RSL Ch 107

Even when he saw Seo-jin covering his face and crying, saying that it was an absolutely essential training, his determination didn’t waver. He even complained about why he suddenly came to him and asked him to go skiing, but he didn’t give him the car keys back.

“You lose your composure when it comes to flying. If we had gone down the Alps that day, we wouldn’t have found the body.”

“Exactly. It’s amazing that you stopped me. You always granted my requests. But that time, you didn’t change your expression and went to sleep, so I was a little angry. I was really in a hurry.”

Seo-jin’s eyes flickered in the darkness. Jae-yi nodded with a smile.

“I know. I felt bad. But that was when you said you were meeting someone, remember? That doctor from your neighborhood. If you hadn’t gone skiing that weekend, you seemed ready to go on a one-night, two-day trip with that woman.”

“That’s ridiculous. We just had one meal together.”

“Yeah, but that’s how it starts. From what I saw, that doctor was pretty serious. Otherwise, there’s no way she would have pursued her patient like that. Anyway, it was my fault for not checking the weather because I was so busy getting you out of there.”

Jae-yi smiled brightly, recounting his past transgressions. Sometimes, thinking back on that time makes him feel warm and fuzzy. Memories of when they were still friends. How foolish he had been at twenty-two, not realizing that his feelings were more than friendship.

“What happened with that doctor afterwards?”

Now that he had remembered, he became curious.

“It’s too late to ask that now.”

“I concluded it ended because you didn’t say anything else back then. Did you meet again?”

A flight school trainee in his early twenties who hadn’t even experienced proper social life, seduced by a thirty-year-old internist. Seo-jin had jokingly said that he had been surprisingly popular with older women, so he had playfully searched the hospital’s website. She was incredibly beautiful.

Jae-yi had whistled in admiration while playfully strangling Seo-jin, but a selfish desire that it wouldn’t work out had also sprung up. At the time, Jae-yi had thought it was simply competitiveness. He said that he was upset that he met a prettier woman than himself. He had been incredibly foolish.

“No. I think we contacted each other a few more times, but our schedules didn’t match.”

“Did you have feelings for her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Seo-jin changed his position as if trying to fall asleep again.

“So you did.”

Jae-yi muttered, a knowing expression on his face. If he had left them alone they would have seriously dated. Seo-jin liked calm, intellectual women. And since the other person was older, she might have brought up marriage early on.

If that had really happened, Jae-yi would have been the one running away to Korea. No, it wouldn’t have been running away, but something else. He might have threatened him, kidnapped him, or begged him not to get married. In any case, he would have made the situation quite a mess.

Come to think of it, many people had made advances on Seo-jin, who wasn’t particularly interested in dating. He wasn’t the type to boast about his relationships with women, but being around him, Jae-yi inevitably learned about several anecdotes.

A handsome, well-mannered young pilot. Alain had fussed, saying there was no way people around him would leave him alone, which Jae-yi disliked.

Maybe that was why. Jae-yi often interfered with Seo-jin’s love life without realizing it. On days when Seo-jin seemed like he might go on a date, he would desperately hold on to him. If that wasn’t enough, he even caused accidents to keep him around. The reason he didn’t realize it was interference was because Seo-jin always listened to Jae-yi. He met him even if he showed up unexpectedly, and he let him stay the night even if he asked.

It was when Seo-jin was staying in Korea that Jae-yi was rejected for the first time. At that moment, he realized for the first time Seo-jin’s unconditional kindness and preferential treatment towards him, something he hadn’t been aware of until then. And he tasted loss.

A feeling of being pushed back in line. A feeling of being relegated to a position where he had to watch from one step behind, having been robbed of his place beside him. He even felt a burning jealousy towards his colleague who went to smoke with him.

You don’t have to follow me. I don’t need you anymore.

Even though Seo-jin had never said such things, it felt like he had heard them. Those were days when he felt so suffocated, but there was no excuse to show it, so those were the days when his head felt like it was going to burst. It was about a month before his wedding.

***

‘What are you thinking so hard about?’

Gisella got up from her seat and interrupted Jaei’s thoughts.

‘Nothing, nothing at all.’

‘Who’s that over there? A friend?’

Following his gaze, Gisella saw two men smoking. They didn’t seem familiar, but she had noticed him glancing at them from time to time, and it bothered her.

‘I don’t know them at all.’

‘Then why? Do you want to smoke again?’

‘No.’

Jae-yi chuckled, looking as if he had completely missed the mark.

