ACJY C74

During the drive home, the man didn’t utter a single word about what he and Kwon Iltaek had discussed. The man was always like that, quietly listening to the radio unless Taeheun spoke first. Doubting he would get a straight answer even if he asked, Taeheun didn’t bother.

After passing a road full of bumps and turning a sharp corner, a familiar scene unfolded. A tall, gray wall, an orange slate roof, and a blue gate. In that moment, his heart grew calm. The inexplicable stuffiness that had been suffocating him ever since meeting the Kwon Iltaek couple instantly vanished.

“Mr. Gibeom, I’ll take the mackerel, so you go in first.”

After sending the man in, Taeheun stayed outside for a few more minutes under the pretext of parking the truck.

Slide.

He ran his palm over the wall where he and the man had stood at dawn. He felt the rough, coarse texture characteristic of cement. He raised his head and looked up. It was so high. It felt like just yesterday that he had disliked it, thinking it looked like a temporary wall set up on a highway, but now he loved it. He even felt protected. Perhaps this wasn’t a wall, but the man himself.

“My home really is the best.”

He grinned.

When he burst through the gate, the child was already home.

“Didn’t you go to church?”

Taeheun asked the child, who was already eating the red bean bread.

“The pastor’s wife had a meeting.”

“How did you get home?”

“My uncles brought me.”

From the way she lumped them together as ‘uncles,’ it seemed Kwon Yongjun was not among them.

The man was washing his face at the outdoor tap.

“What’s that in your hand?”

The child asked.

“Ah, this. Mackerel.”

“Wow! Really?”

“Of course it’s real. Want to see?”

“Yes!”

The child threw the red bean bread she was eating onto the wooden porch and took the bag from Taeheun.

She could have disliked it for the fishy smell, but she was overjoyed.

“Father! Please make grilled mackerel!”

The man, having finished washing his face, roughly flicked the water from his hands and said, “Okay.”

“Father, we can each have one, right?”

“Sure.”

The child beamed.

“Jihye, your father is going to take a nap.”

“The Mister too!”

The moment the man mentioned a nap, Taeheun also felt a wave of drowsiness.

“Okay. Go ahead. You both look really tired. Was work hard?”

“Yeah, incredibly.”

Taeheun answered shamelessly, even though work had ended hours ago.

The child didn’t bother asking for reasons and went inside with the bag of mackerel. Taeheun picked up the leftover red bean bread the child had left and followed her.

A cool air circulated inside the house. It was probably because no one had been home all day and there were few electronic devices.

The man showered first, and Taeheun was next. After washing up, he naturally went into the master bedroom. The man, who was making the beds, paused.

“I’ll sleep quietly. That other room is a bit scary to sleep in alone.”

Feeling a pang of guilt, he feigned weakness.

The man said nothing and made Taeheun’s bed next to his own.

Seeing the man lie down shirtless, Taeheun also took off his shirt and carefully lay down beside him. Even though it was broad daylight, the heavily overcast sky created a perfect environment for sleeping. The man soon fell asleep, breathing evenly. Only then did Taeheun turn to face him.

He’s so handsome.

He admired the man’s profile, studying it. The more he looked, the more delicately featured he seemed. Overall, he had a masculine face, but his high-bridged nose was surprisingly small and cute, and his cool eyes with inner double eyelids were simple, not greasy or overwhelming. On the other hand, Taeheun, who had been called pretty his whole life, had bold, large features, closer to a Western type.

Our looks are a match made in heaven, too.

He smiled to himself.

He gazed his fill at the man’s face, which he could never get tired of, and then dozed off.

It was understandable, given that he had stayed up for two whole nights because of Detective Oh, but he hadn’t expected to sleep so deeply. When he opened his eyes, he was lying alone in the room. And not in his own spot, but the man’s. The pillow was the man’s, too.

Sniff Sniff.

Taeheun buried his face in the pillow and sniffed. It smelled of the man. It was that scent, similar to laundry dried well in the sun, somehow refreshing.

No wonder he felt so refreshed; he hadn’t dreamed. For someone whose reality and dreams used to mix to the point where they felt tangible even when he was awake. In any case, he was given the disease and then the cure.

He could hear the child running around, making a fuss.

“Father! The mackerel is huge!”

“I’ll give the biggest one to our Jihye.”

“Yay! I get to eat the biggest one!”

Thud thud thud, the child ran again. Then, with a loud noise, the smell of grilling mackerel spread. Taeheun slowly got up and left the master bedroom.

“Mister! The biggest mackerel is mine. Don’t you dare covet it!”

“Alright. Jihye gets the biggest one.”

He yawned widely and scratched his stomach before realizing he was shirtless.

Well, whatever. I can use this opportunity to appeal to him a bit.

But this thought was fleeting, and he went back into the master bedroom to put on a t-shirt. He wondered if going shirtless would even work on a man who barely glanced at him even when they showered completely naked together. It was also a bit embarrassing in front of the child.

“The oil is splattering. Stay back.”

The man advised as he approached.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No. We’re done once the mackerel is grilled.”

A pot of soft tofu stew, cooked at some point, was bubbling away.

“Then I’ll set out the spoons and chopsticks. And scoop the rice.”

“Jihye can do it.”

“I’ll do it. Let’s just let her run around like a wild child.”

“Yes.”

The man smiled, looking at the child.

Taeheun set the man’s and the child’s cutlery first, then placed his own across from the man. Then he took out the two kinds of kimchi they always ate from the fridge.

