INFB Ch 18

[Ah, don’t act like a dick. Why do you call and bullshit every time— .]

“Answer the phone without fail.”

[…]

“Don’t hang out with bad kids. Don’t drink alcohol.”

[…]

“You have to get a diploma without fail. Without fail.”

[Ha…]

At Seobin, with whom words completely failed to get through, Jeongho let out a sigh as if the ground were sinking. That breath passed through the receiver and tickled Seobin’s pinna. Seobin pressed down hard again on the smile that was welling up plumply. And he acted in a stern voice.

“I pay your tuition, pay your food expenses, and give you pocket money, so I have the right to say at least this much.”

[Total boomer…]

“Go home. Stop playing around.”

[…Hang up.]

Jeongho hung up the phone first again, like an uneducated bastard.

Thinking that next time they talked on the phone, he should tell him that when talking on the phone with a elder, you don’t hang up first, Seobin was looking at Jeongho’s profile picture.

It was a completely ruined picture of him putting up his middle finger while looking at the camera with three or four friends, but still, he thought it was something to be able to see his face even like this.

“His voice has gotten deeper.”

Seobin murmured while staring at the pale hallway. Just listening to his voice, he was already an adult. In the meantime, it felt like Jeongho had grown bigger again, making his chest throb. It was a good throbbing. Since the last time he saw him was when he was a middle school student, his growth was unfamiliar.

“Will he come to Korea when he graduates…”

Will he come and meet me? Will he affectionately call me hyung—? Can we finally become brothers? Can we become a family living in the same house and eating meals together?

A reddish excitement filled Seobin’s cheekbones. It was when he was imagining the distant future while adjusting his grip on his cell phone.

The cell phone vibrated—vrrr.

He quickly checked thinking it might be Jeongho, but Jaegyu’s name had popped up.

11 o’clock

“…”

Seobin’s face turned white in an instant.

There was no place written in Jaegyu’s message. Seobin arrived in front of the building, estimating that it must be that place he went to back then. In the dark and old building, light came through only the window written with .

“…”

He hoped it was a wrong guess. Or he hoped Jaegyu had forgotten to mention the location. Persistent as it was, it seemed we were going to meet again today.

For once, Jaegyu didn’t say things like right away, right now, to here, or anything like that. Thanks to that, Seobin was able to arrive 10 minutes earlier than the appointed time. However, his mind was already in a worn-out state as if he had had intercourse with him.

The message from Jaegyu came at around 3 PM. From then until now, for about 8 hours, Seobin had to tremble in fear while imagining the meeting with Jaegyu.

If he hadn’t known, he would have been without any thoughts. Because he came to know, throughout tutoring, throughout working at the meat restaurant, he had to be crushed by the impact of this moment. He ended up even doing a stupid thing like scorching his wrist on a grill plate.

Seobin, who was rubbing his hot, stinging wrist against his waist, straightened his back. And,

“Hoo-up…”

Taking a sharp, long breath enough to swell his ribcage thick, he stepped inside the building.

After a short knock, Seobin opened the door of . The handle in the shape of an iron ball felt unusually heavy and stiff today.

At the same time the murky golden light brushed the bridge of his foot, there was a pungent smell. A scent so dense it made the bridge of his nose sting, yet bitter and cold. It was Jaegyu’s cigarette smell, which he had already grown accustomed to despite having smelled it only a few times.

Jaegyu was sitting on the sofa. He was sitting on the long sofa, not the head seat, but his back was turned so his face couldn’t be seen.

Seobin let out a sigh of relief secretly from him. Since facing Jaegyu was a difficult thing either way. After adjusting his breath a few times, he bowed his head toward Jaegyu’s back.

“Hello. I’m here.”

“Yeah.”

Jaegyu answered without turning his head. Hesitating, Seobin moved hesitantly toward the end of the sofa. Jaegyu was looking at documents. Five or six approval documents were stacked on the table, and considering the ashtray was heaped up, he seemed to have arrived long ago.

“You came early today.”

Jaegyu spoke while exhaling smoke—hoo. His gaze was still fixed on the documents.

