“Do we look like fucking jokes to you, Hyeonho? How can you even sleep through the meeting time?”
Despite Kim Sekyung’s heavily sarcastic words, Park Hyeonho just silently downed his soju. I didn’t care anymore that Park Hyeonho was late, but Kim Sekyung seemed annoyed even after experiencing this for over ten years.
Funny guy, considering he’s late sometimes too. If he’d put that energy into work, he’d have been rich ages ago.
“Ignoring me?”
“I told you not to talk to me until I catch up.”
“You should at least answer, fuck.”
“I do know your dick is smaller than a dog’s dick though.”
“Dog… how do you know that? Did you see it?”
Kim Sekyung gritted his teeth and got heated. I don’t know why he picks fights he can’t win. Park Hyeonho stays quiet if you don’t bother him, but I don’t know why he keeps poking at him. Won Dogyeong and I would whisper to each other that that bastard definitely had masochistic tendencies.
“You done with that?”
Regardless, Park Hyeonho set his sights on the cold noodles I’d left. Won Dogyeong had also stopped eating a while ago, seeming full, so I passed it over telling him to eat it. I knew this would happen.
Park Hyeonho, who’d emptied a bottle of soju in an instant using the cold noodles as a drinking snack, was shoving meat into his mouth when something seemed to occur to him and he opened his mouth with an “Ah.”
“Yeo Jeongwon, are you seeing anyone?”
“Suddenly?”
Without realizing it, I glanced at Won Dogyeong, but with his face flushed from the alcohol, he was having some kind of heated conversation with Nam Seongwoo.
“A college classmate asked me to introduce them if there’s anyone decent around.”
“Ah…”
“Want to see a picture? He’s good-looking.”
Just then, Kim Sekyung suddenly threw his arm around my shoulders and pulled me with his weight. I tried to straighten my body as it tilted sideways, but ended up having no choice but to bump the back of my head against his chest. Being in this position with Kim Sekyung was excessively disgraceful.
“Jeongwon’s going to date me.”
This bastard’s drunk. His pronunciation’s a bit slurred.
“Let go, crazy asshole.”
I struggled and threw off his arm to escape. I sat up straight, but Kim Sekyung grabbed my arm and kept whining about whether I was going to meet another man while leaving him behind. Kim Sekyung originally clung to whoever was next to him when drunk. Even his drinking habit was just like him—absolutely obnoxious.
A reasonable suspicion suddenly crossed my mind. Don’t tell me I did something wrong?
It seemed possible. As expected, excessive drinking was the root of all evil.
“No need for introductions.”
I waved my hand, ignoring the hand tugging at my clothes as I sat with my back to Kim Sekyung. I sneaked a glance at Won Dogyeong, still looking at Nam Seongwoo’s phone together and talking across from me, and added quietly enough for only Park Hyeonho to hear.
“…I’m seeing someone.”
Brushing it off to coworkers and confessing to close friends carried different weight. Moreover, confessing to someone who knew both me and Won Dogyeong well, in a place where we were both present.
“…Kim Sekyung?”
Park Hyeonho, who’d been observing my hesitant expression, muttered with a “no way” look, and I gave him an incredulous expression.
“Are you crazy?”
“Misspoke, sorry.”
“I’ll tell you later.”
He nodded obediently. Fortunately, he wasn’t interested in other people’s love lives. If Kim Sekyung had heard, he would’ve tried to shake me down from the ground up.
While Park Hyeonho finished eating, drinks were occasionally passed around. Won Dogyeong and Kim Sekyung looked giggly so they were already somewhat drunk, and Nam Seongwoo seemed to be holding on with a salesman’s seasoned experience. Everyone’s drinking pace was fast today.
I didn’t enjoy drinking to the point of oblivion, but watching my giggling friends while stone sober made my stomach hurt.
Once Yongyong comes out, I need to drink until I’m cross-eyed too.
“Let’s go.”
Park Hyeonho, who’d downed his last glass, knocked on the table urging us to leave.
Nam Seongwoo paid. He was the implicit treasurer. After gatherings ended, he’d send settlement notifications.
It had been Won Dogyeong at first, but he kept letting it slide without settlement, probably feeling bad about charging salary workers for splitting the bill, so we changed treasurers. Even vaguely knowing he earned in different units than us, it felt wrong to keep making him buy for five people. Bar tabs weren’t pocket change.
Outside was, of course, broad daylight. Not bright because the days were longer, but just plain daylight. While waiting for Nam Seongwoo, Won Dogyeong stood behind me, placing his chin on the crown of my head and pressing down repeatedly.
“That hurts.”
“How about now?”
I felt him ease up and tap-tap lightly.
“It’s fine.”
I heard a silly laugh from above my head. Won Dogyeong tapped the crown of my head a few more times with his chin, then deeply lowered his head and buried his face in my nape.
