“Take good care of the bike, Huindungi!”
Why does he keep calling me Huindungi… Cha Ihyun, sitting on the bench, fiddled with his arm. The arm that had been stirred up without permission still seemed to have warm body heat remaining.
Is he really not affected at all?
He welcomed treating that day’s events as a simple happening too. But when Cha Dobum abruptly closed the distance like this, he’d remember that time and hesitate. He was pretending to be unaffected, but he couldn’t not be affected. Unlike him, Cha Dobum seemed at ease.
A humid breeze brushed through his hair. Now that the guy making noise beside him had disappeared, the cicada sounds that had been laid out like background music suddenly entered his ears.
He suddenly thought this was the first time he’d been outside for this long in summer. He’d always sat indoors in the cool air, so he’d never sweated or heard cicada sounds this close. He liked the sounds and air of summer so much that it was regrettable to experience it only at summer’s end.
Then, a ringtone rang beside him.
It was the kind of sound you’d hear from ajussis’ phones. At the primitive, noisy sound, Cha Ihyun irritably grabbed the phone. On the screen was a familiar saved name.
[Incoming Call: Shooting Noona Short Hair]
No, looking closely, this time it was ‘short’ hair.
How does he get calls from women every single time? The moment the thought crossed his mind, his fingertips moved on their own.
“Hello?”
—Huh? What, isn’t this Cha Dobum’s phone?
It was an adult woman’s voice. From the side, he could hear the mixed sounds of a few men and women chattering. His voice naturally became stiff.
“Cha Dobum’s not here right now. What’s this about?”
—Ah, are you Dobum’s friend? Your friend has a totally baby voice? Hello? What’s your name?
“I’m not a baby. Why are you calling?”
—I called to see Dobum! Does the baby want to come too?
Baby, baby all the time… Cha Ihyun, biting his lips tightly, lowered his voice like when giving a presentation.
“Excuse me. I don’t know if you know this, but Cha Dobum is a minor. Why is an adult hanging out with a high school student? And calling him out at these late hours all the time doesn’t look good either.”
—Oh my.
It was a reaction to being hit right on the mark. But the laughter that could be strangely felt was still there.
—Everything you said is right, so I have nothing to say. Noona’s sorry. But listen to my excuse. Where does that bastard Cha Dobum look like a high schooler? We found out later too.
“Then why do you keep meeting him?”
—Because Dobum keeps coming here?
“…”
This damn bastard. So he really was going around meeting women. As he glared at Cha Dobum’s innocent clothes, the woman continued.
—Baby friend, can you tell Dobum to call noona later?
“Who are you to him?”
—I’m a noona close to Dobum. If you say Chaeyoung noona, he’ll know.
Cha Dobum couldn’t even properly memorize his classmates’ names for years. And he’d know just from hearing the name? Somehow it felt like she was showing off their closeness, so Cha Ihyun’s mouth twitched.
As if hanging out with a minor is something to brag about…
And if he’d memorized the name, he wouldn’t have saved it as ‘Shooting Noona Short Hair’ in the first place. He knew Cha Dobum better.
“Who were you talking to for so long?”
Cha Dobum was standing there with bottled water and milk before he knew it. He held out a white milk carton. It was milk with a dog drawn on it that looked like a white fluffy cloud.
“They had Choco milk too, but I bought this. Because you’re Huindungi.”
Cha Ihyun, who had been staring at such a Cha Dobum, held the phone slightly away from his ear and asked.
“Do you know Chaeyoung noona?”
“What? What-young?”
See. Cha Ihyun, who became smug, immediately put the phone to his ear.
“He says he doesn’t know you. It seems you called the wrong number, so please don’t call anymore. Then, goodbye.”
He thought he heard a flabbergasted voice, but he hung up right away. For a moment he wondered if he’d been too rude, but it wasn’t his concern. He didn’t even know her face and she was a bad adult anyway, so whatever.
Cha Dobum, who had already downed a bottle of water, crumpled the empty plastic bottle and asked.
“Spam call?”
“Hey, Cha Dobum. Who is this person?”
When he shoved the screen at him, he went “Huh?” and tilted his head.
“What was her name again?”
“I’m asking who she is. She says she’s a noona close to you, what does she do?”
“Oh, her. A cool noona.”
Into Cha Ihyun’s stunned mind, the conversation between Baek Seunghoon and Kim Hoyoung replayed. Could the nonsense about Ferrari noona and stuff have actually been real?
“You’ll probably see her if you go tomorrow?”
He needed to properly see tomorrow what kind of people they were. If they were suspicious people, he had to clearly tell them. To stop calling Cha Dobum. If he said they were family, those people would have nothing to say either. He’d thought about bringing casual clothes to change into, but it seemed better to go in his school uniform as is. From earlier, they seemed to have some conscience at least.
Cha Ihyun, who finished planning, glanced at Cha Dobum.
“You should be more selective about who you meet.”
“Oh my? Who’s worrying about who right now? The one who should be worried is rather our princess.”
“What are you talking about? What about me?”
“Learn to judge people better.”
The gesture of tapping his temple tok, tok was full of playfulness. But the following voice didn’t feel playful at all.
“I mean Cha Minhyun. Don’t trust that bastard too much. He’s a really creepy bastard.”
For a moment, he seemed to hear hyung’s murmuring voice.
‘Don’t get close to him.’
Hyung telling him to stay away from Cha Dobum, and Cha Dobum telling him not to trust hyung. The two brothers were warning him about each other.
Cha Ihyun carefully asked.
“Did something happen between you and hyung?”
“Something happen? I’ve never even been involved with that bastard.”
“Think a little before you talk. You couldn’t have been on bad terms since birth.”
“Since birth?”
Cha Dobum’s lips curled up meaningfully.
“Was Cha Minhyun there when I was born?”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even know that bastard existed.”
Cha Dobum shrugged.
“So there wasn’t really anything.”
It was an attitude as if it wasn’t even worth thinking about. That was similar to the attitude hyung had of looking at Cha Dobum like dust.
It seemed he wouldn’t be able to hear about what happened between the two from Cha Dobum either. Cha Ihyun mulled over the two brothers’ puzzling reactions and strange warnings. He felt a discomfort he couldn’t quite define, but soon he shook his head.
They just don’t get along.
Thinking that, he swallowed the milk Cha Dobum handed him. The clear, white liquid went down his throat as if pushing away the unpleasant feeling.
To be continued in Volume 2.
