Won-hyeok’s eyes went wide. It happened in an instant—the drunk man’s hand, furious to the point of bursting, struck Kang Han-gyeom’s face as he lunged forward.
“Ah….”
Han-gyeom grabbed his jaw and fell backward. In the process, his glasses dropped to the floor again, and this time they were even stepped on with a crunch, snapping cleanly in two. Han-gyeom wasn’t the only one who went down. The drunken man, who had swung his arm with all his might, also lost against his own momentum and collapsed onto the ground.
“Hey!”
Won-hyeok shouted sharply, his face twisted into a deep frown. More than concern for Han-gyeom, it looked closer to anger that someone’s interference had completely ruined all his plans.
“Are you okay?”
Even so, thanks to years of learned social conditioning, that was the first thing out of his mouth.
“Yeees….”
Han-gyeom answered in a dazed voice and nodded. He clearly looked out of it, not exactly fine, so Won-hyeok crouched down in front of him. The moment he grabbed the arm Han-gyeom was using to hold his jaw, he could feel the small shoulder flinch.
His right cheek was a little swollen. It was hard to see well in the dark, but it didn’t seem like he’d been hit as badly as expected. Still, just in case, Won-hyeok started asking in great detail—from whether Han-gyeom knew where they were, checking his awareness, to whether the inside of his mouth had split open.
That was because he knew people who’d been hit well—he’d also been the one doing a lot of the hitting.
“B-but what about you, sunbae? Are you okay? What on earth happened…?”
Won-hyeok’s eyebrow twitched for a split second. Just how much of this had Kang Han-gyeom been watching, and from when? From the start? Or from when he’d been talking to the drunk? Or was it from when he started beating the hell out of him? Whatever it was, none of it was good.
Everything Won-hyeok had built up in order to blend into society and live without standing out dangerously wavered on the brink.
“T-that person picked a fight with you first, right, sunbae? Did he do anything to you?!”
At that moment, Han-gyeom suddenly grabbed Won-hyeok’s arm as he asked. Won-hyeok lowered his gaze and looked at the hand clinging to him, worry plainly written in the touch. And on top of that, the smell of alcohol from up close. Come to think of it, Han-gyeom had downed quite a lot at the chicken place earlier. He did seem pretty drunk.
“It wasn’t quite to the point of doing anything to me. He came up picking a fight, asking if I had a cigarette. But when I said I didn’t because I’m a non-smoker….”
Won-hyeok scratched his head with an awkward smile. He looked exactly like someone who’d gotten caught up in something troublesome and was still confused by it.
It was a kind of gamble. Whether Kang Han-gyeom had seen something, hadn’t seen something, or had seen it but couldn’t judge properly because he was drunk, one thing was certain: the “Do Won-hyeok” who had just beaten a man to a pulp had to be erased from his memory.
“I thought so… I figured that’s what happened. You’re not hurt anywhere, right?”
“…Yeah. Thankfully.”
Won-hyeok grinned.
“That’s a relie—ugh.”
Han-gyeom suddenly let out a low groan. Seeing him clutch the ear on the side he’d been hit and bow his head, Won-hyeok quickly checked him over. Sure enough, there was a cut on the rim of Han-gyeom’s right ear. Judging by how much blood was flowing, it looked like it had torn fairly deep.
Instinctively, Won-hyeok looked at the drunk collapsed on the ground. Just as expected. He had a ring on his left hand. Han-gyeom must have gotten sliced by it when the blow glanced off.
Tch. Won-hyeok clicked his tongue inwardly. Everything always ended neatly, cleanly, without any aftermath. This time would have been the same too. But then one jagged stone had to jut out of nowhere.
“Han-gyeom, get up. Let’s go to the hospital first.”
“Huh? Ah, this is okay. I can just disinfect it roughly at home.”
“You got hurt because of me, so how can I just leave it? Get up already.”
When Won-hyeok grabbed Han-gyeom’s arm and pulled, Han-gyeom rose slowly to his feet as if spellbound.
***
Kang Han-gyeom’s life had been unbearably monotonous. He graduated elementary, middle, and high school all in the same neighborhood, and he was an ordinary, quiet person—just one of those kids in class whose presence was so faint it barely registered. The only reason his presence hadn’t disappeared entirely was because he was always ranked first in the whole school.
People said that when you live your life, unexpected incidents happen all the time, but that had never been true for Han-gyeom. He had simply lived quietly and without complaint, according to what was set before him, following the current. If reality were turned into a novel, Han-gyeom would never be the protagonist. He often thought he’d only be some extra who passed by in a single line of mention.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Huh? Ah, yes….”
And yet even for Han-gyeom, it had finally happened. An ‘unexpected’ event.
“They say there are a lot of patients waiting in the ER, so we’ll have to wait a bit.”
Han-gyeom was sitting side by side with Won-hyeok in the waiting area of a nearby university hospital emergency room. With his bias, with that sunbae he had never stopped dreaming of being with, even if only from afar.
To be honest, as time passed, the pain kept getting worse. His face where he’d been hit hurt, and more than anything, his right ear was burning and sending waves of intense pain through him. Even so, every bit of Han-gyeom’s attention was fixed on one person only: Won-hyeok.
“Because of me… I’m really sorry. I should’ve just avoided him and left instead of responding.”
Won-hyeok turned slightly toward him and kept staring at the injury. And with an extremely worried look on his face, too.
“He looked so drunk, I thought he might collapse somewhere out on the street, so I kept an eye on him….”
Han-gyeom nodded as if entranced. As expected, Won-hyeok was kind. To care that much about someone who had picked a fight with him first.
