Beep─.
At that mechanical sound, doctors and nurses entered the room, and Seongheon moved away from the bed.
As he stared at his mother’s hand that had dropped limply beside the bed, the things he hadn’t been able to say finally began circling through his mind. He tried to approach, saying there were still so many promises he had yet to make with his mother, but he couldn’t. His mother had already become an angel.
After that, even as a year passed, Seongheon couldn’t recover from his grief. Despite promising his mother he would do well, he didn’t get along with other kids his age, and his words decreased sharply.
That day too, not wanting to go home to the silent house, he remained behind the school with Gangjin, passing the time. Snap, snap. Like the twig he was breaking, everything seemed futile. His heart was so hollow and dry, in such a parched state that it couldn’t take root in anything.
“Hey guys, this is my younger brother Daeyoung.”
At the familiar voice, he lifted his head to find the son of his father’s friend who had moved here recently standing there. Wasn’t his name Daesu? Seongheon didn’t think anything of it except that he’d gained one more conversation partner.
‘But what did he bring with him?’
Behind Daesu, he could see a small kid stuck to him like gum. The kid poked just his face out to look at Seongheon and Gangjin, then quickly hid behind Daesu’s back again.
‘What’s with him?’
He vaguely remembered hearing that Daesu had a younger brother, but the kid was following around behind Daesu like some countryside puppy. Even though he seemed scared, he kept glancing back and forth between Seongheon and Gangjin with round eyes, reading the situation.
Gangjin bounced a ball against the wall and responded “Yeah?” without much interest, then threw and caught the ball against the building again.
When Daesu bounded over to Gangjin, the kid left alone didn’t know what to do, to the point where the butterfly net he was gripping with both hands fluttered like a flag.
A laugh slipped out at his timid, flustered movements. Eventually, when no one called for him, perhaps feeling dejected, he was turning around to go back home.
So Seongheon threw down the twig he’d been breaking and approached. Just because he looked interesting.
“Is your name Daeyoung?”
“Huh?”
When he called his name, the tearful expression instantly brightened. When he smiled back at him, the kid instantly let down his guard and took a step closer to Seongheon.
“Were you just going to leave?”
“It seemed like the hyungs didn’t really want to play with me.”
“No. I was bored anyway. Come here.”
He gently took the kid’s hand and led him near the trees. The initial wariness had already disappeared, and he thought the way the kid obediently followed was innocent and cute.
Wiiing─. Wiiing─. Wiiing─.
Seongheon hates the sound of cicadas. Whenever he heard that sound, he would invariably think of the hospital room where his mother had been lying. He wanted to catch them all because he hated hearing it.
“Daeyoung-ah. Should we catch cicadas with the butterfly net?”
“……Huh? Yeah!!”
“Good. Let’s catch ten today.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Hyung, then promise.”
Below his line of sight, when Daeyoung’s pinky finger came into view, the cicada sounds buzzing in his ears grew increasingly intense. Just like the sounds he’d heard by his mother’s side.
Was it because that moment came to mind? Or was it because he hadn’t hooked pinky fingers with anyone since then? He couldn’t readily grasp that small finger.
As he just stood there dumbfounded, the small pinky finger gradually tilted. Likewise, Daeyoung’s expression was deflating.
It was strange. What was there to hesitate about in hooking pinky fingers?
“Okay, promise.”
At those words, Daeyoung’s expression, which had been gloomy just moments before, brightened completely, and he smiled even more radiantly than the blazing sun.
He thought catching cicadas wouldn’t be pleasant, but doing it together with Daeyoung made even that enjoyable. When he caught a crying cicada and put it in the collection box, Daeyoung would rejoice, even throwing his hands up in celebration as if he’d gained everything in the world.
‘To smile so innocently over just one cicada.’
While it seemed trivial, he strangely kept smiling along with Daeyoung.
After seeking out and capturing the cicada sounds that had made him sad one by one, all that remained were memories with that child. It was the first time a sad memory was covered over by ordinary everyday life.
But perhaps he was immature? Isn’t there an instinct to want to poke and squish something when you see something soft and squishy? Like wanting to pop soap bubbles when you see them, Daeyoung was that kind of existence to Seongheon.
Though he teased and made him cry wanting to see more varied expressions behind that innocently smiling face, Daeyoung was still prettiest when smiling. Seongheon collected Daeyoung’s expressions one by one as if filling up his dried-up emotions.
At first, he thought of him only as a younger brother who filled his loneliness, but he realized his feelings were strange starting from when he entered high school.
“Seongheon-ah, I like you. I want to date you.”
Though he’d received confessions from various female students many times, compared to Daeyoung saying “I like hyung the best!” they sounded bland and tasteless.
