TWELVE 3

Even on weekends, Gi Seoin’s morning meal preparation did not rest.

Today, the scent of freshly cooked rice and warm soup woke me again. I desperately wanted to sleep more, but when I thought of Gi Seoin waiting after setting the table, I couldn’t insist on sleeping in.

As expected, I threw on the T-shirt I’d taken off last night and went out to the living room. Gi Seoin, who had been showing me only his back, glanced at me and then refocused on his cooking.

“What time did you get here?”

I asked the back of his head. I already knew his answer.

Six o’clock.

“Six o’clock.”

My thought and Gi Seoin’s voice overlapped.

He said he wakes up at four-thirty in the morning. He also said there are no exceptions, whether it’s the weekend or a public holiday. I was sincerely worried that Gi Seoin might collapse acting like that. Can a human being live normally while sleeping so little? I’ve heard some people are fine with very little sleep, and it seems Gi Seoin is exactly that type.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I feel refreshed.”

I suppose he really has blessed genetics that allow him to be healthy with minimal sleep. Then again, Gi Seoin is blessed in many ways. Looks, intelligence, background… though his personality is a bit peculiar.

As I approached Gi Seoin, he turned around and held out a ladle toward my mouth. Today it was beef and radish soup. I took a taste right away. Gi Seoin stared at me intently, waiting for my evaluation. His jet-black eyes seemed to urge me to open my mouth quickly.

“Mmm… mm!”

Yesterday’s soybean paste stew was so salty my tongue tingled, but today’s radish soup was bland.

“Seoin, you didn’t just wake up refreshed—you made the soup taste refreshed, too!”

Still, with the large temperature fluctuations lately, the hot broth entering my body, chilled overnight, felt like it was dissolving my fatigue. It wasn’t bad enough to call it tasteless, so I figured saying it was delicious was the right thing to do.

“It’s good, it’s good. Let’s eat with some rice.”

Only after I gave him two thumbs up did Gi Seoin pull his dark eyes away from me and take out an empty bowl. He was wearing that cute apron today, too. Since it wasn’t a workday and he was dressed casually, it wasn’t so ridiculous that I couldn’t stop laughing like when he paired it with a suit.

“Hold on.”

After setting the whole table, Gi Seoin suddenly stood up and disappeared somewhere. When he returned, he was holding a shopping bag.

“What’s that?”

“Supplements.”

Simultaneous with his answer, Gi Seoin pushed the side dishes to the side and started taking out supplement bottles to fill the empty space. One, two, three, four…

“Exactly how many are there?”

“I only selected the nutrients you need.”

“It’s not like I’m a growing child; I don’t think I need this much variety…”

“You do.”

Responding flatly, Gi Seoin launched into an explanation of the supplements. This one is good for this, that one plays a role in that, blah blah blah…

“Take one of each kind per day.”

“Do I really have to eat them?”

Ah, I had a hard time swallowing pills. Gi Seoin knew that, too. Despite knowing, he was telling me to take one of each of those many pills every day. It was a very cruel sentence.

“Isn’t there a multivitamin or something these days where one pill handles everything?”

“Taking them like this is much more effective.”

“Ugh, it’s hard for me to take pills.”

“Should I feed them to you?”

What?

I looked at Gi Seoin, thinking I’d heard something strange. Gi Seoin’s face was the same as usual. Like a prince of an ice kingdom who wouldn’t blink even if a sandstorm blew directly at him…

“I asked if I should feed them to you.”

He asked once more with that face. It wasn’t a hallucination.

“Huh? No? Am I actually a baby? Feed me what?”

I laughed because it was so absurd. Gi Seoin had made a joke for the first time in a while. He’s someone with no talent for joking at all, but since I showed so much distaste for taking them, he must have wanted to lighten my mood in his own way. He really does have a surprisingly cute side.

“I’m sorry for whining when you bought these thinking of me. For now, I will try my best to take them.”

“You can take them before breakfast. I’ll make sure you do.”

“Yes, thank you… But what about you? Do you take supplements too?”

“I do.”

Gi Seoin answered while gesturing toward the dining table. I was confused whether that was an answer saying he takes supplements, or a command for me to eat my rice. Since it wasn’t a vital issue, I decided to let it slide and picked up my spoon.

Even after I’d emptied my rice bowl completely, Gi Seoin still had his chopsticks between his fingers. I always ate faster than Gi Seoin. Unbothered, Gi Seoin would finish his meal at his own pace. For some reason, I found it fun to watch him eat, so I never felt frustrated or forced to wait.

Since Gi Seoin was tall, his fingers were long as well. Not only that, but his knuckles weren’t prominent, and his fingers stretched out beautifully, making them good to look at. Just like his face.

His fingers, which were the complete opposite of my hands that had grown thick-knuckled from working part-time jobs since I was young, looked like an art performance even when he was just using chopsticks.

Gi Seoin also ate in a fascinating way. Even though he opened his mouth to the bare minimum, he swallowed cleanly without dropping a single grain of rice. While I had a habit of swallowing without chewing much, he chewed for a long time before swallowing.

“Our Seoin, you even eat your rice so daintily.”

Suddenly feeling playful, I imitated my great-aunt’s way of speaking. It was a joke I made occasionally.

“…”

Gi Seoin glanced at me, put down his chopsticks, and drank some water.

“Oh my, drinking your water well, too. Drink slowly. Good puppy.”

His only reaction was a slight lift and drop of his eyebrows.

