Out of all the relationships I’ve had until now, this is the first time I’ve dated so childishly.
Far from gauging what each other is thinking, we spill everything down to the last detail, when we fight we pour out emotions without context, on top of that we’re constantly teasing each other whenever we see an opening, and after making up we giggle and hold hands on the way home.
Perhaps our mental age stopped in high school.
Or even before that, maybe we haven’t changed much since we were little kids when we first met.
…Is that going too far?
No, it does seem like what we do hasn’t changed much.
Back then, several of us would gather at the playground and play house, saying things like “I’ll be the mom, you be the dad.” Even then, Won Dogyeong, who boasted a glossy face, was usually led by the girls’ hands to play the dad role, and I was small-framed when I was young, so I played roles like the son or the puppy.
The girls rather adored me since I was smaller than them, and when that happened, Won Dogyeong would watch and then come over huffing and puffing to interfere. Then he’d pick a fight asking why I was getting along better with them than with him.
Well, I’m playing the puppy role, so what am I supposed to do? Bite you?
Even thinking about it again, it’s absurd.
See, fundamentally nothing has changed.
Coincidentally, we’re both dads now, except for the fact that there’s actually a child in my belly.
It was a future we didn’t know about when we were seven.
When Yongyong is born, will we become a little more mature?
Probably not. I predict we’ll put Yongyong to sleep and then fight in the living room with our voices down. Just as childishly.
“…Aren’t you getting out?”
“I am.”
While I was spacing out with pointless thoughts, we’d already arrived at our apartment’s underground parking lot. I shouldered the backpack I’d been holding on my lap and got out of the car.
Since we had a lot of stuff, Won Dogyeong held bags in both hands and I took the remaining one. Since I was only carrying one, I tried to take the heavy one, but when I tested the weight of each, they were all similar, so I just grabbed any one.
“Oh, hey, this is bad.”
While waiting for the elevator with our bags, Won Dogyeong suddenly turned to look at me with a serious expression. I got flustered along with him and my voice became serious too.
“Did we leave something behind?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Why, what is it.”
“We can’t hold hands because of the bags, what are you going to do when you feel so empty?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away.
The elevator happened to arrive just then, so I silently pressed the floor number and stood in the corner as far from Won Dogyeong as possible. Not that it made much difference in an elevator.
“Sure you don’t want to hold hands?”
Won Dogyeong, who had set his shopping bag on the floor, annoyingly held out his hand and wiggled it.
“Oh, already the 6th floor.”
“……”
“7th floor, 8th floor…”
Listening to him got on my nerves, so I grabbed the hand he was holding out and yanked it sharply toward me.
His body was pulled along and Won Dogyeong, who had been teasing me, stopped dead as if someone had pressed the pause button as he faced me right in front of his nose.
I glared at him and lightly bonked our foreheads together as a warning.
“I told you to stop…”
The eyes I met at close range trembled slightly left and right. When I slowly pulled my body back, he also awkwardly straightened his posture. Whether it was effective or not, Won Dogyeong kept his mouth quietly shut until we entered the house, his ears red.
All bark and no bite.
As soon as he entered the house, he disappeared into the kitchen under the pretext of organizing the groceries. I savored a wicked sense of victory as I went into my room to change clothes.
There was a lot of food, so I thought I should help organize it and was about to leave the room again when I remembered the scone sleeping safely in my bag and took out the box. Fortunately, it was intact without any crushed spots.
I went to the kitchen and poked Won Dogyeong’s back as he was cramming radish into the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator.
“Eat this. Haemin said to give it to you.”
“Me?”
At the sudden words, he widened his eyes and made a bewildered expression.
“Yeah. He said he baked until 3 AM yesterday. Ridiculous, right? Who bakes scones until three in the morning the night before work.”
“…I said something to you about going to Haemin’s place, didn’t I…”
Won Dogyeong muttered with an apologetic look. When I shook the box telling him to take it, he hesitantly accepted it.
“It’s fine. He enjoys that sort of thing.”
“Did you tell him we fought?”
“I did, why?”
“Ah shit, he found out I’m petty.”
He sullenly closed the refrigerator and went to sit at the dining table. His movements were careful as he opened the box.
It’s good with jam though.
I reopened the refrigerator Won Dogyeong had closed and took out the strawberry jam from the door. I rummaged through the utensil holder, found a butter knife, and sat across from him. He was already chewing on a plain scone with nothing on it.
“Put jam on it.”
“It’s good just like this.”
“He’s not good at cooking, but he’s good at baking.”
“True, he could sell these.”
Won Dogyeong must have been hungry because he started slathering jam all over the scone and eating it. He’s eating that so well without even milk. Come to think of it, it was still before dinner. Once I realized it, I felt a bit hungry too. Won Dogyeong held out the scone for me to take a bite, but I declined. I’d had scones for lunch too.
