Even though I wanted to show my embarrassment, I was barely holding back while looking at the floor… but huh? Hyung wasn’t leaving. I kept seeing hyung’s legs in front of my downcast gaze.
‘I thought he’d go out right away to spit it out…’
At that moment, I heard the sound of gulping as something went down.
For a moment, I thought I’d heard wrong because I was drunk. When I raised my gaze to look at hyung again, hyung’s cheeks that had been bulging just moments ago were now hollow again.
Flustered, I grabbed somewhere on Seongheon hyung’s arm.
“H-hyung. Did you eat it? That?”
“Yeah.”
As if it was nothing, Seongheon hyung even drank a bit more of the sugar water he’d brought.
“I was getting a bit tipsy too. But ugh— I made it too sweet. Sorry.”
“N-no, hyung.”
Am I the only one being weird? Why does what we just did seem unusual to me? It was like a kiss, wasn’t it?
But thinking about the process and intention, it was far from a romantic kiss. I was drunk to the point of not being able to control my body, and hyung had always taken good care of me, so I concluded that this kind of action came out naturally. Otherwise, my heart wouldn’t settle down.
‘What is this? Pressing our lips together like this, is it like… artificial respiration? Yeah, it’s probably just something like that.’
Only then did I think I’d found the right answer and flopped down again.
But even with my eyes closed, I kept thinking of Seongheon hyung’s red lips, and I even recalled his cross-dressed appearance. Because of that, the hot sensation remaining on my lips wouldn’t cool down.
When I lay flat, hyung’s gaze looking down at me stuck to my face hotly, so I took off my shoes and turned to lie on my side.
“Daeyoung, are you okay?”
“I’m dizzy.”
“Tell me if you feel like throwing up. I’ll go get more blankets.”
“…Mm.”
Seongheon hyung didn’t show any particularly awkward behavior at all. He even acted so dryly, as if this kind of contact meant nothing to him, which made me feel rather gloomy.
My first kiss partner was… Seongheon hyung.
‘No. This isn’t a kiss.’
Squeezing my eyes shut, I erased what we just did from my first kiss counter.
* * *
“Kkakdugi, are you alive?”
Gangjin hyung passed by, looking at me lying sprawled on a rock as if watching a fire across the river.
‘Ah… is this a gateway to becoming an adult…’
My head hurt in the early morning so I woke up briefly, but maybe because I drank the sugar water, my stomach felt okay after I came back from the bathroom. So I tried to go back to sleep, but… the bed I shared with Seongheon hyung was narrower than I thought.
It was narrow enough that we had to sleep with our shoulders pressed together, so I slept almost at the edge with my back turned, but hyung reached out in his sleep and pulled my waist into an embrace. Because of hyung’s chest touching my back and the sound of his soft breathing, I kept remembering when he gave me the sugar water and stayed awake with my eyes open before getting up.
At that time, I could see Seongheon hyung’s face sleeping next to me in detail, and there wasn’t a single hair on his chin. This is why I believed what the hyungs said.
Wondering if he’d also had hair removal on his face, I gently stroked it with my fingertip. There wasn’t a single hair that should have been stubbly if he were a man, only soft down.
Well, this is why he’s so popular—because he manages his appearance like this. Thinking that, I brushed myself off and got up.
After that, I sat on a rock for a bit to get some air and ended up falling asleep lying down. Fortunately, I didn’t freeze to death since I slept with my padded hood pulled over me, but I was suffering from cold symptoms.
“*Cough*.”
Unlike me, who was coughing with a swollen face, everyone else looked neat as if they hadn’t slept at a campground.
Especially when Seongheon hyung, who had slept with me all night, came out of the tent, I couldn’t help but admire him. How could a person’s face be glowing when, like me, his hair was messy and he hadn’t even washed his face yet?
Hyung, who squinted his eyes slightly, looked around and then came straight over when he saw me sitting on the rock.
“Daeyoung. Why are you here?”
Perhaps because he’d just woken up, hyung’s slightly cracked voice sounded a bit rougher than usual.
“I woke up a bit early.”
“Because your head hurt?”
“Yeah, so I came out to get some air for a bit.”
“Then you should have come back in to sleep. Why are you here? It’s cold.”
I couldn’t tell him it was because I felt stuffy from hyung hugging me so much from behind.
“I’m wearing thick clothes.”
“Ah, still though.”
Saying why was my face so swollen, Seongheon hyung lightly pinched my cheek. As I looked at hyung’s curved lips while my cheek was held, yesterday’s lip-pressing incident suddenly came to mind again.
‘Does hyung also think about yesterday when he sees my lips? That would be kind of embarrassing…’
From my perspective, since hyung’s face was so pretty, I thought it wasn’t a losing deal, but hyung might be regretting helping me yesterday while looking at my haggard state now.
So when I pulled my hood down deeper and tied the strings tight, hyung’s hand that had been pinching my cheek naturally fell away.
“Why? Are you cold?”
“…Yeah, a little.”
