JKA 52

“They probably thought they would get a call from you in some way. Who would have known you’d live like that? From my perspective, it’s amazing they didn’t visit your place every weekend.”

Don’t those people know your life skills are a big fat zero? Zeo muttered that, and Jiwoon opened the fitting room door instead of answering. Wearing a thin shirt over his t-shirt made his outfit much more appropriate for the season. The shirt collar also covered up much of the bruising left on his neck. But Jiwoon, as if embarrassed, still rubbed and covered the marks on his nape that were peeking out here and there.

“I’ll, I’ll wear this out.”

Saying that, Zeo snatched the turtleneck Jiwoon was holding in his hand and headed for the counter. Jiwoon stood awkwardly, just watching him. Zeo was right. Honestly, when he first started living alone, that was the part he feared the most. What if his parents visited his home often? He had barely escaped that house, and he worried that it might actually be no different from being cooped up in his room.

When he was at his family home, he always felt suffocated for no reason. His head would get dizzy and he felt like he was going to die, so even when he was fine, he would burrow into his blankets and curl his body into a ball. His heart would pound as if he would die any second, and breathing was so agonizing. Especially when he heard a sign of someone in the empty house, his body would suddenly freeze.

Jiwoon wanted to escape that house so badly. That house he had never once left since he was born, that house where his older brother’s room still remained as it was. He wanted to disappear to a place where he wouldn’t have to see the refrigerator that was always full of ice cream, or the family photo hanging on the wall.

Fortunately, his parents never once visited his place after he moved. There wasn’t even a common “how are you” call. It was the same for Jiwoon. He didn’t make the effort to ask if they were well, or if anything was wrong. He knew. He knew that if only he disappeared from that house, nothing would happen.

What came instead of visits and phone calls were packages. Packages full of clothes. At first, he opened one or two and hung them on hangers. He did it because returning them was also a hassle. Later, he just dumped them out with a whoosh and shoved them in a corner, and when even that became a hassle, he started stacking the boxes themselves in a corner. Even when the room became a junkyard and there was no more space to stack packages, Jiwoon didn’t contact his parents. He just couldn’t bring himself to tell them they could stop sending them.

Are those clothes for me, or are they being sent to my dead brother? Jiwoon had such thoughts. As he lived, he surpassed the age at which his brother had died. The current Jiwoon was older than his dead brother. He was forever eighteen years old. Myeong Seonwoo, his older brother who had unfortunately died in a car accident and was his mom and dad’s pride. A person he could never defeat. That was his older brother.

Zeo, having finished paying, borrowed a pair of scissors and approached the blankly standing Jiwoon.

“Turn around.”

At Zeo’s words, Jiwoon obediently turned around, and he cut off the price tag sticking out from outside the shirt collar with the scissors. As the cool back of the scissor blades lightly touched the back of his neck, his body flinched without him realizing it. Zeo narrowed his brow at the various marks visible when he pulled the shirt slightly. It was definitely a mess, to an extent that seemed a bit excessive.

After removing the price tag, Zeo returned to the counter, handed back the scissors, and came back holding the paper bag containing the turtleneck. Until then, Jiwoon was rubbing the back of his neck with his palm. It was because the cool sensation of the scissors had strangely brought back the painful and hot sensation of when the bruises were left. He couldn’t understand why.

“Don’t just think, ask.”

Zeo grabbed the hand of the foolishly standing Jiwoon and pulled him along. Jiwoon, who ended up holding hands with Zeo, was startled and tried to pull his hand away, but Zeo squeezed his hand even tighter, as if he had no intention of letting go.

“Wh, what should I ask… No, p, please let go of my, my hand. People are wa, watching.”

“Do you know those people over there?”

“N, no?”

“I don’t know them either.”

“…”

“Are we not allowed to hold hands?”

Zeo lifted their joined hands and deliberately waved them in front of Jiwoon’s eyes. It was impossible to beat him with strength, so Jiwoon just turned his head away, and in doing so, his ears, which had turned bright red, were fully revealed. At that sight, Zeo let out a small chuckle and led Jiwoon on.

“Ask them directly why they send so many clothes. Don’t think and decide by yourself in your head.”

“…”

“Maybe they just want to receive your call. Regardless of what it’s about.”

Jiwoon just kept his mouth firmly shut. Does Lee Zeo, being an angel, know everything? How he lived in that house after Myeong Seonwoo died, and why he became like this. Why he finds it so difficult to make a single phone call.

“My heart w, won’t follow.”

Jiwoon said, looking down at Zeo’s tightly held hand.

“Even if I m, make the call, I think I’ll hang up w, without being able to say anything. Because my m, mouth won’t move.”

“Then leave a message.”

Zeo said it as if it were no big deal, and at this, Jiwoon snapped his head up and looked at him. They were talking about a phone call, but it didn’t just mean his voice wouldn’t come out. Whether it was a call or a message, it was all the same. He just didn’t want to receive any kind of reply from them. No matter what they said to him now, he couldn’t easily accept it.

“Th, that’s not what I mean. Y, you don’t know anything.”

