#048
「Arrived! Hyung, what time will you come pick us up tomorrow? But we can really take the bus, so if you’re tired, you don’t have to come.」
“They arrived.”
Kang Dojun looked at the text Yeonwoo sent and flipped his phone face down. He tried to focus on memorizing his script again, but his mind was still elsewhere.
‘I don’t have to come?’
I guess they’re having fun without me. He felt unnecessarily spiteful. He had decided to pull back, but even that wasn’t easy.
The reason he was still holding onto his phone when it should have been turned off during filming, and the reason he kept checking it even while reading his script, was all because he was waiting for Yeonwoo’s contact.
He should pull back. He should…
His reason said so, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do.
“Sigh.”
With a sigh, Kang Dojun, who had made a firm resolution, picked up his phone once more.
「I don’t think I can make it.」
Right. Start with this and gradually, step by step, create distance. He nodded and was about to press send when he hesitated.
‘Isn’t it my fault for changing my words after saying I’d come pick them up?’
Besides, if they took the bus, people’s stares would be bothersome. It seemed like they went safely this time, but who knew what would happen on the way back. They even said they needed to bring lettuce seedlings, didn’t they?
‘I should go pick them up after all…’
In the end, unable to reach a conclusion, he lay back in his chair and covered his face with the script.
If he had known it would be like this, he should have tried dating at least during high school. Everything was clumsy and awkward because it was his first time.
It was even love directed toward a man. Weren’t there any queer drama scripts around? He had no intention of filming one, but he wanted to read them and apply the protagonists’ situations to understand those emotions.
He resolved to look for dramas when today’s filming ended.
* * *
He definitely read it, but there was no reply.
Yeonwoo, who had checked his messages, chewed chocolate listlessly. Soft chocolate couldn’t give him the same sense of achievement as crunching hard candy.
Chocolate instead of candy. This was also a habit that Kang Dojun had programmed into him like new input.
The same with exchanging messages about every little thing. But what was he supposed to do when he suddenly changed like this and didn’t reply?
His programming was breaking down and he couldn’t get his bearings. He felt unpleasant somewhere. Shin Gihyeon, who noticed this, casually asked.
“Why? No reply?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
At his lukewarm reaction, Yeonwoo’s gaze shot toward him.
“What’s with that reaction?”
“Huh? What?”
“…Never mind.”
He turned his gaze back to his phone and mumbled with his lips.
Should he send one more message? He hesitated but then thought ‘What kind of worry is this? If there’s no reply, I can just wait.’ and gave up. He consoled himself thinking that he must be busy with work and would check and reply later.
Recently, he had lost his composure.
Seeing Yeonwoo getting impatient, Shin Gihyeon lay his tired body on the floor. As soon as they arrived, they had run around everywhere to greet the apiary and the local people.
Just closing his eyes made sleep come rolling in.
According to the elderly locals, outsiders could still be seen occasionally, but not to a bothersome degree, and especially, incidents of BJs or other broadcasters coming and causing trouble were extremely rare.
Clearly, Ber’s downfall had greatly impacted people in the same industry.
But what was sunbae-nim thinking?
Last time I saw him, he was desperate to stick close no matter what… Now he’s not replying to messages.
“Love goes round and round.”
Was this it? It didn’t seem like his feelings would cool down easily.
“What? Why does love go around?”
At his meaningless utterance, Yeonwoo flared up in anger.
“Love goes straight! There’s no such thing as U-turns.”
“…That’s not what I meant. More than that, why are you suddenly angry? Did you get stood up?”
“What bullshit.”
…Who’s the one talking bullshit?
Yeonwoo stuffed chocolate into Shin Gihyeon’s mouth without giving him a chance to retort.
He glared at Yeonwoo while forcing down the overwhelming sweetness in his mouth. Well, with a steering wheel broken in one place, what U-turn or reverse – he could only go straight.
Who would take on that stubborn personality? Just thinking about how he treated him like a dead person for just stepping on a threshold made his body shiver.
He heard that he was raised by his grandmother – was that the reason? He seemed sensitive to superstitions and feng shui.
‘How did sunbae-nim spend ten days with this guy? No, he’s still living with him now.’
Ah, maybe it’s because he’s so polite. Looking at how he treats the elderly, he was quite well-mannered. If he had known Yeonwoo’s personality from their first meeting, he would never have suggested dropping formalities because they were only one year apart.
Fast my ass. He wanted to brainwash him to unconditionally call him hyung and prohibit casual speech.
While lying there having such thoughts, he felt rustling movement next to him.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to the apiary.”
“Didn’t you just come back from there?”
“Just because I came and went, hornets won’t come?”
Yeonwoo packed a large quantity of insect-repelling sticky traps into his bag, having used up all the ones in the apiary storage.
“…Uncle Cheolsu is there, isn’t he?”
“Uncle needs days off too. Today and tomorrow, I’ll watch over it. You rest.”
‘That guy’s stamina is really…’
Do all country kids play like this? He suddenly remembered the phrase that country dogs are healthier than city dogs.
“I’ll be back.”
Yeonwoo slung his bag over his shoulder and went outside. Shin Gihyeon watched his retreating figure and couldn’t stop his eyes from naturally closing.
