OL Ch 50

“…..”

As soon as he came, Mookyeong immediately pulled away from Hayun. He threw the used condom on the floor and ran to the bathroom. A moment later, Mookyeong threw up and then closed the bathroom door.

At the sound of the running shower, Hayun slowly exhaled from under the blanket covering his head. His throat ached from holding back his sounds the whole time. When he wiped his face, it came away soaking wet. Licking his lips, which were ragged from being bitten constantly, Hayun blinked.

‘It hurts.’

Like a kiwi bird that thinks it’s hidden if only its head is covered, he consoled himself that nothing had happened in the world under the black blanket. Then he barely managed to escape from his blanket cave.

It was wet between his buttocks and thighs. But, of course, nothing had happened.

“…..”

Hayun got up, looked at the master bathroom door, and then lowered his gaze to the floor.

The condom Mookyeong had tossed aside was lying sprawled at Hayun’s feet. Hayun took a tissue, picked up the condom, and wiped the floor with a clean part of the tissue. Then he threw away the trash and left the room.

His head was still blank. Hayun started hitting his own head repeatedly.

It definitely hurt, and his head was throbbing, but strangely, he still felt dazed.

Hayun entered the bathroom, left the light off, got into the bathtub, and turned on the shower. Cold water poured down, making him flinch for a moment, but he soon relaxed his body.

Standing still under the water, Hayun gently turned the ring on his thumb. A sob suddenly rose and his chest heaved, but it quickly subsided.

‘It couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t send him to someone else. It’s okay. It’s okay.’

Hayun continued to console himself.

‘I like Mookyeong, so I can endure this much.’

Because I like Mookyeong, because I love Mookyeong. Hayun repeated the two sentences like a mantra. Then, like a cassette tape that had finished playing, he stopped and blurted out the feelings he had hidden and hidden away.

“Filthy. It’s so filthy.”

<Twenty-Five>, winter came again, and Jiha and Kijun were discharged from the military. Perhaps because it was someone else’s military service and not his own, the year and eight months felt incredibly short.

‘It feels like they just enlisted the other day, but they’re already discharged.’

Two years had passed in the blink of an eye. He had heard the news of their discharge, but Hayun hadn’t met them separately to celebrate yet. It wasn’t because of any old grudges, but simply because their schedules didn’t match. Hayun had gotten a job at the company he was aiming for right after graduation, and his discharged siblings were enjoying the freedom they hadn’t tasted in a long time.

Their parents even criticized the twins, calling them the celebrities of the Kim family, saying it was hard to see their faces even though they lived in the same house.

‘Whether it’s Jiha or that punk Kijun, they both just laze around in bed when their mom and dad leave for work. By the time we get home, they’ve shed their skins in their rooms and gone out. Then they come home just barely in time for curfew. And it’s not like they go to bed quietly right after coming home. They’re in front of the computer or on their phones, giggling all night. I’m telling you. And then they pretend to be asleep when we go to them? It’s not even funny, just like twins. Really.’

As soon as work was over, office workers poured out of the building. The waves of black from their hair and winter coats seemed to ripple. Caught in the middle, Hayun walked briskly. Perhaps noticing that he was going in a different direction than usual, Hayun’s senior colleague spotted him and struck up a conversation.

“You’re going a different way today? Do you have plans?”

“Yes. My younger brother said he’s nearby.”

“Younger brother? You have a sister?”

“A younger brother.”

“Aw, man.”

The senior’s intentions were obvious, and Hayun gave a small smile. Even if Jiha had come, he would have said Kijun was here. Like most of his superiors, they were the kind of people he wouldn’t even associate with if he had met them in a normal social setting.

“He was discharged recently. He said he’s nearby and wants to see me.”

“Alright, go on.”

“I’ll be leaving first.”

Bowing, Hayun pretended to check his watch and walked quickly. Because he had hurried, he arrived a little earlier than the expected arrival time he had given. Hayun looked around and caught his breath, which had become ragged from walking fast.

As winter set in, the days grew shorter. It was just past six o’clock, but it was already dark. The darkness made the puffs of his breath stand out.

“Hyung!”

At the same time as Kijun’s voice, his phone rang. It seemed he had spotted Hayun while calling to find him. Hayun answered the phone and waved at Kijun.

“Ah, it’s taking longer than I thought.”

Kijun joked that because of the rush hour, he had to come like a salmon swimming upstream against the flood of office workers pouring into the subway.

“Don’t run, just come slowly.”

At Hayun’s words, Kijun said okay and hung up. The light changed just in time, and Kijun crossed the crosswalk.

“Hey, I finally get to see the face of the Kim family celebrity.”

“Mom told you that, didn’t she?”

“No, Dad did.”

“Ah, geez. They complain so much these days, as if they didn’t do the same thing.”

Hayun took a step back and looked at Kijun. Kijun was wearing a black hat pulled down low, as if embarrassed by his short-cropped hair. But it still felt a little awkward, as if he hadn’t completely shed his military life.

“Did you eat? There’s a good budae-jjigae place nearby.”

“No, I ate a late lunch, so I’m still full. I just came to see your face.”

“Hey, when will I ever get to buy you something again? Eat while you have the chance.”

“No, it’s really okay.”

“…..”

“Really, I’m really full. Ah, are you hungry, hyung? Then you can just order for yourself.”

“Nah, it’s fine then. Then drinks? Or tea?”

“Let’s just get some tea. No drinks today.”

“What’s the occasion? You’re turning down a drink. Did you drink yesterday?”

“No, it’s just… I just don’t feel like drinking today.”

Hayun took Kijun to a nearby cafe. Although he was worried because the cafe was crowded, the drinks they ordered came out quickly, and the awkward time spent waiting for the drinks was shorter than he thought. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t awkward at all.