“Not ‘you’, it’s Lee Zeo.”

“…Is th, that im, important?”

“Yes.”

“…”

“It’s an important matter to me now.”

Zeo said firmly, and at this, Jiwoon shut his mouth, his face blushing. What’s so special about being called by his name, he thought, but at the same time, he somehow liked that Zeo considered being called by the name he gave him to be a big deal. He was also embarrassed.

“For you, sending that message is the important matter. Do you understand what I mean?”

“…”

“You are you.”

Zeo said that and led Jiwoon into another store. It was a place where suits and shirts were the main items. Jiwoon had no particular reason to wear things like suits, so he looked at Zeo with an expression that said, why did we come here? Zeo, as if having read his expression, spoke to Jiwoon.

“To buy my things.”

“Y, you said you d, don’t need things like cl, clothes.”

“I need them now.”

“…”

“This time, you choose.”

“M, me?”

He couldn’t immediately understand why Zeo was telling him to pick out clothes for him to wear, and as he stood there blankly, a clerk approached and asked if he was looking for anything. At this, Jiwoon hesitated in a fluster and answered in a small voice, “A sh, shirt.” In response, the clerk, as if she had been waiting, asked who would be wearing it, and that time, Zeo answered instead of Jiwoon that he would be wearing it.

At that, the clerk began to take out shirts of various colors and explain them one by one. Perhaps because Zeo looked like a foreigner at a glance, the clerk’s gaze was fixed solely on Jiwoon. Jiwoon found this burdensome, but at the sight of Zeo having stepped back slightly, he sighed and tried his best to listen attentively to the clerk’s words. It was because he had resigned himself a little at the sight of Zeo, who seemed to have no intention of helping at all. He couldn’t understand why he was doing this, but as he looked at the shirts of various colors and thought about what would suit Zeo, talking with the clerk began to feel a little more okay.

“As for the size, this one should probably fit… how about trying it on?”

At the clerk’s question, Jiwoon received the shirt he had chosen and handed it to Zeo. Zeo, without a word, obediently took the shirt and headed to the fitting room. Jiwoon sat on the chair in front of the fitting room, holding the paper bag, and waited for Zeo to come out after changing his shirt.

He couldn’t understand for what reason he had come to need clothes when he didn’t need them at all. Wasn’t changing his appearance at will Zeo’s specialty? Was he just remembering my earlier words about going to buy clothes and playing along? While he was having such thoughts, the fitting room door suddenly opened slightly.

The clerk was attending to another customer. Wondering what was going on, Jiwoon got up from his seat and approached the slightly open fitting room door, and in that moment, he was swiftly snatched by Zeo’s hand and pulled inside the fitting room.

“Wh, what are you doing—!”

Zeo, who had covered the mouth of Jiwoon who was about to scream in surprise, pointed to his upper body as if to say, look at me, and said.

“Buttons.”

“…”

“I can’t fasten these.”

When Zeo obediently removed his hand from Jiwoon, Jiwoon, having calmed down a little, stared at Zeo. Then, indeed, the sight of the shirt, buttoned one space off, came into view.

“A, are you doing this on p, purpose?”

Jiwoon asked, keeping his voice as low as possible, and Zeo spoke in a dumbfounded tone, as if to say, how could that be possible?

“Why would I?”

“N, no… you just have to fa, fasten the buttons.”

“I don’t know how.”

“…”

“I would know if I had ever worn clothes before.”

I’m sure I put them in straight. Zeo grumbled, and at this, Jiwoon stretched out his hands as if he had no choice. As he undid the wrongly fastened buttons one by one from the top, he felt strange for some reason. The fitting room was too small for two men to be in, so they had to stand pressed close together.

Although it was to properly dress him, his fingertips trembled as he undid the buttons while feeling Zeo’s gaze looking down at him intently. Watching this, Zeo whispered quietly.

“Hurry up. We have to get out before someone sees.”

“Th, that’s why… why did you bring me in here when there are people.”

“Then am I supposed to go outside with my buttons done up like that?”

“A, anyone, there’s no one you know here!”

Jiwoon threw back the same words Zeo had said when he held his hand. He could have just asked him to re-button it outside, so why did he have to call him into this fitting room? What would the clerk think if they were caught leaving together?

“Then I’d have to show my bare body to everyone, would that be okay?”

“Wh, what does it matter if i, it’s okay with m, me or not. And so w, what if someone sees a little.”

If you just looked at a beach in the summer, the sight of shirtless men was everywhere. It wasn’t like there was anything that particularly needed to be hidden, so what did it matter if others saw a little? Jiwoon finally finished unbuttoning the shirt and was about to fasten it again. At that moment, Zeo slapped Jiwoon’s hand away, then slightly parted the shirt to show his shoulder area.

“What are you going to do if this is seen?”

His shoulder was covered in nail marks, as if someone had scratched and pinched it. Just as Jiwoon’s nape was covered in bruises and bite marks, his shoulder was covered in Jiwoon’s nail marks. At this, Jiwoon was horrified and pulled the shirt closed, then hurriedly began to fasten the buttons.