PAX 36

I scanned Ahn Yutan for a moment. The hair on top, which was a bit longer than the shaved sides, was sticking up in tufts.

“I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

I reached out to touch that hair. It was damp with sweat, so it laid flat just as I swept it over.

While I gathered his hair to one side to tidy it up, Ahn Yutan stayed still, watching me. Then, once I pulled my hand away, he got up and backed off.

“Why does the person who owes the money get to decide the day of repayment?”

Ahn Yutan, having stepped outside the car, took off his t-shirt to wipe his body and put his pants on properly.

“Pay me back now. Today.”

His t-shirt flew toward me. The smell of semen wafted over intensely.

The emergency money I have in my bike is far less than what I borrowed from Ahn Yutan. Since I had intended to give it to him when I met him for the “progress report” next week, I hadn’t brought it separately.

“Then I’ll go to the Pachulso and come back.”

I got out of the car, wiped my body with Ahn Yutan’s t-shirt, and fixed my clothes.

“The pretext you’re laying out to run away is pretty clumsy.”

“No, the money is in my room.”

“Really? Is it okay if I contact my source and tell them to search it? Not a single shred of a lie?”

Ahn Yutan pulled out his phone from somewhere in the front seat.

My brain spun rapidly. The only phone in the Pachulso is the one in Mom and Dad’s room. The Pachulso members don’t have personal mobile phones, only using prepaid phones occasionally when they go far away for a job. Who is he going to call? If he calls the guard he brings along, does that mean the guard goes to the Pachulso and asks the “source”? Then does that mean the source is one of the family members currently inside the Pachulso? Which of the Pachulso members didn’t go on an outing today?

“Go ahead.”

I did my best to refine my tone so that it sounded like a sincere invitation to go ahead and contact them, rather than a “go ahead and try it, you asshole” kind of challenge. If I’m lucky, I might be able to hear the voice on the other end, however faintly.

Ahn Yutan looked at me and grinned.

“There’s something we have to do before that.”

That ominous smile.

“What is it?”

“A lunch date.”

Ahn Yutan, who had tossed the phone back, walked over with heavy steps, grabbed my arm, and headed for the passenger seat.

“Where are we going?”

I did get into the passenger seat as he shoved me in.

“We’re going to eat, where else? I told you, it’s a lunch date.”

Ahn Yutan drove without hesitation. Since he isn’t the type of person who would stop the car just because I asked, I kept my mouth shut and carefully observed the landscape outside the window. If it looked like he was heading toward Seoul again, I planned to jump out the door at the right moment. If I stay out overnight again, I won’t have any excuses left to make up for Mom and Dad.

“Don’t worry. I’ll pay for the meal.”

“What are you planning to buy?”

“It’s a date, so naturally, I should buy you what you like.”

At those words, something suddenly occurred to me, and at the same time, the route the car was taking hit me. He was heading toward Chorok.

I looked at Ahn Yutan.

“I’m somehow nervous at the thought of meeting my sweetheart’s boyfriend.”

Ahn Yutan was smirking.

“Do I look okay? Did I dress appropriately for the occasion?”

Ahn Yutan was dressed only in his shorts.

“Go somewhere else. I’ll pay.”

I suppressed the annoyance that was gradually raising its head and spoke as if I were calm.

“Somewhere else, where?”

“Anywhere. There are other restaurants besides that one.”

Ahn Yutan gave a little snicker.

“Why? Are you afraid that your boyfriend and I will end up in a fight?”

“Go somewhere else.”

“Don’t be afraid. Because I’ll win.”

“I know damn well you’ll win, so just go somewhere else.”

“But I like the dumplings there.”

“The owner makes all those dumplings himself.”

So you should know that if the owner dies, you won’t be able to eat those delicious dumplings anymore.

“Ah, ah, then I’d better get the secret recipe passed on to me before the owner dies.”

I looked at Ahn Yutan again.

“Fuck, look at those fierce eyes you’re giving me, afraid your boyfriend might die.”

I haven’t given him any fierce eyes.

“That Mister is going to die someday, too, someday. I’m just saying I should get the recipe passed on before that.”

Ahn Yutan kept smirking.

“I’m going to keep cooperating with you until the day of the fitness test. I won’t tell anyone—not Ahn Juik, not the director and his wife, no one—I’ll be the only one who knows, and I’ll put together a team by gathering a few of the Pachulso members. So please, just stop it.”