As I watched him stuff the last bite in his mouth in an instant and chew, words slipped out carelessly.
“Want to meet him next time?”
“Haemin?”
“Yeah.”
I said it and then thought about it, but having the two of them meet seemed like it would be okay. I’d have to keep meeting with Haemin from now on, so wouldn’t I be less anxious if Won Dogyeong knew him too?
Without even asking, if I asked Haemin if he wanted to meet Kim Minwoo, he’d nod his head. He’s crazy about that kind of event.
“I don’t mind.”
“He won’t mind either.”
“But didn’t you say Haemin hates me?”
“Did I?”
“You said I was like a fox bastard with ulterior motives…”
“Ah, that.”
I remembered Haemin’s heated face and giggled. Won Dogyeong sat loosely with his arms crossed and a blank expression, chewing his scone.
“He didn’t know it would turn out like this back then. He probably doesn’t think anything of it now, right? He even gave you scones.”
“Hmm, okay.”
Not right away though. Later, when it wouldn’t matter if it was discovered that Kim Minwoo is Won Dogyeong, I should arrange a meeting.
I can’t really imagine Won Dogyeong and Haemin in the same place. To me, they were people from completely different categories. Strictly speaking, they were alumni from the same university, but since they didn’t know each other, that was the only connection they had.
Their personalities might get along pretty well though. They both have quite the personality.
I was hungry but didn’t feel like eating a meal, so I laid out various types of fruit and ate them for dinner. For dessert, we opened different types of snacks we’d bought that I’d never seen before and held a tasting session. I don’t really like snacks, and Won Dogyeong deliberately stops eating partway through, so we sealed up what was left and put it in the cupboard.
Won Dogyeong kept holding my hand and following me around everywhere. Only after I told him to let go because I needed to wash up did he finally separate from me with a slightly sulky air.
I shouldn’t carelessly say I want to do something. That’s today’s lesson.
And today too, I stole Won Dogyeong’s clothes to hug while sleeping. Smelling the faint pheromones clinging to them made me feel like my mind was settling down.
Yesterday’s cardigan—while Won Dogyeong was in his room, I snuck out and put it in the laundry basket.
It would be embarrassing if I got caught, so I’ll have to keep secretly stealing them to sleep with from now on.
*
It was a sweet weekend. As usual, I forced my eyes shut when they wanted to open at the crack of dawn and slept until 8 AM. When I’m sitting at the office I’m impossibly sleepy, but when I can actually sleep more, I don’t know why I’m so wide awake.
Is it because the sun rises early? As summer approached, sunrise time kept getting earlier, and my room didn’t have blackout curtains. Before the alarm even went off, the sunlight would be so bright I’d open my eyes. It had been overcast all these days, but of all days, the weather today was fantastically good. Weather perfect for going out somewhere.
I felt cheated that I could only sleep until 8, so I rolled around in bed for about an hour. Even that ended with me just scrolling through NeTube Shorts because there wasn’t really anything I wanted to do. Videos of idol groups dancing to addictive music kept appearing endlessly no matter how much I scrolled, so I decided to stop being stubborn and get up.
When I went outside, Won Dogyeong was sitting on the sofa reading some bundle of papers.
“Did you get offered a project?”
“You’re up early.”
“I want to sleep more but I can’t fall asleep.”
He lightly patted the seat next to him as if telling me to sit here. As soon as I plopped my butt down with a big yawn, Won Dogyeong took my left hand and intertwined his fingers between mine.
“Is it interesting?”
I peeked at the script, which now only had a few pages left. It was thinner than the ones he usually read.
“Yeah, it’s not bad.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know, what they sent is a first draft so it might get scrapped… It’s just a brief appearance so the filming period is short, which is nice.”
“What does it matter, do it if it’s fun.”
Won Dogyeong let out a groan and tossed the script he’d been flipping through onto the table. He sank deep into the sofa and rubbed his face roughly with a troubled expression.
“But this one starts filming in April next year.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“It’s before Yongyong’s 100 days, so you’d have to take care of him alone for almost a month.”
Oh, right. Yongyong.
Since the due date is the end of January, in April it would be just over two months since birth. I’ve heard the first 100 days are critical, but honestly I still can’t really imagine it.
Still, it’s just taking care of a baby—wouldn’t about a month be manageable on my own?
People whose spouses work mostly take care of them alone anyway. If other people do it, it can’t be that impossible.
“If they’re sending you the first draft, doesn’t that mean they want you to do it?”
“I don’t know… There must be someone else besides me who could do it.”
Won Dogyeong seemed to be leaning toward not doing it, but from what I could see, it seemed like he wanted to do it. If he really didn’t like it, he would have just skimmed it and put it away, but seeing how he kept going through it several times, he must like it.
