TWELVE 48

It was when we were in middle school.

“…Seungkyung-ah?”

Gi Seoin was flustered, wearing an expression I had never seen before.

“Seungkyung-ah, why, why are you crying?”

I wanted to reassure him and tried to stop crying, but things didn’t go as I intended.

“Sob, hiccup…”

“Don’t cry… Seungkyung-ah, don’t cry. Okay?”

“Mm-hmm, hic, I’m not, crying, sob…”

While tears streamed down, I was merely twitching the corners of my mouth. It must have looked quite bizarre. Gi Seoin’s large eyes went wide, and he visibly flinched. Only then did I burst into a genuine laugh at his reaction.

“Haha… Sorry, I’m sorry. I startled you, didn’t I?”

“…It’s okay. I wasn’t startled, not at all.”

The young Gi Seoin was clumsy at both expressing and hiding his emotions. Thinking back, I was as clean as a blank sheet of paper at the time, but back then, I thought Gi Seoin was truly pure.

“Ayy, I’m embarrassed because I cried.”

I wiped away my tears and rummaged through my pockets. Adding up all the coins I grasped, it came to 800 won. My weekly allowance was 1,000 won, and I don’t remember where I had spent the other 200 won.

“Do you want to eat ice cream? I’ll buy it for you.”

I spoke grandly with a mere 800 won. Gi Seoin simply nodded. Near the elementary school I attended, we each bought a 300 won piece of junk food—hardly even worthy of being called ice cream—and headed toward the park that was our hideout.

Before we reached the hideout, the ice cream had already melted and disappeared, but perhaps thanks to the sweetness in my mouth, my mood felt much improved. Only then was I able to calmly tell my story.

“Actually… I don’t have parents.”

I had worried that if he found out, I might not be able to play with Gi Seoin anymore. In fact, I’d been told by quite a few friends who learned about my background, “My mom and dad said not to play with you,” effectively ending our friendship.

Even so, I felt I had to at least tell Gi Seoin, who had comforted me while acting so restless, the reason why I cried. Back then, I was incapable of hiding things more than necessary.

“…Really?”

Gi Seoin asked back, his round eyes going wide once again. He must have been surprised. It had been about a year since we became friends, and that was the day I first revealed my situation.

“Yeah. They passed away when I was little. So my great-aunt is raising me.”

“I see.”

The surprise was fleeting; Gi Seoin returned to his usual self and even nodded along to my words. I watched his reaction more obsessively than usual. I was terrified that a declaration of friendship-ending, like “I can’t play with you anymore,” would pop out of his mouth.

“By any chance, are you disappointed?”

“Huh?”

When I asked cautiously, Gi Seoin asked back with a face that showed he had no idea what I meant.

“Why would I be disappointed?”

“Because I don’t have parents…”

“Why would I be disappointed because you don’t have parents?”

“I thought you might be.”

“No, I’m not disappointed.”

Gi Seoin, who answered firmly and shook his head, suddenly thrust his face forward. Those long eyelashes I had always admired were visible in such detail that I could have counted them. I wondered if the dark, pebble-like things flickering within those large pupils were me.

“Seungkyung-ah, are you crying again?”

“No. I’m not crying.”

“That’s a relief.”

Gi Seoin gave a faint smile. I had the thought that I wanted to touch his pink cheeks.

“I wouldn’t be disappointed even if you, Seoin, said you didn’t have parents. Actually… I’m jealous.”

“Huh? Why are you jealous?”

I was young and lacked intuition, but I vaguely knew that Gi Seoin grew up in a fairly affluent household. Yet, hearing him say he was jealous of me not having parents made me doubt my ears.

Gi Seoin hesitated as if he hadn’t expected me to question him, then muttered, “Just because…”

For some reason, I felt like I shouldn’t ask further, so I just went on about the reason why I had cried.

“Grandmother hurt her knee while working. But she won’t even go to the hospital… I kept crying because I was worried. It was stupid, right?”

“It’s not stupid at all.”

He shook his head from side to side, negating my words.

Having spent that whole day with Gi Seoin, I wondered why he had said he was jealous of me for not having parents, but in the end, I didn’t ask until I went back home.

If my intuition had been a bit faster, if I had remembered that Gi Seoin was crying alone in a corner of an alleyway the day we first met, if I had more closely examined the many shadows of his that had passed by me… perhaps he could have become comfortable a bit sooner.

I thought about it belatedly now, nearly 20 years later.

“…”

I quietly gazed at Gi Seoin, who was sitting beside me on the sofa reading a book. The current Gi Seoin had a much sharper bridge of the nose and jawline than back then; his eyelashes were still long, and his skin was consistently pale. His pupils, which used to frequently well up with tears, were dry and cold. He had clearly become an adult and had cut ties with parents who were better off not existing.

“I won’t hurt you anymore, Woo Seungkyung.”

He even went as far as comforting me instead.

I placed my palm on Gi Seoin’s head. And only then did I stroke the back of his head as he looked back at me.

“When did you grow up like this…”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m praising you. Because you’re admirable.”

“Suddenly?”

“Do you hate it?”

“No.”

