I’d rather deal with Daesu hyung getting angry right in front of me than Seongheon hyung, who smiled to your face while scheming god knows what behind your back—that was far more terrifying. Didn’t Sojin noona say it? He drives cars as dark as his hidden intentions.
When I looked anxious, Dongwoo patted my shoulder reassuringly.
“Hey, but Seongheon hyung always treats you kindly. I really think this’ll blow over without any issues. Don’t worry so much.”
“No, you just don’t know Seongheon hyung.”
Though they were just small pranks, I’d been blindsided after he’d treated me well enough times that it was too soon to relax. Once the anxious feeling set in, I oddly craved alcohol.
From merely wetting my lips, I progressed to downing shots in one go, prompting Dongmi to plop grilled meat onto my plate with a “Go ahead and drink yourself to death.” The meat tasted so bitter from the alcohol that I could barely taste it as I chewed.
“Hey! Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
I loved the cheerful sound of clinking glasses. I could understand why adults endured the inconvenience of spilling drinks to clink glasses with each other. They say alcohol calls for more alcohol—even with just this kind of excitement, the bitter-tasting drink strangely started to taste sweeter.
I also understood why people drink when they’re in pain. As the buzz hit, my anxious heart loosened languidly, and it felt like each sigh expelled one worry. Though it was probably just my imagination.
I wasn’t the only one drunk—everyone was similar. Before I knew it, Dongwoo was sitting hunched over with his chin propped up, and Dongmi was leaning against the wall, using a spoon to pry open the cap of a newly ordered beer bottle. Of all of us, Dongmi looked the most sober.
“Seriously… Seongheon hyung is a really scary person.”
Dongwoo spilled words about Seongheon hyung like a burst bag.
With my hazy vision, I picked up a spoon and scooped doenjang-jjigae into my mouth, but I must have spilled most of it on the way because barely anything made it into my mouth.
After fumbling like that two more times, I just put the spoon down. While I struggled valiantly to transport doenjang-jjigae to my mouth, Dongwoo rambled on about something.
I was letting his words flow past me like the stew when Dongwoo suddenly grabbed my shoulder.
“Hng?”
“Seongheon hyung grabbed me just like this and asked, ‘You want this to pass quietly, right?’ So I said yes yes, yes hyung, please. Then he said just one thing. ‘Don’t tell Daeyoung.’ Ha, shit… I got cursed out but he told me not to even tell you. And then that hyung actually gave me an extra 200,000 won? As hush money.”
“…Yeah.”
“Hey. Are you even listening? He gave me an extra 200,000 won?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Dongwoo held up two fingers and waved them in front of my eyes. Being drunk made everything annoying. Normally I would’ve asked to split it, but right now it was hard enough just taking care of myself.
Then instead of me, Dongmi went “Hey! Split it!” and asked about the whereabouts of the 200,000 won, only to hear the answer that it was already all spent.
‘Hyung really does everything with money, huh…’
I thought of Seongheon hyung’s wallet I’d put in my padding’s inner pocket. A few hundred thousand won must not be money to hyung. Handing it out readily to me and Dongwoo. What, so I wasn’t specially thought of after all.
Yet Dongwoo kept saying Seongheon hyung only treated me well.
“Even at the hospital earlier, right? One hand was injured so it was inconvenient, but with his other hand he did this to his hair, look. Like this, he brushed it back for him, you know?”
Dongwoo kept trying to brush my bangs back to create a 2:8 part, and I turned my head away, messing up my hair again. Then suddenly Dongmi seemed to be pondering something, and roughly set down the dongchimi broth she’d been slurping.
“You’re right. I thought it was weird when we ate together too. Seongheon oppa cut Daeyoung’s steak for him, peeled his shrimp, and told me to just hold hands or something.”
“Wasn’t that because he hates you?”
“Maybe?”
Listening to the Dong-Dong siblings’ conversation, I gulped down a glass of water. The flames burning in my chest from the alcohol seemed to die down a bit.
Now that I was finally coming to my senses a little, I was listening carefully to their conversation when Dongwoo looked at me and asked again about that day’s situation.
“If Seongheon hyung really intended to punish you, I feel like he would’ve prepared something perfect. By any chance, did anything weird happen at the camping site?”
“Something weird?”
“Yeah.”
Something weird…
What was different about hyung from usual? I blinked slowly and thought about it. He treated me well like usual, helped me find the treasure, nothing was really different.
Ah.
There was exactly one thing bothering me. Wondering if that was it, I gulped down water again and cleared my throat with a cough.
“Looking at Daeyoung’s expression, seems like something did happen?”
“There was one thing that was a bit uncomfortable.”
“What was it?”
Dongmi, sitting across from me, also stopped checking something on her phone and focused on me. I looked at them both in turn, then told them about suffering from the hangover and the sugar water incident.
“So he transferred it with his mouth… but hyung acted like it was nothing, so it was kind of…”
Dongwoo must have been flustered because he dropped his chopsticks while picking up pork belly, and Dongmi dropped the 24-month installment phone she’d been cherishing.