* * *
‘…No one’s there, right?’
Unlike when he went with Shin Gihyeon earlier, this time Yeonwoo’s steps toward the apiary alone lingered near the destination.
He hoped the variety show would end quickly and be forgotten from people’s memories. Would that reduce the number of outsiders?
He peered around while having such thoughts. Then he heard laughter from the apiary.
‘Who is it?’
The BJ he had seen before flashed through Yeonwoo’s mind.
For a moment he thought about turning back, but he couldn’t turn away for the sake of his precious bees, so he decided to sneak a peek at who it was.
‘Deep breath and run. Deep breath and run.’
Engraving Kang Dojun’s words deep in his heart, he crept up like a thief despite it being his own property and confirmed the two figures chattering away.
‘What the hell.’
His enthusiasm completely deflated. Making all his tension from just moments ago seem foolish, he quickly ran out and smacked the back of their heads.
“Ow! Who…”
“You little brats. Is this a playground? Go play somewhere else.”
Cheolsu and Choi Seongwoo held the backs of their heads with aggrieved expressions. Perhaps because they were friends, their expressions looked exactly alike.
“We were taking care of the bees!”
“Excuses.”
“Hyung, we caught a hornet too!”
At Choi Seongwoo’s words, Yeonwoo’s gaze turned toward the butterfly net. A hornet was struggling inside the shabby butterfly net, trying to get out somehow.
At this rate, it looked like it would gnaw through all the mesh and escape.
He quickly went over and gave it a kick, then coughed.
“Hmm, well, good job.”
Then he examined the glasses Choi Seongwoo was wearing. He remembered what Shin Gihyeon had said.
‘You need to cover at least one place. Don’t you know about minimal equipment?’
His thinking was short.
“Take those off.”
“Huh? What…? Ah! My glasses!”
Without even listening to his answer, he stole his glasses and put them on. Choi Seongwoo, whose vision became blurry in an instant, strained his eyes. In front of him stood Yeonwoo wearing glasses.
“How is it? Can you tell it’s me?”
“…Yeon, what are you trying to do?”
Cheolsu muttered in a dazed voice. Wearing Choi Seongwoo’s glasses who had poor eyesight, Yeonwoo’s large eyes without double eyelids became as small as knotholes.
Yeonwoo frowned as if dizzy from the high prescription lenses.
“Ugh, why is your eyesight so bad?”
“Hyung, I can’t see anything in front of me.”
“I can’t see either. I’m dizzy to death.”
As Yeonwoo was taking off the glasses, he seemed to remember something and put them back on, then handed his phone to Cheolsu.
“Take a picture of me.”
“Why a picture?”
“So I can check. Hurry.”
At Yeonwoo’s insistence, Cheolsu roughly took a photo and returned the phone. Only then did Yeonwoo take off the glasses and rub his throbbing eyes.
“Younghee, what’s your vision?”
“Minus.”
“That’s what happens when you only play games all night. Try studying like that.”
“This guy plays nationwide.”
“…Cheolsu, you punk, when you have a friend like this next to you, you should try to learn something. Just hanging out with friends.”
Yeonwoo’s arrow turned toward Cheolsu and nagging rained down like a storm.
“Agh, such a nag, really.”
Cheolsu covered his ears in horror.
“If you know that, go study!”
The words telling them to go play somewhere else changed to telling them to go study.
The two didn’t stop talking even as they were pushed and driven out by Yeonwoo’s pressure.
“Hyung, but are you close with actor Shin Gihyeon?”
“Hey, Yeon is also close with Dojun hyung-nim.”
“Really? Then can I ask for an autograph? But how did you become close? While filming?”
“Study hard and you can.”
It was all about studying without rhyme or reason.
“Yeon, bring him one more time later. I’ll treat you to food. You know my mom’s cooking skills, right? I take after my mom so I’m good at cooking.”
“Call me too then!”
“Shut up.”
Yeonwoo forcibly silenced the opinions sprouting from all directions and put all his energy into driving them out.
These little brats don’t do the studying they’re supposed to do but catch the eye wherever they go. It looked like these two, not Kang Dojun, would end up conquering the countryside.
“Get lost. Get lost.”
Yeonwoo, who finally became alone after even using harsh words, started working by taking out sticky traps from the bag he had brought.
He checked whether they were collecting honey well and also carefully examined whether there were any mites. Fortunately, the bees were healthy, probably because the mite medicine he had sprayed early this year was effective.
After working on his main job for the first time in a while, even the buzzing sound of the bees’ wings felt cute.
‘Grow up quickly and hurry to earn honey.’
The important thing was hornets, hornets, those damn hornets. Hornet traps, sticky traps – he prepared various weapons and made full preparations.
As expected, battle is all about equipment.
If he had one small wish, it would be the extermination of hornets on Earth. If they couldn’t collect honey, they would starve to death, yet they raid other people’s honey. Where did they learn such thinking? Pests were called pests for good reason.
After managing the beehives for a while like that, he took out his phone. He sent Kang Dojun the photo he had taken wearing glasses earlier and smiled brightly.
Even though he had been keeping his distance lately, he had been consistently replying to messages.
‘He’ll reply soon this time too, right?’
Because of that, his groundless confidence swelled up.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
