HPK 102

It seems that when a person is utterly dumbfounded, they start to laugh. He must have never received nor given comfort in his entire life. That must be why he is calling that comfort right now.

“Why are you laughing.”

“Don’t do that to other people.”

“I’m doing it because it’s you. Why would I…”

Taejung stopped mid-sentence and awkwardly shut his mouth. Wooseung, also surprised, blinked his eyes.

‘I’m doing it because it’s you.’

That meant that Wooseung held a special meaning for Taejung.

Taejung, who was roughly rubbing his lower face with a look of dismay, suddenly shot up from his seat.

“I’m going for a smoke.”

He grabbed his phone and cigarettes in one hand and walked toward the smoking area. He put a cigarette to his lips and roughly swept his hair back. Even from behind, his overflowing annoyance was clearly visible. Perhaps because of his exceptionally tall build and handsome face, gazes followed him wherever he went.

‘I’m doing it because it’s you. Why would I…’

He could guess the unspoken words that Taejung had swallowed without having to press him for them. Wooseung’s lips, which had been curved into a gentle smile, gradually returned to their neutral position.

“…”

It was a very strange feeling.

He did not bother to tell Yejin that their mom had left the house at dawn. There was no reason to deliver news that would only cause anxiety to a kid who couldn’t even come down. That was also the reason he had repeatedly stopped Heehoon from calling her.

Heehoon, who had called him in a panic, had been pacing back and forth asking what to do, but he hadn’t left their grandmother’s side even while Wooseung, who had come down from Seoul, was checking all the nearby restaurants. All because their grandmother, who had woken up briefly at dawn, had nagged him about why he was going out.

The one who was by his side through every moment of searching for his mom and going home was Taejung. That fact struck him as new and unfamiliar.

‘Do you feel like throwing up?’

Suddenly, the day he first met Taejung came to mind. The barley tea he had been forced to drink, the pressure weighing down on his shoulders.

‘If you throw up, clean it up before you leave.’

As he barely held on, covering his mouth with his palm, Taejung had said he was no fun and had left abruptly.

But today, Taejung had watched from behind the entire time he was throwing up. While complaining about being made to run errands, he had bought everything he was asked for.

Only a few months had passed….

So much had changed.

Wooseung took a sip of the moderately cooled hot chocolate. Unlike his stomach, which was gradually calming down from the earlier soreness, his heart began to beat a little faster.

♡

August 1st. A text message finally arrived from Hyojun.

It had been a whole month. For someone who had worried those around him by being out of contact for several weeks, the content was somewhat anticlimactic.

Three days after entering the country, he sent separate text messages to Chanil and Wooseung. He heard that Chanil had cursed him out. It was somehow hard to believe that Chanil, who had grumbled that it was all for nothing, would do that.

Wooseung immediately set up a time to meet with Hyojun, and that was today. However….

[im so so sorry]
[ㅠ..]

Wooseung ended up having to cancel their plans due to a cold that had been clinging to him for several days.

[nonono lol i have to go to namhae anyway so lets just see each other next time]
[when i go to namhae my reception will be bad so please understand lolol]

Making his worries seem foolish, Hyojun was no different from before he left the country. Did the errand go well?

The fact that Hyojun had returned safely from Thailand without any trouble and that he was his usual self brought Wooseung a deep sense of relief.

A moment later, a gift coupon for porridge arrived from Hyojun. Along with a text telling him to eat up and get some energy.

“Cough…”

It had already been a week of him groaning and being sick in bed. Perhaps because of all the running around he did to find his mom, he caught a cold as soon as he returned to Seoul. It was probably because his body had been strained from sweating and then cooling down repeatedly.

“President, cough…”

Wooseung called out for Taejung, who was somewhere in the house. It was just about lunchtime.

Soon, Taejung entered the bedroom, dragging his slippers. Wooseung held up his phone toward him. Taejung took it and raised his eyebrows into a faint mountain shape.

“What would you like to eat?”

He asked after slowly scanning the screen.

“Should I order this for you?”

“Ah, Hyojun sent me a gift coupon. Let’s eat together.”

As soon as he heard the name Hyojun, the expression vanished from Taejung’s face. He rubbed the inside of his cheek with his tongue, then tossed the phone onto the bed, thud. The screen of the phone, which had landed next to Wooseung’s shoulder, displayed the menu of a franchise porridge shop.

