next to Haeseung’s. The two-story house where Mugyeong lived was relatively new compared to the surrounding buildings that were twenty to thirty years old. It had been rebuilt when Mugyeong’s family moved in fifteen years ago.
With the standee still in his arms, Mugyeong looked at Haeseung and said:
“Let’s go to my place.”
Despite being next door, it was extremely rare for Haeseung to visit Mugyeong’s house. Normally, the two would have headed to Haeseung’s rooftop room. The reason Mugyeong suggested going to his house was probably to put the standee away. After all, he couldn’t bring the standee that Haeseung had sold back to Haeseung’s rooftop room.
Standing hesitantly for a moment, Haeseung eventually nodded in agreement. There was a conversation he needed to have with Mugyeong as soon as possible, before guilt could outweigh his curiosity.
“Is your mother not home?” Haeseung asked as he neatly removed his shoes at the entrance.
“No. She went to her neighborhood meeting.”
Haeseung’s expression wasn’t bright as he went up to Mugyeong’s room on the second floor. Though they were the closest of friends, Haeseung always felt uncomfortable at Mugyeong’s house. That discomfort was also why the two usually gathered at Haeseung’s rooftop room. Mugyeong, immediately perceiving Haeseung’s unease, added in a reassuring tone:
“Should we go to the rooftop room after I drop this off?”
“Yeah.”
Mugyeong lived in this spacious house with just his mother. The second floor was entirely Mugyeong’s space. It had two rooms, a bathroom, a living room, and even a stylish mini-bar kitchen. It was worlds apart from Haeseung’s rooftop room, which had just one room with a cramped kitchen and bathroom—making any comparison meaningless.
Haeseung followed Mugyeong into the room. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room until Mugyeong told him to sit, at which point he carefully perched on the edge of the bed. Mugyeong placed the standee in question next to his desk. Judging that the time had come, Haeseung looked up at Mugyeong.
“Why did you do it?”
Haeseung opened the conversation first, but his tone came out confrontational, far from his intention. He was surprised at his own words. However, it seemed hard to find a more appropriate question. The question “Why did you do it?” perfectly encapsulated Haeseung’s curiosity about why Mugyeong had hidden his identity and bought the standee from him.
“Do you know how long it’s been since you last came to our house?”
Instead of an answer, an unexpected question came back. Haeseung was perplexed, not because he didn’t know how long it had been since he’d visited Mugyeong’s house, but because he couldn’t understand the intent behind the question.
“I don’t know. Two months?”
“That’s ridiculous. This is the first time since last year. It’s been almost a year.”
“I was busy preparing for the college entrance exam. And you were even busier than me.”
Haeseung’s excuse lacked conviction. Over the past year, the two had met almost every day—at school and at Haeseung’s rooftop room. There was no particular need for Haeseung to visit Mugyeong’s house when they saw each other daily. That’s why it was hard to grasp why Mugyeong was bringing this up now. Was he suggesting they should meet at his spacious and comfortable house instead of the cramped rooftop room from now on? Somehow, Haeseung felt cornered. Mugyeong surely knew that Haeseung was uncomfortable at his house, so bringing this up seemed like an unfair move. Haeseung guessed that Mugyeong was quite upset about today’s incident. It was evident just from how he deliberately stood right next to the standee. Looking at them side by side, it was indeed a life-size standee with no deception in proportions.
“You said you’re going on a trip?”
Haeseung nodded slightly at Mugyeong’s question.
Three months ago, Haeseung had received the standee from Mugyeong. Rather than received, Mugyeong had forcibly brought it into the rooftop room. His pleas to take it back because the room was too small fell on deaf ears. But he couldn’t just throw it away either. It would feel like throwing away a friend, which left him uneasy. Keeping it in the room was just as uncomfortable, but after a few days, it became as familiar as a piece of furniture that had always been there, and he was too preoccupied with the college entrance exam to pay attention to such things.
After the exam, Haeseung finally had some peace of mind. As he gained the leisure to look around, the standee started to bother him, and above all, a new sensitive issue had arisen because of it—one that was difficult to explain to others. Meanwhile, discovering the standee’s good market value enticed him. Haeseung decided to sell the troublesome object to fund his travel expenses. He thought it was killing three birds with one stone: making money, getting rid of a cumbersome item, and solving a sensitive issue. If only the buyer hadn’t been Kang Mugyeong, he wouldn’t be sitting here with this awkward expression.
“Yeah, the one we planned with the guys before the exam. You said you couldn’t come because of training.”
“When are you going?”
“At the end of the year.”
“End of the year…”
Mugyeong seemed to mull over Haeseung’s answer as if it were significant. Was he trying to figure out if he could make time at the end of the year? Contrary to Haeseung’s expectation, Mugyeong said nothing more. As silence fell between them, Haeseung’s gaze naturally drifted to the standee.
“By the way, how did you know? That I posted on the secondhand site.”
Haeseung finally couldn’t resist asking the “how” question that had been nagging at him.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