Ahn Yutan, still with that smiling face, kept looking straight ahead and turned the steering wheel lightly. The car turned off onto a side road and started moving away from Chorok.

“There’s a tasty place in front of my house.”

Ahn Yutan said.

I let out a short breath and leaned back against the seat.

I’m heading back to Seoul. I decided not to jump out of the car.

“But seriously, what is it? Why do you hate it so much?”

Ahn Yutan asked.

“What?”

“Going to that dumpling restaurant.”

I looked at Ahn Yutan.

“Are you asking because you really don’t know?”

“I’m asking if there’s any other reason besides the fact that you don’t like me showing you off to your boyfriend.”

As I kept staring at him, Ahn Yutan kept grinning.

“Just say it. I want to hear your thoughts too.”

I sighed and turned my head forward.

“First of all, it’s not a ‘dumpling restaurant,’ it’s Chorok.”

“Who cares.”

“As I said before, I’m uncomfortable with the way you threaten me, implying you could harm the people around me at any time. If I sit there with a person like that, I won’t be able to swallow a single bite of food.”

“Hey, when did I ever make such threats?”

“Threat 1. You beat Yonghee half to death and dumped her in front of the Pachulso. Threat 2. When I was inside Chorok, you revved that Porsche outside before leaving, and later you spoke with the nuance that you were watching the owner. Threat 3. You definitely said it in words when we met at the swimming park. Saying that if I didn’t cooperate, you’d kill the kids at the Pachulso, starting with the youngest ones.”

Ahn Yutan whistled exaggeratedly.

“Goodness, what a terrible motherfucker that is.”

“That’s you.”

“Even for me, that was a bit much.”

“Anyway, that’s why I didn’t want to go to Chorok with you.”

“Okay. I heard you loud and clear.”

Ahn Yutan nodded with a satisfied expression.

“See? Isn’t it nice to open up and talk like this?”

“Then let me ask you one too.”

“Anything you like.”

“Honestly, why were you so insistent on going to Chorok with me?”

“To buy you dumplings.”

“Can’t you just be honest? We both know you’re threatening me viciously like some third-rate thug, so why are you beating around the bush like this?”

Ahn Yutan laughed, spitting saliva onto the steering wheel.

“You’re talking pretty tough today. You don’t think we’re close friends just because we’ve taken our clothes off and rolled around a few times, do you?”

“I have no desire to be friends with you anyway.”

“Fuck, you’ve wounded me.”

Ahn Yutan placed one hand on his chest and squeezed it while driving.

“Are you really a psychopath?”

“Why did you want to go to Chorok?”

“I told you, to buy you dumplings.”

“No, what on earth….”

Ahn Yutan waved his hand through the air.

“Listen until the end when someone is talking. Don’t you know you have to listen to Korean until the very end?”

I shut my mouth.

“I wanted to buy you dumplings, and I wanted to go because I wanted to see you freeze up. Imagining Lee Seongshin frozen stiff and fumbling because he’s worried the dumpling shop owner might get beaten to death, it was fucking turn-on.”

It’s a relief that he’s being upfront instead of beating around the bush, but…

“Well, you’d still force yourself to eat whatever I told you to because you’re worried about your dumpling big brother. Watching all that stuff keep going into that pretty mouth of yours starts to make my dick get hard, little by little. Because I’d know that after you finish all those dumplings, the next thing going into that mouth would be my dick. Thinking that I should also fuck you from behind before what you’ve shoveled in comes back out the other end makes my appetite grow even more. That’s why I said let’s go. I wanted to watch dumplings go into your mouth, watch you get anxious, watch you try to read my face and cater to me, and after you’ve finished eating, make you suck me, and then lay you over and fuck you. Are you satisfied?”

I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to give any answer, but eventually, I gave a nod.

“Don’t you feel good too, now that we’ve opened up and talked?”

“Yeah.”

Ahn Yutan smiled brightly.

“I like that we communicate well. Let’s stay in a relationship where we keep baring everything to each other without holding anything back from now on.”

“Yeah.”

I suddenly felt exhausted and leaned my head against the window. It would be nice if I fell asleep and woke up only after arriving in Seoul, before he asked to play something like ‘clothing-removal shiritori’ again.

“Let’s play shiritori.”

Fuck.

“You start.”