“Mm? Ah…! I’ll do it for you. Of course I should. You’re my girlfriend.”
“Lucky Dongmi.”
“No, I’m more clumsy than you’d think.”
“…You tie it like this.”
Seongheon hyung wrapped his hands around mine and slowly showed me how to tie a scarf. I lowered my gaze and looked up at Seongheon hyung’s face as he explained.
Hyung’s lips speaking softly, his eyelashes that stood out even more from blinking slowly, his cheeks redder than usual.
As I focused on hyung to listen carefully to his explanation, all of this became close-up and I could see it in more detail. Or maybe it was because we were standing too close together.
Although there was a sweet alcoholic smell from hyung’s breath, it was different from Dad’s. The scent from hyung’s body was sweet like a subtle perfume smell.
“Like this, put it through at the end, and you’re done, right?”
“Yeah. Hyung, you really can’t do anything wrong. You’re good at studying and good at tying scarves.”
“I’m bad at things too.”
“What?”
“I’m bad at expressing myself, or even when I express myself, the other person doesn’t really know.”
“You? No way, hyung is really good at expressing yourself. You’re sweet and attentive.”
“So what if I am. They don’t know… that I like them.”
“Ah…”
The person hyung likes. It must be about hyung’s love life after all. I felt awkward not knowing what advice to give since I’m romantically inexperienced.
‘Did he want to ask me for relationship advice because I got a girlfriend?’
Somehow I felt like I was standing shoulder to shoulder with my hyungs. I felt a pride similar to when the hyungs looked up to me before when I said I had hair growing there.
When I sat down next to him, Seongheon hyung looked at me and smiled. With his chin resting on the armrest, hyung looked more languid than usual.
“Should I bring you more sikhye? Do you want to go to the living room if you’re cold?”
“No. I just want to stay here. I need to sober up.”
Right now, Seongheon hyung wasn’t doing anything except looking at my face. It made all my thinking and preparing answers for what I thought would be a consultation seem pointless.
“Hyung, if you have anything you want to ask me, feel free to ask.”
“Then, Daeyoung.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do today?”
“Today I went to the persimmon field and pruned branches. Ah! I met your dad too, so the three of us pruned branches together and ate meat.”
“Dad gave you something weird to eat again, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. He took out some mushrooms, you know? But when we grilled them, blue liquid came out. So we threw those away and… Ah! He also gave me some weird fruit but it was edible. I didn’t eat anything except that.”
“Good job. You used to get hospitalized often for gastroenteritis. Next time if he gives you something again, don’t eat it.”
Seongheon hyung lightly stroked my hair with his long fingers. As his hand fell away, it also brushed slightly against the back of my ear, and the touched area tickled so much I rubbed that spot with my palm.
“But every time he hugs me, his beard touches my face and it hurts so much.”
“Haha.”
“Hyung, this isn’t something to laugh about, you know? Seriously, ajeossi’s beard is like a hedgehog.”
“I know. Dad was wrong. You should’ve dodged when he tried to hug you.”
“He gave me allowance though, so how could I do that? But he gave me a lot of allowance, didn’t he?”
“Oh, really?”
Then the hand that had been stroking my hair now touched my cheek. Hyung’s warm hand touching my cold cheek felt as cozy as a hot pack.
“Yeah, it’s been a while since I got allowance so I was totally excit… Ahhh!!!!”
“Why, why?”
“Wait, hyung. I left the money somewhere.”
Remembering that I’d put it in Dad’s jacket inner pocket during the day and hadn’t taken it out, I rushed to the cultivator in the backyard. I frantically searched the trailer floor, but the jacket I’d worn during the day wasn’t there.
“Ah! It’s gone!!”
I knew it—I should have realized when Dad quickly picked up and put on a jacket he doesn’t usually wear. I had a feeling Dad would swallow the allowance I’d put inside.
I wanted to sit down and cry, but since Seongheon hyung was here, I forced myself to hold it in and went back to the yard. Seeing my trudging footsteps and drooping shoulders, hyung asked.
“Why? Couldn’t you find the allowance?”
“…Yeah. I think Dad took it.”
“Oh no.”
Thud, I sat down next to Seongheon hyung again. Hyung, who had been staring at me as my mood plummeted sharply, took out his wallet from his coat.
“Really? Then I’ll give you some instead.”
“Ah, hyung. Don’t do that.”
Seongheon hyung really seemed intent on giving me allowance as he opened his wallet, and inside hyung’s wallet there was a ton of cash just like ajeossi’s. And he really pulled out a wad and held it out to me.
“No, hyung, put the money back. What’s with giving allowance between us!”
“If I give you allowance, won’t you hug me happily?”
“Ah! I said it’s fine.”
“Will you hug me even if I don’t give it to you?”
“Well, we always hug anyway.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Seongheon hyung’s face suddenly came close, making me tense up for a moment.
“Then hug me now.”
Ajeossi was an adult and there was no flutter at all because of his prickly beard, but when my cheek pressed against hyung’s soft cheek, I felt ticklish all the way to my toes.
‘Hyung’s face is warm.’
Because of hyung’s body temperature, my whole body became languid as if I’d entered a warm room. After pressing our cheeks together, hyung slowly rubbed them together and laughed softly, perhaps finding my face cool.