‘You’ve been a bit strange since yesterday. Did you drink late? If you were drinking alone, you should have woken me up.’

Gisella pursed her lips, feeling sorry for waking up someone who was tired in the morning. Jae-yi pointed behind her with his chin without answering.

‘It seems like they’re waiting. Go ahead.’

A gallery employee was waiting with pamphlets behind her. Gisella turned around and signaled that she would be right there. Then she looked at Jae-yi again.

‘Then rest for a while. It’s just checking the artwork, so it won’t take that long.’

‘Don’t worry, look as much as you want.’

Jae-yi reassured her with a smooth smile. As soon as she disappeared, his gaze turned back outside. The men who had been smoking were gone. Their place was taken by others with coffee. Perhaps because of the nice weather, the early summer streets were bustling, and there wasn’t a quiet place in Seoul.

Jae-yi waited for Gisella in the gallery waiting room, where floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounded the entire first floor. She had asked him to take her there in the morning, saying she had an artwork she wanted to see. She seemed to get along well with the employee who guided her, as the two of them talked for a long time. After contracting two more pieces than planned, she returned to Jae-yi.

‘Do you know the artist Shin Ya-jo? I had my eye on his art at Tokyo 053, but I didn’t know he was Korean. There were a few here too.’

She handed him a pamphlet as she sat opposite him. It was a painting depicting a series of faces of bizarre animals.

‘Did you like art?’

‘Didn’t you know?’

She playfully glared at him with slightly resentful eyes and laughed. He knew she had a great sense of aesthetics, but he didn’t know she was so passionate about collecting paintings. Come to think of it, many things about her were still unfamiliar to Jae-yi. Things like her favorite food or music, for example.

He knew she preferred jazz to classical music. He liked modern paintings more than old masterpieces. If vague answers like that were enough, that would be fine, but Jae-yi himself knew that it was far from enough for a fiancé.

‘Why?’

Gisella questioned his expression as he took back the pamphlet.

‘Just… I feel like we still don’t know much about each other.’

‘Really?’

She couldn’t deny it, a vague smile on her lips.

‘I know what you mean. If you put it that way, I have nothing to say either. What does Jae-yi like? What’s your favorite movie?’

She crossed her legs, acting as if she were playing a fun game. Her long hair flowed down past her shoulders.

‘Chungking Express.’

Jae-yi’s answer was concise.

‘What’s that? I’ve never heard of it. Is it a Korean movie?’

Her expression was enthusiastic. She seemed ready to watch it right away and started searching on her phone. Jae-yi saw someone’s face superimposed over her.

‘You don’t know? I’ve seen it many times. Just try it. It’s hard to explain why it’s good. You just have to see it to know. Are you coming to my place tonight? I have the DVD, and let’s do our French homework together. No, it’s not that kind of movie, okay?’

A memory of a very young boy pulling his hand surfaced in his mind.

‘It’s a Hong Kong movie? You liked this kind of sentiment? That’s unexpected.’

Gisella, having searched for the plot and images of the movie, had a very interested expression.

‘Music? Do you have a favorite musician?’

‘Bill Evans.’

‘Oh, really? You listen to jazz?’

Gisella responded with a welcoming smile, having found a common ground. Jae-yi tried to evade the topic by saying it was just so-so, but he had to agree with her jazz talk for over half an hour.

To be honest, he didn’t really listen to music. He wasn’t a movie buff to the point of looking for movies on his own. In fact, they were all things Seo-jin enjoyed and liked.

Seo-jin liked movies made before the millennium, and he loved the art of figures with tragic personal histories, like Bill Evans and Saint-Exupéry. And his tastes had become Jae-yi’s tastes a long time ago. Now, he didn’t even remember what he had liked in the first place.

We’ll have to stick together forever.

They had joked like that and laughed for a long time. Somehow, he couldn’t laugh now.

After having lunch nearby with Gisella, they returned to the hotel in the afternoon. She was tired. Perhaps because she had been moving around too much without adjusting to the time difference, she fell asleep very early.

To avoid disturbing her, Jae-yi went down to the hotel lobby, drank coffee, and finished his pending work. Even then, he kept checking his phone.

Messages were piling up, but there was nothing from Seo-jin. He had clearly said he had a date tonight. So it was natural.

He must be busy. There was no need for him to report to him every detail of where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing.

Still, he should have contacted him at least once. He wondered if Seo-jin was being too indifferent to him. He felt like he was being treated like a second-class citizen.

