NHL 47

Amy shooed Aaron away, telling him to go quickly. Turning her head toward Joeon, she spoke without hesitation despite being total strangers.

“Looks like you came after work. Are you a salaryman?”

“Yes.”

“I’m envious. I’m still a student. And for your reference, my major has nothing to do with music. Marketing. This is just a hobby and a part-time job combined.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I like taking photos and videos. Bobby’s former roommate’s girlfriend was my friend. We met and got to know each other at a house party, and one time I took some photos of him, and he was so surprised. He showed me a video of him performing that he’d filmed himself. The composition and lighting were total crap, so I offered to film it for him once, and ever since then, he’s been begging me to please help him out, even if it’s just whenever I’m free. Doing that led to me getting this hoodie, too. Plus, it’s good pocket money.”

Amy said that, pointing a finger at her own back.

“That’s impressive. It can’t be easy to help out while going to school.”

“It’s a fun experience, and it’s possible to meet people, so it’s not bad. I vaguely heard that you lived abroad for school, too—is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’d know well, but it’s lonely, isn’t it? It’s hard to make friends, and there aren’t many opportunities, either. I’m the type who needs to meet people and suck the energy out of them.”

Caught off guard by the unfamiliar honorific “Oppa,” Joeon burst into a small laugh at her barrage of honest words. Amy, who possessed a direct but comfortable way of speaking, showed no awkwardness in her conversation with a stranger. It was clear that she had an extroverted personality, the exact opposite of Joeon’s.

“I’m the type to burn out quickly if my energy gets drained… so this is fascinating.”

“Really? You’d better be careful.”

Joeon’s tension melted away quickly at Amy’s joke. While they were exchanging social media handles, Aaron appeared and tapped Amy on the shoulder.

“Amy. It’s starting soon.”

“Ah, the time already flew by? Got it. I’ll get ready.”

Aaron nodded toward Joeon and gave a mysterious wink. It was a message to keep a close watch. A couple had entered in the meantime, so there were only three audience members in the shop, but the performance started at the scheduled time without waiting any longer. With the calm melody of an acoustic guitar.

Aaron started playing a new genre, not the music he used to love. He completely shed the light, rebellious image he usually showed and engaged in the performance with a serious face.

Joeon, who believed he knew Aaron well enough to have called him a brother, felt a little confused. He couldn’t be sure if the change Aaron showed had come naturally as he aged while living outside Maya’s house, or if it started from the people Aaron was hanging around with.

Regardless of what started it, Joeon found the growth of Aaron—who had become his first younger brother after he found himself without family—proud and surprising. He felt ashamed, as if his inner thoughts had been exposed—the ones that had secretly assumed that because he was still immature, he could only see a narrow and prejudiced world.

Their natural ensemble with people who seemed like they would never get along proved how long they had been in sync, how fundamentally similar they were, or how well they understood each other. Aaron was no longer the little brother Joeon had once thought of.

Rather, he was the only one who remained in the same place without growing up. Hadn’t he been maintaining distance, unable to fully lean into the warmth that Maya and her family offered him? This fundamental attitude of distrust had also had a pretty bad influence on his other human relationships.

A person who is accustomed to building walls ends up isolated. The walls one builds will eventually surround one like a well, and one will be trapped inside forever. Joeon often acted like an active person for the sake of basic social life, but this was just like making a small window in a wall, so the world he saw was merely that size.

In the soft and warm atmosphere of a winter camp where people huddle around a bonfire, clap for love songs, and sip warm mulled wine, he—sitting alone in a shadowy spot, unable to connect to anyone—was just a guest who hadn’t been invited by anyone, merely appreciating others’ time.

A loneliness more intense than ever before covered Joeon like a storm. He wrapped his arms around himself with his palms to shake off the loneliness crawling up his skin in reverse.

“Gives you goosebumps, doesn’t it?”

“Yes?”

Amy, who had approached Joeon leaving the camera she had set up, slid into the seat next to him and pointed toward the stage. It was a stage in name only, merely a low platform built up.

“Aaron. He said he didn’t usually like this kind of music. But I guess it suits him better than I thought. Most of them are love songs, but he writes lyrics surprisingly well, which doesn’t seem to fit him.”

At the same time, Joeon and Aaron’s eyes met. Joeon wore a mysterious smile.

“Maybe he’s dating someone.”

“Is that so? Nah, I haven’t heard anything about that.”

For some reason, Amy shook her head, saying she couldn’t believe it. Unlike his light outward appearance, Aaron had a fairly serious personality; he was a pure-hearted type who would sacrifice everything if he fell in love.

“How about you, Oppa?”

“Yes?”

When Joeon asked back blankly, Amy asked if he was pretending not to know anything.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No, I don’t…”

“Really? Why?”

Joeon just fiddled with his beer glass with an embarrassed face. If she asked why, he had nothing else to say. Because Joeon himself had no way of knowing that.

“…Do I look like I’m crazy about women?”

Amy burst into laughter and hit Joeon’s shoulder.

“No, not at all. You seem like you’d be really good to her if you had a girlfriend? That’s why it’s fascinating.”

Amy’s evaluation of Joeon was a hundred times more generous than the evaluation Joeon gave himself. Joeon thought of himself as not being as kind as he looked on the outside. He was selfish and calculating in relationships. If she knew the inner contents, it was clear that the other person would shake their head and run away.

“That’s not really the case. I’m not popular, either.”

He muttered in a voice lacking confidence and moistened his throat with beer. Bitter bubbles burst, stinging his esophagus.

“What? That makes no sense… Ah, are the kids here different?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, their views on relationships or ways of thinking are a bit different, right? There are a lot of lighthearted kids, and a lot of promiscuous ones, too. It’s crawling with kids who kiss and stuff even when they aren’t dating. It’s almost like a greeting, I tell you. It’s a total relationship scam. I almost got played, too, but it turned out he was a bastard who had two or three girls he was ‘talking’ to. Those guys don’t even feel sorry. I have an old-school mindset, so I don’t understand it at all.”

“Ah…”

By the time the song was ending, Amy stood up to adjust the camera. Since the performance started, the inside of the shop was more crowded than at first, as there were a few guests drawn by the music.

A sense of unease that bothered him remained in a corner of his heart, but he couldn’t accurately distinguish whether it was loneliness or anxiety. Just then, Dylan’s message suddenly broke through that small hole.

「What are you doing?」

「I came to watch a performance today.」

「A performance?」

「I came because a younger brother of the host family said he was performing at a live music bar.」

「Really? I want to see it, too.」

「The performance is almost over. I’m going home now.」

「I see.」

As if he were choosing his words, Dylan’s window flickered. As he waited for his words, Amy, who had approached him suddenly, asked.

“Oppa, we’re going to take a group photo, would you like to take it with us?”

“Me?”

“Yes. We’re going to post it on our social media, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s good.”

After taking the photo, finishing the payment, and packing his bag on his way out of the shop, he checked his phone late to find that a message had arrived from Dylan.

「Do you want to sleep at my place tonight?」

What his message indicated was clear. Joeon stared down at his polite yet subtle question for a while before replying.

「That sounds good. I’ll be there now.」

🏒🥅

The first time was difficult and unfamiliar, but the second time was easy and familiar.