- Between Us (1)
To Na Jihan, Yoon Seowoo was simply Yoon Seowoo.
No word in the world could take precedence over Yoon Seowoo. Even the words that connected person to person were secondary to Yoon Seowoo within him, so none of them could be the perfect answer.
They had been together since birth—no, since before birth.
‘Jihan learns to read quickly. He’s already writing his own name clearly.’
‘Should we teach him other names too? Jia’s name has the same generational character so it might be confusing, but your name should be fine… Oh my.’
They said that after learning the three characters of ‘Na Jihan,’ he learned the three characters of ‘Yoon Seowoo.’
He wanted to write it clearly and speak it distinctly. Because it was that important.
There was no need to define our relationship. Any expression in the world was merely a simple modifier in front of you.
We were each other’s proper nouns.
But the world kept throwing questions at such uniqueness.
“Hey, Na Jihan. What’s your relationship with each other?”
“Huh?”
Na Jihan quickly turned his head to look at the person sitting next to him. It was quite a puzzled look. His eyes held curiosity about what wind had blown to make this usually quiet guy ask such a thing.
“Do you like Yoon Seowoo?”
Na Jihan frowned. His attitude suggested he’d heard quite an absurd question.
“Of course I like him.”
If he didn’t like him, he wouldn’t follow him around. He wouldn’t have wanted to debut in the same group, and he wouldn’t be sitting around the playground for an hour waiting for Yoon Seowoo, who had gone to a student council meeting.
“No, what I mean is. Are you two friends?”
Na Jihan’s eyes narrowed.
‘Friends.’ That word seemed invincible yet strangely trivial. It seemed stable and peaceful, yet too common. Anyone could become friends if they got along reasonably well and chose to hang out together for a season.
“You and I are friends. Seowoo and I are more than that.”
At those words, his friend’s expression became puzzled.
“What? So you two are in love?”
“…Huh?”
“So you finally decided to date?”
Saying he had no prejudice about such things, his friend ended up getting his foot kicked by Na Jihan.
“What bullshit are you talking? Are you crazy from hunger?”
“No, no. Hey. I’m asking because I’m really curious. Dead serious.”
“What are you being serious about? It’s not like you don’t know Seowoo and I grew up together since we were little.”
“That’s exactly why I’m asking, don’t you think…?”
His friend sighed deeply and said,
“I also have someone I’ve known since childhood. But I’m not attached like you are. Even though the concept is closer to family than friends. Especially with you two, it’s a bit much to say you’re like family…”
“A bit?”
“You seem like you’re crazy about each other. You’re ridiculously excessive.”
Na Jihan shrugged his shoulders.
“He lives alone. That’s why I worry about him.”
“Ah. So it’s not to the point of dating?”
“Dating my ass… why are you suddenly talking nonsense out of nowhere?”
Na Jihan, who had been dismissive, suddenly asked,
“Hey. What are romantic feelings?”
“…What kind of weird tin can talk is this now? Is this a psychology test?”
“No.”
When he coughed awkwardly to hide his embarrassment, his friend who had been looking at Na Jihan’s face clicked his tongue.
“This guy really only has his face going for him, he’s totally clueless. I feel sorry for the kids who used to hover around hoping to have some kind of fling with you.”
“It’s because of you. You keep asking if we’re dating, so now I’m curious.”
Na Jihan asked seriously,
“What happens when you date? What changes?”
An awkward silence flowed.
“Friends and lovers are different.”
“Of course.”
“So how are they different?”
“…Hey. Are you serious?”
A brief silence passed. His friend, who had been examining Na Jihan’s serious expression, let out a “huh” and sighed.
“You are serious, you tin can bastard.”
“Would I be joking?”
“I learned about dating from books too, so I don’t know anything that great, but, umm, first if you date… you’d go on dates, right?”
“Dates.”
“Yeah. You’d have to be together, right? Just the two lovers.”
Examples were added as fingers folded one by one.
“Eating delicious food, going to see exhibitions and stuff. Oh, you’d watch movies too. Take walks, go shopping. Even without such specific purposes, they pick each other up or see each other off. Ah! And go on trips.”
Na Jihan tilted his head.
“That’s what I do with Seowoo all the time.”
“Just the two of you, dude. Just the two of you.”
“Yeah. Just the two of us.”
