HYUNG 27

I left the task to Ham Dowon and stood a step back, looking around the inside of the shop. Ah, there is a painting. A foot? But I feel like I’ve seen that somewhere before… Ah, it’s Bacon. It was part of a nude painting by Francis Bacon. But isn’t it a bit much to hang in a dessert shop? I feel like it would ruin one’s appetite. The only food-related business a Bacon painting would suit is probably a butcher shop. That is, considering both the art and the name.

“Hyung. Say ah.”

“Huh?”

“Ah.”

What was the title of that work again… Since it is only a part, I really can’t tell… While I was thinking deeply, I heard a voice calling me. In the gap between turning my head subconsciously and answering, something slipped right into my open mouth.

“It’s delicious, right!”

It was gelato scooped with a small spoon. A soft sweetness, savoriness, and coolness melted away on my tongue.

“Oh, it is good…”

“They say it’s made with chestnuts they simmered themselves.”

Ham Dowon smiled broadly as if satisfied.

“Give me one single cone each of this and Riso, please.”

Before I knew it, Ham Dowon, who was holding the gelato that had finished being packed, pressed an ice cream cone into my hand.

“Let’s eat while we walk.”

Somehow, I ended up out on the street with an ice cream cone in my hand. Ham Dowon licked the white rice-flavored ice cream with a smiling face. He must really like sweet things. Especially ice cream. He was the one who bought enough to fill the freezer at my house. Those ice creams were currently freezing solid.

“Hyung, try it. This one is delicious too.”

Perhaps noticing me, Ham Dowon held his out toward me. It wasn’t that the white gelato looked unappetizing, but since I was full, I didn’t have much of an appetite.

“It’s okay. I’m fine. Do you want mine?”

“Yes.”

It might make me look a bit greedy, but I meant for him to take both ice cream cones and eat them. I had absolutely no intention of feeding him. However, Ham Dowon, who had answered readily, suddenly ducked his face toward me and took a bite of my light wood-colored ice cream. Then he looked up at me and smiled broadly.

“It’s delicious.”

I felt a sense of déjà vu. There was a time before when I somehow ended up feeding him a drink. An Oreo shake.

“You… really like sweet things.”

“…Is that bad?”

Ham Dowon wiped his mouth with a napkin and wore a slightly anxious expression.

Can a person’s eating habits make someone like or dislike them? As long as they weren’t eating something highly unethical, it didn’t matter. If our tastes matched, it was good because they matched, and if they didn’t, it was fine because that person could eat what I didn’t and I could eat what they didn’t, so anything was okay.

“Why would it be bad? It’s something you like.”

“It runs in the family. My mom likes it, and my dad likes it too. My mom said when she was young, she wanted to open a bakery like my Auntie. She supposedly met my dad for the first time at some bakery in France, but only my dad remembers the first meeting. My mom only talks about how the pain au chocolat she ate there was so delicious that she wants to go back.”

Ham Dowon spoke in a somewhat bright voice. At a bakery in France—it was quite a romantic first meeting. Though it was a bit tragic that one side only remembers the bread, they ended up getting married, so isn’t it a happy ending?

“Hyung, let’s go to that bakery later. It’s in Paris.”

“Uh, yeah.”

I wondered if I would ever have a reason to go all the way to Europe with Ham Dowon, but since the dreaming Ham Dowon looked so happy, I didn’t bother to challenge him.

“We’ll eat pain au chocolat there. My dad says the reason he fell for my mom at first sight was because the pain au chocolat he was eating was so enchantingly delicious. His mouth was happy, but he couldn’t take his eyes off my mom, who was eating the bread as if she were so happy.”

“It must be really delicious.”

“Yes. It is. I’ve been there too. The weather happened to be nice, and my noona said this. One must be careful when enjoying this kind of taste and fragrance in this kind of weather. Because if you aren’t careful, you might easily fall in love with whoever happens to be by your side.”