“I think I’m a bit drunk. I usually hold it better than this…”
“It’s been a while.”
“Mm-hm. Should we just run away first?”
“If you’re confident you can handle Kim Sekyung, go ahead.”
“Ugh… Kim Sekyung… can’t do that, right?”
I laughed a little hearing his disgusted voice. His cheek touching my nape was warm, probably heated from the alcohol. I unconsciously raised my hand to touch Won Dogyeong’s face, but made eye contact with Kim Sekyung who was suddenly standing right in front of me and quickly withdrew it. He furrowed his brow as if asking what I was doing and pointed at the car.
“Hurry up and open the door.”
When I turned my gaze, Nam Seongwoo, who’d already finished paying and come out, was rattling the car door irritably.
“Did you leave it unlocked?”
I grumbled to hide my embarrassment and opened the car door. I poked Won Dogyeong, who was standing close behind me, with my elbow to push him away and circled around the car to get in the driver’s seat.
“So, where should we go? You guys decide.”
I turned on the ignition, turned on the AC, and looked back at the rear seats to ask. The sight of them sitting huddled together with flushed cheeks was quite amusing.
“Let’s go to your place and play Game of Life.”
“What Game of Life, my life IS Game of Life, fuck.”
“Hey hey hey, how about going to see the ocean, that’d be nice.”
“What ocean, just drink.”
“Then let’s go to their place and drink.”
“It’s too early. It’s only 4 o’clock.”
Various opinions flew out haphazardly, as if they wanted to do something since we’d gathered after a long time. The rare presence of a sober driver seemed to play a part too. Judging by the atmosphere, it seemed our place would be the final destination.
If they were going to keep drinking anyway, going home was actually better. I could let them drink among themselves and go inside to sleep.
Everyone seemed reluctant to be cooped up at home already, so I thought hard about where we could go and it suddenly came to me.
“Want to go to the Han River and eat ramyeon? Then come to our place and drink.”
Answers that weren’t really answers echoed like “Han River?” “Oh, Han River.” “Han River~” throughout the car. Like some kind of Minions.
Next came brief exchanges of “Ramyeon sounds good.” “Hangover ramyeon?” “Ramyeon~” “I’m a badger,” and Kim Sekyung looked at me and gestured.
“What are you doing? Let’s go.”
“Yeah, boss me around, boss me around…”
I slowly backed out the car. In the back, a debate broke out over the topic of spicy ramyeon being the best, really the spicy flavor’s the best.
Won Dogyeong, sitting blankly in the passenger seat, stared intently at my hands on the steering wheel for a long while. When we stopped at a red light, he finally mouthed “I want to hold hands,” so I shook my head with a glance toward the back seat.
He stuck out his lips like a duck and glanced at the three bastards in the back as if wanting to kick them out. Then when our eyes met, he grinned and mouthed that the passenger seat wasn’t bad either.
I laughed it off as if unfazed, but honestly I was flustered. I turned the steering wheel while trying to suppress the small flutter rising from a corner of my chest.
Why is he kind of… cute today? Did he always act like this when drinking?
“What about you guys, which side are you on?”
Park Hyeonho suddenly popped up from the middle.
“We like Ansim Tang Myeon.”
“Ah, fuck.”
He seemed to have been looking for allies while losing the debate, grumbling as he disappeared back into the rear seat.
And to cut to the conclusion, the Han River was a poor choice.
First of all, we had considerable difficulty with parking—it took over twenty minutes from arriving at the destination to parking the car. As you might guess from that, the Han River was overflowing with families out for water play and summer vacation. To make matters worse, the weather was too hot to eat ramyeon outside.
Nevertheless, we went to a convenience store determined to eat somehow, but got overwhelmed by the swarming crowds and got back in the car with just a can of beer each in hand. Needless to say, it took considerable time to get out too.
It was my first time bringing a car to the Han River on a weekend, so I hadn’t thought about it.
…Everyone except me just hadn’t thought about anything.
Since the drunkards insisted on eating ramyeon—and each their own preferred ramyeon at that—we stopped by a mart on the way home. We only had Ansim Tang Myeon at our place. While we were at it, we bought alcohol and snacks too. Their eyes went wild at the toy section and they wanted to buy Jenga, so I threw that in too.
This was already the fifth board game accumulating at our place this way.
As soon as we arrived home and opened the door, everyone scattered and sprawled around the sofa area.
“Dogyeong, can’t you raise me too?”
“I don’t want to because you won’t clean on time.”
At Nam Seongwoo’s words spoken in a disgusting, cutesy voice, Won Dogyeong hurled an insult without his expression changing. Nam Seongwoo spat out curses, but since it wasn’t exactly wrong, he didn’t refute it.
While the guys took out and spread the snacks and pulled out all the board games from the shelf, Won Dogyeong and I made ramyeon. Since there were three types, we used three pots. I definitely need to make those bastards do the dishes.
