Eunha was beyond bewildered, utterly dumbfounded, that an existence that should have been quietly buried in the land called the past had been suddenly dug up. Baek Joohee. Though he’d lived forgetting about her, when he rolled the name around, it was indeed a familiar one. Eunha, who had placed Baek Yeonjun, which had similarly become familiar at some point, right next to it, experienced the strange sensation of those two names lined up side by side being tied together as a pair and instantly transforming into something very alien.
How could that be possible…? It felt like his sense of reality was disappearing by the second. It was a bewildering coincidence.
“……I didn’t know. That Baek Joohee was a kid from that family.”
“Yeah. She was. Did I not mention it?”
“You didn’t.”
“Well…… I only found out not too long ago myself. Was it the year before last? I went to see some performance and the person playing piano was her.”
He was uncertain, but after the viewing ended, he went to hand a bouquet to an acquaintance and saw her nearby, which confirmed it for sure, he explained.
He’d occasionally gone to play at Baek Joohee’s house. So he vaguely knew she was well-off, and there must have surely been family photos or such in that house, but he’d never collected information about her parents or family. They hadn’t talked about such things either. That was the age they were at. Even if they had talked about it, he would have forgotten quickly anyway.
Still, it seemed like something he should have heard at least once in his life, so why hadn’t he known until now? That was understood with the following elaboration. It seemed she’d stayed abroad for a long time studying abroad in high school and university. She was a kid who played piano.
“You met her in that academy building.”
“……I did.”
“When your parents were making you go around to all those academies.”
That was exactly that period. A time when both Mom and Father, without exception, had ambitions for Eunha.
There was a piano academy that Baek Joohee attended right below the floor of the English academy he’d attended. That’s how they first got to know each other. Both he and Baek Joohee were in the position of being rotated around academies, so at the time there weren’t many days when they separately met to do something. They only saw each other at those academies. Or they’d briefly stop by each other’s houses before going to academy to kill time.
Because their houses were close, they always walked together between the academy and home, and a scene from a certain day when they passed through the park on that path was hazily drawn.
He also suddenly remembered once when they skipped academy together to play, that kid asked her real older sister to just make one phone call to the academy pretending to be their mom. So did they play that time, or what…….
Right. He vaguely recalled that Baek Joohee had an older sister like that.
But about a younger sibling…….
He didn’t know. His head hurt from the suddenly learned fact. Even though this person was now just an unrelated stranger anyway, even though all that remained was just that one name alone like an old photo in an album, still a strange awkwardness remained. Already a troublesome person in itself, but to think he was connected to his past—it added a guilt that made him flinch unnecessarily.
The point that he was someone’s ‘younger sibling’ did that. He felt like he’d become an extremely shameless person…….
“Anyway, you slept with him.”
“……”
“Your conscience, fuck……”
“I didn’t answer that.”
“I’ve never touched a twenty-year-old either.”
“Did you come to pick a fight? Jeez.”
“Wow…… then when we were twenty he was twelve, isn’t that right? When you were dating Baek Joohee, he was eight?”
The attacks were endless. The will to torment him was extremely malicious. Of course, since this level of criticism was routine, Eunha simply returned as much as he received with indifference.
“Right. You’ve just never done that one thing.”
“What have I done?”
“What…… how many was it back then? Four? Five people……? Disgusting.”
“So what? I’m proud of it though?”
Exchanging barbs like that, they slowly moved their feet. As soon as Eunha arrived home, he immediately collapsed onto the living room sofa. Was it because too many things had happened in one day? His brain complained of fatigue as if overloaded. He pressed down hard on his throbbing temples and sprawled out limply.
Meanwhile, Gu Haebin drank a glass of water. After putting the cup in the sink bowl, he naturally opened the refrigerator door as if it were his own home. And then he scrunched up his face as if he’d expected as much.
“It’s completely empty again. What the hell are you eating to live……”
What the hell is he eating…… He grumbled as if for Eunha to hear. Then after discovering the snack basket fully stocked on the island table, he pointed out, ‘how does it make sense that all that’s in the refrigerator is a few rotting bananas but you’ve piled up snacks like this?’
Eunha consistently maintained silence, pretending not to hear. Every time he occasionally stopped by the house, it was nagging like this. Eunha had been quietly listening to Haebin not missing any traces of laziness and idleness located in every corner of the house starting with the refrigerator and commenting on each one, but when he was about to say something unpleasant again about the pile of boxes that had been impulsively purchased and left stacked in the living room, Eunha couldn’t stand it and said.
“Ah, stop nagging…… Are you my mom?”
“For the past few years, I’ve been receiving orders from your mother whenever there’s a chance, so now I kind of feel like I’ve become roughly a similar role.”
“……”
He shut his mouth. When Haebin said that, there was nothing left to say. At some point, Haebin had been operating as an informant. It started when Mom, who became completely anxious when Eunha, who had left home, didn’t receive her calls, began contacting Haebin instead once, then twice.
At first, Mom had difficulty making requests only when there was an important matter and Eunha remained silent, but gradually increased the frequency and eventually came to regard communicating through Haebin as a custom.
Now Mom didn’t even contact Eunha much. There were times when she called several times a day, but now she barely contacted him once a month, if at all. Cases where she bypassed the person in question and asked Haebin were more common. She’d contact him to ask how he was doing, to ask him to bring Eunha out somewhere, and even arranged blind dates through Haebin.
When Mom’s burdensome contact stopped, on one hand he became a bit more comfortable, but instead Eunha had to bear the discomfort of making his friend shoulder unnecessary trouble. That point worked advantageously like a weakness for Mom, but even Mom herself probably wasn’t very comfortable with it. If you had to pick the most inconvenienced person in this inconvenient relationship, it would naturally be Gu Haebin who got caught between mother and son.
Ironically, Haebin’s own will was largely responsible for that troublesome exchange continuing without end. In fact, if he had shown even a little sign of unwillingness, if he had revealed any indication of discomfort, it wouldn’t have solidified into such a full-fledged custom.
However, he didn’t object. He did even troublesome things without complaint, and sometimes he’d even contact Mom first himself and add a word about how Eunha was living these days. As if trying to keep the connection point with his parents from breaking.
Though he’d never made a show of it, his inner thoughts couldn’t be unknown. It was a considerate and grateful intention, but it might be a somewhat unusual role to handle between friends.
However, Gu Haebin didn’t refuse that trouble. Even though he was originally someone who took good care of people around him, even though he was a busy person who was called out here and there because of that, with Eunha he was exceptionally excessive. Even in the midst of being so busy, he interfered, interrogated, and didn’t stop showing interest.
It hadn’t been like that from the beginning—there were several incidents in between that acted as triggers.
Incidents. Suddenly some afterimages flashed through his mind. Eunha blankly looked at the ceiling. While letting Haebin’s speech enumerating the harmful effects of impulsive consumption flow past his ears, fatigue suddenly rushed over him and he opened his mouth.
“Enough, so what did you want to say……”
At the words thrown out as if making an excuse, Gu Haebin didn’t answer. Instead, he could feel a glancing look back. Eunha was still only vaguely looking at the ceiling. Time passed in that state for a while.
