HYUNG 31

Psh,” Ye Hwanyoung puffed out her lips in a pout, yet she still obediently brought me my phone while tucking a box under her arm. She then sat down beside me and began unpacking it.

“But did you get a girlfriend? Why are there so many texts? Not even KakaoTalk, but texts these days…”

“Why are you looking at someone else’s business?”

“Are we ‘someone else’? Really?”

When I pressed the power button, just as Ye Hwanyoung said, there were indeed several text messages. They were all sent by Ham Dowon.

“By the way, who is Ham Dowon? Oh, the girl you’re seeing? Her name is pretty.”

“He’s a junior from school, so move your head.”

“So, he’s a junior from school that you’re seeing.”

“It’s a guy, seriously.”

Thump. I lightly pushed Ye Hwanyoung’s head away. Ye Hwanyoung’s lips twitched.

“Then I guess he’s the guy you’re seeing?”

“Why are you so free of prejudice?”

Are all teenagers like this these days?

“What’s the big deal lately? In the drama I watched yesterday, two men were kissing and hugging, and then rolling around in bed. Oh, I watched that with Mom too. A gay couple appears in the American drama Mom’s been watching lately. Mom was next to me saying, ‘Oh my, how dirty. So dirty!’ so I thought, ah, my mother is just a typical middle-aged Korean woman, but then she said, ‘No, why are they lying on the bed with their shoes on? How dirty!’ She felt relieved when they got naked. She was like, ‘They wouldn’t be naked and still wearing shoes.’ I inherited this open-minded attitude from Mom.”

“Just what are you watching?”

I had set it up so she could comfortably watch Korean dramas or movies… but it seems Mom’s tastes are quite broad.

“What do you mean ‘what’? Mom watches everything in the Top 10, and she watches pretty much everything else because she wants to see things others don’t know about. Before that, she watched a drama set in a women’s prison, and she said she’ll never commit a crime because the prison was too messy and dirty, and the food looked tasteless. In that one, several women were rolling around together. Mom says she can’t watch Korean dramas anymore. She says they lack stimulation. She finds it interesting only if at least a few people die. Is this the heart of a parent worrying about the negative influence of media? She even tries to stay up all night watching, so I have to go out every night and yell at her to please go to sleep before she finally goes into the bedroom. She’s also strictly monitoring Dad’s phone. When I took a peek last time, she was searching for our rice cake shop every day and giggling while watching things where it was mentioned in videos.”

“Never mind Mom, but you shouldn’t watch those. They’re rated R.”

True. Thinking back to when I was young, the movie tapes Mom rented were of various genres. Since she tried to watch every movie in the rental shop, it seemed quite a few queer films were mixed in among them.

“Why? While Mom watches, she gives me early education, saying things like, ‘Right. They say all foreign kids are like that these days. Don’t be surprised later if you go study abroad.’ She was like that when hyung went to America, too. ‘Ah, I wonder if our Hwanoh is hanging out with friends like that in America. Since he’s an art student, it’s good to have an open attitude.’”

“…”

I never particularly expected an open-minded attitude from my parents…

“It’s just because it’s a story about another country and another house. They naturally think there’s no way it would happen to me or hyung. Take a picture of me.”

I suppose so… Even I was like that. Among the friends I met in America, there were those who dated the same sex. I was surprised at first to see them kissing their partners, but I got used to it as I kept seeing it. It wasn’t my business, and since I naturally thought it could never become my story, I kept my distance and didn’t interfere or care.

Ye Hwanyoung pretended to listen to music while wearing headphones that weren’t even charged. In the meantime, I had to work hard taking pictures with her phone. It was funny how she absolutely refused to look at the lens, and when I tried to force her gaze to meet the camera, I got hit on the back.

‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹

We had a modest birthday party with a cake Ye Hwanyoung baked herself (made with ingredients bought with money she squeezed out of me). Mom bragged about receiving gifts from the employees at the rice cake shop, which turned out to be cosmetics. Fortunately, they didn’t overlap with the gift I prepared. I gave her smart lights that attach to the back of the TV. At first, she seemed lukewarm about them, but once I installed them, she liked them. As light matching the colors on the screen poured out, she enjoyed it, saying she could watch dramas more interestingly. A bit excessively so.

