“Meaning? Where’s there any meaning? Your siblings’ names go one, two, three, so I thought it’d look good to put in ‘four’ and tried to make it.”
“Then it should be Sa-eun.”
“When I said Sa-eun, your hyung teased saying ‘is he a free gift?'”
Though the tone was joking, the atmosphere sank coldly. Because he really was a child suddenly received like a free gift. Baek Jeong-ho just sniffled once and didn’t continue speaking.
Instead, grandmother glared at Baek Jeong-ho with all her might and smacked his back. The reason was that he wasn’t even a child of this house but had arbitrarily named his son following this family’s children’s naming pattern.
“For a boy, Sang-jun, Sang-hoon, Sang-hyeok, you name them things like that. What’s with Sang-eun? It’s ticklish.”
“There should be at least a trace of the mother who gave birth so it won’t feel as sad.”
“As if the mother who abandoned her own child would feel sad.”
Grandmother clicked her tongue. Yet she said, “Oh my, Sang-eun-ah. Let granny hold you once,” making cooing sounds.
Whether because of that name or not, Baek Sang-eun grew up together in Go Seok-jun’s house. Han-yang, Du-ri, Seok-jun, and Sang-eun who would have originally been Ne-eun or Sa-eun—one, two, three, four. Therefore, Baek Sang-eun was the fourth child raised in Go Seok-jun’s house.
***
If they were people who hadn’t met or thought about each other for a long time, should they be considered strangers? It had been several years since he’d seen noona too, and it wasn’t like he lived thinking about noona normally either. But that didn’t make noona into a non-noona existence either.
Go Seok-jun now defined his relationship with Baek Sang-eun. You might not see your nephew’s face for ten years. But that doesn’t make the nephew into a non-nephew existence.
Go Seok-jun’s real nephew hadn’t even entered elementary school yet, but Baek Jeong-ho’s son would be thirty the day after tomorrow. Even without a proper family tree, following the tradition of the rural village that was strict about hierarchy and titles, Baek Sang-eun always called Go Seok-jun ‘uncle.’
Nine years was enough of an age difference to be called uncle. Until Go Seok-jun graduated elementary school, Baek Sang-eun hadn’t even been potty-trained, and when he graduated high school and was incorporated into the adult world, Baek Sang-eun’s height only reached Go Seok-jun’s solar plexus.
The last time he saw his face, Baek Sang-eun was a high schooler. He had already gasped once when he saw him scratching the back of his head, saying they wore work clothes instead of uniforms at the maritime specialized high school. Even though he was surprised asking when did you get this big, how old are you now, he still looked young. Even back then, his skin was fair and his build wasn’t like now.
Why did the kid get so dark? And what did he eat to get this huge? Go Seok-jun was utterly flustered.
“Sang-eun-ah.”
It’s been a while, so you became like this, you’ve grown quite a bit. The moment he forcibly strung together the words circling on the tip of his tongue and opened his mouth.
Grrrrrrrrrr.
Just when he’d managed to create some gravitas, his stomach rumbled loudly. The ship’s horn that couldn’t read the atmosphere was quite long too.
“Hey, Baek Sang. Uncle seems hungry. Uncle, please sit down first.”
At the big guy’s words, Go Seok-jun cleared his throat and glanced at the pot that looked like a drum. Their conversation that started with put the dog in water came to mind again.
Just as he was starting to feel nauseous, Baek Sang-eun filled a bowl full of meat soup again and held it out. Go Seok-jun stepped back, scrunching his brow without the courage to check inside the deep pot. The guy holding the bowl tilted his head and slurped the soup with one hand.
Gulp, gulp. After his Adam’s apple bobbed several times, Baek Sang-eun put down the bowl and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His eyeballs seemed to glisten as if oil was seeping out of them too. It was a barbaric, blatant gaze. As if he would devour him right now.
“Urk!”
Having seen that sight, Go Seok-jun ran toward the seaside without being able to say anything and bent his waist. Whether it was because of last night’s hangover or because his stomach turned from seeing the guy eating dog, he felt nauseous. Since he hadn’t eaten anything, all that would come out was bile.
Baek Sang-eun slowly turned his head toward Go Seok-jun, who was precariously standing at the edge of the rock. He lightly sucked his lips glistening with oil inward, then released them with a pop sound.
“Uncle, isn’t that a lacquer tree allergy? People who can’t eat lacquer chicken get allergic just from smelling it, they say?”
“Do you vomit when you have a lacquer allergy?”
“Don’t they? I don’t know. I’ve never had a lacquer allergy. But what uncle? You had an uncle too?”
“Not a real uncle. My dad’s friend’s younger brother?”
“Let’s see. If he’s your dad’s friend’s younger brother, he is an uncle… but he looks young?”
“Our dad is young, you baldy bastard.”
Even though he said that, all three were baldies, so they just laughed. Park Gyeong-jin and Song Tae-wook, high school classmates, and Baek Sang-eun didn’t leave for the city and lived in Yongju making their respective livings. Since they’d been playing and working together for already ten years, they at least knew each other’s family relationships. So when a man called Baek Sang-eun’s uncle appeared, they couldn’t help but find it strange.
“At that rate, your uncle’s going to die?”
“What do you mean ‘going to die’ to an adult? Didn’t you get a proper upbringing? You should say ‘pass away.'”
Urgh! The sound of vomiting was loud. Ah, fuck. Killing my appetite. He lectured his friend about upbringing and even made a remark that insulted his parents, yet he himself threw the ladle down hard enough to make a thud sound and cursed.
