“Hyung.”
“Why, you don’t like noona?”
“Mm-hm, and, um… earlier, earlier that…”
“Earlier?”
Seo-an tilted his head while properly dressing the child.
Was there someone we met? As he was thinking, the child narrowed her brows with a “Hae—.”
“Hae… won samchon…?”
“Ah, Hae-won.”
“Yes, Hae-won samchon, I like him.”
She likes him when it’s been barely any time since they met.
When he just stared at her in disbelief, the child twisted her body and laughed.
“Samchon is pretty.”
“You’re really a problem too.”
I liked his face too.
Seo-an smiled softly and properly tidied the child’s hair.
The rice cake had completely cooled, but it still wasn’t bad enough to be inedible. Seo-an, who had placed it on the prettiest plate, took Ji-yu’s hand and left the front door.
“Still, dad wishes there was an adult other than Hae-won samchon.”
Responding to Ji-yu’s words, he pressed the doorbell of the neighboring house.
Beep—
After actually pressing the bell, he felt slightly nervous. As always, Seo-an needed great resolve to form connections with new people.
So even as he took a deep breath without anyone knowing, inwardly he actually hoped the house would be empty. He thought it wouldn’t be bad to stick a note and prepare his mind again.
But Seo-an’s such wish crumbled in an instant. Immediately from inside came the sound of the door opening with a click.
Who will come out? It would be better if it’s an elderly person, he thought as he composed his expression properly, when what appeared was…
“We really are meeting again.”
It was Yeon Hae-won.
Seo-an almost dropped the plate for a moment and quickly put strength in his hands.
“Huh? It’s Hae-won samchon!”
The child made a delighted sound and lifted her heels, then smiled brightly. The gaze that had lingered on Seo-an’s face for a moment immediately fell to the child. A bright smile bloomed across his pretty face.
“Ji-yu-ya, hello. We met again.”
Hearing those words, Seo-an couldn’t hide his confused gaze.
No, you really live right next door…?
In this big complex, out of so many houses, why of all places next door? Seo-an swallowed the bursting sigh inwardly and forced a smile.
“What brings you here?”
And at the sound that followed, he made a stupid “Ah” sound.
“You didn’t come knowing I live here.”
“…To give rice cake.”
Seo-an awkwardly held out the plate.
Now that he looked at it, the plate was too fancy. I should have put it on something less pretty. He felt embarrassed as if he’d tried to show off something that didn’t even work, trying to make a good impression for no reason.
Hae-won moved his gaze that had been scanning Seo-an’s handsome face as is to look at the rice cake. Then, keeping his gaze there, he murmured.
“People still do this kind of thing these days.”
It probably wasn’t intended to make the other person embarrassed. But originally, in awkward relationships, people become sensitive to even small words.
Seo-an bit the inside of his lip.
I brought it for nothing. I should have just coaxed her well, saying let’s just eat it among ourselves even though the kid wanted to do it. I should have observed who lives next door by riding the elevator for a few days first.
As he was having futile regrets, feeling the force pulling on his pants as if telling him to hurry up and give it, he said with a sigh.
“…If you don’t want it, I’ll just take it back.”
As he recovered the plate faster than his words—
“Thank you, I’ll eat it well. How did you know I like sirutteok?”
“Samchon, samchon. Samchon also likes sirutteok, um?”
Ji-yu, who had been quietly watching the two people, asked in a spirited voice. The child’s curiosity didn’t stop there. She glanced and peeked inside the house beyond Hae-won standing at the door, then said with sparkling bright eyes.
“Samchon, and samchon, you live here?”
The subtle current flowing between the two people didn’t last very long due to the child’s voice that cut through the air at any time.
Hae-won carefully held the rice cake and lowered his body to match the child’s eye level. Since she seemed curious about the inside of the house, when he slightly turned his body to show her inside, her already large eyes opened even wider and held innocence.
“Yeah, samchon lives here. Come play whenever Ji-yu is bored. Dad is busy working, right?”
