By the time I hung up, Dad came out of the bathroom. And Seongheon hyung also changed his clothes and came to where I was and sat next to me.
“Uncle, I’m going to sleep here with Daeyoung today.”
“Alright.”
Originally this tent was supposed to be for Dad and me to sleep in, but Seongheon hyung seemed to want to be with me rather than the other hyungs. I wondered if he was sulking because of the cold noodles earlier, so I looked at Seongheon hyung, but he was no different than usual.
But when I was alone with Seongheon hyung, I kept remembering his cross-dressed appearance, which made me a bit uncomfortable. Just as things were about to get awkward being alone together, the other hyungs came into our tent carrying beer and beef jerky.
Only then did Seongheon hyung, who seemed to have nowhere to go, open a beer can and start drinking. Daesu hyung had laughed the loudest when Sojin noona added wasabi earlier, but now he was acting slyly like they were best friends.
Even now, he personally tore open beef jerky and put it in Seongheon hyung’s mouth while asking something.
“Seongheon, did you get a call from Sejeong?”
“Sejeong? Who’s that?”
“You know, the goddess from the dance department.”
“Ah…”
A goddess? My eyes widened as I stared at Daesu hyung. Seeing my curious gaze, Daesu hyung reluctantly showed me that Sejeong noona’s SNS photos.
“Wow. This noona looks like a celebrity.”
“She looks even more like one in person.”
When I complimented that noona, Daesu hyung looked at me as if I were a country bumpkin.
“When you go to university, there are lots of people like this. Since you’re bad at studying, Daeyoung, you’ll never see them.”
Why wouldn’t I see them? I wanted to answer that I’d just seen one at the escape room cafe not long ago. Although it was a man, when Seongheon hyung cross-dressed, he was much prettier than this noona.
No, wait.
‘With Seongheon hyung right in front of me, why am I suddenly thinking that…’
As I looked down at the phone with a shocked expression, perhaps thinking I was entranced by this noona, Seongheon hyung snatched the phone and gave it back to Daesu hyung.
“Don’t just show people’s photos around.”
“What’s the problem? It’s just between us. If they were photos that couldn’t be shown, they wouldn’t have been posted on SNS in the first place.”
“You and I are friends, but Daeyoung isn’t.”
“He’s like a real younger brother, so it’s the same whether I look or he looks.”
“Then I’ll spread your photos to all my friends too?”
“Hey, why are you being so sensitive today?”
Sipping his beer, Seongheon hyung seemed somewhat displeased.
Anyway, to think such a pretty noona even called Seongheon hyung… I looked at Seongheon hyung with secretly envious eyes, but hyung just frowned slightly without showing any sign of happiness.
I also drank a few sips of beer following the hyungs and got tipsy. Maybe that’s why I blatantly asked the hyungs a very embarrassing question. I was probably feeling wronged.
“Hyung, let’s have confession time.”
“For whose benefit?”
Daesu hyung caught on to my dark intentions right away and immediately blocked me. But borrowing the power of alcohol, this time I didn’t back down and just blurted out what I wanted to say.
“Why did you hyungs lie to me again?”
When I pointed at everyone, the hyungs just blinked because they’d lied about more than one or two things and didn’t know the reason.
So I told them the reason myself.
“Why did you lie about pubic hair growing? It grows naturally, doesn’t it?”
“Pfft—”
Gangjin hyung, who was drinking beer, must have found it funny because he choked by himself. Daesu hyung looked at me like I was an inferior human being, as if asking how I only just found out, and Seongheon hyung maintained a poker face and played dumb to the end.
“I was really fooled.”
“That’s why you should have gone to the bathhouse with Dad sometimes and scrubbed his back.”
Daesu hyung scolded me, saying I was fooled because I wasn’t a filial son. But I wasn’t the old Daeyoung anymore. I was an adult now.
So I asked the hyungs my next question without backing down.
“But why don’t you hyungs have hair there?”
I looked at Gangjin hyung’s and Seongheon hyung’s lower regions in turn. This must be the power of alcohol. The area I’d been too embarrassed to even look at before, I was now blatantly pointing at like a target with my fingertip.
Gangjin hyung, who had been sitting with his legs spread wide, crossed his legs as if embarrassed, and Seongheon hyung was still expressionless and unresponsive.
“Then do you hyungs have that thing? What’s it called, alopecia?”
“No.”
Gangjin hyung firmly denied it. Seongheon hyung just kept drinking beer and staring at me intently without offering any explanation, which only increased my frustration.
So I left Seongheon hyung alone and poured out questions only to Gangjin hyung.
“Then why is it like that?”
“Why wouldn’t there be hair? It’s gone because I shaved it.”
“Even if you shave, it looks that smooth like bare skin?”
“There’s something called Brazilian waxing, where you pull out the hair.”
Then Gangjin hyung pulled his chair closer and came next to me to show me his phone. There were several different areas by body part, and I never knew that even men’s hair was managed like this.
Then Gangjin hyung whispered in my ear, “When you wax a guy’s thing, you—” and was speaking when suddenly something flew over and hit Gangjin hyung’s head.
“Ow!”
“Don’t show the kid weird stuff.”
“What’s weird about it? You and I both did it.”
