Sangwoo had to hold Jaeyoung back from taking the joke seriously. The latter was disqualified as a human being, but on the other hand, he didn’t have the strength to lift a finger, so he wanted to get some sleep.
“Good night,” Sangwoo said.
Sangwoo parted Jaeyoung’s bangs with his fingers and kissed his forehead. A big smile formed on Jaeyoung’s face. These days, the guy he was seeing tended to copy everything he saw and experienced.
“Sangwoo.”
“… Yes?” He answered in a half-asleep voice.
If he told him what was on his mind right now, he’d probably run away in just his underwear. Jaeyoung silently crouched down, looking up at and embracing Sangwoo, who was lying flat on his back in an attempt to sleep.
⌘W
His head hurt when he woke up in the morning. Jaeyoung slowly blinked while looking up at the dim ceiling. When he turned and lay down on the side, Sangwoo, who was looking at him, with his arms and his chin on the bed, made eye contact with him.
‘Yeah, I slept here.’
Taking a glance at the clock on the wall, it was a little past 11 am.
“Did you sleep well?”
“I was tired so I slept soundly without feeling how narrow it is,” Sangwoo replied.
“Are you in pain today?”
“It’s uncomfortable, but it isn’t to the extent that it’s difficult to move.”
Seeing as he felt queasy and had a headache, he wasn’t really in a position to be worrying about others. He hadn’t drank much, but he had mixed a lot of things, and it felt like he had been working out all night.
It seems like he had grimaced without realizing as Sangwoo, who was looking at his face, asked,
“What’s wrong?”
“I have a headache.”
“Then go home and rest.”
He was trying to kick him out of his space. But, he didn’t want them to part just yet. Jaeyoung pondered for a while and came up with an excuse.
“Go get me lunch.”
“Why should I?”
“It was very good yesterday. Then you have to repay me, right? You definitely came running towards me yesterday, saying hyung, it’s tight inside…”
Sangwoo quickly sprung out of bed and extended his arm to cover his mouth with his hand. Jaeyoung thought it was time so he pulled him towards him in an embrace and teased him.
“Look at this, acting this way in the morning. Asking them to do things after feeding them. Don’t you know why the master gives the servant rice?”
“That’s not it!”
Sangwoo slipped out of his arms while frowning. He slightly fell off the bed, looked elsewhere and said,
“Got it. Yesterday… It’s true that it was… fine… so I’ll buy you a meal.”
Jaeyoung smiled and headed for the bathroom. After washing up, he was going to put some clothes on, but he had thrown out his T-shirt and he couldn’t find his pants.
“Where did you hide my pants?”
“I was going to wash them for you and return it.”
“Oh my, what’s the difference between you and the woodcutter who stole the fairy’s clothes?”1
“Even when it’s a good deed, you just have to say something. What’s the difference between someone who saves you from the water and then asks to be compensated for it?”
He responded pretty well. Jaeyoung approached the hanging rack and looked for new clothes to wear. It was as familiar as if they were his own clothes since he always saw them.
Jaeyoung, who was looking at the achromatic hanger, discovered a serious issue. There wasn’t a single piece of clothing that suited Sangwoo. Sangwoo came up next to him as he was scratching his clothes with his finger. With a pretty earnest look, he said,
“If I lend you something this time, you have to bring it back. Yes? Promise me.”
“All right.”
Jaeyoung answered half-heartedly and grabbed a navy-blue shirt and black cotton pants. He glanced at the tags and saw that the pants were a size 32 and the shirt a size 105. It was obvious why someone who clearly was a size medium was wearing such big clothing.
“Do you not have a white t-shirt?”
“I don’t purchase white clothing since it’s vulnerable to pollution.”
‘You’d be so damn pretty if you wore it, though.’
He muttered in his head while putting a foot through the pants. Wearing neat, straight pants made him feel like a nerd. The shirt that was loose on Sangwoo fit perfectly on Jaeyoung’s shoulders. Jaeyoung unbuttoned the sleeves and folded them up a few times. It didn’t look too bad after he put the hem inside the pants like with a suit.
Sangwoo’s mouth was slightly open as he was observing Jaeyoung. The latter knew it was a style he liked. Sangwoo often showed such a blank expression whenever Jaeyoung wasn’t wearing his glasses and when he looked even a little bit formal or tidied up.
“Stop looking. You’re going to pierce through me.”
“…It’s because they don’t look like my clothes.”
“You seem to like it. Do you wanna do it once before leaving?”
As he approached him and came up close while putting his hand on his waist, Sangwoo blushed and got annoyed.
“I don’t have time! I have to hurry and eat and go to work.”
“I’ll be done as soon as I put it in. I’m confident.”