Jae-yi was also curious about who he was meeting. Hadn’t he said he didn’t know anyone in Korea yet? He couldn’t be with the same co-pilot he had seen at the housewarming party. Even in Germany, he wasn’t the type to be close to his coworkers on a personal level. Not only men, but he had never contacted female colleagues privately unless there was some personal interest. He was someone who strictly separated work and private life, so except for a few people he had been close to since his training days, Seo-jin’s relationships weren’t that wide.

Of course, there were exceptions. The story of him dating a fellow airline employee a few months ago suddenly came to mind. He hadn’t heard what happened after that. Since he had come to Korea, the relationship probably hadn’t continued, but he wondered how many times they had met.

Did they sleep together?

Jae-yi didn’t know why he was worried about that, but he didn’t think so. He just hoped not. Jae-yi unconsciously picked up his coffee cup again. Come to think of it, this was his third cup.

It was already past 7 o’clock. He hadn’t made much progress on the complaint he had been working on. He just had to fill in the formalities, but his hands kept pausing over the keyboard, picking up and putting down his phone. Wondering if he had missed something, he opened the chat window with Seo-jin again. Naturally, there were no new messages.

Does he really intend to never see me again?

As soon as that thought crossed his mind, his head went blank. The thought that it couldn’t be true and the fear that it might be true began to clash. His return flight was in two days. No matter what, he couldn’t part ways with him like this.

Finally, he cleared the table and got behind the wheel again. Jae-yi himself didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t have anything specific to say. He was just moving out of momentum.

Without contact, without reason, he was just going to show up unexpectedly. But Seo-jin had always accepted him. He wanted to confirm that again. He planned to confirm that and return.

It took less than an hour to realize that was a mistake.

‘When did you come? Why didn’t you call?’

Seo-jin entered the house with a calm expression. He didn’t seem particularly uncomfortable with Jae-yi’s unauthorized intrusion into his home. Nor did he seem welcoming.

‘Just now.’

Jae-yi leaned against the wall, conspicuously closing the balcony door.

‘You seem pretty close.’

He couldn’t help but use a harsh tone. It was right after he saw him getting out of the car with the co-pilot in question. They seemed to have spent the whole day together. He even heard their conversation as they smoked.

The nuance in the co-pilot’s question about when the last relationship was felt suspicious to anyone who heard it. It was obvious. Most people who showed interest in Seo-jin were like this. They didn’t approach directly. They were careful, very careful. Everyone knew that if they weren’t, he would slam the door without looking back.

Then, at some point, when they felt it was the right time, they would suddenly ask for a date or confess their feelings. It was because they had become close enough that he couldn’t refuse them outright. After watching from the sidelines for the past 15 years, it was nothing new.

Of course, this was the first time for a man. Maybe that’s why. The feeling was completely different. Facing another male who was aiming for Woo Seo-jin felt… how should he put it, quite dirty.

‘It would be nice to get closer. Our homes are close, and we work at the same place. Both of us are single, and our hobbies seem to match.’

Fortunately or unfortunately, it seemed he hadn’t noticed anything. Seo-jin’s attitude of defending the co-pilot as if asking what the problem was made him let out a hollow laugh. Upon hearing it, it was indeed true. He had nothing to say. The very people who had lived close, worked together, and had good communication had ended up dating and even getting married.

But he wasn’t gay, was he?

It was amusing to see the co-pilot desperately fumbling around, but on the other hand, it was also fascinating. He didn’t know if Seo-jin was the type to be popular with men. He wondered if he was so attractive that he wanted to try him out, even if it meant overcoming the difficulty of being a straight coworker.

Feeling the weight of Jae-yi’s gaze fixed on him, Seo-jin suddenly started cleaning. He pretended to be busy moving around the sparsely furnished living room. Jae-yi kept his eyes on him the whole time.

Well, it wasn’t that he had nothing going for him.

His physical appearance was good, and his personality was without any sharp edges. He was disciplined and resolute, which made one want to break him down just once. He’s also very thorough in managing himself and his interpersonal relationships are so sharp, so the satisfaction of sitting next to him must be dozens of times greater than with other people.

Suddenly, their eyes met. Jae-yi shrugged, claiming innocence. He was lost in his own thoughts, but he wondered if he was bothering Seo-jin.

Seo-jin, who had been looking at him heavily, stopped cleaning and came over. He pulled Jae-yi aside, saying they should talk for a moment. He lit a cigarette on his balcony, wearing an expression that didn’t quite fit.

‘Why are you here?’

Jae-yi didn’t answer. There really was no reason.