“Sunbae, I’m really okay.”
With just one hit from Won-hyeok’s voice and his worried gaze, it felt like all the pain vanished at once. As if Do Won-hyeok himself were anesthesia.
“Mr. Kang Han-gyeom, please come in.”
At that moment, a nurse called Han-gyeom’s name from the treatment room. Won-hyeok had been about to follow him inside, but he got a phone call right then, so Han-gyeom just went in alone.
Sitting in front of the doctor, he gave a rough explanation of how he’d been injured, and the doctor examined the wound closely. There were no tears inside his mouth, and nothing looked abnormal to the naked eye, but since his head might have taken some impact, the doctor said he could get a CT scan too if he wanted. With that, they moved on to treating the wound on his ear in earnest.
“The cut is a little deep, so I’ll put in just one stitch. Could you lie down on the bed and tilt your head all the way back for me?”
“Yes.”
A stitch. Only then did the fear hit him with a thud. Lying down on the hard bed, Han-gyeom put on the headband the nurse handed him, and the hair that had been hanging thickly over the front of his face was pushed completely back. At that moment, the nurse preparing instruments beside him widened her eyes, but Han-gyeom didn’t notice.
“Then we’ll begin.”
Getting stitched up hurt more than he’d expected. People said everyone had different pain thresholds and felt pain differently, but even with anesthesia, it was still quite an ordeal for Han-gyeom. In the end, the treatment only finished after tears spilled out from pure reflex.
As he took off the headband he’d been wearing, the nurse handed him some tissues with a kind smile. She was probably being considerate because he’d cried from the pain. Maybe because he’d been tense for that brief moment, there was sweat on his forehead too.
“That’s all for today. For removing the stitches, make an outpatient appointment at the desk before you go.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Han-gyeom bowed his head and came back out to where the waiting room chairs were. Come to think of it, he didn’t have his glasses right now. With the people around him looking slightly blurry in his vision, Han-gyeom looked around, but there was no sign of anyone who seemed to be Won-hyeok.
He naturally started walking toward the entrance, and among the figures leaning against the wall, one man with an unmistakable aura caught his eye. As he got a little closer, it was exactly as he thought—Won-hyeok. At the sight of him taking a call, Han-gyeom unconsciously smiled brightly and walked toward him slowly.
“I’ll tell you the location and everything, so….”
Won-hyeok, who had been taking the call with an unusually hardened expression, as if irritated, lifted his head absentmindedly.
“Sunbae.”
Looking at Han-gyeom approaching him, he slowly ended the call and pushed himself off the wall, his face blank.
“Um, I’m all done. T-they said they put in one stitch, but it’s not serious.”
“…….”
“They also said it probably won’t scar, and, uh, also….”
Won-hyeok just kept staring at him silently, so Han-gyeom awkwardly scratched his head and looked away.
“…Really? That’s a relief. Wait a second. I’m just going to pay the bill.”
Won-hyeok rummaged for his wallet in his back pocket and walked toward the ER administration desk. Han-gyeom watched his back, fidgeting restlessly.
“Done. Let’s go now.”
“Um, sunbae.”
“Yeah?”
“The hospital bill. I think it’s only right that I pay it myself.”
If you thought about it, this wasn’t really because of Won-hyeok. The one who had jumped in on his own was none other than Han-gyeom himself, by his own will and choice.
“But if it hadn’t been for you, Han-gyeom, I would’ve gotten hurt. So of course I should pay.”
“But still… the ER is expensive.”
Wasn’t the emergency room the kind of place you didn’t go unless you were injured or sick enough that you might actually die, since you never knew how much it would cost? Han-gyeom cast nervous glances around, looking apologetic, and Won-hyeok’s eyebrow twitched very slightly.
“It’s really okay. Han-gyeom, can I ask you one favor?”
“Yes! Of course!”
Han-gyeom nodded vigorously like a puppy answering its owner’s call. What Won-hyeok held out to him was his phone.
“Give me your number.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll have to come with me when you come back to get your stitches out and when you come in for disinfection too.”
“No, I….”
He was about to say he was really fine, but desire began tipping the scales harder than conscience, emotion harder than reason. Just the fact that he could exchange numbers with Won-hyeok—and that they could meet like this again—was enough to move Han-gyeom.
“Then I’ll contact you.”
“Yes!”
After that, Han-gyeom had no memory at all of how he got home after parting ways with Won-hyeok. His clubmates seemed to have contacted him a few times, but he didn’t have the slightest room to care.
Back in his small, plain one-room apartment, Han-gyeom stood blankly in the entryway. As the door shut, the door lock chimed brightly. The sensor light at the front door flickered on to welcome its owner, then soon went out again when it detected no movement.
“…This is insane.”
And the moment Han-gyeom covered his mouth and blurted the words out, the light flared back on brightly. He could hear the thumping of his heart all the way in his ears. He wasn’t sure whether that was because the anesthesia was slowly wearing off and the wound was starting to hurt again, or because Won-hyeok’s number was now safely saved in his phone.
Han-gyeom lay down on the bed and tried to go over everything that had happened today, but then thought he should wash his hands and feet first, so he headed to the bathroom.
The moment he saw himself in the mirror, Han-gyeom thought he might actually fall backward.
Because of the sweat and the way the headband had pressed it down, his bangs were pushed back in a messy way unlike usual, exposing his whole forehead, and because he’d cried during treatment, the area around his eyes was flushed red. On top of that, there was even a faint bloom of alcohol-induced color on his cheeks.
“I stayed with sunbae looking like this the whole time?”
Han-gyeom let out a long sigh and stared resentfully at his reflection in the mirror.
