The frivolous atmosphere from just moments ago instantly retreated, and a faint tension flowed. He could see the deeply sunken dimple on one side bulge up and then sink down. After a brief moment of thought, it was Gil Taeseo who spoke first, as expected.
“It’s really fucking fascinating when I watch you.”
Tap tap, the fingers resting on the doorknob moved like a metronome.
“That temper of yours that can’t be satisfied unless you find a reason even when something’s just given to you, and won’t accept it unless you painstakingly crawl down an easy path.”
“……”
He wasn’t the only one who thought the other’s temper was dirty and strange. Saehyeon thought exactly the same way. He was about to open his mouth to immediately retort that he wasn’t much better either, but the man was one step faster.
“What’s even shittier is that it seems my share in that isn’t non-existent.”
He was about to say ‘what have you ever contributed?’ But when he immediately said he had contributed something, he was at a loss for words. The man, who had been silently watching him just roll his eyes, irritably rummaged through his pockets.
He’d been wondering what that sound was since earlier—it seemed the phone had been ringing continuously.
“Then let’s do this. Work under me.”
“…If you’re going to say weird things, shu… please shut your mo… mouth and le… leave.”
The moment he heard those words, what flashed through Saehyeon’s mind was an unseemly delusion. Like being seated as a fake secretary and constantly being called into the office and such. He was already scared of what would happen if he gave justification to a person who already called him over and fucked him even when there wasn’t a reason.
“You’re the one thinking weird thoughts. Fucking perverted as hell.”
Gil Taeseo intuitively observed Saehyeon’s face turning red then pale with interest. It was obvious what thoughts were passing behind that distorted face. He knew what happened when pushed into a car, so that way of thinking wouldn’t go anywhere.
Honestly, grabbing and shaking him using money as bait was also really tempting.
After rolling around on this side for a few years, one becomes accustomed to such things. There were more than one or two pictures of pretty-faced idols or actors being kept by those with money.
Was that called sponsorship? If you wanted to put on slightly more airs or do something closer to emotional games, you could also transform it into a lover. In the form of giving allowance to a young, pretty lover who needed money.
If Lee Saehyeon had massive debt or something, would it have been a bit easier? Once started, the damp thoughts easily grew in size.
‘How terrible.’
Even while holding the lifeline of his body and doing whatever he pleased, now he wanted to grab hold of other things too. That’s how desire was. Once you let go of the reins, it runs endlessly. Recklessly, perhaps until it ruins everything.
Gil Taeseo consciously cut off the continuing thoughts. It was merely a hypothetical situation anyway. There was no way Lee Saehyeon would accept it with a sound mind.
If weighing the impossible versus the possible, it was naturally the latter. However, unless he wanted to have an empty shell with both mind and body destroyed, he had to stop here. The body was already in tatters—what would happen if he ruined it more?
“If you’re so restless, why don’t you pay attention to what’s nearby instead of distant things.”
“…Nearby?”
The man began to slowly drive the person standing dumbly before him. After providing appropriate bait, pushing strongly or pulling lightly depending on the timing, Lee Saehyeon would come along disappointingly easily.
“Tsk.”
When a new incoming call screen appeared over the already accumulated missed calls, Gil Taeseo clicked his tongue. Everything had been in an uproar lately. At the repeated pleas, the man forcibly lifted his foot.
“That.”
The doorknob he’d been holding onto since earlier, which had warmed up lukewarmly, finally made the sound of turning. As light poured through the open door gap, straight fingers pointed outside the window.
What was visible where his fingertip led was a barren field. Thanks to the dryly withered grass and trees, the garden remained stopped in the same state as when first seen even as seasons passed. It looked as if it had been taxidermied in time.
“…What exactly is there? You can’t be talking about the garden.”
“I am though. You sang about how hideous it was, and now you’re going to play innocent?”
“That’s… but still.”
He was right. Not only from the outside, but when running around the garden with the child, it became even more noticeable. Small scratches from the long-grown, dryly withered grass were frequent.
“No, logically speaking, how am I supposed to do that? Are you crazy?”
But to entrust it to him. That was truly insane talk.
Even though there had been a garden attached to his childhood home, he’d never taken much interest in it. What Saehyeon knew about gardens were good hiding corners or dog holes.
Moreover, his aesthetic sense… was impossible no matter how much gilding was attempted. It was terrible both objectively and subjectively. Saehyeon had the mysterious talent of turning everything done with his hands into something belonging to the underworld.
“I said I’ll just find and do work on my own?”
Gil Taeseo’s final response to hearing that was this.