Gi Seoin, who closed the book and placed it on the table, bowed his head toward me as if asking for more. Sometimes, seeing him act so sly like this makes me realize he really has changed from before.

If it were the childhood Gi Seoin, he would have turned red in the cheeks and wouldn’t have known what to do. Either way, he’s quite cute. Is it because his face is pretty…

“Gi Seoin.”

Gi Seoin raised his head and looked at me. I cleared my throat.

“It’s a bit much to ask this kind of question now, but can I?”

“What kind of question is it?”

“Can I?”

“Do it.”

Is it really okay to ask? After hesitating, I decided Gi Seoin was someone who wouldn’t even bat an eye at a question like that and let the words fall from my lips.

“Who do you look like?”

“In what way?”

“Your face, I mean.”

“Ah.”

Gi Seoin seemed to contemplate with a slight furrow of his brows before answering.

“I think I look more like my mother than my father.”

“Your mother must be a beauty, then.”

“Why?”

Gi Seoin tilted his head slightly toward his shoulder.

“Am I pretty?”

“Goodness…”

This wicked Gi Seoin.

“Why are you even asking?”

He knows the answer himself, yet he does that.

“You are pretty, definitely.”

“Really? I’m pretty?”

Gi Seoin asked again and rested his face on my shoulder. He looks up at me in that posture. It’s too close. The scent of his shampoo is so thick it’s dizzying.

“Ah, I said you are.”

“How pretty?”

Honestly, I haven’t met anyone in my life who looks prettier than Gi Seoin. Since I often worked part-time as an extra for broadcasts, I’ve seen quite a few celebrities, but there was no face that remained in my memory like Gi Seoin’s.

“Ayy, don’t you know if you look in the mirror!”

“Isn’t it a bit different from your ideal type?”

“My ideal type?”

“A face as big as a Mudeungsan watermelon, skin that’s pitch black…”

When I lined up my ideal type in my head, it was the very definition of Gi Seoin’s features, so I had once lied that someone with the exact opposite appearance was my ideal type. I thought he would take it as a joke and forget it, but I was flustered that he remembered.

“That was…”

Couldn’t I be honest now?

Even if we weren’t in a relationship, it was after we had confirmed each other’s feelings. I can’t find a reason to specifically hide it.

“It’s because you are my ideal type, and it was just a bit embarrassing, so I said the opposite.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

Ah, I shouldn’t have said it. I feel like my face is going to explode. People say things even more intense than this quite easily. I don’t know how they do it. Does everyone get possessed by a romance ghost or something?

“Then, am I Woo Seungkyung’s ideal type?”

“Something… like that?”

“Something like that?”

“Fine, yes. You are my ideal type.”

Come to think of it, I remembered something too. When I had listed the characteristics of my ideal type and asked him back, Gi Seoin had kept his mouth shut about his own ideal type. Now was the chance to ask again.

“But back then, you didn’t tell me.”

I felt like I might be bothered if his ideal type was too different from me, but an ideal type is just an ideal type after all.

“Gi Seoin, what is your ideal type?”

“I told you that you already know.”

“Are you joking? How would I know. You’ve never mentioned it.”

“Nooo…”

Gi Seoin, trailing off his words, chuckled softly.

“I meant that you already know the person who is my ideal type.”

“What?”

Should I not have asked? I’m getting a bit annoyed.

“Who is it?”

“Woo Seungkyung.”

“Why. If you’re going to say it’s someone I know again, just say it…”

“It’s you, Woo Seungkyung.”

Who? Me?

“…Are you playing around again?”

“It’s true.”

“Your ideal type is me?”

“Yes.”

Gi Seoin answered immediately without even a second of thought. I couldn’t believe it. I wondered if he was teasing me again.

“Why am I your ideal type?”

“Because you’re the only person I’ve ever liked.”

…I thought he was teasing, but he really went for it.

“The only person I’ve ever felt I wanted to be with is Woo Seungkyung.”

“…Gi Seoin, do you attend some kind of academy?”

“What academy?”

“I heard there’s an academy that teaches lines like that.”

Gi Seoin laughed. It must have been a hollow laugh because it was a reaction that even I found absurd.

“I guess the line was decent.”

“Hmm, a little? But it fails because it’s not relatable.”

“What isn’t relatable?”

“Look. Feeling like you want to be with someone can be a reason for liking them, but it’s hard for it to be the reason they’re your ideal type.”

“Is that so?”

Hmm… Gi Seoin let out a low hum, then turned his body to face me.

“Then I just have to point them out one by one.”

Gi Seoin cups my cheek. The tip of his thumb slowly rubs my eyebrow.

“I like Woo Seungkyung because his eyebrows are neat and his eyes are clean-cut.”

This time, the tip of his index finger touched the bridge of my nose.

“The nose is pretty. I like your nose more than mine.”

Sliding down as it was, his curved index finger came to rest on my lips.

“The lips… they look like they want to be kissed.”

“….”

“Shall we?”

In this moment, I could think of nothing other than the option to ‘do it.’ I closed my eyes. Gi Seoin covered and grasped the nape of my neck. I opened my lips to match his.