“What about samchon? Are you unemployed?”
“Kids these days are smart.”
Hae-won smiled awkwardly and straightened his body. After carelessly ruffling her hair with his large hand that could completely cover the small child’s crown, he looked at Seo-an and smiled awkwardly.
“…Are you really unemployed?”
He wasn’t exactly unemployed… He just didn’t feel the need to work so he stayed at home, and occasionally he helped with work when there were requests from people around him, but he wasn’t receiving much compensation.
He just spent his time doing what he wanted to do moderately and intended to start working at the right time, and now just wasn’t that ‘time’ yet.
But there were no words to explain his current state.
“Yes.”
To have to introduce myself as unemployed to my unrequited love I’m meeting after several years. Hae-won squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, but he had no choice.
Seo-an looked at him, then followed the child in glancing at the inside of the house visible beyond Hae-won’s shoulder. It clearly seemed like a house where someone lived alone, but a neatly well-organized interior caught his eye at a glance. That was all that was reflected in the entrance middle door, but still, it seemed he was living fairly well.
Well, they said his family is well-off.
If he could live without necessarily having to work, that wasn’t such a bad direction either.
Seo-an ended the conversation by nodding without much sentiment. After all, Hae-won was an uncomfortable person to keep seeing, so he tried to take the child and go back inside the house.
But wherever she was hooked on Hae-won, the child didn’t try to leave him at all. Now she was even grabbing onto Hae-won’s pants and beginning to interrogate him about this and that.
Was such a child simply adorable? Hae-won smiled nicely and crouched down to match the child’s eye level.
“Then, if Ji-yu’s daycare ends early, and, um, if dad’s work is late, can I play at samchon’s house?”
At the child’s spirited words, Seo-an was startled and shook his head.
“N-no. Ji-yu-ya. Let’s find another imo-nim. This samchon is busy and…”
“But samchon doesn’t have work?”
“Unemployed people aren’t busy.”
When did they even meet to get along so well and make a fuss?
The two people opened their eyes similarly and said the same thing while looking at Seo-an.
Seo-an, greatly flustered by this, tried to smooth over the situation, but really, why, and for whatever reason she’d gotten hooked, Ji-yu was even tightly gripping Hae-won’s finger and showing a stubborn reaction.
Seo-an lightly removed the child’s hand with an uncomfortable expression. Fortunately, since the child wasn’t very stubborn, Ji-yu, who quickly moved her grip, went “mm-hm” and shook her head side to side.
Instead of speaking to the child, Seo-an opened his mouth while looking at Hae-won who was trying to act like a child.
“Don’t do that to the kid.”
“What did I even do?”
Hae-won’s expression truly said he felt wronged.
Looking at him squatting down and staring up at him intently, college days inevitably came to mind. It was probably the smoking area. Hae-won, who had plopped down saying it was hard going up and down the hill, had sparkled his eyes saying, ‘Hyung, can’t we go in together after I smoke just one cigarette?’
Back then, it seemed he’d nodded with a smile saying it was fine…
“Anyway, don’t do that.”
“Really now…”
Hae-won made a sound of disbelief and stood up. His eye level rising quickly went above Seo-an’s. When he moved his gaze following him, Hae-won adjusted his hold on the rice cake and said.
“But I’m really alone at home. If you suddenly have nowhere to leave the kid, feel free to use me anytime.”
“I won’t have a reason to leave her with you.”
“Why are you so confident? You’re making people feel hurt.”
“Hae-won-ah, it’s nice that we met like this… but let’s just live not knowing each other like we did until now.”
Seo-an drew a line between him and Hae-won with a not-so-pleasant tone. He didn’t want to rely on past connections.
There had been a few people he’d approached with expectations, wondering if they could get along well like before. But just as cracks don’t disappear even if you reattach broken pottery, human relationships also end up with gaps that are rarely closed once they’ve become distant.
And because of those gaps, you end up facing the same result in the end.
Seo-an, who already knew this from personal experience, chose to distance himself rather than create the same wound twice.
