“The gossipy ones chew on me whether I’m alone or with someone.”
“Still, rumors are what chisel the protruding stone. And you don’t know anything about him either. A guy like that appearing so suddenly…”
“He hasn’t been around, so there’s no rumors, right?”
I didn’t bother mentioning he came from America. Hyung, not knowing the guy’s tearful circumstances, muttered without hiding his disapproval.
“He didn’t seem as docile as you say…”
“Hyung. If you have something to say, just say it directly.”
I tapped his shoulder and added firmly.
“Or don’t bring it up at all.”
Hyung, who’d been opening and closing his mouth for a moment, just shooed me away. Carrying the loving advice of a battle-hardened veteran growing old in this scene, I headed toward the man waiting for me. The guy who would normally insist on going out first to have the car waiting like a chauffeur obediently listened to me today. No, sticking right next to me, looking like he wouldn’t leave for even a moment, exactly like a dispirited child—my heart ached. Deflated like this over one cup? His feelings are too tender to even play pranks.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
When I stared because I was bothered that I couldn’t say a word to Pujo hyung about his thoughtless harsh comment, a slightly flustered look crossed his face. When I said “Because you’re cute,” the man smiled saying “That’s not bad.”
It’s still March but the wind is already mild like spring. When I took out the cigarette I couldn’t light earlier, he naturally stopped with me and offered.
“You can smoke in the car. Don’t do that outside when it’s cold.”
“That’s my line. Get in the car.”
I originally didn’t like the smell of cigarettes permeating someone else’s car, especially a nice car, but after hearing what he said earlier, I liked it even less. Smoke in the car, get in the car—we bickered like good brothers tossing a haystack back and forth over one cigarette, and I ended up losing.
“No, why would you stand there awkwardly next to someone smoking?”
“This is much better than waiting alone in the car.”
“Really peculiar.”
When I lit it, he stood with his back to the wind direction as if to block it. Thanks to his tall height, his shadow covered me widely like shade.
“Is watching someone smoke fascinating to you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then is it because I look cool smoking?”
He closes his mouth without answering. He’s handsome from every angle, but that face when I say something weird and he’s a bit troubled yet earnestly searching for an answer is really cute.
“Should I look in a mirror?”
At my words popping out suddenly, the man who’d been obediently searching his pockets said with a troubled expression.
“I don’t have a mirror right now…”
“It’s a joke.”
I giggled and hit his shoulder. Being with him sometimes made me feel like a hoodlum harassing a maiden.
“I was saying I’d check if I really look that cool. Geez, there’s no joke as lame as one I have to explain myself.”
“Ah.”
“Really. The more I see you, the cuter you are, I could die…”
I muttered and exhaled smoke. Maybe it’s my imagination, but cigarettes taste better when I’m with the man. Not the leisurely post-meal relaxation, but a subtly stimulating savory taste like a tightly tensed fuse. It might be because of the persistent gaze licking me up as if to devour me.
“The guys I dated sometimes said that. That it turned them on when I smoked…”
I wondered if you were the same.
I laughed alone, but no answer came back. Geez, me. This is awkward.
“Hey. Do I have to explain this joke too…”
The moment I turned my head, my lips were blocked. The smoke I couldn’t exhale was swallowed by him along with my breath. Unlike the momentum that came at me aggressively, biting flesh unexpectedly, his tongue lingered moistly then separated stickily. Still with his gaze nailed to my lips, he spoke matter-of-factly at a distance where breath touched and broke apart.
“It really is true.”
“Huh?”
“That it turns me on.”
Passing through announcer-like proper intonation and polite sentences, even familiar vulgar words became unfamiliar. He straightened his posture and fastened my collar with his usual gentle touch without any sense of incongruity. He pulled out the cigarette that had been burning helplessly, rubbed it against the wall to extinguish it, and stroked my cheek that had grown cold in the meantime. His fingertips, the same temperature as my cheek, went down to my chin and grazed my Adam’s apple.
“So from now on, it would be best to smoke only in front of me.”
I nodded halfheartedly.
***
“Play around quietly somewhere people can’t see you too much. You two stand out too much as a set.”
Pujo hyung’s advice didn’t exactly shake my heart, but it’s true that it caused gentle ripples. At the center of the waves that wouldn’t settle even after several days was him, not me.