“Huh? Our Daeyoung, your face turned red.”
“No it didn’t. Stop teasing me.”
“Haha.”
I shouldn’t be embarrassed by just this!
I was anxious that my lie about kissing Dongmi would be exposed at this rate. So I urgently pushed away hyung’s hand holding the money and adamantly refused. But hyung didn’t put the money back in his wallet until the end and kept holding it out.
“Alright, I’m joking. Just take it.”
“No. I’m really fine. Ajeossi gave me a lot earlier.”
“But your dad took that, didn’t he. And this is me giving it to you. So take it.”
“Still…”
Like a dog that looks around even after its owner says ‘eat,’ I kept checking Seongheon hyung’s expression for no reason.
Is he giving it because he’s drunk? He’ll definitely regret it tomorrow… Because right now the money Seongheon hyung was trying to give me was as much as several years’ worth of my New Year’s money combined.
When I hesitated, Seongheon hyung finally dug into my wavering hand and pressed the money into it.
“Hyuuung…”
“Now that I think about it, I’ve never given our Daeyoung allowance before.”
“You’re in a position to receive allowance yourself… Why give it to me too?”
“I earned this from stocks. So take it comfortably.”
“Then… thank you.”
Only then did I receive the money respectfully with both hands and bowed my head. At that moment, I saw Seongheon hyung bow his head as my hand was pulled.
“Huh?”
Hyung’s moist lips gently touched the back of my pulled hand.
*Smooch.*
The sensation of lips touching the back of my hand was so vivid that my body stiffened, and from that spot, my entire arm tingled as if static electricity was running through it. Afterward, hyung slowly let go of my hand, but somewhere inside my chest felt ticklish.
“Daeyoung, I like you a lot.”
“Ah… I like all my hyungs too.”
“Not ‘hyungs,’ what about me?”
“Seongheon hyung is my favorite.”
“More than your girlfriend?”
“You mean Dongmi?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh… mm…”
“I’m joking. I’ll just hear up to that today. That’s good. I must be pretty drunk.”
“Hyung, wait. I’ll bring more sikhye.”
“Okay.”
As I went to get the sikhye, I sorted out my thoughts.
Could it be that Seongheon hyung knows Dongmi is a fake girlfriend? Why is hyung comparing himself to Dongmi? The situation is a bit incoherent, but considering that Seongheon hyung is a bit drunk, I decided to let it slide.
I put the allowance hyung gave me in my pocket and looked down at the back of my hand gripping the sikhye bottle.
Even though there was no lip mark left, the spot where hyung’s lips touched kept bothering me. It was just on the back of my hand, but I don’t know why it felt like a real kiss. I’d have to actually kiss someone to know.
I put down the sikhye bottle for a moment and searched on my phone for what a kiss on the back of the hand meant.
“Respect or devotion, huh.”
There’s no way Seongheon hyung respects me. What does devotion mean? Does it mean he’ll supply me with allowance like this from time to time?
“…That can’t be it.”
Since Daesu hyung also kisses Ddanji when he’s drunk, thinking about how Seongheon hyung is drunk now, I thought it was probably a meaningless action and put my phone back in my pocket.
I took the sikhye, filtered so well there wasn’t a single grain of rice, and went outside. Seongheon hyung was sitting there dozing off with his head buried in the scarf I’d wrapped around him.
“Hyung?”
Looking at hyung, I put the sikhye down on the outdoor table.
With his chin buried in the scarf so only his upper lip showed, the lip line was clear and lively like a ripe cherry, so I suddenly thought that must be why it left such a sensation on the back of my hand.
As I was examining various parts of Seongheon hyung’s face with his eyes closed, I suddenly heard a phone vibrating.
*Vrrr—. Vrrr—.*
“Huh? That’s not mine.”
When I searched for the source of the sound, it was coming from Seongheon hyung’s coat pocket.
I carefully searched through the pocket so as not to wake Seongheon hyung, when a red lip balm fell to the ground with a thud. I put it back in the pocket and only took out the phone to check the caller.
“Ah, I don’t want to answer this.”
If it were Gangjin hyung I would have answered right away, but the person calling was Daesu hyung. Reluctantly, I pressed the call button and put it to my ear.
—Hey, where are you? Why did you suddenly disappear while we were drinking?
“Home.”
—Home? …Wait, hey. You’re Daeyoung, aren’t you?
“That’s right.”
—Why do you have Seongheon’s phone?
“Seongheon hyung came to our house with a designated driver.”
—Crazy bastard. Why’d he go there.
“Hey, ‘crazy bastard’! How disrespectful to someone who gave me allowance.”
—He gave you allowance?
“Yeah.”
—He gave that to you while drunk. Give it back.
“No takebacks though…”
—Put Seongheon on. Stop talking nonsense.
“I’ll ask when he wakes up. He’s sleeping now.”
—Haah… This is ridiculous. His juniors came because of Seongheon, and he ditches us alone.
During the call, something suddenly touched my shoulder with a thud. Seongheon hyung had dozed off and dropped his head onto my shoulder. I carefully held hyung’s face and fixed it properly on my shoulder, then held the phone with my other hand again.
