YHP 55
by Cherry‘Hyun-wook.’
Jeong-in was in a hazy sleep. A calm voice came from beyond the closed door.
He listlessly opened his eyes and looked around the room. Judging from the fact that his memory was cut off, he seemed to have lost his mind again in the meantime.
He wondered what had happened today. His head was foggy from the medication. He thought he had been crying and mumbling something, but he couldn’t remember what he had said at all.
He just hoped that he hadn’t said anything hurtful to his dads this time.
‘…Look at…me…. Jeong-in is…doing it.’
Following the fragmented voice, he slightly opened the door and looked out into the living room. He could see his little dad’s back standing blankly in the darkness.
‘…Hyun-wook.’
Dad called Uncle’s name again over the phone. Jeong-in held the doorknob and quietly listened to his voice.
‘I’ve thought about it a lot…. I don’t think it’s going to work.’
When he took the medicine, his senses always became dull. He wasn’t sad or angry, and he didn’t feel any pain even if he bumped into something hard. Everything was distant and faint, as if he were living in a dream.
But not then. Judging by the intensity of the haziness, it felt like he had taken a handful of pills, but he could clearly see what was in Dad’s calm voice.
‘Our Jeong-in….’
Dad was sad again because of him.
Did he say something bad again?
‘…Hyun-wook, please take care of him for a while.’
His heart sank at the following voice.
It seemed like Dad was finally planning to abandon him.
‘Please, even if it’s just for a few days, Hyun-wook, please…take care of our Baby.’
Because he kept hurting Dad with bad words, because he couldn’t do anything and just got sick, because he worried Dad every day, because he made him sad.
It seemed like Dad couldn’t take it anymore either.
‘…….’
He quickly closed the door and went back into the room, afraid that he would be kicked out right away if he even made eye contact. Then he burrowed into the blanket and tightly blocked his mouth, just in case his breathing leaked out.
He lifted the blanket and got up several times with a nervous heart. But he didn’t have the courage to approach Dad and talk to him, so he ended up burying himself in the blanket again. He really wanted to cry, but he didn’t feel like he even deserved to sob, so he groped in the air with his eyes open for a long time before falling asleep.
‘Was Jeong-in doing well?’
‘Yeah….’
Looking back, it was really a foolish thing to do. It was embarrassing that he had been so afraid that his hands were trembling, but it was just a misunderstanding caused by his dads’ long business trip.
The problem was that his big dad’s overseas schedule overlapped with his. His little dad, who had finished his week-long business trip in three days, came to pick him up first without even unpacking his luggage. In the meantime, Joo-young Hyung, who happened to be taking a break from work, had taken care of him.
‘Thank you for being so busy, Joo-young.’
‘I have so much to say to Hyung, you know he eats a lot, right?’
Dad was busy stroking his face, and Joo-young Hyung was busy stinging Dad like a bee.
‘He doesn’t pick at his side dishes and eats everything I give him, even dessert, so vigorously…. Besides, this little traitor is so friendly during the day, but at night he’s too busy sleeping soundly to play with me. We were supposed to play games.’
‘Hahaha, is that so? Jeong-in is really all grown up now, eating and sleeping well without Dad.’
‘Seriously, it’s not funny, okay? He’s eaten the pillars of this house for the three days Hyung was gone, so pay for his meals.’
‘…Thank you.’
And he didn’t know whether to be happy or sad that he hadn’t been abandoned by Dad yet, so he just stood there blankly, looking at the two of them.
‘…I’m really, really grateful to Joo-young.’
Now, of course, he knew. That he had just been having an incredibly extreme fantasy in a psychologically vulnerable state.
But back then, he didn’t have the strength to distinguish such things. He thought that it was his fault, that even if he was really abandoned by Dad, he didn’t deserve to be resentful, that he was just receiving the punishment he deserved.
Even while following Dad back home, who had finally failed to abandon him, his head was filled with only one thought.
He really shouldn’t have been born.
If Dad had been the father of a prettier and kinder child, he wouldn’t have had to be sad.
“Oh? They have chestnut makgeolli too.”
“…Huh?”
Jeong-in, who had been blankly lost in thought, raised his head. Ho-jin’s gaze, which had been flipping through the menu, was fixed on something.
“Hyung, do you know chestnut makgeolli?”
“What’s that?”
Ho-jin soon opened the menu and showed it to Jeong-in. In a corner of the menu, which was full of miscellaneous things like cucumber soju and lemon soju, there was a picture of a rustic-looking liquor bottle.
“It’s a Gongju liquor. I didn’t expect it to be here…. Would you like to try it?”
“Are you allowed to drink?”
“A glass of makgeolli is okay.”
Ho-jin raised his hand and called out, “Auntie!”
“Two bowls of Ttukbaegi Bulgogi and one chestnut makgeolli, please. Lots of rice.”
“Oh my, are you drinking Gongju liquor because you’re from Gongju?”
Ho-jin smiled awkwardly at the friendly question. Then the CEO patted Jeong-in’s shoulder and whispered secretly.
“Why, there are only three famous things in Gongju. King Muryeong’s Tomb, Gongju Chestnuts, and Yoo Ho-jin.”
