When he woke from his nap and found it dark before his eyes, he snapped awake in bewilderment. Seongjo wondered for a moment if he had slept soundly until evening.
Only after gathering his confused mind could he tell that the surroundings were still bright. Only the area around Seongjo’s upper body was dark.
It was because Yujeong had placed a black umbrella over Seongjo’s face. A thin, soft blanket was also covering his body. It seemed Yujeong had quite thoroughly prepared a sleeping environment. Seongjo, who groggily got up, said while dry-washing his face.
“I thought it was night… I told you I don’t mind if my face gets tanned.”
“You can’t sleep well when it’s bright.”
Even though he suddenly opened his eyes and started talking, Yujeong didn’t seem surprised. At his natural answer, Seongjo stretched and asked.
“How long has it been?”
“About two hours.”
Unlike his earlier worry, not that much time had passed. If two hours had passed, it would be around two or three o’clock. It was precisely the time of day when the sun was brightest and the temperature highest.
Seongjo folded down the unusually large umbrella and examined Yujeong. He was sitting in the same position as before falling asleep, reading a book. At a glance, it seemed to be a novel. Seongjo, who had little interest in novels, didn’t ask the title.
“A literary boy.”
Instead, when he muttered teasingly, Yujeong looked back at Seongjo with an absurd face. It was childish teasing thrown out to see that reaction, so rather than being damaging, it was just amusing. Seongjo looked at Yujeong’s face and laughed.
“I think I’ve finished sleeping. What should we do to rest now?”
“Don’t you know what resting means?”
Even as Yujeong said that, he immediately marked the book with a bookmark and closed it.
Yujeong, who stood up from his seat, gestured to Seongjo as if telling him to get up too. When Seongjo dawdled for a moment, he bent down and took out a pair of slippers similar to what he was wearing from under the veranda and placed them in front of Seongjo.
It wasn’t that he had delayed for that reason. Seongjo slipped his feet into the slippers and followed Yujeong out.
A walk would be welcome. He had a strong desire to see with his own eyes what kind of place this village was. Seongjo didn’t ask about the specific destination and moved his steps behind Yujeong.
Walking along the dirt road, endless fields spread out on both sides. Fields much larger in scale than where Yujeong and Seongjo had worked yesterday were lined up, but still, rice paddies were rice paddies, fields were fields. It was a sight he’d seen enough to tire of yesterday, so there was no new inspiration. However, seeing the ridiculously-shaped scarecrow’s clothes flutter in the wind was interesting enough to make him laugh.
Yujeong, who had been walking silently, turned his head slightly to look at such a Seongjo.
“What?”
“It’s nothing. I was just thinking that you look young today too, Lee Seongjo-ssi…”
At those words, Seongjo pointlessly checked his own appearance once. The steps walking with both hands inserted into the pockets of black sweatpants. Hair not swept back unlike usual. A simple outfit of a plain white tee instead of a suit.
Seongjo lightly touched his fallen bangs and answered.
“Really? Maybe it’s because of my hair.”
In the first place, Seongjo was the type who wasn’t shaken by being told he looked older than his actual age or younger. Neither felt like criticism, so there was no impact. Seeing Seongjo reply nonchalantly, Yujeong smiled faintly.
Moo-ooo.
Just then, a long cow’s moo came from somewhere. Seongjo, who had been walking leisurely until just moments ago, instantly brightened his eyes at that sound.
“Where’s the cow? I’d like to see it.”
Yujeong muttered “This kind of thing…” as if in passing, then pointed in one direction with his finger. Seongjo immediately began moving his feet in that direction without adding any other words.
While walking like that, what entered the two people’s eyes was a tractor approaching from across the road making a chugging sound.
Looking at it with quite interested eyes, Seongjo moved to the corner with Yujeong to get out of the way. The slowly running tractor slowed down its already slow speed even more in front of them.
“Hey, isn’t that Yujeong?”
A man who appeared to be the same age as Yujeong’s parents stuck his head out from the tractor. He seemed to be an adult who knew Yujeong. Well, since he’d lived in this village all through childhood, it was natural he’d be acquainted with the villagers.
“It’s been a while. Have you been well?”
At Yujeong’s calm greeting, he laughed pleasantly and soon gave his attention to Seongjo standing next to him as well.