“Try it. If you can.”
He should have felt the ominousness in those words.
At first, Saehyeon naturally had no intention of doing this. It was work where he was confident he’d ruin it rather than do it well. He also didn’t like the picture of ending up eating Gil Taeseo’s money.
But as an adult, Saehyeon had the weight of reality to bear.
First was the continuously leaking rent. No matter how cheap the house was, if it accumulated month by month, it became big money.
“Ones, tens, hundreds…”
Saehyeon’s face grew serious as he looked into his account balance. The already miserable numbers had noticeably decreased while he’d been looking away.
It only felt maintained because various fixed costs like food expenses, transportation fees, water bills, electricity bills, gas bills, etc. weren’t incurred. In this state, he couldn’t just keep holding out without working.
But if he got rid of the house, wouldn’t he be stuck living with Gil Taeseo? Even now they were living almost together, so there was no way he could easily give up his one remaining hideout. In the end, Saehyeon accepted as the lesser evil the position of having to earn money to maintain the house.
Second was the difficulty of finding employment.
‘Try it. If you can.’
As if Gil Taeseo’s words were foreshadowing, he couldn’t find work at all. To think there wasn’t a single spot for one person in this vast city center.
He suspected Gil Taeseo had deliberately pulled strings, but well, what could he do? It was impossible to prove and couldn’t be changed.
Third was… likewise money. Isn’t there a saying like that? It was too much money to refuse. The amount Gil Taeseo presented was much larger than Saehyeon’s expectation. Since material costs and labor costs were calculated separately, enough to solve everything if he just closed his eyes once.
The long-winded rambling was lengthy, but the conclusion was this. Saehyeon ultimately had to do the work of a gardener, which wasn’t in his fate.
Accepting the task didn’t solve everything neatly either. Once employed, one had to work, and this was another stumbling block.
“No matter how I think about it, this doesn’t make sense!”
After struggling with a horticulture magazine for a while, Saehyeon threw it away with a slap. Even after suddenly answering the phone and listening to a 30-minute diss rap, the man remained calm, which made him even more heated.
[Just do whatever you want. I even attached people for you, so what’s the problem?]
Fortunately or unfortunately, Gil Taeseo didn’t act like a stepmother from a fairy tale. In other words, he didn’t spout bullshit like ‘you can’t come to the ball unless you clean this entire huge place by yourself.’
For physical labor jobs, he could just pull in the widely scattered subordinates dressed like gangsters from nearby, and even a gardener was attached.
But the problem here was.
“You’re the one who made those people into scarecrows, and you say that?”
It was that Gil Taeseo had pre-arranged tricks. The middle-aged gardener with an amiable impression who laughed heartily just scratched his head no matter what was asked.
‘I agreed to only do exactly as I’m told!’
‘…What?’
‘That’s the contract. Haha!’
In the end, Saehyeon, who had the expert labor like a pie in the sky, ground his teeth hard. No wonder he gave so much money. The thought suddenly occurred that it might be advance agreement money for making him suffer terribly and toying with him.
Saehyeon ultimately spent a while immersed in horticulture magazines and videos that weren’t in his fate. He had to somehow cultivate his aesthetic eye. The pressure to make it decent enough not to invite ridicule was beyond imagination.
But as expected, what’s innate has its limits.
‘I’d be lucky to find aesthetic sense from the neighbor’s dog Bingo.’
It was when Saehyeon, recalling the children’s English song the child had been humming lately, let out a small sigh. A plump, white hand suddenly stretched out from beside him. Then it poked at a corner of the magazine.
“Appa, this is pretty.”
When diss-rapping the employer contactlessly, and when doing unnecessarily pointless digging while imagining burying that same person in the ground. The child had been following beside such a Saehyeon the whole time.
Even now, he’d been watching the dead grass being ground away from in front of the window while pressed tightly against his father’s back. Lightly without putting weight on, but closely adhered.
Saehyeon’s eyes landed on the child’s fingertip. What the child pointed to was a small tree with neat white flower buds and orderly leaves.
Saehyeon, who had been staring blankly at it, suddenly opened his mouth.
“…Where do you think this would look good?”
“Mmmmm… over there.”
“What about this one?”
“Right there!”
The face of Saehyeon, who had been counting one by one, brightened up completely. The gardener’s expression was the same as he’d been hovering around repeatedly saying “oh my” while claiming contractually he wouldn’t touch anything.
Saehyeon quickly turned his head. The chubby face stuck to his shoulder immediately came into view. The large eyes that met his blinked briefly, then curved thinly like a crescent moon.