At first, he denied it, saying it was because of the sense of stability he’d regained from Daeyoung when he was young, that the affection was just exceptional because his heart had been hollow from his mother’s death.
But Daeyoung kept appearing in his dreams and he began to feel guilty, and gradually he couldn’t see him as an ordinary younger brother. Moreover, because he was his friend’s younger brother, he considered himself filthy.
The more he faced him, the deeper his emotions seemed to grow, so from a certain point he deliberately didn’t go to Daesu’s house and reduced the contact he habitually sent to Daeyoung.
He denied it again and again, saying that during puberty all emotions fluctuate so even small feelings could be amplified. He thought Daeyoung’s position was just a cherished younger brother, that was all.
He concluded that it was because Daeyoung still looked young, that there was no way he, who thought it was disgusting to look at another man that way, could harbor such feelings, and he was certain that when Daeyoung also became a high school student and took on a more masculine appearance, this fever would naturally fade hazily.
But the moment he saw Daeyoung as a high school student, he thought this might not be a passing fever after all.
Unlike when he was young, even seeing him gradually mature with broadened shoulders and a thicker jawline didn’t make his feelings diminish. Rather, he suffered upon realizing his instinct to greedily scrutinize Daeyoung to the point of being even more thirsty.
Wondering if perhaps Daeyoung’s appearance was his type, he even tried dating a woman who resembled him in college, but he felt repulsed even by small physical contact and eventually broke up.
Only then could he acknowledge it.
That this feeling wasn’t like cicada sounds heard only in one season.
So Seongheon wanted to be faithful to those feelings and planned to actively pursue Daeyoung once he graduated, but out of nowhere he got a girlfriend.
On top of that, learning that Keyboard Cleaning, whom he’d cursed at in the game, was Daeyoung made him even more confused. More than the fact that Daeyoung had stolen the Goldmess egg, the image he’d built up as a good hyung had crumbled in an instant, so he couldn’t get a grasp on how to handle this.
‘Why did Daeyoung do something like this?’
But he could understand that point even without hearing it. The accumulated hurt from being teased since childhood had finally burst out. And thinking of how bright Daeyoung had been recently, if this revenge had made him feel better, he thought that damn egg wasn’t very important.
Then suddenly, thinking that Daeyoung would want to hide the fact that he was Keyboard Cleaning, he deleted all the information that had come to Ssapseonbi and didn’t give Gangjin and Daesu any clues.
‘Let’s bury this incident. If I pretend not to know, Daeyoung will return to normal.’
Since he’d been harsh to Daeyoung, he’d treat him even better. It seemed like something he’d done because he was hurt, so he’d let him release it through this incident and restore his own fallen image.
But a variable arose. Daesu found out that his Vulcanus egg was missing and started looking for Keyboard Cleaning. Even though he told him not to obsess over that egg and even gave him the Goldmess egg, it was useless.
Daesu’s head worked exceptionally well. He deliberately posted on an item site saying he was looking to obtain a Vulcanus egg through direct trade, and limited the location to the area where they lived.
He set that trap convinced that the thief who stole the Vulcanus egg would be around them, and unfortunately someone contacted him, but fortunately the trader wasn’t Daeyoung but someone else.
Instinctively thinking it might be ‘Gye Dongwoo’ whom he’d heard about from Ssapseonbi, he went to the trade location himself, saying he’d do the direct trade instead. He didn’t know the voice, but surely Daesu would recognize at a glance from Dongwoo’s face that he was Daeyoung’s friend. Then it would only be a matter of time before what Daeyoung had done was discovered.
Seongheon wanted to pretend not to know until Daeyoung told him himself. Of course, it was fine even if he never said anything. He just hoped not to grow distant from Daeyoung because of such an incident.
Also, though getting hurt in the traffic accident wasn’t intentional, he knew Daeyoung would pay attention to him out of guilt. Seongheon liked that kind of attention and rather planned to use it.
Moreover, since he’d given Daeyoung his wallet, he was certain he’d come visit soon.
* * *
Seongheon hyung’s house was quite far from the gate to the front door. When I pressed the intercom at the gate, someone who works at hyung’s house asked, “Who is it?”
I went over to the streetlight next to the gate so my face would be clearly visible, bowed my head, and showed my face.
“Hello. I’m Bae Daeyoung, the real younger brother of Bae Daesu who’s Seongheon hyung’s friend. I came to visit because I have something to give to Seongheon hyung.”
─Yes, just a moment.
Click.
I was able to take a taxi and come up to hyung’s house without any trouble. But getting home was the problem. Buses from here to home are infrequent, so I might have to call another taxi, so when I got out of the taxi I grabbed a business card.
I stuffed it deep in my pocket and hopped in place, fighting the cold.
