“I reinforced the suspension, so the ride should be okay.”
Beep, beep, beep, beep— The truck left the port parking lot with the reverse warning sound. Even though the speed shown on the speedometer wasn’t fast, he felt anxious, perhaps because the vehicle was high. He gripped the handle tightly.
“You don’t have to hang on like that. I drive well.”
“When did our baby grow this big and drive such a big car…”
“Huh… Do you have some kind of problem? It’s a big problem if I still look like a baby to you.”
He called a man who’d be thirty the day after tomorrow a baby, so he knew he didn’t like hearing it, but Go Seok-jun didn’t stop the baby talk because Baek Sang-eun’s reaction was funny. He’d been calling him baby, baby since he was young, so the word had stuck in his mouth too. When he glanced toward the driver’s seat, Baek Sang-eun was twisting his upper lip, so he decided to stop at this point.
“Mm. Okay, adult Sang-eun-ah. Uncle will buy you something delicious.”
The driver wore his signature pink sunglasses, and the live fish truck ran ceaselessly toward the direction of the rising morning sun. Sunlight poured onto the wide-open coastal road that hid nothing. He lowered the sun visor to block the light.
“Is it too bright?”
“Yeah, a bit.”
Baek Sang-eun took off his sunglasses and handed them to Go Seok-jun. At the age of late thirties, wearing pink sunglasses felt awkward, so he just fidgeted with them in his hand.
“Wear those.”
“No. The person driving should wear them.”
He handed the sunglasses back to him. Baek Sang-eun bit one temple of the sunglasses in his mouth and unfolded the other temple to place them on the bridge of his nose. I should have just unfolded them fully. He regretted it for a moment.
Outside the window, the blue sea was spread out. Once he adapted to the truck’s ride, the scenery viewed from above was refreshing to the eyes. He even hummed unconsciously. In the middle, the car rattled as it went over a speed bump, but whether the claim about reinforcing the suspension was true, it wasn’t too uncomfortable.
When they’d traveled like that for about twenty minutes, his truck arrived at the harbor parking lot. After parking next to similarly shaped cars, they entered the market.
Unlike the port, the harbor was noisy from the morning. The dawn auction was at its end, and diligent elderly people came out to the fish market to sell vegetables and fish. Go Seok-jun held his pants to keep water from splashing on his expensive trousers.
The fishy smell vibrated from all directions. The sound of whacking fish heads and the occasional noise of motorcycles weaving between people made Go Seok-jun tense.
“Aigoo!”
Making an ajusshi-like sound, he dodged puddles left and right. Uncharacteristic of someone from a seaside village, Go Seok-jun had no immunity to such scenery and smells. From the moment he made eye contact with a carelessly thrown fish head, his stomach churned. I don’t feel like eating fish today. Worried, the place he followed to was fortunately an ordinary home-style restaurant.
Even though it was early morning, more than half the tables were filled. Here and there, men were already tilting their glasses of alcohol. He wasn’t usually the type to eat breakfast, and he’d definitely been queasy just a moment ago, but smelling the rice made him hungry.
When Grandma was alive, he only ate Grandma’s cooking at home, and after she passed away, he only went to places hyung ambitiously took him to. When he went around with his wife, they mainly went to restaurants searched on blogs, but there wasn’t any particularly memorable place.
“In broad daylight, eating a home-style meal with Baek Sang-eun.”
When he threw out the joke, Baek Sang-eun scoffed again. This isn’t it. Feeling awkward for no reason, he sniffled once and took out utensils from the utensil holder and placed them in front of Baek Sang-eun. Because I shouldn’t look like an old man.
As soon as they ordered two servings of home-style meals, side dishes were laid out: rolled omelet and pink sausages, stir-fried anchovies, several types of seasoned vegetables, napa cabbage kimchi and radish kimchi, braised black beans, two mackerel, and soybean paste stew. Baek Sang-eun split the mackerel in half with practiced hands, removed the large bones, and pushed the plump meat toward Go Seok-jun.
“Uncle, eat a lot.”
“Okay, you too.”
Without taking off his sunglasses but pushing them up on his forehead like a headband, he nodded his head slightly. His appearance with his hair swept back without any stray hairs looked refreshing. Wouldn’t it be better to cut his hair? He thought for a moment, but remembering how he’d wielded scissors earlier, he asked something else.
“Do you have a lover?”
“Wow. You’re really asking something ajusshi-like.”
“I am an ajusshi. And family can ask each other.”
“Then. Does Uncle have a lover?”
Baek Sang-eun’s eyes moved toward the fourth finger of Go Seok-jun’s left hand. A ring that had long since faded hung there like lingering attachment.
He’d continued wearing the ring even after the divorce. After wearing it every day for 3 years, it now felt like part of his body. Of course his work colleagues gossiped. Still, it would be strange to make a show of taking off the ring right after divorcing. Go Seok-jun just acted the same, as if nothing had changed.
