NHL 22

I had intended to complain once Dylan got into the car. But before I could even find the opportunity, Dylan started a conversation and diverted my attention.

“Joeon. I’m sorry, but would it be okay if we stopped for groceries on the way?”

“Huh? Yes, sure.”

Joeon blurted out an answer before he knew it, then poured out the curiosity that welled up a moment too late.

“But which ice rink are we going to? Is it okay to do the grocery shopping now? It’s cold out, so it won’t spoil or anything, but….”

Dylan stared at the road, rubbing his chin with a playful expression. When he spared his words, only teasing as if he were going to speak and then not, an impatient Joeon pressed him.

“What is it? Why aren’t you answering? Where are we going?”

“Are you curious?”

Wondering what kind of riddle this was, I narrowed my eyes.

“You’ll know when we arrive.”

On the screen of Dylan’s phone, which I glanced at, a map was displayed, and it was guiding us toward the north—not the south, where both mine or Dylan’s homes were.

“For your reference, it will take about 20 minutes. Just get comfortable.”

But I couldn’t truly get comfortable, so to close the distance that had grown while I couldn’t see Dylan, I spilled stories such as how I came to be connected with Maya’s family and that Ben had started playing children’s hockey.

“Actually, I came to Canada in high school, and that’s when I started boarding at Maya’s house. I was a minor and all alone without any relatives, so Maya became my guardian until I became an adult. It must have been difficult since there were children much younger than me, but they really took great care of me. I moved to a dormitory when I entered university, and after that, I started living on my own, but Maya and Tony are still good people who never forget to take care of me every year. That’s why I always stop by here during the holidays. Oh, the youngest child is named Ben, and he must be about seven years old now. I heard he started learning hockey a little while ago.”

“You mean the cute friend who was waving from the window.”

“Yes.”

Leaving out the complicated family history I had experienced before getting on the plane for the first time, I only explained the history that took place after boarding the plane, so somehow it sounded like an adventurer who had stepped onto the New World with ambition.

“By the way, that’s amazing. That you decided to live in a place where the language and culture were different, all by yourself at a young age.”

“Is… that so?”

Hearing his praise, it sounded like I had made quite a grand resolution, but Joeon had never once voluntarily chosen the life he had now. If anything, he belonged to the side that was chosen. If he didn’t attach trivial explanations, everyone would regard Joeon admiringly, just like Dylan.

Joeon let Dylan just misunderstand. A sense of crisis surged that if he started explaining his arduous history one by one, he would have to expose his true self in front of Dylan.

An empty life hidden inside a colorful shell of grand ambition and great resolution.

The reality was that of an abandoned child who, far from choosing life for himself, had helplessly followed forced options. It was a weak and shabby history that Joeon absolutely never wanted to be found out.

“Of course. I don’t think I could have ever done it if it were me.”

“Why? I think Dylan would adapt well.”

“Is that so? But the past me thought I couldn’t.”

Dylan added a follow-up.

“Actually, when I was in school, I received offers from the U.S. several times. But I didn’t go. I didn’t want to leave this place. Well, even so, the rookie draft was something I couldn’t do anything about anyway, so I decided that I had to go wherever I was chosen and let everything go, but I was lucky enough to make my pro debut in my hometown, so I was really relieved.”

“Why didn’t you go? Is there a reason?”

Dylan stared straight at Joeon while driving. Our eyes met in the air. As the time grew longer, Joeon felt needlessly anxious and looked away first.

“You should be watching the road.”

When I scolded him, Dylan muttered in a small voice.

“That’s right. I should be watching the road. I should have done that back then, too. Instead of looking at the person beside me.”

“Huh?”

“It’s nothing.”

Dylan tried to gloss over it, but when Joeon made an interesting expression as if he had caught a weakness, he brushed back his gently curling blond hair as if he had spoken for no reason.

“Aha. So you’re saying you didn’t go because of a girlfriend?”

“An ‘ex’-girlfriend. I was only 15 years old.”

“I see. I suppose so.”

“…”

“Is she your first love?”

Dylan smiled and slowly shook his head. It was a gesture that wasn’t a denial or an affirmation, just that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Other than my family, I’ve never expressed love for anything other than my dog and hockey, so I don’t know. Was that love?”

At the answer that sounded like someone crazy about hockey, Joeon gave a light laugh.

“If you miss it sometimes, it might be.”

“Then it must not be.”

“It’s even more unbelievable that you can’t be sure if it was love even though that person was the only reason you didn’t want to leave.”

“Because that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want to leave. What about you, Joeon?”

Dylan asked again.

“The person you miss.”

The moment he understood the meaning of his words by tracing back the previous conversation, the car entered a massive parking lot in front of a grocery store.

“Is there one? A first love you left behind in your hometown…. Oh, not your parents.”

He could feel Dylan’s gaze, which was glancing toward the passenger seat while pretending to focus on driving.

Joeon only shrugged his shoulders instead of giving the other person a satisfying answer, as if to retaliate for the earlier patience test. Dylan bit his lip as if frustrated and muttered.

“You’re not going to tell me? Is this fair?”

“Well.”

“It seems you’ve already figured out how to toy with me.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

When Joeon responded playfully, Dylan whispered in a low voice with a subtle smile.

“I’m curious about everything about you. You know how I think of you.”

When a flustered Joeon couldn’t continue, Dylan hurriedly finished parking to make the stiff atmosphere go away and said:

“Do you like steak?”

“Huh? Oh….”

“Let’s go pick out something you’d like.”

The engine turned off and silence flowed. Joeon scratched his cheek for no reason while unbuckling his seatbelt.

“I’m not a vegetarian, but I tend to eat more vegetables than meat.”

“That’s good. Let’s get to know your eating habits. Do you drink wine? Or are you a beer person? Whiskey?”

As he got out of the car, Dylan gestured with his eyes toward the LCBO—the representative liquor store in Ontario—next to the grocery store.

“I know how to drink a little bit of everything. Although I don’t enjoy it very much.”

“That’s also good. What’s your taste in desserts? Do you like sweet things too?”

“…I’ll eat them if they’re there.”

Answering the trivial questions, Joeon suddenly realized one fact. That the person named Song Joeon is not someone with firm tastes.

This was not limited only to his taste in food. It was the same if he looked back at his entire life up to now. It was a series of lives with no conviction and no direction.

“What about you, Dylan?”

“Me?”

Dylan, who had taken out and was pushing the cart, made a sound like “Hmm” as if contemplating, then gave an empty answer that let down the person who was waiting.

“I eat everything well without being picky.”

“…Yeah.”

Then he added affectionately.

“More than that, who I’m with is more important.”

🏒🥅

For some reason, after purchasing groceries according to Joeon’s taste, Dylan’s car left the store parking lot and headed north on Highway 400. As they moved away from the city center, concrete buildings visibly decreased and the skyline lowered.

Instead of a fence that was nothing but crude, balsam fir trees that looked like Christmas trees because the snow hadn’t melted much stretched high into the sky, filling the edges of the highway densely. Since there was nothing to see in the surroundings, Joeon just assumed it must be a place far away from residential areas.