“…Ugh.”

Dad set up a table for drinks, saying he wanted to have a drink with his son after a long time. Mom sipped beer next to us and watched her drama intently. Because of the lights, she enjoyed it until late into the night. When I cautiously asked if she shouldn’t go to sleep, she said it was fine because tomorrow was a day off.

I couldn’t leave first, so I sat there for a long while, forced to drink until I was woozy; only then did Mom turn off the TV. Her face was full of lingering regret, but since I desperately wanted to sleep, I stood up quickly. And after falling right into a deep sleep, I woke up to find…

“…It’s past 12.”

I overslept. But where did my phone go? I don’t remember seeing it after Ye Hwanyoung took it out of my bag and brought it to me yesterday. There was a text from Ham Dowon. Is it something urgent? But I couldn’t check it…

“Are you awake now?”

“…Where are Mom and Dad?”

“At Grandma’s house.”

I stumbled out into the living room. Ye Hwanyoung, who had gone into her room before 11 PM saying teenagers should sleep early, was sitting on the sofa—despite being a teenager—watching an R-rated drama.

“But these lights are pretty good? This is fun. It would be even better in the dark.”

“Watch a drama for your own age.”

Following the flashy screen of a party scene, the lights flickered and emitted various colors.

“This is high teen. Teenage kids. Though they do drink too much and do quite a lot of drugs.”

“…I see. It’s high teen.”

Plop. I sank into the sofa next to Ye Hwanyoung. A school appeared. A student suffering from a hangover slammed his face into an open locker door he didn’t see.

“Was hyung like that when you went to America?”

“If I were like that, would I be here? I’d be in prison.”

Ye Hwanyoung asked while watching a student snorting drugs in a bathroom, and it was absolutely ridiculous.

“But it seems like your state and theirs are pretty similar.”

“…Watch your mouth.”

The alcohol Dad brought yesterday—he said it was some kind of traditional liquor—had a very high alcohol content. My head was throbbing.

“Hyung, then did you ever try something like marijuana brownies?”

“Stop watching weird things. And I told you, if I eat that, I’ll go to prison.”

“I saw it in a comedy drama. They were all high schoolers younger than me. They didn’t know the brownie recipe, so they put marijuana in scones, and it was hilarious. It happened to be at a funeral? Some adult took it, thinking it was funeral food…”

Ye Hwanyoung cackled as she excitedly rambled on about an episode of some drama. Watching her, I became a little—no, quite—worried. She’s the type who says she wants to study abroad later, and I was afraid she’d have some weird fantasy and end up doing things she shouldn’t.

“…Don’t even think about doing anything weird if you go abroad. Korea follows the principle of nationality.”

“What’s the principle of nationality?”

“Even if a deed is committed overseas, if you have Republic of Korea nationality, you are punished under Korean law. Even if you smoke marijuana in a place where it’s legal, you’ll end up being punished.”

“Geez. Why would I do that? I watched that women’s prison drama with Mom too. So I made up my mind. I’m never going to prison.”

“And stop watching American dramas.”

“The one with the marijuana scones was an Irish drama.”

“I’m telling you to stop watching Westerners’ dramas.”

“I can watch them. Recently I watched a French one too. I don’t know why they commit adultery so much? Why get married if they’re going to do that? Oh, Korean dramas aren’t much different, though.”

“Do you know where my phone went?”

I changed the subject. Ye Hwanyoung, who had been talking excitedly even after pausing the drama, twitched her eyebrows.

“Why are you looking for it from me?”

“Call it.”

“Seriously, you’re so high-maintenance.”

“Good grief.”

As if she’s one to talk. As soon as Ye Hwanyoung placed the call, a vibration rang nearby. It seemed to be on the sofa, so I frowned while searching here and there, but I couldn’t see it. Beside me, Ye Hwanyoung clicked her tongue as if I were pathetic.

“Here. It was stuck between the sofa cushions.”

“Thanks.”

“But aren’t you going to change your phone? How many years have you been using that? Didn’t you buy it when I was in middle school?”

“It’s still perfectly fine.”