“Seoin, eat plenty of side dishes too…”

I was pushing the stir-fried shredded potatoes toward him when a ringtone sounded. It was my cell phone. Where did I leave it? I didn’t remember bringing it out after waking up, so it had to be in my room.

“Who is it? I’ll be right back after taking this.”

No matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t think of anyone who would call on a weekend morning. I started to worry, thinking maybe I’d made an appointment and forgotten it.

My heart, which had been pitter-pattering with anxiety, started thumping even harder as if it would explode the moment I saw the name on the phone screen.

[Juseok hyung]

Why did he call?

My mouth felt bone-dry. Contrary to my desire to avoid it, my finger hurriedly pressed the call button. Instinct had acted before reason.

—Hey, you fucker, do you want to die? Why the hell are you taking so long to pick up the phone?

If I wanted to survive, I could not ignore this man.

“…Hyung, sorry. My phone was somewhere else.”

—Somewhere else where, did you tuck it away in America or something?

“I’m really sorry. What’s going on?”

—Ha, wow. You bastard, are you really determined to make me lose my mind today? ‘What’s going on?’ ‘What’s going on?!’

I really didn’t know what was going on, so a chill ran down my spine.

Wait. Could the date be…

With a foreboding feeling, I pulled the phone away to check the date, and almost at the same time, Jeon Juseok’s shouting erupted.

—Woo Seungkyung, have you really lost your damn mind? I waited quietly for you and you’re a whole day late?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, hyung. I just realized. That was…”

—Save the excuses for later and just send the money. Before I come over there and wreck the place.

“I’ll send it right now. I’m really sorry.”

For a split second, I glanced outside the room. Gi Seoin was eating without even looking this way. Afraid he might notice, I immediately looked away and moved to a corner of the room. I lowered the volume of the call to a minimum. Even during that time, Jeon Juseok continued to spew curses.

—Seriously, shit, this is why you should never help poor bastards in the first place. Wow, ha, I’m getting so pissed off? Seungkyung. Do you really need to be beaten half to death to snap out of it? Do you know or not know that I took out a loan to help you? You treat a favor like shit, seriously. Do I have to pay the principal, interest, and late fees because of you? Please, let’s do this right, huh? Before I sell you off somewhere. There is no next time. I’m giving you exactly one minute. Send the money.

“I’m sorry, hyung. I’ll send it right…”

The call cut off abruptly.

Right. Jeon Juseok wasn’t the type to listen to my words until the end. But if I didn’t send the money within the minute he specified, he would call again immediately. That one minute felt like one second.

I opened the banking app, entered the monthly repayment amount into Jeon Juseok’s bookmarked account, and kept glancing at the clock while typing in my password.

The moment the transfer completion screen appeared, the strength left my legs and I slumped down.

Why did I do that?

I was always careful because I didn’t want to give Jeon Juseok even a speck of leverage. Even if I had to delay the utilities or the repayment of the debt I took for my great-aunt’s hospital bills, I always paid him back like clockwork. But this time, I’d forgotten as if I were possessed by a ghost.

Really, why did I do that…

I had mistaken the day to send money to Jeon Juseok for tomorrow. I knew very well that forgetting by even a single day would make things exhausting. It was only one day late, but regardless, it was a fatal mistake when dealing with hyung. My forehead burned when I thought about how much he would bring this up in the future.

I need to keep my head on straight. I slapped my forehead with my palm.

“What are you doing?”

I almost let out a gasp. I hadn’t even realized Gi Seoin had approached.

“Since when were you standing there?”

“Just now.”

Gi Seoin looked back and forth between my face and the cell phone in my hand.

“The call seemed to be over, but you weren’t coming out.”

“Ah…”

“Who was it?”

It’s not that Gi Seoin didn’t know of Jeon Juseok’s existence, but I didn’t want to talk to him about the guy if possible. However, I could even less afford to tell a lie. Gi Seoin usually realized immediately when I lied. Even if he didn’t notice right away, he would find out eventually.

“Juseok hyung.”

The moment that name left my mouth, Gi Seoin made his disapproval crystal clear. For a split second, he crumpled the corners of his mouth before smoothing them back out.

“Why did he say he called?”

“There was some business… But I settled it. Wasn’t that resolution really fast? Haha!”

I forced a laugh. Even though I knew it was useless. My palms were wet with cold sweat. I stood up and rubbed my hands against my thighs. I had to hide the fact that I was flustered from Gi Seoin as much as possible…

“Oh my, is our Seoin finished with his meal? Since it’s the weekend, should I do the dishes?”

“Is it because of money?”

There it was. The topic I wanted to talk about with Gi Seoin even less than Jeon Juseok: money.

“Well, yeah… Haha! But I told you, I settled it right away. It’s really no big deal.”

Please, just let it go.

“Then shall we clear the table? Ah, I feel great today after solving that problem so quickly. I’ll treat you to the dishwashing!”

I tried to walk straight out of the room, but Gi Seoin reached out his arm and stopped me.

“Seungkyung.”

“Huh? Oh, right. Seoin, you like doing the dishes, right? Do you just want to do them?”

Gi Seoin furrowed his brow. Between those smooth eyebrows, it felt like he was snapping, ‘Woo Seungkyung, don’t act annoying.’

“Are you going to keep secrets from me again?”

“It’s not like that…”

“Is it hard to tell me?”

“…”

“Should I go ask Jeon Juseok myself?”

My mouth went bone-dry, and I kept swallowing hard.