Go Seok-jun was dry heaving as if turning his insides out. Go Seok-jun’s shorts fluttered in the fairly strong sea breeze.
He clicked his tongue looking at the thin waist and narrow pelvis. With a man’s belly only that size, of course his stomach’s turning. Baek Sang-eun pounded his back hard enough to break his spine.
“Ow, man!”
“Why are you vomiting at the sight of someone’s face? Is my face disgusting to you?”
“It’s not your face! Where did you learn such bad habits that a young guy would think to eat someone else’s dog? Don’t you know that’s a crime? Want to go to prison?”
“Someone else’s dog?”
Baek Sang-eun, who had been mulling over Go Seok-jun’s words for a while, laughed—keke—frivolously. Go Seok-jun turned his head sharply and glared at Baek Sang-eun with bloodshot eyes. The tears pooled up looked like they’d roll down at the slightest touch.
“Oh dear… Why did uncle come in this state?”
“You, go away.”
“Yes.”
At the order to go, he just left Go Seok-jun alone and returned to his friends. Baek Sang-eun ladled out a scoop of the vigorously boiling soup as if nothing had happened. Park Gyeong-jin gestured toward Go Seok-jun with his eyes and asked.
“Is uncle okay?”
“Probably okay? Our uncle’s a cop too, so he’s tough.”
“Ah, he’s a cop? Then he’ll be fine. But why did he come? Boiling chicken here is okay, isn’t it? Your neighborhood is by the beach, so they catch them like crazy.”
“I don’t know? Did he come to catch punk bastards?”
He answered indifferently and slurped the broth, then deboned a chunk of meat from who knows what part. He spat out the bone stuck in his mouth—ptooey—then gulped down the soju bottle as is.
“Bring Ari too. So we can eat together.”
“Our Ari doesn’t eat stuff like this. Her palate is so refined, she’s like royalty.”
At the complaint that sounded like bragging, Park Gyeong-jin nodded but inwardly clicked his tongue, thinking how sickeningly sweet they were, unbearable to watch with open eyes.
“Hey, uncle’s leaving. Sang-eun’s uncle! Take care on your way!”
Park Gyeong-jin shouted at Go Seok-jun, who was leaving the rocks while wiping his tears, and saluted his forehead. Go Seok-jun’s steps were as fast as if using instant movement. Baek Sang-eun couldn’t take his gaze away from his retreating figure visible beyond the soju bottle he was guzzling for a while.
“But uncle’s damn handsome… No, rather than handsome, how should I put this. Uncle’s damn mysteriously se—”
“You fucking bastard, evaluating someone else’s uncle’s face? Sexual harassment? Want to die?”
Baek Sang-eun instantly grabbed Song Tae-wook by the collar. When the pot rattled, Park Gyeong-jin quickly grabbed the pot first. Baek Sang-ah, hold it in, hold it in. He soothed Baek Sang-eun while holding the pot handle.
“Sorry, sorry. Is uncle married?”
“Yeah.”
“Then do you call uncle’s wife ‘aunt’? Even though he’s not your real uncle?”
“I don’t know either. I’ve never called her that.”
Baek Sang-eun irritably untied the hair that Go Seok-jun had neatly tied and lay sprawled on the rock as is. Sunlight poured through the pink lenses. His thick hair spread out like seaweed on the black rock warmed by the sunlight.
He rested the back of his head on his fist and closed his eyes. Go Seok-jun’s deathly pale face came to mind as vividly as if it were right before his eyes. At the sound of a snort, Park Gyeong-jin and Song Tae-wook looked at Baek Sang-eun, but Baek Sang-eun nonchalantly just fiddled with the doll hanging on his bag.
***
Is Sang-eun hanging around with gangsters? Go Seok-jun lay sprawled in the house worrying about Baek Sang-eun. If it were others, they would have thought Baek Sang-eun was one of the gang too, but in Go Seok-jun’s eyes, he just looked like a young kid who got tangled up with bad guys. It’s probably because he’s big and good-looking that the punk bastards drag him around like a billboard.
‘Why did uncle come in this state?’
Suddenly the honorific speech, whose purpose he didn’t even know, came to mind. In this state. Go Seok-jun had nothing worth showing except his state.
“Did my face get damaged?”
He gently stroked his cheeks and chin with his palm. His chin, which he’d already burned with laser hair removal, was smooth without a single hair. To Go Seok-jun, who had his wife stolen by a young, handsome man, the words “why is your state like this” were sharper than a dagger.
There was a senior who got divorced in his thirties, and he was in a terrible state. To avoid following that senior’s path, he wore good clothes, sprayed perfume to smell good, and got his hair cut at the barber shop once every three weeks. Even though he did his best to maintain himself so he wouldn’t look like a divorced man, his state was damaged.
[Siren Boss Hwang: Seok-juni watching the sea? lol]
He lifted his phone, which was buzzing at his bedside, in front of his face. He was a club owner he got to know while inspecting establishments, and from the first time they met when he was an officer, he took care of Go Seok-jun unusually well. The problem was that the teasing about introducing him to noona if he had one never failed, but fortunately Go Du-ri lived far enough that Boss Hwang couldn’t reach out his evil hands.
Boss Hwang suddenly said he’d buy him a car. Go Seok-jun refused, not out of a sense of justice or morality, but purely because the maintenance costs were too much on an officer’s salary. After that, they occasionally met and he bought him expensive meals.