“We did it for swimming. Daeyoung, you don’t need to know.”
Whether it’s for swimming or whatever, if I want to pluck my own hair, isn’t that freedom?
Somehow, because Seongheon hyung was stopping me, I wanted to do it even more. When I change my phone, I should try this once too.
Like achievements in a game, I strangely wanted to try everything the hyungs did. After doing it, I might think ‘It’s nothing special?’, but it felt like earning a medal for standing shoulder to shoulder with the hyungs.
♬♩♪♩—
Just then, at the suddenly ringing phone, Seongheon hyung stopped looking at me and rummaged in his pocket. Soon he checked the caller and frowned, then put it back in his pocket as if nothing happened. He must have rejected the call.
I couldn’t see because I was sitting across from him, but Daesu hyung must have seen the screen because he whispered to Seongheon hyung. But it was a whisper in name only—I could hear everything.
“Why aren’t you answering?”
“I don’t really want to.”
“Sejeong asked me to help her talk to you. Try answering once.”
Sejeong? Ah, that noona who looked like a celebrity?
We’d just been talking about that noona, and learning that the person herself had called Seongheon hyung, I couldn’t hide my surprise.
But at that moment, Seongheon hyung’s phone started ringing again.
♪♬♪♩—
So I covered my mouth with both hands and looked at Seongheon hyung. On my part it was out of envy, but hyung stood up as if my gaze made him uncomfortable.
“Tsk.”
Seongheon hyung took out his phone from his pocket, checked the caller, and looked at Daesu hyung reproachfully. Just from that look, I could tell Sejeong noona had called again.
But this time instead of ignoring it, Seongheon hyung briefly pressed the screen with his thumb.
“Hello.”
Then he left the tent where we were and started the call. I listened to Seongheon hyung’s low voice growing distant, then sat up straight again.
“Seongheon hyung is so lucky. Getting calls from a noona like that.”
When Gangjin hyung pulled out a beer bottle from the ice box full of ice, there was a clinking sound as it hit the ice.
“Why? Kkakdugi, do you want to get a girlfriend again?”
“Don’t you hyungs want to get girlfriends?”
At my question, Gangjin hyung chuckled while opening the new beer bottle with a bottle opener.
“Daesu will probably get one soon, but I don’t really have anyone I like.”
“Gangjin hyung, your standards seem kind of high. Sojin noona is pretty.”
“Our noona is pretty? Do you see anyone in a skirt as a woman?”
“No, Sojin noona is really pretty. Except when she was stealing the treasure note earlier…”
Sojin noona, who always gave me a generous smile, looked so combative earlier. Like this, people’s appearance is subjective.
“Well, Daesu did like our noona when we were kids.”
“Hey!!!”
Daesu hyung, who had been buried in the lightweight chair, sat up urgently and shouted. But because he changed position too quickly, some fixing pin on the folding chair came loose, and while staggering to avoid falling, Daesu hyung missed the timing to argue back.
“When? When did Daesu hyung like Sojin noona?”
I didn’t want to miss Daesu hyung’s humiliating past, whether he liked it or not.
“In middle school? Daesu—”
“Be quiet!”
Eventually, Daesu hyung got up and covered Gangjin hyung’s mouth.
Just hearing Gangjin hyung’s giggling laughter made me feel regretful for missing premium information. Well, I could ask about it in detail later when I got the chance.
I also put down my empty beer bottle and picked up another one like Gangjin hyung. Sip—definitely beer was better than soju. It tasted similar to some barley drink too.
While the hyungs bickered with each other, I watched while taking sips of beer, gulp gulp. I leaned back lazily in the chair and looked at the campfire lit in the distance. Around me I could hear the hyungs’ voices, and from the tent next door, Uncle’s and Dad’s voices mixed together with the sound of a trickling stream.
Then suddenly, along with the sound of walking on the gravel campground floor, a toned-down voice could be heard. It was Seongheon hyung’s voice on the phone.
“…Then, let’s talk then. I’m hanging up.”
The face of Seongheon hyung, who appeared again, was expressionless like someone who had nothing happen. So I had no way of knowing what call he’d made.
I tilted the bottle for no reason to take another sip of beer, when Seongheon hyung didn’t sit in his seat but came over and grabbed my beer bottle upright.
“Stop drinking, Daeyoung.”
“…Why?”
“Isn’t that your second bottle? You drank soju earlier too.”
“That was barely anything…”
“It’s your first time drinking. If you mix them from the start, your head will hurt in the morning. Daesu was like that too.”
The men in our family weren’t particularly strong with alcohol. So Daesu hyung often came down to the first floor clutching his head the day after drinking and collapsed on the stairs, so I nodded.
“Ah. Really?”
“I’ll drink this.”
“No, hyung. I put my mouth on that—”
Before I could say anything, Seongheon hyung’s lips touched the mouth of the beer bottle. The beer went down hyung’s throat without even forming foam.
Was he so nervous making the call that he got thirsty? I was a bit envious of Seongheon hyung, and it was amazing that his complexion didn’t change at all even after drinking a lot.
I was already tipsy, with heat rising throughout my body, and my heart was beating faster than usual. Maybe that’s why, even though it was winter, I kept wanting to take off my jacket.
