After our trip to the beach, Cha Jae-woo got even busier. It would’ve been nice if it were because the songwriting was going well, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
Whatever that phone call at the café had been about seemed to have snowballed into something serious — the composition team and the agency had been taking turns reaching out to him.
Because of that, he’d often leave work later than me, or sleep at his studio entirely and commute straight to the library from there.
As far as I knew, there was quite a distance between Cha Jae-woo’s studio and the library. Even setting aside the twenty-eight-year-old Cha Jae-woo, the twenty-year-old version had only recently gotten his license.
Even if he had a car, there was no way he’d be driving it to work, so he had to be taking public transit — and just how much of a nightmare it was to commute into the heart of the city every day went without saying.
“Doesn’t Jae-woo look tired lately?”
It got to the point where even Deputy Ye-jin, who didn’t usually pay much attention to other people’s personal lives, said as much.
“He says he’s fine when I ask, but he really doesn’t look well — I’m a little worried.”
Deputy Ye-jin looked at Cha Jae-woo with a face full of concern. I’d been wondering if it was just obvious to me, but apparently even someone who didn’t know the situation could see that Cha Jae-woo wasn’t doing well.
I couldn’t very well go into all the details of his situation, so I gave a vague answer.
“It seems like he hasn’t been sleeping well.”
“Oh dear, no wonder he looks exhausted.”
I responded to Deputy Ye-jin’s worried expression with an appropriately light smile and shifted my gaze to Cha Jae-woo, who was moving around busily searching for books.
He’d definitely lost weight since before — his already sharp jawline looked even more pronounced now.
It wasn’t just the lack of sleep. It seemed like he wasn’t eating properly either. Then again, if he had to commute from his studio to the library early in the morning, a fair amount of time was probably getting eaten up on the road.
At this rate, I thought it would make more sense for him to focus on composing and quit the library job. It was only a part-time morning shift anyway, so it wasn’t much money — and Cha Jae-woo hadn’t started this job because he needed money in the first place.
I didn’t know exactly how much Cha Jae-woo made from composing, but I had a rough sense that a fairly significant amount got deposited into his account every month.
That was because every piece of clothing, shoes, and watch he’d casually bought whenever he felt like it were all high-end brands.
The guy had bought an expensive car and then didn’t bother driving it because he found it annoying — so most people didn’t realize it, but Cha Jae-woo was not someone who was hurting for money.
In the end, after mulling it over, I brought it up that evening over dinner, when Cha Jae-woo had come home for the first time in a while.
“You seem really busy lately — wouldn’t it be better to just quit the library job at this point?”
“……What?”
“I mean, it makes sense, right. You didn’t start working at the library because you actually wanted to, and composing is your main career — if you’re burning yourself out commuting to the library and it’s getting in the way of your work, that’s completely backwards.”
Cha Jae-woo suddenly furrowed his brow as if to say, what are you on about? I stirred some rice into the doenjang jjigae in front of me and added,
“You started the library part-time to talk to me, right? Then now that you’ve accomplished that goal, isn’t it fine to quit?”
“…….”
He must have thought it was a fair point, because Cha Jae-woo couldn’t answer easily and just bit at his lip in silence. When I glanced at him, his eyes were full of dissatisfaction, which I found a little puzzling.
“……I’m not quitting right now, so mind your own business.”
The sharp words came out with a harsh edge too. I was slightly taken aback. Honestly, it caught me off guard. Had Cha Jae-woo been enjoying the library job more than I’d thought?
But I soon shook my head. He’d never been much of a book person to begin with, and whenever I suggested we go on a date at the library on weekends, he’d groan and refuse. Someone like that wasn’t likely to have suddenly developed a fondness for library work.
Then why? I tried to guess at Cha Jae-woo’s inscrutable inner thoughts, but eventually gave up. If he didn’t want to quit, what could I do?
“Well, if you want to keep going, then keep going.”
The conversation ended there. I had no intention of persuading him to quit.
He’s the one who’s struggling, not me. If it got to a point where he truly couldn’t take it anymore, he’d quit on his own.
I didn’t press further and popped a piece of the rolled egg in front of me into my mouth and chewed, when Cha Jae-woo quietly changed the subject.
“……You’re not working this Saturday, right?”
“Yeah. I’m off this week.”
“Then where are you going?”
I paused slightly at Cha Jae-woo’s question and looked up. He seemed to fully expect that we’d be going out together this Saturday — like it was a given.
It was probably because we’d gone to the manga café and the beach recently, but unfortunately this Saturday wasn’t going to work.
