The person who suddenly showed up and spat out complaints without even greeting strode in with long strides.
For a moment, a cold energy rushed in. It wasn’t the wind coming through the open door, but a chill felt from the person.
“Huh? Sehyun-ah.”
“Wow, Kang Sehyun. What brings you here.”
The hyungs looked just as surprised as I was.
Yeah, it would be strange not to be surprised. He came so suddenly at this early morning hour without any contact.
Still, recently I’d been confident that I’d figured out Kang Sehyun to some degree. We were still in the getting-to-know-you stage, but I’d gotten closer faster than with other people, and I thought I now roughly knew what kind of personality he had. But this action of Kang Sehyun’s was so far from the personality I thought he had that I couldn’t understand it at all.
“Why did you come?”
“What?”
Ah. I messed up.
In my fluster, words came out exactly as I was thinking. Even I thought it was too absurd, and sure enough, the other person’s forehead crumpled.
“No, I was just surprised so my words came out weird.”
When I quickly corrected myself, this time one corner of his mouth lifted. Kang Sehyun, who let out a brief laugh, looked straight down at me.
“Why. Was I not supposed to come?”
“It’s not that you can’t, but it’s so sudden. How did you know my address?”
“You sent it. I’m in that group chat too.”
“Ah, right. I did.”
Kang Sehyun ignored my question about why he didn’t contact me in advance and held something out to me. Inside the white plastic bag were nuts and jerky that could be eaten easily.
“What’s this?”
“I came in a hurry so I couldn’t buy anything. There was only a gas station nearby.”
Looking closely, the gas station logo I frequently went to was drawn on the outside of the bag.
“Huh? ……What’s this. Don’t tell me it’s a housewarming gift?”
“Whoa…… Why is the Kang Sehyun I know acting like this. This is way too modest for a housewarming gift.”
Even while the hyungs who belatedly checked the contents were laughing, Kang Sehyun remained expressionless and later said offhandedly.
“This isn’t a gift.”
Then what is it.
For now, I put the things I received on the dining table. And as I was about to spread out snacks for the hyungs who sat back down in their places, after seeing Kang Sehyun standing there blankly, I realized a serious problem.
Excluding Jason hyung, there were four hyungs. And including me made five, which was fine, but with Kang Sehyun’s arrival making it six, there weren’t enough chairs to sit on. The round dining table was also too much for six people.
In the end, after worrying, we sat on the completely empty living room floor. Since there was carpet on the floor, we had to be careful not to spill alcohol, but fortunately we didn’t need to lay out separate cushions.
I really should fill up the living room, whether buying a sofa or a table.
After making a guest who came from far away sit on the floor, such resolve came to me belatedly.
“Ah. Sehyun-ah. Did you see the message?”
“Yeah.”
“If you saw it, you should have replied.”
“I saw it while coming up.”
Kang Sehyun said he had it on silent so he saw it late while driving.
“So, when are you going back to Korea?”
“Wednesday.”
“Huh? Same as Sungha.”
The pale brown eyes that heard those words widened at once.
“That works out well. You two can go together.”
We probably can’t go together though.
Even someone as ignorant about fashion as me knew that the padding Kang Sehyun was wearing cost several hundred thousand won. Someone who had dozens of pairs of limited edition sneakers and bought thin t-shirts for several hundred dollars would never ride economy class. So even if we took the same flight at the same time, Kang Sehyun and I could never go together.
Kang Sehyun turned his head sharply. His gaze directed at me was asking me. Whether I was really going on the same day as him.
Instead of answering, when I nodded slightly, this time his straight brow furrowed.
Why. Well, was I the only one who didn’t say anything? Neither of us was curious about each other, right.
We, who had a silent conversation, stood up from our seats without saying who should go first. When I went outside first, Kang Sehyun followed behind.
“Huh?”
In the meantime, it had started snowing.
Standing on the narrow balcony, we lit our cigarettes at the same time. From the height of only the second floor, all that was visible were a few streetlights attached to the apartment building walls and the cars lined up below them. The small flowerbeds and lawn between the buildings were hidden by darkness and couldn’t be seen.
“Was it snowing when you came?”
“Yeah. A bit less than now. Didn’t you know?”
“It wasn’t snowing until I talked to you on the phone. I haven’t been out since then so I didn’t know. So you came knowing it was snowing?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“When you left, was it snowing then too.”
“Yeah. When I was on the phone with you, snow was falling.”
And yet he still thought to come all the way here.
“You…….”
“What.”
“You really didn’t want to study…….”
Kang Sehyun burst out laughing. Along with an answer like ‘Yeah. Kind of.’
“Is it okay for you to hang out like this? You said you only finished half.”
“Who was the person who said I had time until Tuesday and to do it tomorrow?”
“……That’s true.”
The white snow falling from the pitch-black sky didn’t evoke any good feelings. Now, in any form, snow was just terrible.
The worst situations like arriving at a destination that takes one hour in three hours because of heavy snow, or clearing snow piled on the car for nearly an hour, or a car going 20 miles per hour almost slamming into a wall. Whenever it snowed, it was a series of such incidents. During the week when heavy snow fell three days in a row, I really had a rough time making it on time for both school and work.
