He was worried the wound would get wet if he went into the water, so he walked around the edge of the stream instead. While Nunbi limped his way along, a soft splashing sound drifted from behind him — like someone was playing in the water. When he glanced back just as he was nearly at the water parsley patch, Woonjeong was standing completely still at the water’s edge, like he’d planted himself there. In the glittering sunlight, the pale line of his spine caught Nunbi’s eye all at once.
“….”
A flat stomach. A shallow navel. A white chest and broad shoulders. In an instant Nunbi startled slightly and snapped his gaze back toward the water parsley. Woonjeong had taken his shirt off. Sure, it shouldn’t matter between men — but stripping off without a second thought still seemed like it ought to be at least a little embarrassing, shouldn’t it? Of course Nunbi had absolutely no intention of sneaking looks, so he let his face burn for no good reason, bit down on his lip, grabbed the hem of his shirt the way he had yesterday, and started snapping off water parsley stems one by one.
“You come here a lot?”
In the middle of picking, a voice floated over. Nunbi glanced back without thinking and clicked his tongue before he could stop himself. That stream water was like ice even in the height of summer — and Woonjeong still had his shirt off, hadn’t even bothered to dry himself properly, and was standing there with water dripping from his hair like he’d just surfaced from a full dive. He’d be cold in a moment, and yet he didn’t seem bothered at all. He’d draped the shirt he’d taken off loosely over one white shoulder and was watching Nunbi pick water parsley.
“Yeah, sort of….”
Nunbi felt a small flutter of anxiety — what if Assemblyman Go’s son caught a cold? He quietly looked away from the half-bare figure again and gave a vague answer.
“What are you going to do with those plants?”
“This? These are for side dishes. Water parsley. It’s really good tossed in perilla oil or sesame oil.”
Woonjeong was quiet for a moment, then let out a small, pointed laugh — clearly meant to be heard. Nunbi paused mid-pick and turned his head. Their eyes met.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Don’t you have something to say to me?”
“What?”
Nunbi had no idea what he meant and frowned. The guest tilted his head quietly and looked at him.
“You’ve been playing dumb this whole time. This isn’t the moment to be talking about greens.”
Nunbi went silent. It was quite the sudden shift. He’d been wondering why Woonjeong kept talking to him — maybe he’d been testing him all along. But hadn’t everything been fine up until now?
“Well…. So what do you want me to do about it?”
So Nunbi tried to sound bold, but his voice came out smaller than intended. Was this sudden confrontational shift about dragging up what happened the other day? But he’d played innocent the entire way here…. And as for that bare chest — whether it was deliberate or whether he just figured it didn’t matter with only the two of them around — Nunbi couldn’t say, but being forced to face Woonjeong like this, shirt entirely off, made the whole situation feel more uncomfortable than he would have liked.
“You said not to have meals delivered and to come down and eat — so why didn’t you come down yourself?”
At that moment Woonjeong brought up the meal, plainly and directly.
“Ah….”
Nunbi felt his face go warm. Right, of course. He’d wondered how Woonjeong could just let it slide — he should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Honestly, it was an embarrassing situation. Either way, why did everything with this person feel so twisted around.
“I did what you said. I even waited for you to show up.”
That left the boy with nothing to say. Any thought of brazening it out evaporated completely. So…. Even after Nunbi had flipped the tray and run off, it seemed Woonjeong had quietly gone along with what Nunbi told him and come down to the kitchen to eat. A Bosal devotee had mentioned that too — that the guest had come out for the meal. But he’d waited? Why go that far? Still, Nunbi kept up his best attempt at indifference.
“I had my reasons.”
Having been forbidden by Seongyeon and the Bosal devotees from going outside or helping with chores — that wasn’t a lie.
“I told you, I fell. I couldn’t move, so I had no choice but to —”
“You were trotting along just fine on the way here.”
Nunbi looked up at Woonjeong, incredulous. Explaining all of this from start to finish would only make him look more foolish. Still, he had to at least say it wasn’t like that — so Nunbi, feeling rather hard done by, clutched his armful of water parsley and started explaining. Normally he’d go down and eat with the monks in the kitchen, but he’d fallen, and he’d been hurt, and there’d been a lot of blood, and it had hurt, and —
“I snuck out. They told me not to move.”