Family gatherings and family trips were only occasional. Busy adults couldn’t always be together, and neither of them wanted that anyway.
So at some point, Na Jihan and Yoon Seowoo became accustomed to spending time together. This was especially true after Seowoo’s mother passed away and their relationship, which had almost grown distant, became close again.
Just today, Na Jihan’s parents had left the house on a business trip. He planned to pick up Seowoo after the meeting ended, study for exams together at his house, and sleep there together.
It wasn’t the first time. That’s why there were several school uniforms that were a bit too big for him hanging in the dress room on the second floor of Seowoo’s house.
“Isn’t there more than that?”
“There is more. You start wanting to promise a future together.”
His friend spoke in a tone more serious than before.
“What’s the end goal of dating? Marriage. Korea’s wedding officiant’s number one standard line, ‘until your black hair turns white.’ If you like someone, you want to be together for a long, long time, and you want to promise to be together in the distant future too.”
Na Jihan answered matter-of-factly,
“Seowoo and I are for life.”
“…”
“We’ve been together since birth, wouldn’t it be stranger not to be together until we die?”
“No, I mean. Not just being together. Being the most important to each other, having unique meaning…”
“We already are.”
He didn’t understand why they needed to specifically define it as dating when these were things possible without dating. When Na Jihan made an exasperated expression, his friend pounded his own chest.
“Hey, I’m the one who’s frustrated. I’m frustrated. What the hell are you two really?”
“…”
“Ah! There’s that. The difference between lovers and friends.”
He glanced around and lowered his voice to whisper,
“Physical intimacy.”
“…”
“What are you looking at me like that’s so surprising? It’s common. Lovers hold hands, kiss, and do more than that. Don’t you remember from before? We talked about first kisses among ourselves, and we also passed around that thing the vice class president from the next class brought.”
He remembers. Actually, he had no interest at all, but he remembered because Seowoo had been hovering around those gossiping peers.
“Whether I want that person in that way is important too. You know what I mean?”
“Well…”
It was a puzzling problem that he seemed to understand yet didn’t.
It wasn’t that the form of lovers commonly spoken of in society was limited to male-female relationships. Rather, Na Jihan thought that being attracted only to the opposite sex was a stubbornly old-fashioned insistence.
He just had never thought of Seowoo that way.
“It doesn’t seem like I’d hate it.”
He wasn’t sure about thinking beyond that. The lovers in the crude, explicit videos that mischievous peers had brought to show were entangled like one body, letting out excited sounds.
Looking at the flushed red cheeks, the whimpering-like sounds, the glistening tears, or the deeply furrowed brows, his first thought was that pleasure and pain seemed similar.
So it inevitably felt strange to substitute Seowoo into that scenario. He didn’t want to shake up that guy who had lived without great desires, who considered peace and stability the greatest values in life, for any reason.
“True. It’s good if it’s not love.”
His friend nodded.
“Love is liking someone to death and then hating them worse than enemies, right? My parents got divorced too, and Seowoo’s parents separated when we were young. There’s nothing eternal in this world, and if you date and break up, the aftermath tends to get messy.”
Just as he was about to say something more, a clear voice suddenly interjected between the two.
“Jihan!”
Turning his head at that call, he saw Seowoo’s figure.
Light-colored hair and slightly flushed cheeks, clearly sparkling eyes and a refreshing smile. Even the soft curve drawn by his slightly parted lips as he caught his breath from running over right after the meeting ended.
“Sorry. There were a lot of agenda items this week… did you wait long?”
It was a day when the meeting ended particularly late. With that temperament that couldn’t stand boring things, his body would have twisted several times over if even his friend from the soccer team hadn’t been there during training.
But still.
“No.”
Na Jihan answered while getting up.
“I didn’t even notice time passing.”
“Really? That’s a relief.”
“Let’s shop on the way. I’ll make dinner.”
“Make me rolled omelet.”
“Okay.”
Na Jihan, who had walked up to him, stood beside Seowoo and said,
“What else do you want to eat?”
“Soybean paste stew.”
“And?”
“Grill some ham too.”
Na Jihan burst into laughter and answered,
“Okay. Let’s do that.”
It was okay not to find a sharp answer. That didn’t change the fact that Seowoo was unique to Na Jihan, and Na Jihan was unique to Seowoo.
We are still each other’s proper nouns.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
