“……N-no!”
I forgot about being wary of Banye just moments ago and spoke loudly.
“I’m telling you it’s fine. You can take your time finding a part-time job.”
“…….”
Perhaps thinking it was just lip service, Banye remained silent, staring only at the empty plate.
That expression somehow looked pitiful, so I grabbed Banye’s wrist. Banye rolled his eyes to look at me. Pretty eyes mixed with distrust and wariness scanned me over.
I spoke earnestly to that expression.
“It’s hard to find part-time work these days with the recession. And, like last time, you can’t just go somewhere recklessly just because you got accepted……. What if it’s some s-strange part-time job?”
Of course, I’d never once looked for a part-time job myself, but I’d lived two more years than Banye, so I figured I could give this level of lecture(?). Banye also quietly listened to what I said.
While saying that, I rambled on to Banye about everything I knew.
When I rattled off stories about people I’d seen on the news who were used as cash carriers for voice phishing scams, Banye fidgeted with his ear as if he found it somewhat unpleasant to listen to. Still, he didn’t snap at me to stop talking.
I watched Banye touching his earlobe and figured he must have understood by now, so I asked once more.
“Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good……. So, don’t get all anxious and try to do just anything. You can stay as long as you need.”
“…….”
After hearing my words, Banye hesitated and looked at me. The face I met had a genuinely puzzled expression on it for the first time.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Hm?”
“I haven’t really done anything for you, hyung, so it’s weird that you’re being nice to me.”
It was a very Banye-like thing to say, yet somehow even I found that answer wasn’t so easy to come by.
Sweat built up in my hand that had boldly grabbed Banye’s wrist. Also, my face strangely felt hot. Unlike when I’d looked straight at him while talking about part-time work, I somehow felt embarrassed to look at Banye’s face.
In the end, I quietly let go of his wrist and mumbled while turning my gaze away.
“Well……. You and I have a s-special connection…….”
“Special?”
“Yeah……. I’ve never met someone like this before, I…….”
But then, Banye asked a question that completely shattered my mood once again.
“Haven’t you met separately with Sisi too?”
“Why are you bringing up Sisi!”
I yelled out.
Without showing a single sign of being sorry, Banye asked again, “Haven’t you met?” I snapped back, “I haven’t!”
Only then did Banye apologize to me.
Of course, it was a face that didn’t look sorry at all.
* * *
After that day, Banye’s attitude changed subtly. First, his range of activity in the house expanded a bit.
When he came home, he was always either at the dining table or at my room’s desk only when I was there, and most of the time he was holed up in his room, but lately he also sat on the living room sofa, sometimes went into my room to use the laptop even when I wasn’t there, and when I wasn’t sleeping, he took naps on my bed.
It seemed Banye was used to bed life, and sleeping on the floor must have been tiring for him. Since he seemed to like the bed, I asked, ‘Want to sleep together?’ but he didn’t answer, probably because he was too shy about that.
And secondly, he said he would cook.
I mainly ate instant rice with 3-minute curry or boiled ramen, but after eating like that for about a week, Banye said it was too greasy and asked to buy groceries.
So we went grocery shopping together, and Banye unexpectedly knew how to cook. It wasn’t incredibly delicious, but it was definitely lighter and less salty than instant food.
When I said it was amazing that he knew how to make simple soup and side dishes, from then on Banye searched the internet for side dishes or one-pan pasta and made them for me. In return, I did the dishes, cleaned the room, and organized things as Banye instructed.
Actually, there was a storage room in the house where I’d shoved all the things I didn’t know how to organize at once, and when Banye saw it, he made me organize a few items at a time each day…….
As I’d noticed from when Banye organized my inventory before, he had a knack for dividing things into sections and organizing them separately.
I was able to organize things in my house that I didn’t even know I had thanks to Banye’s help. The messy room that had been used as storage looked much better too.
However, the problem was that while organizing the storage, some dark history from the past was excavated along with it.
“To Dajeong?”
“Hm? ……Ah, w-wait! Don’t look at that! Don’t open it!”
Banye ended up discovering a letter I’d written to give to Kwon Dajeong when I was crazy about him, and as soon as it got into Banye’s hands, I jumped up trying to snatch it away, but my height couldn’t reach Banye.
Banye lifted it up high, then removed the letter envelope and started reading it while standing there nonchalantly.
I shouted at Banye, too humiliated.
“Why are you reading it! I said don’t read it!”
“…….”
But Banye silently forced himself to read the entire letter.
It was only a few lines, but because I’d written a bunch of cringe-inducing things like saying I liked him, and that I’d give him this letter when we met, I felt so upset and annoyed.
I was about to hit Banye, but remembering the fierceness with which he’d kicked the trash can, I couldn’t do either and ended up just going into my room and slamming! the door.
But soon the door opened, and Banye followed me in, holding the letter fluttering in his hand.
“Did you write this to give to Sisi?”
“…….”
Instead of answering, I hugged my pillow and glared at him. At this moment, I hated Banye more than Kwon Dajeong.
But whether I glared at him or not, Banye didn’t care and plopped down on the edge of the bed where I was sitting. Then he stretched his hand out to me. At the tip of that hand, the letter dangled.
“Aren’t you really going too far……?”
I looked at Banye like that and spoke while grinding my molars. There are things you can joke about and things you can’t…….
But Banye paid no attention to my attitude.
“Hyung looks at all my stuff these days too.”
“……What?”
“The laptop is yours, hyung, so if you wanted to, you could look at all my messenger stuff and everything.”
I threw the pillow I was holding to the side at Banye’s sophistry and shouted.
“Hey! Are you joking?! When have I ever read a love letter you wrote?!”
“I don’t write things like that, so you can’t see them. That’s why, who told you to cherish it so preciously…….”
“……Wh-what?”
I couldn’t believe Banye’s sarcastic words and widened my eyes, but Banye actually smirked and then took back my letter that I hadn’t grabbed and tucked it away.
Somehow it seemed he wasn’t going to give it back, so I reached out again.
“What! Give it back!”
“You didn’t take it when I offered.”
“It’s mine!”
And absurdly, Banye really didn’t give that letter back to me.
* * *
I had a cold war with Banye for three days over that incident, but Banye treated me the same as usual even though I was sulking and acting cold.
He talked to me the same, slept on my bed during the day, and called me to eat at every meal. In the end, I ended up getting over my anger halfheartedly without finding where the letter went.
Today too, I poked the back of Banye, who was brazenly napping on my bed, and said.
“……If you do that again next time, I’ll absolutely never forgive you.”
Banye opened his eyes slightly, got up, and asked.
“Do you have another letter like this?”
“What? I don’t! You really……!”
Still, I had my pride so I tried to give him a stern warning, but Banye half-listened to my words and didn’t apologize.
I was about to get annoyed, but Banye slowly blinked and said to me.
“I put it in your drawer, hyung.”
“What?”
“The letter.”
While saying that, he gestured with his chin toward the desk drawer. I immediately opened the desk drawer and found my letter neatly folded there.
I felt a strange feeling for a moment. I thought maybe he found it disgusting that a guy wrote a letter to another guy, so I felt upset…….
I asked sulkily.
“……Why did you tease me if you were going to give it back?”
Banye was silent for a while, then looked at the wall and replied.
“I felt like teasing you.”
“……That’s too much.”
Still, since I got the letter back, my mood improved a lot, so I hung out with Banye like usual.
However…….
Of all days, on that day, I ended up watching on NewTube the edited video that Sisi had uploaded of the live stream from last time.
Moreover, in that edited version, I saw him saying things as if he had me in mind, and my mood was completely ruined.