“Oh, come on…. Are you going to be like this?”
Ho-jin, whose ears turned bright red in an instant, quickly got up and pushed her back. I’m starving, please give me food quickly. The CEO, unable to resist his affectionate nagging, reluctantly stepped back and soon went into the kitchen. And Jeong-in smiled dryly and clapped his hands towards Ho-jin, who was hesitantly approaching.
“Oh, the three famous things of Gongju are coming.”
“It’s not like that….”
He seemed to be surprisingly bad at handling this kind of thing. Ho-jin, whose whole face was flushed red, wriggled his body, took out a napkin, placed it in front of Jeong-in, and neatly placed the spoon and chopsticks on top of it. Jeong-in remembered an article that fluorescent whitening agents were often detected in commercially available white napkins, but decided not to point it out.
“So, why did you really come?”
“Pardon?”
“You didn’t really come all the way up here from Jincheon just because the weather was nice, did you?”
Ho-jin, who was pouring water, looked at Jeong-in at those words and said, “Ah.”
“Hyung, are you free after dinner? I actually wanted to teach you a simple bodyweight workout routine you can do in your room. It’ll be refreshing if you do it in between studying.”
“Really? What kind of stuff?”
Choi Jeong-in was still interested in exercising, even if he lacked the energy to actually do it. Intrigued, Jeong-in asked, and Yoo Ho-jin listed a few exercises.
“It’s a little hard to explain with just words. It would be good to do stretches like the pretzel, or bird dogs and dead bugs… They use your core a lot, so I need to show you and correct your posture. About an hour?”
It had been a long time, but Jeong-in had built his body with static exercises when he was working out, so he thought he could follow along easily if he heard the explanation.
“Okay.”
He nodded, thinking it wouldn’t be a big deal. In the meantime, a steaming earthenware pot and all sorts of side dishes began to be placed in front of Ho-jin and Jeong-in.
“Wow…”
What immediately caught Jeong-in’s eye was the rolled omelet. Mustard and ketchup were drizzled in an X pattern with a perfect symmetry, leaving a gap of about 3 millimeters. It was no exaggeration to call it the work of a master.
“Do you like rolled omelet?”
“Yeah.”
As soon as he bit into it, the warm, fluffy egg broke open, and warm cheese poured out. A rolled omelet with cheese and outstanding aesthetics—Jeong-in, impressed by the wondrous collaboration, widened his eyes and covered his mouth.
“…Oh my god, what is this?”
“Is it good?”
“Yeah, I’ve had plain rolled omelet, but this is the first time I’ve had it with cheese.”
He didn’t even touch the main dish, the earthenware pot bulgogi, and started devouring the rolled omelet like a starving man. Then, Ho-jin suddenly looked a little sad and put all of his rolled omelet on Jeong-in’s plate.
“Eat a lot.”
“What about you?”
“Uh… I had too many eggs today, so I’m a little sick of them. Eat some meat, too.”
“Okay.”
As he picked up side dishes one by one as Ho-jin pushed the plate, he began to feel full. Jeong-in, who had been half out of his mind with the dizzying taste of the world, barely regained his senses and glanced at Ho-jin. Ho-jin, who had been just watching Jeong-in eat, smiled and handed him a small bowl.
“Now, try some makgeolli too.”
“You drink it with this? That’s interesting.”
“…Don’t tell me, is this your first time having makgeolli too?”
“Yeah.”
Jeong-in nodded. When he was young, he had occasionally gotten a fingernail’s worth of wine from his dad, and when he became an adult, he was abroad, so he rarely had the opportunity to try something like this.
As he stared at the ivory-colored makgeolli filling up the bowl, Ho-jin suddenly chuckled.
“…Then Hyung will think of me every time he sees makgeolli and cheese rolled omelet for the rest of his life.”
Holding the bowl filled to a moderate level, Jeong-in looked up. He saw Ho-jin’s face, smiling brightly like a boy.
“……”
Why do you keep talking about the future as if it’s a given?
My future, in which it wouldn’t be strange for me to die and disappear at any moment, is just blank white, without any plans or schemes.
Living with a heart rate of 150, thinking of you whenever I see makgeolli and cheese rolled omelet for the rest of my life. How can you say things like that?
…Why are you so sure that I’ll have a future?
“Shall we cheers?”
“…Yeah.”
In the bowl he held for the first time in his life, there was alcohol he was drinking for the first time in his life.
The bowls lightly clinked in the air. Jeong-in took a sip of makgeolli.
“It’s good.”
It wasn’t just an empty compliment; it was really good. No matter what kind of future he lived, he felt like he would really think of Yoo Ho-jin whenever he saw makgeolli, as long as he was alive.
The fact that the first thing that came to his mind about a future he had never imagined was just makgeolli made this life seem all the more ridiculous. Jeong-in began to refill his cleanly emptied glass.
“Uh-oh, you’ll get drunk if you drink like that.”
“It’s okay.”
Actually, it wasn’t okay at all.
Having someone to remember means that you’ll be in so much pain that you’ll want to die someday.
It was always like that. It had never missed him even once in his entire life.