When he patted the spot next to the blanket, Baek Sang-eun squirmed and lay down beside him. His large build meant even lying down took a while. He slipped one arm under the neck of the guy lying straight. He tried to hug him, but the position didn’t change as easily as when Baek Sang-eun fit snugly in one embrace.
“Our baby has grown too much.”
“Too much?”
“I was shocked when I saw you at Siru Rock. I thought you were a thug.”
“If you thought I was a thug, you should have arrested me right away.”
Baek Sang-eun, who had pressed his forehead below Go Seok-jun’s collarbone, spoke as if whispering. This guy still doesn’t know the scariness of public authority. Once you’re branded a thug, from then on you get called in even for unrelated matters.
“Why would I arrest a good baby?”
He rested his chin on Baek Sang-eun’s crown and patted his back. The guy who had been fidgeting in his arms as if uncomfortable quickly became docile.
“I’m not good though.”
“Really?”
Go Seok-jun didn’t respond much to the boastful words a child would say. Not only the annex but Baek Sang-eun also had an unfamiliar smell. He vaguely expected him to smell sweet and savory like when he was a baby. Even though he was now a man in his late twenties.
“Did you put on cologne?”
“No. What cologne would a boat guy wear? It’s Uncle’s smell.”
“If Uncle doesn’t wear cologne, I smell like an old man.”
Baek Sang-eun inhaled deeply. Having been out since dawn, the cologne scent must have all evaporated, and he’d smell of the fish market’s fishy odor or the sundae soup restaurant’s gamey smell. Go Seok-jun tensed his body nervously for no reason.
A palm slowly caressed Go Seok-jun’s ribs. Not baby hands, but thick and rough—the rough hands of a man who did manual labor.
“You smell good.”
“Mm-hm. It’s expensive.”
Strangely, his lower abdomen tickled. Even though he was the one holding him, it felt odd, as if he were being held by a grown man bigger than himself. Every time he spoke, the inside of his ribs resonated. It even felt like he was deliberately blowing his breath.
“Isn’t riding the boat hard? Even from the brief time I saw earlier, it’s no ordinary work.”
“When you have to make a living, what isn’t hard? But I make a lot of money riding boats.”
“Our Sang-eun has it good.”
“Uncle will like it too.”
“Why would I like it when you’re making lots of money? Your wife will like it later.”
He responded jokingly but got no reaction in return. The sound of Baek Sang-eun swallowing saliva sounded excessively loud to Go Seok-jun. The guy didn’t move a muscle, as if he’d turned to ice—only his forehead and hand were touching, that was all.
“Let’s really sleep now.”
He lay looking at the ceiling and closed his eyes. Just blocking visual stimulation allowed his brain to rest. Living a life going between day and night shifts, when he was tired, even just closing his eyes without fully falling asleep relieved some of his fatigue.
How long had he been like that? Far from falling asleep, his mind became increasingly clear. The guy lying next to him was quiet without even the sound of breathing. Thinking he might as well look at his face, he turned his body half a rotation and lay on his side.
I don’t know whose nephew he is, but he’s really handsome. The freckles sprinkled gently under his eyes and the corners of his mouth that turned up as if smiling even when he wasn’t made him still look like a mischievous boy.
Go Seok-jun tapped under Baek Sang-eun’s eyes for no reason. Each time he tapped, his well-shaped eyebrows twitched. Finding it amusing, he pressed his fingers into his cheeks and poked around. Baek Sang-eun instantly caught Go Seok-jun’s wrist.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I can’t fall asleep. Sang-eun-ah, put Uncle to sleep.”
The caught wrist was pulled. Go Seok-jun rolled into Baek Sang-eun’s embrace as if playing around. He felt the volume of his chest all over his face. Go Seok-jun’s face heated up as if he’d buried his face in a woman’s chest.
This wasn’t Go Seok-jun’s fault. He was just a man who loved perky breasts, and his face just reflexively flushed. When he put strength in his neck to pull his face away, Baek Sang-eun put strength in the arm pulling Go Seok-jun and pulled.
“Let go.”
“You asked me to put you to sleep. You put me to sleep like this too, Uncle.”
That was when Baek Sang-eun was a very small child. Baek Sang-eun’s growth, his body now 1.5 times larger than his own, felt unfamiliar anew.
“Did you live in Saetgol this whole time? What about university? What about the military?”
“…”
“When did you buy the boat?”
Without answering any of the questions, Baek Sang-eun just breathed quietly. The chest where Go Seok-jun had rested his cheek moved up and down greatly. Human growth was fascinating.
The child’s bones that seemed like they’d crumble if squeezed hard had grown, flesh and muscle attached, and now he completely overwhelmed Go Seok-jun. The young child who cried and made a fuss as if he’d die without him had gone to the dock alone, piloted a boat, and made money. It was difficult to connect the Baek Sang-eun remaining in his memory with the Baek Sang-eun now holding and putting him to sleep as the same person.
Go Seok-jun pulled Baek Sang-eun’s hand in front of his eyes and examined it this way and that as if checking. His fingers were tremendously thick and long, just like his limbs. On the back of his hand were scratched scars here and there, marks lighter than his skin tone that remained from not being treated in time.
