Even to Aunt Bong-seon’s absurd demand, Baek Sang-eun answered with a drawn-out “Yeeees.” Though he hadn’t even gotten a glass of water, he paid for Go Seok-jun’s drinks instead.
“Oh no, you can’t. If you pay instead, it’s a violation of the Kim Young-ran Act.”
“Is Auntie’s name Yeong-ran?”
“Huh?”
“Who’s Yeong-ran?”
‘Not Yeong-ran, it’s Hee-jin.’ He almost said it, rolling his lips inward. Baek Sang-eun narrowed his eyes and urged an answer. Even in his drunken haze, Go Seok-jun carefully chose how to explain to Baek Sang-eun the Act on Prohibition of Solicitation and Acceptance of Money and Valuables.
“It’s set by law that you can’t give or buy things for Uncle.”
“Then is it okay for Uncle to buy things for me?”
“Of course! Our Sang-eun is hungry, what should Uncle buy for you? Uncle wants to eat seasoned fried chicken.”
“They won’t deliver all the way here.”
“Really? Then whaaaat should I buuuuy? What does Sang-euuun liiike?”
Baek Sang-eun quietly watched Go Seok-jun, who dragged out every word with a sing-song tone. Old men always sang when they got drunk. That was universal. Since turning twenty, he hadn’t spent even a year with his feet on land. Instead, he’d heard songs from every country on the boat. Russian songs, Filipino songs, Indonesian songs.
And now he walked side by side with him, listening to the Korean Go Seok-jun humming. Though his face flushed from drinking was still pretty and innocent, his soul was a concentrated old man. He bit his lower lip hard to hold back laughter.
“Oh, the puppy’s running away.”
The puppy had gone far ahead on its own. The neighborhood dogs here took walks freely by themselves and returned home on their own. Occasionally, the neighborhood dogs gathering under trees without owners would wag their tails happily at seeing Ari.
“Hey, if it runs away, I won’t let it get away with it.”
“How will you not let it get away if it runs? If it left to find its own way to live, you should say ‘Live well!’ and send it off.”
“No? I’ll absolutely never let it go. I’ll chase it to the ends of the earth and catch it.”
Then Go Seok-jun glanced at Baek Sang-eun. As his pupils turned upward, his eyelids hollowed and his double eyelids deepened. It was a strange look. He couldn’t tell if he wanted something or was dissatisfied.
When he was young, he had to look way up at Go Seok-jun, but now he could see his crown. Whether it was desire or dissatisfaction, Baek Sang-eun pulled his chin in slightly, thinking he’d grant him anything. When he lowered his eye level to meet Go Seok-jun’s gaze, he was the first to look away.
“That’s scary talk.”
“The one running away is scary, what’s scary about the one going to catch the runaway?”
“What kind of logic is that?”
“Uncle knows since you’re a cop too. Even if the criminal is a scary person, the cop catching the criminal isn’t a scary person.”
Go Seok-jun said “That’s true,” and giggled. Baek Sang-eun firmly pressed his index finger on Go Seok-jun’s cowlick that was exposed as the wind blew hard.
“Hey, Sang-eun-ah. Do I look like I’m going bald?”
“It’s thick.”
“Then why’d you press my hair? Aren’t you pressing because there’s a bald spot?”
They say if you have a double cowlick, you marry twice. It would be nice if Uncle had two cowlicks too. Baek Sang-eun clenched and unclenched his fist alone, then reached out and touched Go Seok-jun’s shoulder. Go Seok-jun turned around, and their eyes met. A defenseless, relaxed face, reddened eyes. Did Auntie live seeing this face every day?
Go Seok-jun mouthed “Why?” and Baek Sang-eun shook his head as if it was nothing.
As soon as they arrived home, Go Seok-jun washed for quite a while. His only bath products were the sauna bag he carried in his car. Even that was starting to run out. He didn’t know it would be this inconvenient not having convenience stores and supermarkets that were everywhere in Seoul.
Green tiles—no matter what he did, the mold in the grout wouldn’t come off. There was rust under the mirror too. From ‘Commemorating Ms. Choi Wol-seon’s 60th Birthday’ onwards, the drawer was full of old towels with no sense of unity that had been received from everyone’s feasts, towels that wouldn’t be strange if holes appeared in them right now.
When he first came down, he’d planned to go to his Seoul house every day off. Even though the drive was a bit grueling, it would be better to go to Seoul and have fun than be bored in the countryside. He hadn’t even organized his house because he came in a hurry.
I really need to go to Seoul this time off, with that thought he squeezed out the remaining body wash frugally. Hot steam filled the small, old bathroom. There was a window, but he’d kept it tightly closed because he hated the cold.
“Haah…”
If anything had been repaired in a modern style, it was just the showerhead. He was grateful just to be able to shower standing up. For a long while Go Seok-jun stood under the hot water, calming his complicated feelings. He kept remembering Baek Sang-eun’s gaze that had been heavily fixed on his face.
It’s not strange. Between men, what’s strange? If it had been a female niece, it would have been a problem, but Baek Sang-eun was undoubtedly a man even from a hundred meters away.
Man. Am I a man? Go Seok-jun grabbed his docilely hanging genitals.