“You’re crazy. What’s the point of doing that?”
When he placed their shoulders against each other and whispered in his ear, Sangwoo shoved him hard and ran away to the front door.
When they exited the apartment, the sun was shining brightly in the middle of the sky. It was sunny and hot just like summer. They walked side by side onto the big road and caught a taxi.
Jaeyoung prompted Sangwoo to sit in the back seat and sat down right next to him. He told the driver the destination and leaned back against the seat while fiddling with Sangwoo’s fingers. Sangwoo didn’t shake off his fingers, but just looked straight ahead without saying a word.
They went to a Vietnamese phô restaurant that Jaeyoung often went to eat. Jaeyoung got phô with beef and Sangwoo ordered fried rice. He felt better after drinking hot soup.
“Ah, I can finally live a little.”
Jaeyoung leaned back on the chair and vacantly stared at the yellow ceiling. He then turned his gaze to the person sitting in front of him. The basically signature ball cap, engineering student’s checkered shirt, and dark jeans that made one curious about the year of that model. He looked at the person wearing the clothes that went far beyond the obstacle of fashion coordination.
He was working hard to eat with his gaze cast down. With his lips tightly closed, he chewed in a tightly-controlled way, sending the rice from his left cheek to his right and from his right cheek to his left. It was just the sight of him eating, but he didn’t know his gaze would fall. If he even just spilled a little, he would touch his cheeks under the pretext of wiping them off. However, he didn’t think that would happen since he was such a meticulous person. Just then, Sangwoo raised his head slightly and looked into Jaeyoung’s eyes.
“What?”
After saying a word, Jaeyoung dipped a spoon into Sangwoo’s bowl and took a bite. He thought he didn’t like the taste since he had been eating without any expression, but when he chewed on the spicy fried rice with chicken, he found that it was quite nice to eat.
“How does it taste?”
“I don’t know. Tastes like a lot of spices.”
“I’m asking you if you’d eat it again.”
“Uhm… yes.”
“Then it’s good.”
“Not necessarily.”
Sangwoo ambiguously said and started eating again. Jaeyoung left him be and quickly finished his noodles. He had a good plan. He had to hurry to implement it before Sangwoo left for work.
After they finished eating, they silently got up. Jaeyoung watched Sangwoo take out a card from a black leather wallet with discolored corners to pay. His wallet, clothes, cap, watch, sneakers, everything was clean, but he looked old. But seeing his high-end computer and accessories, it didn’t seem like he was poor, but frugal.
“Hey, let’s go somewhere together real quick.”
In front of the restaurant, Jaeyoung grabbed Sangwoo’s arm before he left. Sangwoo turned around and made eye contact with him. He wore an expression that seemed like he would reject it either way, so he should just tell him what he wanted. Jaeyoung, who had been going around with him for months while struggling to force him, casually said,
“You threw out my clothes yesterday.”
“So what?”
“Then I need more clothes, right?”
“At some point, sure.”
“I’m going to buy some right now and I need you to follow me to decide if they suit me.”
His calm expression was suddenly distorted. Jaeyoung, who had expected something like that, smiled and added,
“If I accidentally buy something strange and lose money, it’s on you.”
“That’s really choplogic2.”
Sangwoo stared at Jaeyoung with an annoyed look and opened his eyes wide as if he had thought of something. He paused for a moment and then spat out,
“I understand. If we’re going, hurry up.”
He didn’t know it would be this easy. Jaeyoung walked toward the nearby department store while feeling surprised about this unexpected luck. Sangwoo looked triumphant. It was the first time he had seen him with a smug expression, so Jaeyoung was excited.
“It’s really funny whenever I meet you, sunbae,” Sangwoo said as they crossed the crosswalk.
“How come?”
“You can just ask me to buy them. Why do you say this in such a roundabout way?”
“…”
“It’s definitely something I’ve said. Did you think I’d wash my mouth?”
He couldn’t control his expression. Jaeyoung quietly laughed while covering his mouth with his fist.
“Follow me, I’ll buy you something nice.”
He had to slightly run in order to catch up with Sangwoo who was striding ahead of him.
It was the weekend, so the department store was crowded. Sangwoo, who seemed to be labeled as a student by anyone’s eyes, looked different from the backdrop of the colorful store with cosmetics and perfumes on display. They took the escalator and got off on the third floor which had sports equipment and a casual corner.
Jaeyoung looked around a few places and dragged Sangwoo into a jeans store. Before he heard him nag at him for why he threw t-shirts away and looked at pants, he quickly scanned the interior to see if there was anything that looked okay. He mainly looked on the side with bright clothing. Sangwoo looked displeased when he grabbed nearly-white gray jeans.
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Footnotes:
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