My mouth didn’t open easily, so I just rubbed the back of my neck. The truth was, I did need to keep the time free — but it wasn’t like I had a confirmed plan either.
“Could you maybe let me know the day before? It’s a bit up in the air.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Cha Jae-woo nodded more readily than I expected, but then seemed to remember something and looked up. He then landed casually on the right answer.
“Come to think of it, isn’t your mom’s birthday on Saturday?”
“……Yeah. That’s right.”
I was a little surprised. I hadn’t expected Cha Jae-woo to remember that. Even after we started dating, the nature of being in a same-sex relationship meant we couldn’t tell our families, so neither of us had ever made a point of celebrating each other’s parents’ birthdays.
Of course, we’d been quietly aware of them — but neither of us had ever actually said it out loud. I hadn’t expected Cha Jae-woo to have known my mom’s birthday even before we started dating.
Something hot pooled at the back of my throat. I was afraid of what might spill out if I opened my mouth, so I quietly kept eating.
Cha Jae-woo, who would normally have continued eating in silence, suddenly spoke.
“Then Saturday won’t work. You’ll need to have dinner with your mom.”
“I don’t know — a grown son asking to do that might come off as a little weird to her, don’t you think?”
I shrugged with a casual smile. Cha Jae-woo didn’t probe any further and let it go.
After the meal, while Cha Jae-woo went to wash up, I steadied my racing heart as best I could and picked up my phone. I stared at the contact saved as “Mom” for a long moment before finally pressing the call button.
The dial tone began. From the moment I pressed the button, my heart was pounding so loud it rang in my ears.
I rubbed my quickly dampening palm against my clothes and focused every bit of my attention on the phone.
But the call never connected.
At the end of the long ring tone, all I heard was an automated message saying the customer was unavailable. I deliberated over whether to try again, then checked the time.
Nine o’clock. It belatedly occurred to me that Mom might have already gone to sleep.
So I left a message. That her birthday was on Saturday and I’d been wanting to see her after so long — that we should share a meal together, either the day before or on the day itself. I pressed every bit of sincerity I had into those words and sent them.
But no reply came, not even by the day before her birthday.
* * *
In the end, Cha Jae-woo didn’t quit the library job. In other words, he was still juggling the fallout from whatever had blown up before, composing, and the library part-time all at once.
It was a path that was hard to understand, but I didn’t bother nagging or interfering.
Honestly, I didn’t have the mental bandwidth for it. I was swamped writing a proposal for a new program and reviewing the budget. On top of that, my mind was elsewhere.
Today was Friday. Tomorrow was Mom’s birthday, and still no reply had come to the message I’d sent.
I’d wondered if there’d been some kind of error and she hadn’t seen it, but the number 1 was gone — clear proof that Mom had read the message.
“……Looks like I won’t be seeing her face this year either.”
I still wanted to send her something as her child, but if I showed up in person, I might get turned away at the door — so I wondered if I should just send a gift voucher or a delivery instead.
“Jae-woo, do you want to go somewhere tomorrow?”
It seemed like the quiet dinner with Mom this year was off the table anyway, so I tried to track down Cha Jae-woo mid-shift to plan out tomorrow.
Cha Jae-woo looked at me with a puzzled expression.
It seemed like he was about to ask whether I’d decided not to do anything for Mom’s birthday after all, so I got ahead of it.
“I guess even she finds spending time with a fully grown son boring. I suppose——”
Just as I said that, there was a buzz from my pocket. I thought it was probably a spam message and was about to delete and block it, but it was, surprisingly, a message from Mom. I stopped myself from rubbing my eyes and checked the contents.
[Okay, let’s meet tomorrow]
A short sentence. But seeing that it was clearly a reply to the message I’d sent, I was moved in the most embarrassing way. I did my best to hide the fact that my hands were trembling and turned back to Cha Jae-woo with a smile.
“Sorry, I think Mom just saw my message. Looks like I can’t be with you tomorrow after all.”
“……Why are you sorry? Of course your mom’s birthday comes first.”
Cha Jae-woo furrowed his brow as if he was genuinely puzzled. When I answered with a vague smile in lieu of words, he tilted his head slightly and went back to finishing what he’d been doing.
Left alone, I checked Mom’s message over and over again. Pressing down the urge to let the corners of my mouth curl up, I sent a reply saying I’d come pick her up at the right time on Saturday evening.
I suppressed the excitement bubbling up at the thought of seeing Mom after so long and headed back to my seat. Finish work quickly, then I need to make a reservation at a restaurant for tomorrow.
It suddenly felt like I had a lot to do.