He’d briefly considered taking it off when coming down to his hometown. But he worried there might be all sorts of talk if he did, and actually, there were many times when it was more comfortable to wear the ring, to pretend to be a married man, so he purposely didn’t take it off. Under Baek Sang-eun’s piercing gaze, he curled his fingers inward.
“What lover? Would I be in a position to have a lover?”
The conversation broke off. Only the clatter of chopsticks, the sound of the table behind ordering another bottle of soju, and the owner’s voice shouting at a customer outside the door that there were no seats so they should wait filled the restaurant.
It was a topic of conversation he’d had with guys in their twenties at the company, but it didn’t work on Baek Sang-eun. When he’d brought up whether they had lovers, the young guys would get excited and brag about their lovers, or those without lovers would chatter on about what style they liked, or how they were dying to date.
What should I talk about? Just as he was worrying, Baek Sang-eun opened his mouth.
“Then, do you have kids?”
“Kids? I don’t have kids.”
“You’ve been married to Auntie for a while, so why not? Don’t you sleep together?”
At the words implying sexual relations with his ex-wife, Go Seok-jun’s face flushed red. It wasn’t an age to be embarrassed about such things, but having such an extremely private conversation in broad daylight, at a home-style restaurant, sitting face-to-face with Baek Sang-eun while picking at rolled omelet was a different matter.
“I wanted to sleep with Uncle too.”
Go Seok-jun stopped chewing and stared blankly at Baek Sang-eun. Baek Sang-eun casually continued using his chopsticks. The proper chopstick technique was also something Go Seok-jun had taught him.
His face being ripe red was brief. His heart was bothered by the words about wanting to sleep together. I lived in the flashy city without ever missing the countryside, but did Baek Sang-eun, who stayed here, long for the person who left?
“What does a grown man mean by that?”
When he scolded unnecessarily, Baek Sang-eun chuckled. Even though it was clearly a smiling face, it didn’t seem like a smile. It was because of the atmosphere created by his robust build, hair tied tightly back, and darkly tanned skin. Strangely rustic-feeling, he was exactly like a gangster from a movie.
On the wall hung a calendar stamped with the Yongju County Fisheries Cooperative logo. Harbor workers flushed red from the morning had conversations while shouting loudly. “One bottle of soju” could be heard from every table. Together with the guy sitting in front of him, it felt like being at a third-rate gangster movie filming location.
Fucking hate this. But what could he do? It wasn’t like he was going to be dismissed, so he had to endure it.
Whether Go Seok-jun’s nerves were sharpening from the harbor noise or not, Baek Sang-eun ate heartily. He even ate the rice Go Seok-jun left half-finished because of the noisy restaurant atmosphere and strange fishy smell. Go Seok-jun pushed the sausage toward the guy scraping his plate clean.
“Doesn’t it suit your taste?”
“No. It’s delicious, but I don’t usually eat breakfast.”
“What? Then why did you say let’s go eat?”
He immediately put down his chopsticks. Go Seok-jun had offered to buy the meal, but while he was looking for his wallet, the guy flicked out a card stuck to the back of his phone.
“Man, Uncle said he’d pay, so why are you paying!”
“Anyone can pay.”
“How can I let you buy me a meal? Here. The meal cost and what’s left is spending money.”
He handed over a 50,000 won bill from his wallet. Baek Sang-eun bowed his head and accepted the money, putting it in his pocket.
The morning market was completely chaotic. Not knowing the way to the parking lot, he looked around, and Baek Sang-eun had Go Seok-jun lead the way while sticking close behind him.
Basically, people who do business at the seaside tended to have loud and strong voices, so the sounds of haggling and motorcycles carrying goods were clamorous. The parking lot wasn’t even that far, but his energy was completely drained. Moreover, Go Seok-jun’s pupils were blank as if his soul had left.
“Do you work here too? It’s really chaotic.”
“No? I work in a quiet place. It’s super quiet.”
Baek Sang-eun cupped his hand to Go Seok-jun’s ear and whispered. It wasn’t even a very important story, and he could hear well enough without doing that, but he acted like it was a secret told only to him. Go Seok-jun politely replied, “Really?”
As soon as they escaped the commotion, a convenience store and franchise cafe that he’d seen to the point of being sick of them in the city came into view. Finding something familiar, he could breathe. Go Seok-jun’s eyes lit up as he grabbed Baek Sang-eun’s arm.
While the coffee was being made, he leaned against the cafe’s exterior wall and savored the coffee aroma to his heart’s content. It was a low-cost franchise not worthy of evaluating the coffee scent, but wasn’t that also an attribute of the city? How many days had it been since he’d left, and Go Seok-jun already missed the city.
