“Just. Because it’s fascinating.”
Jae-min drank the remaining alcohol in one gulp. While he was wetting his throat, Yeong-gyu and Jin-su changed the topic and chatted about another story between themselves. Jae-min just fiddled with the rim of his empty glass.
The sentence that suddenly popped out of his friend’s mouth earlier, about getting excited looking at Hyun-woong, kept circling in his ears. Because that was exactly the subject that had been distracting Jae-min’s mind recently.
“But guys, I have something to ask seriously.”
Jae-min was half-listening to his friends’ frivolous chatter when he suddenly cut off their conversation. When they turned around, Jae-min let out a deep sigh and leaned his fist against his temple.
With his head tilted, shadows fell into every corner of his three-dimensional features. At the solemn atmosphere created by his stunningly handsome face, his friends unconsciously swallowed. Jae-min opened his mouth with a serious attitude.
“Why is it that just looking at a certain person’s chest makes me get hard, and I want to pinch and torment their nipples or stick my cock between their breasts?”
At the question Jae-min seriously delivered in a very cool voice, silence flowed for a moment. A few seconds later, Yeong-gyu and Jin-su looked at each other with distorted faces.
“Ah, Lim Jae-min. He really is just a pretty-faced psycho. People don’t change.”
“Crazy bastard, why are you suddenly talking about that? I’m not drunk enough yet!”
Jin-su quietly nodded his head, and Yeong-gyu yelled in shock. Jae-min just stayed silent.
In the meantime, the three beers they ordered earlier arrived. Yeong-gyu gulped down his alcohol as if going crazy, while Jin-su chuckled and said to Jae-min.
“Why would that be? You must want to fuck that person.”
“What? Me?”
“Yeah.”
At Jin-su’s words, Jae-min gaped in shock, and seeing him, Yeong-gyu slammed down his beer glass with a bang.
“What kind of reaction is that? Hey, you know what this conversation feels like? It’s like, I took a bite of food and want to add salt, what does that mean? Oh, it means it’s bland. It’s exactly like that, you know?”
Glancing at the exasperated Yeong-gyu, Jae-min reached out and stuffed a handful of pretzel snacks into his mouth. It was a basic snack.
“…I really do need to add more salt to this.”
It was a snack he should have been chewing loudly, but it was blander than expected. Jae-min chewed the snack crunch, crunch like someone who couldn’t hear anything. At Jae-min’s utterly bland reaction, Yeong-gyu let out a deep sigh “Haa” and leaned back.
“Anyway, what a pervert. Still obsessed with breasts as always.”
“That’s Lim Jae-min’s default attribute, so would it change?”
“That’s true.”
While his friends murmured gossip about Jae-min, the person in question himself just drank while blankly staring into space.
‘Want to fuck? Me and Kang Hyun-woong?’
He thought his stomach would flip the moment he put that lewd word next to Hyun-woong’s name, but surprisingly he was fine. His mouth just went dry. Jae-min, who had emptied the beer that just came out in an instant, abruptly stood up from his seat.
“What? Going to the bathroom?”
“I want to go home. You guys drink more.”
“Hey, what! Why are you leaving already when you came after so long?”
“I’m tired.”
Yeong-gyu tried to stop him in disbelief, but Jae-min was faster at gathering his jacket and bag.
“Let me know how much money to send later.”
Jae-min gave a dry greeting and left the bar just like that. The whole alley was full of restaurants selling alcohol, so neon signs flickered and it was crowded with drunk people.
“Why would that be. He must want to fuck that person.”
As he passed through the noisy street and rode a bus full of people for a long time, Jae-min’s head was complicated the entire time. His friend’s calm answer rang in his ears. Those words just wouldn’t leave his ears.
⁕⁕⁕
“I have good news.”
That night, Woo-seok suddenly said he had something to say and urgently summoned the Fake Lightning members. Thanks to all the band members being neighborhood people doing self-boarding near the university, they could gather despite the sudden contact.
Chi-won’s house became the hideout because he lived in the biggest house among the members. Woo-seok spoke to the members with a triumphant face.
“I think we can perform again. A paid performance!”