A man with a strong stream. That sentence came to mind like a curse every day. It had properly scratched at the reader. Because he hadn’t been able to get an erection since divorcing his wife. Thinking there might be a problem with his prostate, he visited a urology department, but they only said ‘psychogenic erectile dysfunction.’
When the doctor asked if he wanted to get a prostate massage, he grimaced and fled the hospital. Though he’d always liked dressing up, the reason he put more effort into decorating his appearance, even checking his looks when going to the convenience store in front of his house, was also because of his loss of confidence as a man.
The self-loathing of being a man who couldn’t perform his manly duties gnawed at Go Seok-jun bit by bit. Wasn’t it literally a dickless situation? Having to live his whole life loyal only to the organization as an honorable police officer. For him who had no sense of calling for his job, it was the worst.
“Why aren’t you dying quickly even though I came to the water? You fucking charlatan bastard.”
He poured out curses on the charlatan man whose face he couldn’t even remember anymore. The charlatan man would live long getting cursed at by Go Seok-jun every day.
With an indignant hand, he shook his genitals. But cruelly, it swelled up then quickly died. It was literally a death sentence.
“Ahhh! Fuck!”
He screamed loudly even though Baek Sang-eun might be outside. If asked why, he could just make an excuse that it was because he was drunk.
How long had he been like that? At the end of a long, long shower, when he came out, a delicious smell greeted Go Seok-jun. The identity of the smell was surely chicken.
“Have some chicken.”
“What’s this at this hour?”
“I went and caught a chicken from Teukgol Granny’s place and fried it.”
He said nonsense when there was a brand logo clearly stamped on it. Baek Sang-eun had also washed—his face was bright. His rough hair was also wet.
“Are you going to go around without drying your hair?”
Instead of saying thanks, he scolded first while sitting in Grandmother’s spot. Like the bathroom, old enough to be old, and the spot where Grandmother sat every day was faded white. Everything was the same. When he was young too, he used to sit across from Baek Sang-eun like this and eat chicken his hyung bought. The table, the wardrobe, the wallpaper and linoleum, even the clock with a red border—nothing had changed.
“After you finish eating, Uncle can dry it for me.”
“Now this guy is really bossing Uncle around.”
“When Uncle dries it, my hair becomes pretty.”
Well, I do have good hand skills. Go Seok-jun rubbed his chin proudly. Just that much praise raised Go Seok-jun’s crushed self-esteem a tiny bit, just a feather’s worth.
“Did you go to town while I was washing?”
“Yes.”
“What if I was sleeping?”
“I’d wake you up to eat and put you back to sleep. You didn’t eat dinner properly either. Is udon enough for a meal?”
“Eat a lot. You like chicken more than fish.”
He handed Baek Sang-eun a drumstick wrapped in foil. Go Seok-jun also picked up a drumstick and they clinked them together like crossing swords. It was also a habit from when they were young.
Of course, by the time Baek Sang-eun learned the taste of seasoned fried chicken, Go Seok-jun was already a pubescent teenager, so drumstick sword fights weren’t fun at all. But still, when the kid liked it that much, how could he not do it?
As Baek Sang-eun said, perhaps his meal was unsatisfactory—the chicken he thought wouldn’t go down kept going down endlessly. Two grown men finishing one chicken was nothing. Thankfully, he’d even bought canned beer, so he gulped it down refreshingly.
After eating everything clean without leftovers, his stomach felt bloated. There was a time when one chicken wasn’t enough and they’d order two. In fact, mentally, his twenties and thirties were exactly the same. It meant he hadn’t matured or grown up at all. However, his body faithfully followed the natural course of aging. The biggest change was his slower digestive ability.
With that damn ‘psychogenic’ indigestion added on top, Go Seok-jun was losing weight daily. But really, he’d eaten enough to make his stomach burst for the first time in ages. He stood up from his seat thinking he’d go out and walk a bit before coming back.
“Uncle will digest a bit and sleep, so you go over and sleep first.”
“Digest… Ah! Want to play catch?”
“That’s still around?”
Following Baek Sang-eun to open the storage door, the odds and ends from when they were young were still there. Not only the faded catchball but also badminton rackets, baseball gloves, and even a bicycle with completely flat tires.
And so they ended up running around the yard on a moonlit night. He wondered if the ball and racket, all rotten, would even have adhesion, but they managed to play somehow.
Though it was people throwing and receiving the ball, the puppy also thought they were throwing the ball to it and ran excitedly around the yard. Go Seok-jun also gradually warmed up as he got heated. His competitive spirit rose too. Age difference aside, it was a bit of a scam for a person who catches fish to suggest catchball.
“Hey! You can’t throw a changeup!”
“Ahaha! What changeup with a velcro ball? If I could do that much, I would’ve been a baseball player.”
At the sight of him laughing with his mouth wide open like a child, Go Seok-jun momentarily stopped his movement. Because that face was so familiar and also looked so gentle. It was probably the first time seeing him laugh so brightly since coming down to his hometown.
‘Samchoon, catchbooo! Let’s play catchboo!’
He seemed to hear the clear voice from the days when he couldn’t even properly pronounce the easy word “catchball.” Back then too, he ran around the yard smiling brightly with that face. At the sight of him still loving ball games, memories from over twenty years ago overlapped.