Kihyun hyung’s words that if you live in Chicago, you’ll hate snow in just two years were wrong. Far from two years, I hated it from the first year.
“Wednesday, what time?”
Kang Sehyun asked the expected question.
“Around 10 AM? Probably the same flight as you.”
There was only one morning flight operating from Chicago to Seoul anyway.
“How are you getting to the airport?”
“I was just going to call a taxi. Round-trip taxi fare is actually cheaper than parking for three weeks.”
“Then come with me. I’ll come pick you up.”
“You’re taking your car?”
“Yeah.”
Right. He has lots of money, so what’s a few hundred dollars in parking fees.
“Won’t it be inconvenient to come all the way here and then go?”
“It’s on the way anyway.”
“Still, I feel bad for no reason.”
“Being indebted again?”
“Yeah.”
I’m not usually the type to easily owe others like this, but strangely, with Kang Sehyun, I’ve been in debt from the beginning until now every single time. That’s because even before I asked for help, he extended his hand first, making it hard to refuse his sweet offers. It was the same now.
“Just how many times do I have to buy you drinks.”
Whenever I received help from Kang Sehyun, the debt that accumulated steadily always came back with words to repay with drinks, not meals. So the debt I couldn’t repay right away kept increasing, and with a year and a half still left until I’d be old enough to buy alcohol, I was doubtful whether I could really repay it by then.
“I’ll just buy you a meal.”
“Why.”
“Why are you so obsessed with alcohol when it’s still so far away. Now I won’t be able to come to your house out of guilt.”
“I’ll collect it all later. Keep track carefully.”
“That’s even scarier. Or let me at least fill up your gas-“
“No.”
An indifferent voice with no emotion bluntly cut off my words.
Fine. I get it. Do whatever you want.
Kang Sehyun is stubborn. We’re still in the getting-to-know-you stage, but I could tell that fact early on. Once he decided on something, he absolutely wouldn’t change it, and no matter how much I tried to persuade him, he wouldn’t compromise, so after asking a few times and hearing him say no, I wouldn’t ask anymore. At times like that, the answer was for the person who could accommodate to just accommodate.
In the brief time, it seemed like more snow was falling. Looking at the increasingly numerous snowflakes, I thought I wished this snow would stop like a lie.
But regrettably, the sky didn’t grant my wish.
The next morning, carefully drawing back the living room curtains while avoiding the hyungs sprawled out sleeping in the living room, a pure white world unfolded before my eyes. The roofs of tall buildings, the wide roads, even the signs placed here and there. Kang Sehyun’s car, double-parked in front of my car and Gijae hyung’s car, was also covered in snow to the point where only its shape could barely be recognized.
It was Chicago’s winter that I was already sick of, thoroughly fed up with.
* * *
Monday morning, my eyes opened early out of habit at a time not even 7 o’clock.
「6:47 A.M.」
With a sense of injustice, I deliberately closed my eyes and tried to sleep again, but my mind that had already become wide awake kept making me toss and turn. Eventually, unable to rest as I wanted, I got up from my spot.
I was happy thinking I could sleep plenty during vacation.
After showering and smoking, instead of opening the empty refrigerator, I took out an energy bar from the cupboard and put it in my mouth. Sitting on the hard dining chair, I blankly looked outside. The outside visible through the living room window still looked cold.
It was an ordinary morning like always.
In the afternoon, during a lunchtime when there were no people, I did my piled-up laundry in the laundry room. Then returning home, I heated up instant porridge I’d bought about a week ago in the microwave and ate it.
Just because it was vacation didn’t mean anything particularly changed. It just felt like one more weekend day had been created, and the leisurely moments felt pleasant simply from not having the pressure of having to do something immediately.
While spending the afternoon as another ordinary day like always, just past two o’clock, a text came from Kang Sehyun.
Kang Sehyun: [You home?]
Me: [Yeah.]
Kang Sehyun: [In an hour too?]
Me: [Probably? Why?]
Kang Sehyun: [Sent you a gift]
A gift? What gift?
When I immediately sent a question, a reply arrived saying it was a housewarming gift.
And an hour later.
Ding dong-.
[Mr. Kwon? Delivery is here.]
At the words that he ‘sent’ a gift, I thought of various things that could be delivered same-day. Things like flowers or food. But what the two delivery people wearing yellow caps brought was none of those things.
‘You have so few things, is that on purpose?’
‘Hmm……. I’m not really the type to have a lot of stuff, but even I think the living room is a bit extreme. I wish I had at least one sofa, but I kept putting it off and didn’t buy one. I kept saying I should buy it but didn’t have time to look.’
‘What kind do you want to buy.’
‘Just something in a bright color. But it seems like it would be hard to maintain…….’
‘If it’s leather, I think it would be fine.’
‘Leather is too expensive. Faux leather is fine too, so I think I should look for something used first.’
The sofa I’d said was fine in passing the other night at dawn was filling the living room wall space. It definitely wasn’t faux leather, and even less so used.
It was no longer an ordinary, normal day.
