***
Jung Sanho rubbed his flushed cheeks. On his dazed face, excitement he couldn’t hide remained like crumbs.
The amusement park he’d come to for the first time in his life was—it hurt his pride to admit—honestly fun. There were many people and it was that much more complicated and chaotic, but aside from that, it was exactly the amusement park Jung Sanho had imagined.
Baek Seungyeon seemed familiar with this place. Following where he guided, there was no time to rest. They rode the carousel, took pictures in front of it, then rode some water slide, rode the viking, rode the spinning dish. Baek Seungyeon was also skilled. He skillfully made reservations with some app so they could board faster than expected. And they’d just finished watching the parade.
During that time, Jung Sanho couldn’t take his eyes off Baek Seungyeon. The rushing situations weren’t bad either, but actually, he liked Baek Seungyeon chattering beside him more. Riding the spinning basket until they wanted to throw up, watching the parade and taking pictures—all those childish moments sparkled like stars.
Jung Sanho quietly fidgeted with his toes. When he thought of Baek Seungyeon, the area around his chest felt ticklish and strange. Even though he hadn’t come here hoping for this kind of thing.
He just wanted to have a first date with Baek Seungyeon before Yoon Taerim. So he searched ‘places worth going on a date’ and picked out places that seemed manageable. The amusement park was just one of them; it wasn’t particularly a place he was dying to come to.
Of course, there was a bit, just a tiny bit of selfish desire mixed in. The carousel, the animal headbands—he’d wanted to try them at least once.
“What? Aren’t your legs numb? Why are you sitting like that?”
Jung Sanho quickly raised his head. Before he knew it, Baek Seungyeon was standing right in front of him. With eyes that widened in bewilderment, he gestured.
“If there’s no seat, go somewhere else. A big guy like you sitting like that makes even me uncomfortable watching.”
Seungyeon approached his side with a smile. Jung Sanho crouched on top of bumpy stones in a corner of the amusement park stood out no matter who looked.
From the way his large frame was all hunched over, Seungyeon thought ‘Is a gangster action captain having cigarette time?’, but the cat headband firmly placed on his head in the midst of it made him look even more bizarre. His rough impression and appearance that didn’t match anything rather drew more attention.
At Seungyeon’s point, Jung Sanho slowly got up from his seat. Jung Sanho cleared his throat—ahem—and avoided his gaze.
“But what’s that? What you’re holding in your hand right now.”
“Ah, this. You said you wanted to eat it.”
Seungyeon handed over the cotton candy he was holding.
“There was also a raccoon shape but they said this one would be ready fastest so I bought this. Wow, the line was really long, you know? Kids must really like cotton candy. I was going to buy churros too but I just couldn’t buy those.”
Jung Sanho couldn’t take his eyes off that childish and stupid rabbit-shaped cotton candy for a long time. He scrunched his nose and glanced at Seungyeon. He tried to speak then closed his mouth again, and after repeating that for a while, he suddenly took a big bite of the cotton candy. Seungyeon looked at him in surprise.
“No, if you do it like that, it’ll get all over your face… never mind, yeah. Just eat it.”
Before he could stop him, about half the cotton candy disappeared into Jung Sanho’s mouth. Watching him combatively tear off the rabbit ears, it seemed like he had a grudge against rabbits in a past life.
“Don’t you feel sticky without tissues? It’s all over your lips, right now. It looks really sticky.”
“I don’t care.”
At the shameless answer, Seungyeon didn’t say anything more. He just openly watched Jung Sanho’s cotton candy mukbang. Jung Sanho munching on that large and only-sweet cotton candy seemed fascinating. Seeing him eat so combatively, did he really want to eat it? Was it like a bucket list? Whatever it was, from the standpoint of having stood in line to buy it, he felt proud.
In a way, it was kind of cute too. Both the special nature of the place called an amusement park, and the way he earnestly chewed cotton candy with a face that didn’t suit it at all seemed a bit childlike. More like a brat than a child, but thinking about it, Jung Sanho had always been favorable toward Seungyeon. He was just clumsy, but he’d never done anything bad. Even without the status window ringing once per second, he knew how Jung Sanho thought about him.
“…But this, the cotton candy I bought.”
“Hm?”
Pretending not to see the affection increase status window floating up enough to fill his vision, Seungyeon belatedly replied. Jung Sanho, who had devoured the cotton candy as if hiding crab eyes, hesitantly asked while holding only the stick.
“This… I was wondering if you bought it because I said I wanted to eat it earlier. I just said it in passing without much meaning.”
“Ah, yeah.”
Even while answering, Seungyeon’s gaze was fixed on Jung Sanho’s lips. It was because of the pink cotton candy piece that had been bothering him since earlier. The way it hung on the edge of his lips, about to fall or not, was quite irritating.
