─Daeyoung is so cute.
“Stop it already. It’s fucking disgusting.”
─It’s not like I’ve only been saying this for a day or two. Just get used to it, you fucking bastard.
Seongheon hyung really ended every sentence with a curse. They were so sharp and threatening that even I, the listener, felt conscious of them. On the other hand, Gangjin hyung seemed accustomed to it, leisurely stroking the steering wheel as he took all of Seongheon hyung’s words in stride.
I thought Gangjin hyung was the scariest among the hyungs, but looking closely, Gangjin hyung was a bodhisattva. He was just taciturn—his expression had been consistent since childhood. Now that I thought about it, I’d never seen Gangjin hyung smile brightly or get angry.
“Hang up.”
─Hey!
“What.”
─Did you help Daeyoung put on his seatbelt?
“He did it himself.”
─Drive safely. If you get in an accident, you’re dead.
Gangjin hyung furrowed his brow deeply and hung up irritably. Only after the call ended did I clear my throat and sip the rest of my strawberry milk.
The always-gentle image of Seongheon hyung was overlaid with the version I’d just seen, leaving my head in confusion.
‘People have various sides…’
Even so, how could someone be completely different on each side like double-sided colored paper? I was troubled about what rhythm I should match him to.
* * *
While my worries continued, the light green car had already entered our front yard. Ddanji approached wagging his tail happily, so I opened the car window, waved my hand telling him to go away, and carefully got out.
“Well then, take care, and see you next time.”
“Gangjin hyung.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t talk about me today.”
“I won’t. You don’t be wary of Seongheon either. He’ll keep treating you warmly.”
“Got it.”
I stood there waving until Gangjin hyung’s car disappeared. Ddanji, standing next to me, wagged his tail when the hyung’s car entered, but when it just left, he barked and chased after it. Anyone watching would think he was good at guarding the house. It should be the opposite though…
‘Even our dog treats incoming and outgoing cars so differently, people must be even more so.’
But I was the same whether I was with friends, dealing with the hyungs, or appearing before my parents. Sure, I sometimes acted clingy and stubbornly talked back only to my older brother, but my behavior didn’t really change much. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t adapt to the side of Seongheon hyung I’d seen earlier.
After that, I went inside and finished the piled-up dishes, then took my phone from the dining table and returned to my room. Dad wasn’t coming home at all apparently, and only Mom called to say she’d be home in an hour and to leave the front light on and go to sleep.
Lying on my side on the bed, I recalled playing games with Seongheon hyung earlier. While doing so, I stared intently at the two missed calls and messages displayed on my phone screen.
They were all from Seongheon hyung. I deliberately didn’t look at the messages in case they showed a ‘read’ notification. Since Gangjin hyung said I was sleeping earlier, I had to match the situation.
Looking at the ‘Seongheon hyung♡’ text in the missed calls, I entered the contact editing screen. There, I hesitated over whether to delete the heart next to Seongheon hyung’s name, then quietly deleted it and saved.
I placed my phone on the charger on the headboard. Thinking there wouldn’t be any more calls, I quietly set it to vibrate and fell asleep.
* * *
How long had I been asleep?
I seemed to have closed my eyes for about an hour when the phone on the charger vibrated noisily, drrrrrrrk.
Only the screen flashed brightly in the dark room. I squinted one eye looking at the ‘Seongheon hyung’ text that appeared on the phone screen, then buried the phone under the blanket.
But after being quiet for a moment, it vibrated again. Apparently Seongheon hyung intended to keep calling until I answered. So I made my voice sound as tired as possible and answered quietly.
“He…llo…”
─Oh? You answered. Daeyoung, our Daeyoooung─.
“Ah… Seongheon hyung?”
─Did hyung wake Daeyoung up?
“It’s okay.”
Despite deliberately calling repeatedly, hyung acted nonchalant.
─Why did you just leave earlier? You should’ve seen hyung’s face before going.
“I was too sleepy to get out of the car…”
─Ah, really? If I’d known Daeyoung came, hyung would’ve carried you inside.
“No, hyung. I’ll come visit again next time.”
─When?
“Um… After exams.”
─When do your exams end?
“Probably the second week?”
─Then I’ll kidnap Daeyoung then.
Normally when hyung said things like this, I’d playfully respond with ‘I’ll get in the sack ahead of time!’ But the glow-in-the-dark star on my room ceiling flickered like the tiger eyes on hyung’s back, so I couldn’t respond enthusiastically and hesitated.
That glow-in-the-dark star was something I’d put up with Seongheon hyung when I was 10, but lately its brightness wasn’t like before. We must have faded that much too. I wanted to become someone like Seongheon hyung…
“…Hyung, really.”
─Huh? Your reaction is quite lukewarm.
“No, hyung. I just woke up…”
─Oh, really? Our Daeyoung must be very sleepy.
Behind Seongheon hyung’s voice, I could hear loud music. He must have gone somewhere to drink where such loud music was playing.