It wasn’t that I had never been to France. It just remained as a memory that wasn’t very pleasant. However, the experience must have been different for Ham Dowon. Because his expression as he talked about it as if reminiscing looked truly happy. I felt like even the Paris in my memories was being beautified for no reason. It felt like standing under a cloudless blue sky, enjoying the scent and taste of savory butter with my nose and mouth.

“We’re here.”

It wasn’t just a simple imagination. Because this flavor-filled scent of butter was actually wafting out from inside that shop.

“Auntie!”

When we entered the shop, several display stands were empty even though it wasn’t that late. Ham Dowon waved his hand happily toward the woman standing behind the counter.

“Oh, you’re here?”

“Auntie, this is gelato. The kind you like. My hyung bought it.”

“Hello.”

I couldn’t challenge the use of the term “our hyung” to Ham Dowon, who was chattering away excitedly while handing the bag in his hand to his Auntie. I bowed my head and greeted her.

“Ah, so you’re the hyung Dowon talked about. You said you’re friends with Hwajung too, right? Hwajung has been coming to our shop a lot since she was a little kid.”

“Yes. I went to school with Hwajung.”

“I see. But you’re really handsome! You must be incredibly popular. Ah, I wanted to date a boyfriend like this when I was in a women’s university… Since it was a women’s university, I got a lot of requests for blind dates, but they were all just empty shells. If a man who looked like this had shown up, I would have confessed first and dated him.”

“Auntie, you can’t. Mister over there is watching with his eyes wide open. Mister will be jealous.”

She was likely just joking, but Ham Dowon reacted seriously for some reason and hid me behind his back. Since our builds were similar, I wasn’t exactly hidden. In the direction Ham Dowon pointed, a large foreign man with dark skin and no hair was standing. But he didn’t look like he was jealous, as Ham Dowon said. He was just looking at his wife as if she were lovely.

Ham Dowon’s Auntie looked at her husband and said something in a foreign language. Judging by the pronunciation, it seemed to be French. She laughed loudly while conversing with her husband for a while, before coming to her senses a bit late at a word from her nephew.

“Auntie, we have somewhere to go. What about the thing I asked for?”

“Ah, look at me. I put it aside in advance. Just a moment.”

As Ham Dowon’s Auntie went inside somewhere, another employee filled the empty spot at the counter. It was a bit uncomfortable to be standing so close to that stranger, so I stepped slightly away from the counter and looked around the shop.

“This place must be really famous.”

“That’s right. It’s famous. They supposedly started the shop in a really tiny place, but they gradually grew it to reach this point.”

“Good for you. Being born with a bread spoon.”

“A bread spoon?”

“Yeah. You must have eaten a lot of bread since you were little.”

“It was like that because my dad bought so much especially… but I like rice too. I eat everything well.”

That’s a relief. Being a Korean who eats rice well. The way he made an appeal using that obvious fact was funny, so I nodded with a smiling face.

“Hyung, do you like rice or bread?”

“I like tteok.”

“Ah, you said your family runs a tteok shop, hyung.”

Ham Dowon opened his lips slightly and wore a look of realization.

When I was little, I felt a bit sick of it because I ate too much tteok, but living on my own, I couldn’t eat it often, so I kept thinking about it.

Ah, the tteok at our shop is really delicious. It wasn’t just famous in the region; many delivery orders came in from all over the country. I heard that after it started appearing a few times in some YouTuber’s videos, it even became a trend, and the order volume increased so much it was difficult, so my parents and the employees have been working hard until now.

“Yeah. Tteok. Do you like tteok at all, rather than bread?”

“I like tteok too! I eat everything well!”

I wonder what kind of tteok Ham Dowon likes. I’m not sure. One thing is certain…

“You especially like sweet things.”

That he would like sweet ones rather than plain ones.

“That’s right. I like sweet things… Hyung, you know so much about me…”

“With the way you eat ice cream and shakes, how could I not know?”

“Still, if you aren’t interested, you might not know.”

“Well, that could be true. But there’s so much ice cream you bought and put in my house that there’s no way I wouldn’t know.”

“I’ll go to eat those soon.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Yes!”