“You said you wanted to eat it.”
In the end, Seungyeon, who couldn’t stand it, reached out his hand. Ignoring Jung Sanho who flinched in surprise, he rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. Unlike the cotton candy piece that fell off as soon as his hand touched it, a sticky sensation remained on Seungyeon’s fingertips. Looking closely, Jung Sanho’s lips were glistening as if coated.
‘How enthusiastically did he eat?’
He pushed down the laughter that was about to burst out. It would be troublesome if he misunderstood it as mockery. There was nothing good about stimulating Jung Sanho here, so he deliberately controlled his expression. Nevertheless, he quickly changed the subject with a face that still had a smile remaining.
“Aren’t you thirsty? That’s really sweet, right?”
“…It’s sweet, very.”
Jung Sanho’s eyes moved following Seungyeon’s finger as it moved away. Those words seemed to be directed at him. Isn’t it a bit strange to say someone is sweet? Before the atmosphere became even more awkward, Seungyeon averted his gaze first.
“Then shall we get up now?”
Without waiting for an answer, he moved forward first. Hearing Jung Sanho’s footsteps following behind, Seungyeon scratched his cheek that was heating up for no reason.
***
“Aha. So you were together for a total of 6 hours and 30 minutes. While leaving me at the cafe, just the two of you at the amusement park.”
Yoon Taerim smiled. That alone felt like a subtle reproach. Seungyeon hadn’t really done anything wrong, but thinking about it, from Yoon Taerim’s position of being left at the cafe, it might have been embarrassing. Because they parted without even properly saying goodbye due to Jung Sanho’s stubbornness.
“I’m not blaming Seungyeon-ssi. It’s just, the situation is kind of funny.”
Yoon Taerim rubbed his brow. Whether visiting an amusement park during Family Month didn’t appeal to him, even after arriving at the parking lot, he lingered for a long time without being able to come out. It was the same for Seungyeon. Having already sufficiently experienced how many people there were the day before, he was lingering in the car as much as possible without rushing or urging Yoon Taerim.
“Do you know what Sanho said to me? He showed me the timer he set and said I have to be with Baek Seungyeon-ssi for exactly that amount of time. He told me not to change the location either. Honestly, I don’t want to be at an amusement park for over five hours, you know?”
“Still, isn’t it better than me? I was even here yesterday.”
Seungyeon slightly protested. In fact, Seungyeon himself didn’t want to come to the amusement park twice in a row. Nevertheless, the reason he came here with Yoon Taerim was, of course, because of Jung Sanho.
Unconditionally, absolutely, by any means, certainly—they had to do it the same. If they were at the amusement park for 6 hours and 30 minutes, Yoon Taerim also had to spend exactly that much time in the same place—that was Jung Sanho’s claim. Seungyeon and Yoon Taerim protested in one voice, but it didn’t work at all.
‘If you can’t even maintain that much fairness, how will you continue this relationship going forward? Did you both propose a three-way relationship to me with that kind of mindset? Aren’t you trying to take life too easy?!’
Even though he was a twenty-year-old who didn’t even have a driver’s license and had to take taxis, his spirit was that of a hundred-year-old elder. Seungyeon, who couldn’t dare make excuses, placed hope in Yoon Taerim, but Yoon Taerim was equally at a loss for words. In the end, the two who were overwhelmed in spirit headed to the amusement park like defeated soldiers.
“Hmm, I don’t think this will work. I really hate being crushed by people, and I don’t think we need to cater to Sanho’s mood this much.”
Yoon Taerim started the car. Seungyeon, who was about to unbuckle his seatbelt, quickly fastened it.
Whatever Jung Sanho said, the first thought was relief that they didn’t have to go to that crowded place right away. Yesterday he played well with Jung Sanho with a sense of mission, but thinking about doing that again with Yoon Taerim, his solar plexus was already feeling stuffy. Jung Sanho’s reactions were at least cute—what would he even do there with Yoon Taerim?
Wherever it was, with the conviction that it would be better than the amusement park, color returned to Seungyeon’s expression. Yoon Taerim, who noticed that, burst into a chuckle.
“Aren’t you too happy? Was yesterday very hard?”
“Well, no… It wasn’t hard. It’s just that there were too many people.”
“That’s true. Unless you have the vigor of a twenty-year-old, you can’t come to an amusement park at a time like this.”
It took quite a while just to get out of the parking lot. The car that finally escaped to the ground quickly merged onto the road. At the sight of him stepping on the accelerator without even setting the navigation, Seungyeon casually asked a question.
“But where are we going?”
“Well… somewhere adults would go?”
Yoon Taerim, who met his gaze, winked.
“I know a lot of places that would make Sanho faint if he found out.”