Then I heard Daesu hyung’s voice from a little distance away, followed by a woman’s voice close enough to penetrate my ears.
─…look at this. Huh?
─Wait, I’m on a call. Can’t you see?
Since all the hyungs were adults, of course drinking alcohol and being with women at drinking gatherings was natural.
But for some reason today, I couldn’t accept it as easily as usual. Maybe because my feelings were complicated right now, I didn’t want to learn any more new sides of Seongheon hyung.
My older brother also had a girlfriend and broke up, so I’d assumed that Seongheon hyung, who was more handsome, naturally had such relationships too.
Sometimes I’d seen unfamiliar women in photos with the hyungs on SNS. When I was immature, regardless of who they were photographed with, all I did was whine ‘Why didn’t you take me!’ just looking at the train stations the hyungs went to.
But now, because he didn’t seem like the Seongheon hyung I knew, this situation was being distorted and inputted into my head.
The jokes about kidnapping me or telling me to come marry him probably weren’t just for me but for other people too… I wondered how often he went around saying such things that he’d throw them around so freely even to me, his friend’s younger brother.
Each time, the past days when I foolishly giggled and accepted them without ulterior motives felt so pathetic. I thought that once I graduated, I’d practically be an adult, yet I still felt like I was just a kkakdugi tagging along behind the hyungs.
The reason Seongheon hyung didn’t play such jokes with the other hyungs might be because they were equals. But would I remain an insignificant existence like kkakdugi even after 10 years?
‘Easy to toy with…’
I thought we had a relationship of true friendship in our own way, but I was such a light target that he’d joke around even in drinking gatherings like this. To Seongheon hyung, I was still a snotty little kid, kkakdugi.
“Hyung, I’m hanging up.”
─Daeyoung, what’s wrong… Hyung is lonely.
“There’s someone next to you.”
─There isn’t?
“The person you just talked to.”
─Ah, you heard? I don’t know her. She has nothing to do with me at all… And, I like hearing our Daeyoung’s voice better. You know that?
“I don’t know. Seongheon hyung, you’re really drunk. I’m hanging up.”
─Daeyoung─ Hyung really─.
Click, I hung up.
I knew what Seongheon hyung would say next. His words meant to soothe me, going oochie-coochie, were just lip service.
What good does it do to just say you like me a lot, that you cherish me a lot? He has time to go drinking like that, but no time to come to my house to see my face.
Why did I only realize this now? Just as Daesu hyung said, Seongheon hyung just treats me like peanuts to kill time.
Come to think of it, the hyungs lived for the fun of teasing me since long ago. When they deceived me, the three of them were so in sync and acted so well that to fool just me, Seongheon hyung even had an IV inserted and lay there as if he had a terminal illness.
When I was in 9th grade and Seongheon hyung was a high school senior, he said he caught the “constantly-constantly disease” and kept getting sleepy. He said he’d fall asleep forever soon and told me to come to his house for a final goodbye.
When I rushed over in a fuss, my older brother was bowing his head by Seongheon hyung’s bedside, and Gangjin hyung was reciting a letter he’d brought. That movingly written letter turned out to be song lyrics later.
I cried buckets back then saying I’d donate my organs to Seongheon hyung, telling him not to die, and Seongheon hyung said he could live if he ate strawberries with all the seeds removed. So I bought strawberries and painstakingly removed all the seeds to give him.
Back then, crying while removing seeds with a toothpick, my eyes swelled up, my shoulders got stiff, and my back hurt so much I thought I’d die.
「Hic. Sob. Hyung, don’t die. Ah shit, why do strawberries have so many seeds… Ugh, magic eye. Uuuugh…」
Later, when Seongheon hyung got up saying he survived after eating the ‘de-seeded strawberries’ I gave him, the IV that was inserted slipped out and I realized it was an act.
Seongheon hyung apologized and bought me a mini game console so I let it go, but back then the emotions of being truly glad that Seongheon hyung didn’t die, being happy to be together in the future, welled up so much that the anger of being deceived quickly cooled.
I’d been fooled by trivial things like this more than once or twice. And each time I was fooled, the hyungs said that. That I had unique reactions so I was really worth deceiving. Even if I resolved not to be fooled next time, what could I do when I got fooled again…
While reminiscing about the past, Seongheon hyung called again. This time I switched to silent mode completely and closed my eyes tight with the phone placed at my bedside.
I’m not just peanuts to kill time. Playing with me for fun, keeping me around when lonely, calling me when feeling empty…
I won’t whine to the hyungs to play with me anymore. I won’t force myself between the hyungs anymore, and I won’t answer their calls. Gangjin hyung and Seongheon hyung are just that bastard Daesu’s friends, not my friends.
Though I’d tried so hard to close the distance until now, ultimately remaining in place, it seemed it would stay this way in the future too. As proof of that, I didn’t even know Seongheon hyung’s true self until now.