“I think it’s done boiling, can I take the earthenware pot?”

“Yes.”

He quickly placed a trivet in the middle of the table, then gently nudged the man aside with his body.

“I’m going to use the towel.”

Saying this, he took the towel from around the man’s neck and wrapped it carefully around both handles of the pot. After safely placing it on the trivet, he stood behind the man and put the towel back around his neck. His hands naturally came to rest on the man’s shoulders.

“Look at the color. How do you grill it so well?”

He admired, looking down at the frying pan over the man’s shoulder. When he gently squeezed the shoulders he was holding, the nape of the man’s neck turned red. On one side of his nape, unnoticed by anyone, was a dark blue mark from where Taeheun had bitten him. Why doesn’t anyone notice it? Feeling inexplicably disappointed, he traced over it with his finger. In the air, of course.

Taeheun squeezed the man’s shoulders a couple more times, then scooped the rice.

“Here, a plate. This one is Jihye’s, we’ll share. We’re facing each other anyway.”

“Yes.”

The man placed the largest of the fish on the child’s plate, then moved the other two onto a single plate. Carrying the plates was Taeheun’s job.

The child ran over in a flash and sat down. Without even catching her breath, she immediately picked up her chopsticks and began to debone the mackerel combatively. The man, embarrassed, said, “Eat slowly.”

“It’s been a while since I bought fish. I keep forgetting.”

The man explained.

“It’s natural to forget. You’re a busy man, Mr. Gibeom. Let’s us eat quickly too.”

Taeheun also reached for the fish with his chopsticks.

The man started with a spoonful of stew before eating his rice. He got to the fish a little later. He had noticed at lunch, but his fish-deboning skills were quite clumsy. He glanced over to see how the child was doing and saw she was much more skilled than the man. Compared to her father, her skills were almost professional.

“Mr. Gibeom, wait a minute.”

He deliberately pulled the plate towards himself and deboned the man’s portion of the fish first. The child watched the man and Taeheun with curious eyes.

“Jihye de-bones it so well, how can you be so bad at it, Mr. Gibeom?”

“My father is good at it too!”

The child immediately protested, taking Taeheun’s words as criticism of her father.

“No, I mean compared to you, Jihye. You debone it like a pro.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“You’re so lucky, Jihye. You have such skillful hands.”

He added a ridiculous compliment as he separated the flesh from the bones. In an instant, only the flesh remained.

“Mr. Gibeom, eat up.”

He pushed the plate towards the man. The man was pleased. Taeheun eagerly awaited the moment it would enter the man’s mouth, but the man gave a piece of the flesh to the child first.

I deboned that for you to eat, why are you giving it to the kid?

He glared at the man. Of course, he didn’t notice.

“Mr. Taeheun, you eat too.”

After the child, the man immediately placed a piece on Taeheun’s rice as well. Taeheun acted delighted, as if the man had deboned it himself, even though he’d done it. He acted overwhelmed, as if saying, Oh, you shouldn’t have.

“Oh, it’s so delicious.”

“It’s delicious, Father!”

Even though the man hadn’t been the one to debone it, both the child and Taeheun gave him a thumbs-up.

Taeheun was happy. So happy he felt like his stomach would burst. To feel this way over a simple piece of grilled mackerel, they were a strange family indeed. It was like he was bewitched by a ghost.

After dinner, the child lay on her stomach on the wooden floor, rolling around. The man went to the narrow wooden porch to hang laundry, and Taeheun, after finishing the dishes, went out to the yard. The fucking dogs wagged their tails. He made a show of patting them casually, then swept the yard just as the man used to. Due to the humid air, the soil in the yard had settled heavily.

The sky was literally pitch black. The dark clouds looked as if it could start pouring rain at any moment. The weather had been like this all day, yet not a single drop of rain had fallen.

“It’s going to rain soon.”

The man, who was hanging laundry, said, looking up at the sky.

“I’ve said that over twenty times. It’ll come when it comes.”

“You’re right. I wonder why it’s not coming.”

Taeheun also propped the broom against one side of the yard and stepped onto the wooden porch. From the porch, the dark clouds looked close enough to touch.

“It really is going to come soon.”

Taeheun muttered under his breath.

The rain didn’t start until hours later, around 8 PM. The child, with so much to talk about, had taken the phone and gone into her room, and was still on the phone with her Sojin unnie. The man, unable to sit still for a moment, had brought out the ironing board and was about to start ironing.

“Anyone would think a family of ten lives here. Get some rest.”

Taeheun nagged.

“I can’t relax until I get it done quickly. The day after it rains is busy.”

The man said this and placed the child’s taekwondo uniform on the ironing board first. Steam billowed from the iron, which had already heated up. As the man gripped the iron with his large hand and glided it over the fabric, seuk, a smell like one from a sauna wafted up.

“This is nice.”

“Yes?”

“This sound. The sound of ironing. And the sound of the rain, too.”

Taeheun pointed a finger at the ceiling. The man glanced at Taeheun and listened for a moment. He soon nodded and smiled.

“You’re right.”

The man replied.

Taeheun flopped down next to the man. Lying down, he looked up at the man ironing. The man tried his best not to be conscious of Taeheun. But he failed. It was amusing to watch the color of the man’s face change from moment to moment. And it wasn’t just amusing.

“So cool.”

He whispered, just loud enough for the man to hear.

The man’s face flushed red. Chiik, the iron skimmed across the ironing board. 

Drip, drip…Tap, Tap...

The rain beat against the slate roof.