Anyway, does hyung really not care at all?
I really showed my forever-single status too much. Worried that acting awkward here would make me the only weird person, I deliberately met his eyes more confidently and said,
“I should go wash my face. You wash your face too, hyung.”
“I’m just going to shower at home. I think we’ll go home after eating breakfast. Do you want to take a bath with hyung later? We got a new bathtub at my house. It’s incredibly huge.”
Normally I would have said “Wow, it’s big? Then we could even swim!” and said “I want to go too!”, but right now it was hard to maintain a poker face.
Even now I was barely hiding my embarrassment, and if I got completely naked and faced hyung, I felt like I’d think about yesterday even more, so I shook my head vigorously.
“I can’t. I have to wash up later and go to my friend’s house.”
“By any chance, Dongwoo?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll give you a ride to Dongwoo’s house.”
“No, hyung. I can ride my bike.”
“Daeyoung.”
“Yeah?”
“Daeyoung-ah.”
“…Why?”
While I was kicking a pebble at my feet, wondering why he kept calling my name, hyung bent his waist and lowered his head to match my height.
“Why do you keep avoiding my eyes?”
Gasp. I thought I’d responded calmly, but I must have unconsciously avoided his eyes.
When I squeezed my eyes shut once and looked straight at him, only then did hyung straighten his bent waist and look down at me. Maybe because my gaze rose a bit from looking up at the tall hyung, I felt like a dog reading the mood.
“Because of the sunlight behind you, hyung…”
Seongheon hyung just stared at me intently, and as if seeing through me, he alternately looked at both my eyes before slowly parting his lips.
“Okay. Do whatever’s comfortable for you.”
“Yeah. Thanks for caring, hyung.”
I turned my body jerkily like a broken robot and went to wash my face.
When I went to the communal shower and looked in the mirror, I saw eye boogers in one eye. To think I’d been standing face to face with hyung in this state—my dignity was ruined.
‘Ah, embarrassing.’
I quickly removed the eye boogers and washed my face with cold water. It was so cold that my swollen face felt like it would burst.
“Uwaaa…”
My hands were too cold, so I quickly finished washing my face and wiped it with a towel.
Then I looked in the mirror again, and even my cheeks had turned bright red, adding tackiness to my shabby appearance. I felt self-loathing at my appearance that looked the same whether I washed or not.
After leaving the communal shower, I went near Mom who was preparing breakfast. On the way, I saw Seongheon hyung standing and smoking with the hyungs, and maybe because he was wearing a matching tracksuit set, even the way he roughly tousled his messy hair looked like a concept.
‘I’m so different from him.’
I patted the cheek that Seongheon hyung had pinched earlier to help blood circulation.
When I got near Mom, the spicy scent of dried pollack soup spread. Gangjin hyung’s mother was also making fresh kimchi next to her, and just looking at it made my mouth water.
When I sneaked closer, Mom stopped preparing breakfast and was startled when she saw me, her son.
“Oh my, I thought some beggar had come.”
“Mom, really… How can you say that to your precious son?”
Gangjin hyung’s mother also asked me pointedly if I’d slept outside after looking at me. She said there was no way my face could be that damaged otherwise.
“Maybe because he takes after his dad, when he gets drunk he also passes out and sleeps anywhere.”
Mom’s expression as she clicked her tongue looked merciless. Hearing such words one after another when my appearance confidence was particularly low like today made me want to put on a mascot costume.
Perhaps seeing that I was dejected, Gangjin hyung’s mother put a piece of fresh kimchi in my mouth and reluctantly offered a word of praise.
“Still, Daeyoung is the cutest among the boys in this area. And so cheerful.”
“Thank you. Your kimchi is the most delicious in the world, auntie.”
I timidly gave a thumbs up and smiled. Mom looked at me pathetically and told me to check the seasoning of the dried pollack soup, ladling some broth into a small bowl for me.
As the hot broth went down my esophagus, a “Keu” sound came out naturally. I could understand why Dad desperately sought dried pollack soup the day after drinking. Maybe because of the hot broth, it felt like blood circulation was flowing smoothly throughout my whole body.
“Mom, one more bowl.”
“You should eat it with rice.”
“My stomach doesn’t feel great, so I just want to drink the broth.”
I received a large bowl full and sat on a nearby bench.
Dried pollack soup on a cold day was truly divine. While sipping and soothing my stomach and regaining my peace of mind, the hyungs also smelled it and approached.
Unlike the other hyungs, Seongheon hyung dragged a lightweight chair and came to sit next to me. Sitting face to face at eye level again was embarrassing, so I just held the soup bowl and gulped it down eagerly. Like a criminal drinking poison.
“Daeyoung, is the soup good?”
“Huh?”
“Let hyung have a little too.”
“But I’ve been drinking from it. I’ll get you a fresh one.”
“No. I just want to taste it.”
While I was debating whether to give it or not, Seongheon hyung gently leaned on one of my shoulders.
“Give it to me like yesterday.”
