# Chapter 48
Just one month…
It seemed like he would have to endure for just one more month until Mo Eunje found his own place, and then, regardless of whether he confessed or not, he would have no choice but to let him go. Even if it was regrettable, he concluded that living together would be better after they became intimate partners. Just as he was reaching this conclusion, the ringing of his phone interrupted his thoughts.
“What.”
“Did you have a nice visit with your in-laws?”
Tae Igyeol was about to curse at Ban Hajun for being irritating again when he suddenly recalled a conversation between Mo Eunje and his mother Song Yeonhwa on April Fool’s Day.
‘I’d be so happy to have Eunje as my son-in-law!’
‘Seriously? We’re both men.’
‘That’s fine. Igyeol will be the daughter-in-law.’
He might not remember exactly due to being out of his mind at the time, and some parts might be edited in his memory, but he vaguely recalled that the roles of son-in-law and daughter-in-law had been decided.
“I’m probably the daughter-in-law.”
“Oh! I thought you’d give me hell, but you’re going along with it? Did something good happen?”
“As if. Why did you call?”
“I ordered a bunch of food to have drinks with my boyfriend at my place—pork hocks, boiled pork wraps, whelk, chicken, everything. But he got an urgent call and left. Want to come over with Eunje and help eat it?”
Though he clearly heard Korean, it was as incomprehensible as an alien language. In Tae Igyeol’s common sense, he couldn’t imagine what kind of urgent call would make someone leave their partner on a Sunday evening, and he couldn’t understand how such a thing could happen.
“Did you check what the urgent call was about?”
“Have you gone crazy after pining for someone for over ten years? Look, even between partners, there’s a minimum level of courtesy to maintain. What are you, a stalker? Checking every little detail like that? Suspicion is a disease too, you know.”
“…”
“From what I saw when he took the call, it seemed like his company superior. What choice does an intern have? When they say jump, you jump.”
So even for an intern, what kind of urgent business would a company superior have on a Sunday evening that required calling them in? Tae Igyeol let out a hollow laugh as he disposed of his cigarette butt and lit a new one.
“What if he’s having an affair with his boss? How can you just let him go without properly checking? You’re going to get in big trouble.”
“Wow… How can you have a relationship without even that much trust?”
“What good does that meager trust do?”
“Why so pessimistic again? I can’t handle dating if I have to worry about such things. It’s easier to just meet without interference. Even if he is cheating, I can just break up and meet someone else—why would I voluntarily take on such troublesome matters?”
He wondered what kind of personality it took to have such a light, loose, and casual attitude toward relationships. He wasn’t sure whether to envy such emotional lightness or pity it. However, when the thought suddenly struck him that he wished he could at least try dating Mo Eunje, no matter how casually, his feelings shifted slightly toward the former.
“What’s the best part about dating?”
“Hmm… Everything is perfect except for the fact that I’m not single?”
“You’re insane.”
“I give you an answer and you still curse. Anyway, are you coming? Will you drink?”
“I’ll ask Eunje and let you know. Bye.”
“Hey, never mind. I’ll just call Mo Eunje directly. It’s faster that way. The decision power is with him anyway, so me calling you was just—”
Tae Igyeol ended the call before Ban Hajun finished speaking. Though it was just a brief conversation, hearing Ban Hajun’s voice had maximized his fatigue. He needed to go back inside quickly to hear Mo Eunje’s voice and heal.
&
“Yeah. Enjoy your meal. Don’t cry because you’re lonely.”
Just as Mo Eunje hung up from Ban Hajun’s call, Tae Igyeol, who had gone out to smoke, came back in. Mo Eunje, who had been lying motionless on the sofa since arriving home, gently rubbed his stomach with his palm. He was trying to soothe his bloated belly. Though he didn’t think he was suffering from indigestion, it felt like his food wasn’t digesting well.
“Was that Ban Hajun?”
“Yeah. He invited us over for dinner.”
“Not a chance.”
“If I had any desire for food right now, would I be human? I’m still full to my neck.”
Mo Eunje inflated his stomach, took a deep breath, and then exhaled long and thin. Though he had only eaten an early lunch and a late lunch, Tae Igyeol, who had woken up unnecessarily early despite drinking so much the day before, had hangover soup for breakfast, cold noodles for early lunch, and even grilled beef ribs for late lunch before heading to the train station. So if anyone was too full, it was him, not Mo Eunje. There was no way he’d be thinking about dinner. Maybe a late-night snack later, but not dinner.
“How can you still be so full? I slept on the train, but it feels like nothing has digested at all.”