“How did you get hurt like this?”
“I don’t really remember.”
He felt a sense of dissonance. The hands of the Baek Sang-eun Go Seok-jun knew were pale and chubby. The disparity between those adorable hands and the hands before his eyes now kept making Go Seok-jun flustered. Is the man lying next to me using my arm as a pillow someone I know, or someone I don’t know?
“Does Uncle hurt?”
Even the sunken voice was unfamiliar. If I were a woman, I would have fallen for him completely. The guy seemed to have recalled what he said to Park Gyeong-min earlier about coming down because he wasn’t feeling well. In front of the hyungs, he said circumstances came up; to Park Gyeong-min, he said he was sick. Spitting out words as a last resort meant giving slightly different answers to people who asked.
“No. I’m not sick, but if I say I’m sick, people usually don’t ask more.”
Actually, by the late thirties, various parts do signal that they hurt, and he’d received treatment at the urology department a few times, but it wasn’t something to broadcast all over town. While waiting for an answer, Baek Sang-eun’s tense lips relaxed, and his mouth corners rounded up to their original position.
“I’m asking.”
“Our Sang-eun is the only one who worries about Uncle.”
He tapped Baek Sang-eun’s smooth nose tip. The face scrunching his nose bridge and scratching his cheek as if it tickled reminded him exactly of the old days, when they were both minors. Seeing that face finally put him at ease. It really is the Sang-eun I know.
“Lying in our house after so long makes me remember the old days and feels good. Uncle held Sang-eun like this and we slept together. Do you remember?”
“I wanted to sleep with Uncle. Now we can sleep together every day in this house…”
His eyes looked like he was dreaming. His low yet husky voice was pleasant to hear. Like holding a conch shell to your ear and hearing ocean sounds, ocean sounds came from Baek Sang-eun’s body too. Go Seok-jun rested the back of his head on Baek Sang-eun’s thick chest. Thump, thump, the sound of his heartbeat transmitted to his ear.
“It’s like lying in the ocean.”
“When it gets warm, let’s lie at the beach and tan together.”
“Dark skin doesn’t suit me. Even if I get a little sun, I turn red then all the skin peels off.”
“I’ll apply tanning oil for you. We won’t tan your face, just your body. I’m good at that kind of thing.”
As if to block the sunlight, Baek Sang-eun reached out and covered Go Seok-jun’s face with his hand. Go Seok-jun rubbed the inside of Baek Sang-eun’s nicely tanned arm with his palm. While he was at it, he put strength in his hand and pressed the muscles firmly. The muscle quality was incomparable to fashion muscles.
“Our baby is good at many things.”
“Many.”
Go Seok-jun chuckled and came down from his chest. He lay on his side and quietly observed Baek Sang-eun’s face. Pretty-looking, good at many things, and bragging about being good at things. All grown up.
Is this the overwhelming feeling one gets from witnessing a child’s growth? The feeling of having a reliable child he could now depend on, now that they’re all grown up.
He practically let himself be embraced by Baek Sang-eun and placed one leg across his waist. His firm abs squeezed tight. The touching body heat was warm and nice. Rubbing his leg while wrapped around his stomach, he suddenly stopped his movement. Something hard caught against his thigh.
What? Why is it up again?
It suddenly stood up at the bathhouse too, but why in a corner of the room? He stopped all his poking movements at once.
He blinked rapidly. Are guys in their twenties originally like this? It stands just from soaking in hot water, it stands just from lying down for a bit? It was a big problem that his own didn’t stand at all, but it was also a big problem for a guy whose stood up anywhere. It looked like uncle and nephew would have to go to the urology department for treatment side by side.
When he carefully unwrapped the leg around his waist, Baek Sang-eun turned his body sharply.
“Did I maybe sexually harass you?”
“Well, if you rub like that, it is a bit difficult.”
“Geez, I’m sorry. At your age, it’s like that, right? Even a little stimulation makes it like that? Should I recite the Thousand-Hand Sutra for you?”
Go Seok-jun pressed his forehead against the back of the turned-over Baek Sang-eun and recited a chant starting with ‘Jeonggueopjineon.’ It’s a mantra that cleanses sins committed by mouth, but he didn’t know it to the end. He’d only picked it up by ear listening to his grandmother muttering it alone, so he couldn’t even cleanse the sins. In the end, he stopped without even reciting a few verses.
As soon as the sloppy chant ended, Baek Sang-eun went outside. Go Seok-jun sat up, leaned against the wall, and scratched his head. Originally, you shouldn’t carelessly touch a child’s body.
While waiting for Baek Sang-eun who wasn’t returning, just as he logged into his stock app, a call notification popped up on the screen.
[Siren Boss Hwang]
Why is he bothering me again? Though he frowned, he cleared his throat with a hmm hmm before answering the phone. In a very pleased voice, he said, “Hyungnim.”
—Why isn’t Seok-jun replying?
“It’s the countryside here, so my phone doesn’t work.”
—You’re bullshitting. How is it going to Yongju? The ocean is wide open, so it’s refreshingly nice, isn’t it?
“I find it frustratingly stuffy. Are you doing well, Hyungnim?”