Everyone’s expressions changed completely at Woo-seok’s shout. It was unexpected news, so even Jae-min froze with his mouth open. Min-jeong, who had been unable to find a part-time job until now, reacted the most. She screamed “Kyaa” and raised her arms brightly.
“Really? But how? The venue where we used to perform closed down.”
“It’s not the stage we used to perform on before, but a hyung I know is opening a live pub this time. He asked if we’d like to perform there.”
Woo-seok grinned and leaned against the wall.
“As always, it’s not a job that makes a lot of money, but it’ll still be fun, won’t it?”
“That sounds so good?”
Chi-won and Hye-young both clapped their hands with bright faces. Woo-seok nodded with a proud face.
“I knew everyone except one person would immediately say okay.”
“Who’s the one person?”
At the question Jae-min bluntly threw while standing there dumbfounded, Woo-seok furrowed one eyebrow.
“Who else. Lim Jae-min, you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you’re doing a well-paying part-time job now, right? Then you can’t do it together, can you? Well, our performances aren’t every day so working two jobs might be possible.”
“Well that’s…”
He was about to immediately reply that it’s a temporary part-time job anyway, that doing fun work is better than making money, but Jae-min stopped without realizing it.
‘If I quit, will someone else take charge of Kang Hyun-woong? Another man kneading his chest?’
Suddenly, as if cold lightning had struck above his head, his vision flared up blue-white. His heart beat irregularly. He became very displeased at the image he unconsciously conjured up.
‘I don’t like that.’
Woo-seok, who had been looking at Jae-min frozen with clenched fists with puzzled eyes, waved his hand back and forth in front of him. Only then did Jae-min’s lost focus return.
“If the guitarist drops out, there’s a way for Min-jeong to sing while playing guitar too. But we like having you better! Anyway, think it over carefully and let me know.”
At Woo-seok’s words with a grin, Jae-min hesitated then nodded. Just then, Chi-won snapped his fingers. Everyone’s gaze turned that way at the small noise.
“By the way, let’s decide on songs to do at the festival. We need to decide that to start practicing properly.”
“Ah, there are so many songs I want to do.”
“Let’s write out the candidates and choose about three from them.”
“Okay! What did we sing last year?”
Min-jeong stretched and tilted her head this way and that. Hye-young, who had been quiet the whole time, sparkled her eyes at the word “last year.”
“Then shall we watch last year’s festival video?”
“Should we? To revive memories too.”
“The one my friend filmed up close to the stage is on my account, and if you search on YouTube, you’ll find ones filmed from far away with phone cameras too.”
Hye-young took out a smart tablet and searched by entering the date along with the university name and the keyword ‘Daedongjae.’ Hye-young, who had been scrolling down a bit, made a sound “Oh?”
“This is an angle I’ve never seen before. It’s filmed from the side. Let’s watch together.”
Hye-young played a video and placed the smart tablet on furniture so everyone could see. Whether it was filmed from high ground on the right side of the stage at the time of the festival, both the performance and the audience seats could be seen well at the same time.
Jae-min half-watched the screen from the edge while just singing along to the familiar song. But it was when Fake Lightning’s last song started.
“Ah! Look at this!”
Hye-young screamed and paused the video. Jae-min, startled, turned his head to look at her.
“This person! This is that person I mentioned before.”
“Who?”
“The handsome man who was in the very back during our performance but eventually came to the front.”
Jae-min narrowed his eyes. He wondered what she was talking about, then remembered that when they met last time, Hye-young had talked about seeing a handsome man at last year’s festival. Wondering how good-looking this guy was, Jae-min changed positions.
Jae-min squeezed in between the two in the middle and brought his face close to the screen. It was that moment when Hye-young enlarged the screen saying to look carefully.
“Where… huh?”
Even though it was filmed from far away and the screen was forcibly enlarged so the quality wasn’t very good, he could see a man whose body was far superior to the people around him.
Moreover, Jae-min recognized at a glance who this man was.
“This is Kang Hyun-woong, fuck.”
It was definitely Hyun-woong. That build! The pitch-black clothes! The clear features that survived even in the completely broken quality! Since he was a person Jae-min never expected to have been at that time and place, he was so surprised he even cursed.