This was all due to his mom and dad’s excessive desire to feed them just one more thing. The saying “too much of a good thing” exists for a reason. When they were in Seoul, his parents were too busy with their own work to care whether their son ate or not, but perhaps because this was the first time he was living separately, or because Tae Igyeol, whom they adored, was with him, they kept presenting them with food options. And yet, they had lamented that they were busy working until yesterday, so today was their only free day, and told them to come next time on their hospital’s day off.
“Haah… I’m so full I’m getting angry.”
Of course, they weren’t forced to eat, so they could have declined, but when told these were must-eat foods in Busan, what could they do? He had resolved to just taste a bite, but before he knew it, he had eaten so much that it was hard to breathe. There was no point in blaming his parents. The problem was him, mindlessly continuing to stuff food down his throat without restraint.
“Feeling sick?”
“A little? Do we have any digestive medicine left? I guess we left that digestive medicine we bought before in Busan?”
“Yeah. Stay still, I’ll look for some. There should be some left.”
Mo Eunje, who had been about to get up, smiled contentedly and relaxed his body. Though there was a time gap between them, having eaten two lunches made his overly full stomach uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable also made him drowsy, and he wanted to take a nap.
Soon, after checking the living room cabinet, Tae Igyeol offered him both a sharp liquid digestive medicine in a dark brown glass bottle and pills. Mo Eunje half-raised his body to take the medicine and immediately lay back down.
“Sit for a while before lying down. How can you just lie down all the time regardless of the situation?”
Tae Igyeol scolded as he sat on one end of the sofa. Mo Eunje, letting the words go in one ear and out the other, moved while still lying down, folding his legs and gradually pushing with his feet and shoulders until his head rested on Tae Igyeol’s thigh. When he reached out his hand as if asking to be pressed down, Tae Igyeol naturally grabbed his wrist and used his strength to pull Mo Eunje up to a sitting position.
“Ah, I want to lie down. I’m tired.”
“You just took digestive medicine. If you keep lying down when your food hasn’t even digested, you’ll get acid reflux. Why make yourself suffer unnecessarily? Sit up for at least 10 minutes.”
“No giant nagging allowed.”
He was being so incredibly strict. The fastest way to digest was to sleep.
“Igyeol, you know what? You nag worse than my mom.”
“Your mom hardly nags at all.”
“Exactly. You’re enthusiastically doing the nagging that even my mom doesn’t do, right now.”
“I wouldn’t say enthusiastically.”
Mo Eunje glared at Tae Igyeol, annoyed that he wouldn’t concede a single point. However, Tae Igyeol consistently ignored him without even blinking, holding Mo Eunje’s wrist and the back of his hand, pressing firmly between his thumb and index finger.
“…Huh?”
Seeing this, Mo Eunje suddenly had a vivid flashback to the scene at Café Ila where he had been holding hands. At that time, he was in exactly the same posture, holding Shin Dael’s wrist to the back of her hand. Of course, now they were sitting side by side, while back then, they were sitting face to face, but the way he held her hand and his behavior were identical without the slightest deviation. It was amazing how he had seen it as them tenderly holding hands. It was so absurd that he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Why are you snickering?”
“Just thinking how people really only see what they want to see.”
Tae Igyeol looked at him with eyes that seemed to seek an explanation, but Mo Eunje boldly omitted any elaboration. If he could misunderstand like this due to incorrect assumptions, if someone were determined to misunderstand, they could twist the situation however they wanted and misinterpret it to their liking.
So the problem was in that twisting. When you twist things, even lies can appear as truth.
Mo Eunje decided he had made a good choice changing his last question while walking on Haeundae Beach. Asking such a question itself would have been doubting, denying, and deceiving the solid friendship they had built over 26 years.
“Can I lie down now? It feels like 10 minutes have passed.”
“It’s only been 2 minutes.”
“2 minutes? Not 20? That can’t be right…”
With an exaggeratedly incredulous expression, Mo Eunje subtly lay down and rested his head on Tae Igyeol’s thigh. After sleeping in a sitting position on the train for about three hours, his entire body felt stiff.
“I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up when it’s time for a late-night snack. Let’s have jokbal. Ban Hajun mentioned jokbal, and now I want some.”
“You just took digestive medicine and you’re talking about jokbal?”
“Sleep normally helps digestion, and sleeping after taking digestive medicine makes digestion even better. I’ll be hungry when I wake up.”
“…Fine. What can I say? Go ahead and sleep.”
“Okay. Once I fall asleep, you can stop pressing. It hurts the person’s fingers if they keep doing that for too long.”
Mo Eunje closed his eyes, thinking that when he woke up and ordered jokbal, he wouldn’t forget to request the tender, fatty parts. Deep sleep came immediately, perhaps because the 2-night, 3-day journey had been tiring.