“Not eating.”

Taejung turned around abruptly and left the bedroom.

“…”

After staring at him blankly, Wooseung felt his fever rising again and weakly laid his head on the pillow. He took his phone back and slowly scrolled down the menu. After a brief moment of thought, he ordered one beef and vegetable porridge, one tuna and vegetable porridge, and added a sweet rice drink as well. As he imagined the savory taste of sesame oil, his appetite slowly returned.

While unpacking the containers, Wooseung felt a stinging gaze on him the entire time. It wasn’t his imagination, as his eyes kept meeting Taejung’s through the transparent door.

“Are you really not going to eat?”

Unable to stand it any longer, he asked again. This was already the third time he had asked this question.

And each time, Taejung.

“I said I’m not eating.”

He answered just as he had now. It couldn’t be that he really disliked porridge. It was probably because he didn’t like that Hyojun had sent the gift coupon.

Why was Taejung jealous over something like this? And despite that, he still wouldn’t admit that he liked him. In a way, even that was very much like Taejung.

In the end, Wooseung gave up and sat at the dining table. He slowly stirred the porridge with a plastic spoon and took a large spoonful. The savory taste quickly filled his mouth. His hunger, which had been dormant all this time, subtly made its presence known.

He ate only the porridge, barely touching the side dishes. When he was about halfway through, he found Taejung’s silence strange and checked the living room area, but he wasn’t there.

“Huh?”

He blinked and turned his head from side to side.

Just then, the spoon was snatched from his right hand. Taejung, who had approached him at some point, leaned one hand on the table, scooped up some porridge, and brought it to his mouth.

“Tastes like shit.”

Then, after giving a taste review no one had asked for, he put the spoon down as if throwing it.

He returned to the living room and turned on the TV with the remote. Then, he started playing a game with the volume turned up very high. As if he were staging a protest.

Wooseung stared blankly at the spoon Taejung had tossed aside. Along with the thought that he was a truly strange person.

However, as Wooseung picked up the spoon again, a faint smile had already appeared on his lips.

♡

COMBO—! PERFECT!

A cheerful sound, unfitting for the inside of a container shelter, echoed loudly. Moonsu glanced at Taejung, then quickly turned his head back to its original position as if nothing had happened.

“Huuk, heok… S-s-sor, heuu… I’m sorr, ee.”

The sound of panting breaths cut through the game’s sound effects. Kim Hyungho, tied to a metal chair, could only barely lift his head. Two of his lower teeth were missing, so even when his mouth was closed, bloody saliva drooled out from between them.

His appearance, revealed under the fluorescent light, was miserable. His hair was matted with blood and sweat, and the skin exposed outside his clothes was covered in bruises. His eyelids and temples were so swollen that his left eye was practically blind.

“Heuk, kkeuk…”

PERFECT! MISS! MISS!

“P-President, eugh, kkeuk…”

MISS!

MISS!

“Aish, fuck.”

The game, which had been going well, started showing “MISS” continuously from a certain point. Taejung, who was sitting with his legs up on the metal table, bit out a savage curse. In the end, faced with a screen full of “MISS!”, he turned off the game. A heavy silence soon followed.

“Heuk, heuk…”

Even while trembling from the fear and chills that dominated his entire body, Kim Hyungho did not take his eyes off Taejung. Taejung, for his part, did not pay even a sliver of attention to Kim Hyungho. He stared intently at his phone, then spat on the floor, ptoo.

[ok hehe]

What he was looking at so intently was a text from Wooseung. The one he kept checking like a habit.

In response to his text saying he didn’t know when he would be back, Wooseung had sent a half-hearted reply of merely “ok hehe”. He felt fucking awful.

Taejung obsessively bit his thumbnail, repeatedly turning his phone on and off. Each time the bright light illuminated his expressionless face, Kim Hyungho’s body flinched, as if he were being hit head-on by a scene from a horror movie.

“Heuuu…”

However, his blood-soaked cries could not reach Taejung. Whenever he tried to call out to Taejung, Moonsu, who stood beside him, would kick his broken ankle. Even when a scream like a beast’s wail filled the container, Taejung’s attention remained on his phone.

Solely on Wooseung, who was beyond the phone.

The disparity was terribly cruel and bizarre.