As I was being docilely loaded into the car that came to pick me up as usual, I suddenly asked:
“Hey. We’re having an affair, right?”
A response came calmly, one beat late to the out-of-the-blue question.
“As I recall, that was the nature of the proposal.”
“Is this okay?”
“Is it not?”
“No. I mean, an affair is…”
When he asked back so confidently, I was left speechless.
“More like, how should I say, just the two of us.”
“Hmm. In what way?”
“Breathless and secretive like a secret rendezvous…”
My words became increasingly tangled and only my meaningless hand gestures grew larger. I rambled on:
“Thrilling.”
“I see. I thought we were already getting that kind of stimulation in bed.”
A slightly mischievous smile crossed his lips.
“If it’s not enough, I’m certainly welcoming, of course.”
“Never mind. What am I even saying…”
I closed my mouth, looking like I’d been shut down while making an argument that wouldn’t come together. When I smacked his shoulder with a thwack at the man who was grinning annoyingly, he laughed out loud.
Except for the occasionally discordant tone or conversation, the man laughed more, was friendlier, and warmer than I’d thought. The polite attitude that had felt as stiff as his way of speaking gradually became softer and gentler as time passed. The time we spent together was, honestly, close to the healthiest and most ideal romantic relationship I’d ever experienced. No one would catch any gloomy smell of cheating or affair from us. Even I sometimes forget that fact. Pujo hyung’s words, though different from his intention, reminded me of reality.
“Do other people’s eyes bother you?”
“It’s not me, it’s you who’s the problem. I have no reputation to worry about.”
I don’t have any reputation to lose anyway.
He was silent for a moment. Neither the hands gripping the steering wheel nor the face looking straight ahead showed any particular disturbance, remaining calm. At the next signal, his mouth opened when we stopped.
“That person isn’t even in Korea right now anyway.”
“But doesn’t that mean they’ll come eventually?”
“It doesn’t matter. I thought you proposed this with at least that much in mind from the beginning. Wasn’t that the case?”
A surprisingly calm and businesslike answer came back.
“Well, it’s true I did it to piss them off.”
“I’m still grateful for that proposal.”
“But I don’t really have any great justification or resolve. Not then, not now.”
“Then I’ll have enough of that for both of us.”
The man smiled.
“Even if they find out, it won’t be a problem anyway.”
“You don’t know this, but usually those types make an even bigger fuss when the same thing happens to them.”
“Experience?”
“That’s right.”
I said indifferently.
“I just asked. I was confused whether you were doing this knowingly or if you lacked awareness. You have a bit of a clueless side.”
“Is that so…”
The man smiled ambiguously.
“Yeah, normally people hide this desperately. Except for perverts who enjoy this kind of thing.”
“Haha.”
“Though, well, there was someone like that. Going around everywhere with me without any fear.”
With my arm behind my neck, leaning back comfortably, I traced a memory that casually came to mind.
“Didn’t I tell you? I didn’t even know I was the second. Then I apparently came face to face with the real lover. The shameless bastard turned completely pale.”
“I see…”
“And then I got dumped right away.”
While I was used to tears of separation, it was my first absurd experience of someone crying saying it was unfair. Even in my dirty mood, I think I stared for a while because it was so strange and I was dazed.
‘I like you. These feelings are sincere.’
I don’t know what was so unfair about it, but even while dumping me, they cried more sorrowfully. The last words were something else too.
‘But why do I have to choose just one of you?’
The proof of shamelessness that one can cheat while genuinely liking someone, the selfish self-love of being upset about one’s own loss while hurting someone. That memory was quite intense, so unlike other breakups that were pulverized into colorless and odorless dust, it remained as a deep aftertaste. That hollow aftereffect lasted a long time in a complex way. Maybe it’s still ongoing. What I gained from that incident was at best the depressing lesson of, ah, if love is just that much, I just want to live lightly and happily fucking around.
“Why do people like that always say the same thing? That only their feelings of liking someone were sincere.”
If they’re sincere, that’s even worse. A cutting remark popped out without me realizing. I felt the gaze watching me from the corner of his eye, but I didn’t feel like pouring out an unpleasant past story in detail. Even knowing it would seem like venting at the wrong person who didn’t know the circumstances, I muttered to myself:
“What’s so great about their sincerity… Does it have some special meaning?”