“Who’s this unfamiliar face next to you?”
“Ah, nice to meet you. I’m Yujeong’s university sunbae, and I came to stay for a bit.”
Seongjo answered immediately as if he’d prepared the answer. At those words, Yujeong, who was standing next to him, flinched slightly. He’d just borrowed the words Yujeong had used when introducing him as a university sunbae, but seeing him react like that was a bit funny.
“Yujeong’s university sunbae?”
At those words, his eyes, which had already been favorable, took on an even better tone. After busily examining Seongjo’s appearance, he asked subtly.
“Well now, you have a fine face… are you still unmarried by any chance?”
It wasn’t because he liked him personally… surely not. There was a high probability that the man had an unmarried daughter. For Seongjo, who had always been an attractive commodity in the marriage market, it wasn’t particularly bewildering or surprising. Instead of Seongjo who was laughing “haha,” Yujeong answered with a sigh.
“What are you saying?”
“He’s exactly the type our daughter would like.”
Then Yujeong stood blocking the front while hiding Seongjo behind him. He’d naturally thought it was a light joke, but seeing him hide him to this extent, he seemed to be quite a persistent person. Well, if you thought of it as just Yujeong being unnecessarily wary, the mood was rather more enjoyable. This time too, Yujeong answered instead of Seongjo.
“Don’t say strange things. This… hyung has someone he’s seeing… excuse us.”
Hyung.
He could fully understand why he’d chosen that form of address after deliberation. Since he’d said university sunbae, the words to refer to Seongjo would be at most sunbae or hyung. However, even knowing the reason, hearing the word hyung come from him gave a new feeling.
Moreover, perhaps because he was dealing with an adult he’d known since childhood, Yujeong’s manner of speaking now felt much less stiff and younger than usual.
“Hey, as long as they’re not married, you never know about romantic connections between men and women.”
The man who persistently clung on and made Yujeong even more disgusted seemed to quickly give up on Seongjo at Seongjo’s reaction of just smiling composedly. Instead, the man’s arrow shifted to Yujeong.
“Then Yujeong, what about you? Still no thoughts of marriage?”
Looking at it now, it seemed he wasn’t someone who had particularly liked Seongjo enough to mark him as son-in-law material, but rather someone who originally always had such words on his lips. Yujeong, who sighed and shook his head, looked back at Seongjo for a moment. When their eyes met, Yujeong turned his eyes away again with a face that seemed both unconvinced and embarrassed.
“…I also have someone I’m seeing.”
Seongjo’s face, which had been just laughing in amusement, froze for a moment. Not because he disliked it but because he was flustered. No, not because he was flustered either… it seemed to be because his heart fluttered a little.
Seongjo had been the first to use the excuse of having someone he was seeing to his father who was pressing him about marriage. He’d already told Yujeong that story. Then right now, Yujeong wasn’t really saying he had a hidden lover…
“…That—”
Just as Seongjo was about to open his mouth to say something, Yujeong cut off Seongjo’s words and pulled his arm.
“Well then, we’ll be going. Get going, ahjussi.”
There was no time to say anything. But it was also true that there was no particular need to say anything. Seongjo let out small giggles the entire time he was being dragged by his hand, and at the intermittent laughter, Yujeong said with a sigh.
“What’s so funny?”
It was hard to specifically pinpoint and explain what was funny, and it didn’t seem like it could all be contained in words, so he deliberately didn’t go on about it. He just smiled broadly and only said it was nothing.
Seongjo’s pleasant mood continued after that. Even until they returned home.
On the way back, the person who took the wheel was Yujeong again this time. Though Seongjo suggested switching several times, Yujeong stubbornly refused.
Just like on the way there, not that much conversation was exchanged, and the radio turned on was also the same channel as on the way there, but… not only Seongjo but Yujeong too must have felt that the sense of distance between them had changed.
The two nights and three days that somehow felt like a dream ended in an instant. When they arrived in front of the apartment complex, Seongjo greeted Yujeong saying see you tomorrow as if it were natural, then took the elevator.
It felt like he’d been to another world. Which meant it had been that enjoyable. Enough that not even a stray thought could intrude, just as Yujeong had said.
…….
It certainly had been.
Until he discovered Yeongbeom in front of his home’s door.