“Isn’t it cold to drink iced americano in this weather?”

“I’m not drinking it on the street, I’m in a cafe.”

Kijun kept his head down and just sipped his drink. The conversation failed to continue and died out. Hayun fiddled with the handle of his mug and then plucked up the courage to speak again.

“I’m glad you came back healthy.”

“You’ve said that so many times already.”

“Because I’m glad, no matter how many times I say it.”

“Sigh, come on. I’m not Jiha. What’s the point of making a big deal out of something everyone else does?”

At Kijun’s response, Hayun’s lips curled up in a smirk. Although Kijun said it was nothing, to Hayun, who remembered how he had freaked out about not wanting to go to the army, it was just funny.

“Still, it was hard, wasn’t it? Getting used to military life.”

“Well, yeah. Sigh, but what’s the point of saying that in front of someone who was exempted? What would you know? About how hard military life is?”

“You’re funny. Hey, I was exempted from the military because I suffered a lot when I was young, so they said I didn’t need to go to the army.”

“The circumstances are different. It’s different to be trained from a young age without knowing anything, and to suddenly receive military training after living comfortably.”

Kijun joked that that’s why it was harder for him. Then he gently rolled the corner of a napkin and fell silent for a moment. Hayun waited for Kijun to speak. Kijun didn’t raise his head and looked elsewhere, running his tongue over the inside of his mouth. Then he forced himself to be cheerful again and spoke playfully to Hayun.

“Others say they get an easy military life if they have a psychic in the family. But I didn’t have anything like that. I had to grind through it all on my own. Baek-hyung, isn’t he your friend? I heard he’s a big shot, how could you not say a word to me?”

“You should have just said something. It’s not like Mookyeong talks to regular soldiers much anyway. You should have just said you knew him and tried to get on his good side.”

“Ha, seriously. Do you think there’s only one or two people like that in the world? What if I said that, they did a cross-check, and Baek-hyung said he didn’t know me? I would be screwed then.”

“There are more than one or two people like that?”

“It’s just like seeing a celebrity. Because he’s famous, there are a lot of people who know him one-sidedly, and among them, there are people like you, hyung, who know that Baek-hyung doesn’t meet regular soldiers, so they bluff and lie.”

“There are all sorts of people.”

“So if you had said something and Baek-hyung had just shown his face at our base, my position would have been different then.”

“I’m sorry. But I was also in a position where I was living off of him, so it was a bit hard for me to say something like that. And.”

“And what?”

“Jiha is one thing, but you could use a little hardship, couldn’t you?”

Hayun had thought about mentioning Jiha to Mookyeong. But Jiha had already asked him not to, fearing a scandal. Thinking about it now, even if he had mentioned it back then, Mookyeong probably wouldn’t have listened.

“What’s the point of having a brother. You’re no help. No help at all.”

Kijun said so and finally lifted his head, which he had been keeping down. He wiped his face once and let out a long sigh.

“…I thought a lot about that time in the army.”

“That time?”

“Before I went to the army. When you came home and I said something while drunk.”

“…..”

“There’s surprisingly a lot of free time after work hours, you know? At times like that, it would just pop into my head. Sometimes I thought I was wrong, and sometimes I thought I shouldn’t have said that to you, my brother. I kept going back and forth, and… even when I came to a conclusion, I would always regret it.”

“…..”

“So I thought I should see you once I’m discharged. I thought, let’s keep thinking about it until then and come to a conclusion. But what can I do? Life is busy, so it was hard to find a date after I was discharged. I was afraid that the year would pass, that I wouldn’t be able to say anything at all, so I rushed here.”

“…So, did you come to a conclusion?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“I said it while I was drunk back then, but I don’t think I was wrong.”

“…..”

“So I’m saying this today without a single drop of alcohol.”

“…..”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I thought that? Or did you expect this?”

Hayun nodded silently, then changed his mind and asked for the reason.

“Why did you think that?”

“Because you’re still living in that house.”

“…..”

“I guess what I said was useless. I guess you just dismissed it as drunken rambling. I guess it didn’t matter what else I blabbered on about. I didn’t even know that, and I lived in regret for two years like an idiot. That’s my conclusion.”

“…..”

“I used to be proud of you, hyung. I didn’t show it much, but I bragged about you a lot to my friends. When I met my elementary school friends, they told me. They said that even though you didn’t come home often back then, you were always talking about ‘my brother, my brother’. You probably didn’t even have much to say.”

Hayun thought back to when Kijun was in elementary school. As he had said, he hadn’t come home often, so he didn’t really remember anything. He remembered being surprised at how much his younger brother had grown when he attended his graduation.

“Actually, I didn’t say a word when people talked about Baek-hyung in the army. I didn’t want to talk about that bastard.”

“…..”

“My brother lives like he’s committed a sin, groveling, but that bastard doesn’t.”

Fortunately, the drink that had filled the mug had cooled down a little. Hayun moistened his dry mouth and inhaled slowly.

“Why are you so sorry?”

“…I don’t know.”

“?”

“I don’t even remember what I was sorry for anymore.”

“Liar.”

“It’s true.”

Hayun smiled faintly. The feeling of being sorry to Mookyeong was a result of a mixture of feelings and reasons that were difficult to put into words.

The regret of being the only one who remembered that day, thinking he could have done better. The pity for Mookyeong, who, unlike him, had lost his memory and was left alone.

‘What else was there?’

Undefined thoughts flickered in his mind. What should he call it? Hayun muttered to himself and searched his memory. But he couldn’t find a suitable answer and just shook his head slightly.

“If you don’t even remember, can’t you stop now? How long are you going to keep this up?”

“Twenty-seven. Until then. I’ll do it until then.”