“Right.”
He didn’t seem particularly interested. Then why bring it up at all…. Nunbi was baffled. But the next moment, Woonjeong’s eyes curved slightly.
“So why did you flip the tray that day?”
Nunbi felt a beat of blank surprise. A moment ago it had seemed like a conversation about the meal — now it was veering toward the overturned tray. Anyway, a flare of irritation rose in Nunbi and his lips parted. That wasn’t me who flipped it — that was you. And you picked a fight with me first. You were the one going on about cripples and deaf people and whatever else —
“….”
He’d been about to fire back just like that, instinctively — but in the next instant he caught himself and closed his mouth. He didn’t want to go another round of this. In that moment, Nunbi was already dimly sensing it — the way Woonjeong was watching him, poking at him, coaxing him along with that smooth ease. Which meant losing his temper and turning it into a fight was clearly a pointless thing to do. He had no desire to drag up something that didn’t need to be a problem again.
“I didn’t flip it on purpose.”
The boy swallowed down his feelings as best he could and answered as evenly as he could manage.
“You grabbed me suddenly and I was startled. Anyway, that’s all in the past now —”
He tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“Hey.”
But at that moment Woonjeong smiled — a slow, easy smile — and called out to him.
“You were angry that I called you a cripple. Why are you pretending you weren’t?”
One beat.
“…Actually. Maybe you’re just playing nice.”
A serpentine gaze. The face that had been wearing a mild, agreeable expression melted away in an instant, replaced by something faintly dangerous. It was then — for the first time — that Nunbi felt a premonition of something. Woonjeong is not ordinary. The unsettling quality of his words and manner was apparent after just a few exchanges. His nature seemed to run on its own rules entirely, but that alone didn’t quite account for the feeling — there was something different about it, something that couldn’t be pinned down. Something cold and unclassifiable. Something Nunbi had never encountered before, and yet it was there, pressed clearly into Woonjeong right now.
“…That’s not it.”
He was confused. Because the bright-faced young man in front of him seemed to be looking forward — eagerly — to watching the boy in front of him be wounded again. Why did he love to provoke like this. Just a moment ago they’d been getting along, pretending not to know, pretending nothing had happened…. And here was a person who couldn’t wait to hurt someone else’s feelings, calling Nunbi the one who was playing nice — it seemed like he’d never met a decent person in his life.
“Then what is it?”
Woonjeong asked, the corners of his mouth pulling up loosely. That gaze was picking Nunbi apart — watching how his eyes wavered, how his lips parted, how his breath came in, how flustered he got. Strange. Nunbi went quiet. Surely it was only natural not to want to repeat something that had just made him feel bad — wasn’t it? He could get along fine and then forget about it. The boy had no idea why Woonjeong would want to dig at it and pry it back open. Until a moment ago, Nunbi had felt nothing in particular. That was why he’d been able to stand here facing Woonjeong like this and talk without it being anything.
“Everything’s already in the past. Why are you suddenly doing this?”
“Forget that. Try getting angry instead.”
The moment their eyes met. Eyes clear with anticipation. A bright face. The boy was lost for words.
“Like you did before.”
Ah. The reason Woonjeong had gone out of his way to bring up a lame boy’s broken legs. The reason he lulled you into ease and struck the moment you let your guard down. That unsettling smile, those beautiful curved lips, those shining eyes full of something — thinking about it now, it was probably a peculiar kind of malice. The kind that sometimes wears the color of bright warmth. The kind that is impossible to recognize early for exactly that reason. Nunbi didn’t know any of that at the time, of course.
“…No.”
But it was clear that this unhurried, serpentine, deceptively agreeable, contradictory, impossible to predict, strange guest had touched some stubborn defiant streak in Nunbi. Whatever Woonjeong was expecting, the boy didn’t want to be caught off guard by his boldness. Nunbi looked at Woonjeong, quietly and steadily.
“Do you want to keep calling me a cripple? Go ahead.”
Even as he said it, Nunbi held the water parsley tightly against his chest.
“It’s not like you’re saying anything wrong…. Think what you want about me playing nice — that’s up to you. I don’t get angry over things like that.”
The guest scoffed.