Right now, their expressions were identical like a decalcomania. Their mouths hung open as if utterly dumbfounded, and their furrowed brows conveyed they couldn’t contain their shock. In a word, if I had to express their current expressions with a word, it was close to ‘flabbergasted.’
Because of their reactions, I also stopped talking and shut my mouth tight like a mute who ate honey. Even in their opinion, Seongheon hyung’s actions that day must have been very strange.
Just then, the owner came over saying “Stop drinking now and drink this,” giving us each a glass of cold plum drink before leaving. We each took a sip of plum drink while watching each other, wondering who would speak first.
But then Dongwoo suddenly went “Pfft!” and spat out his plum drink, and Dongmi smacked his back really hard.
“Hey! Gross!”
“Right, gross…”
Dongwoo, who’d been wiping the front with a wet towel, shuddered as he finished wiping the area.
Dongmi watched that for a moment, then said something to me.
“Hey, Daeyoung.”
“Yeahhh?”
“Isn’t that your memory being distorted because you were drunk? No matter how I think about it, I don’t think that’s it.”
“No, it really happened… Why? Is it really weird?”
“It’s not just weird.”
“I just thought of it like artificial respiration…”
“To be blunt. Look, see.”
“Huh?”
Dongmi pointed at Dongwoo’s mouth holding the plum drink.
“Could you do that with Dongwoo?”
“…Huh?”
Wait, why didn’t I think of that?
I’d never substituted another person to think about it, so I hadn’t judged that situation objectively. But if, as Dongmi just said, the other person had been Dongwoo… I probably would’ve pushed his shoulders away before our lips even touched.
But then, why didn’t I do that then? It was probably because my trust in Seongheon hyung was stronger than for others.
Dongwoo also grimaced upon hearing Dongmi’s example. That meant that incident was a completely different dimension from artificial respiration.
“If what you’re saying is true, Daeyoung, let’s say Dongwoo fell in the water and you pulled him out but he’s not breathing. Would you give him artificial respiration?”
“Of course I’d have to.”
“See. Unlike before, you answered right away. Just from that, what you and Seongheon oppa did was unnatural, you know?”
“I-Is that so?”
“Hey, listen carefully. Daeyoung, I’ve witnessed the exact same thing.”
“Where did you see it?”
Dongwoo, who also seemed not to have seen it, looked at Dongmi and focused on her words.
“Where I saw it was, I saw it done as a game penalty in a club.”
“A club?”
“A penalty?”
The two of us literally couldn’t process the new words and repeated what Dongmi said like malfunctioning robots.
Then Dongmi looked around and gestured for us to gather our heads closer, and we leaned our upper bodies as the three of us put our heads together. Just like soldiers secretly passing on operations.
“Simply put, there are various games to promote friendship, right. As a penalty, male sunbaes played the Pepero game and their lips touched, but only the sunbae who’d never dated cried about it later in private.”
Even hearing that explanation, Dongwoo and I didn’t understand 100%. What does that have to do with this? Frustrated by our lukewarm reaction, Dongmi spoke bluntly.
“Hey, you never-dated dumbasses. Seongheon oppa has no impact at all but only Daeyoung is like this—don’t you get it? It’s obviously done to check! And just because your mouths touched a bit doesn’t mean something happens?!”
That voice must have been quite loud, because people who happened to have glasses to their lips glanced at us sideways.
An elderly person openly clicked their tongue, and families who came covered their children’s ears while glaring. So on Dongmi’s behalf, I bowed my head apologetically to those who made eye contact with me.
But even after that embarrassing explanation ended, the question mark of ‘what kind of check?’ still hadn’t disappeared from my head.
When I made a dubious expression, Dongmi presented another opinion.
“This whole thing was thoroughly planned.”
“Hyung might have genuinely helped…”
At my words, Dongwoo also nodded and agreed with the opinion. Dongmi looked at us who didn’t understand like lower life forms, then continued her explanation. She was worthy of being a top student who placed in the top 3 in the whole school.
“Something’s unnatural. Daeyoung, let’s think in reverse.”
“Okay.”
“What you had in your mouth was sugar water, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you were in a state where you could freely spit it out, and even if you couldn’t control your body, you could crawl outside. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“Even if you couldn’t go out, you could’ve spit it back into the cup you were drinking from. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Then there was no need for Seongheon oppa to receive it with his mouth.”
“Yeah.”
“…You’re understanding what I’m saying, right?”
“Yeah.”
I was at least understanding what Dongmi was saying. All the possibilities she mentioned were ‘YES.’
“See. He did that to check on you.”
“Check what, exactly…”
Dongmi put her elbows on the table and brought her face closer to mine. Then with a grave look, she recalled the past.
“You lied about dating me. Remember what I said about us kissing?”
“Yeah.”
“So that day, Seongheon oppa found out you stole the item, so he did that to verify how far you lied.”