“Because you contacted me in advance, I was able to leave early. Thank you.”

Seobin bowed his waist again. Judging by how anxious his heart was, it wasn’t a particularly thankful thing, but compared to irritating his mood by being late for no reason, he thought it was rather better.

“Right.”

Jaegyu didn’t look at Seobin. He didn’t seem to have any particular interest in Seobin either. Rustle, rustle, the documents turned over to the next page, and to the next page.

In the meantime, Seobin had to bite down anxiously on his lower lip.

“…”

From the moment he stepped foot into this space, from the moment he faced Jaegyu, from the moment he faced the black sofa that had been overworked a week ago, his body trembled excessively.

It’s scary.

He knows what will happen from now on. He knows how painful it will be. How he will be crumpled and broken. He knows how much he will cry and groan. The pain that had passed only a week ago was stuck in his mind excessively clearly.

How scary it was. It was to the point that he could feel the color draining from his face.

Seobin learned for the first time that the fear he had experienced was bigger than the fear he hadn’t experienced.

Therefore, he couldn’t show it. Would he run away saying he was scared? Or would he whine to Jaegyu saying he couldn’t do it anymore?

Not a single thing was allowed for Seobin. Therefore, there was no choice but to endure it. Seobin clenched his fists tightly. So hard that fingernail marks were deeply engraved in his palms, beyond which red blood formed.

It was then. Jaegyu tapped the sofa—tap, tap.

“Sit.”

“Pardon? Ah…, yes.”

Seobin quickly sat on the sofa. Unconsciously, he sat right next to Jaegyu, then trembled with a flinch and moved away by about two spans. Having done so, he thought, Oh no. Because he thought Jaegyu would feel offended.

What if I get scolded? As he cowered his neck out of fear in advance, Jaegyu put down the documents. And after taking a drag of his cigarette, he leaned his back against the backrest of the sofa and looked at Seobin.

At every moment his brief actions continued, Seobin’s shoulders twitched and trembled.

“You lost weight.”

Jaegyu spoke while letting smoke flow out through his teeth. Fortunately, he didn’t seem angry. Reassured, Seobin awkwardly raised the corners of his mouth.

“Ah, yes… it seems so.”

Seobin stroked the back of his nape in reverse. Seeing how every single person who saw him said he had lost weight, his appearance must be a mess.

As his eyes rolled round and round, without warning, he met eyes with Jaegyu. He felt as if his dark gray eyes were piercing through the space between his eyebrows. Seobin quickly lowered his head low.

“…”

Seeing that, Jaegyu’s eyes narrowed finely. He examined Seobin step by step.

His small hands were trembling violently. As if he noticed that himself, he clasped his two hands together, but he couldn’t hide the trembling by doing so. His body twitched as well. How violently he was trembling. The hair that poured down smoothly shook along with it.

At Seobin’s dark emotions overflowing profusely, Jaegyu raised the corners of his mouth visibly or invisibly. Then he asked in a gentle voice as if pretending to know nothing.

“What’s wrong? Are you scared?”

At those words, Seobin snapped his head up. Like a frightened cat, his eyes became clear. His lips moved indistinctly like a goldfish.

Should he honestly say he was scared? Or should he tell a lie? He couldn’t gauge which answer would please Jaegyu.

“Uh…”

Seobin, who couldn’t find a word to answer, agonized while dragging his tone. However, Jaegyu didn’t particularly wait for an answer. From his thin body trembling violently, to his pale, frightened face, to his eyes that couldn’t find a bearing and raged erratically in all directions. Because Seobin was shouting with his whole body that he was scared of this situation.

“It’s different from a week ago.”

Jaegyu, who murmured like a monologue, took a deep drag of his cigarette. Then, unable to hold it in, he finally let out a laugh.

Just last week, with an elegant face, as if he weren’t afraid of the low-class violence he inflicted in the slightest, as if it couldn’t exert any influence on him, he had stripped nobility. Now, seeing him trembling like an animal kicked by a foot was quite to his liking.

“…”