“Then does it have no meaning at all?”
The man asked unexpectedly gloomily, catching me a bit off guard. No, I mean, it makes me look like a heartless person.
“What I mean is, not everything is forgiven just because it’s sincere.”
“……”
“If your conscience can be settled with an apology, you should just fuck off with your life…?”
His complexion darkened further. With the feeling of becoming more and more of a bad person, my tone naturally changed to defensive.
“Even if it’s sincere. There’s no way to prove it in the first place anyway…? You can’t take it out and show it. It’s not like there’s a unit of measurement.”
“You’ll naturally come to know.”
“I think that’s exactly what delusion is.”
“You can’t be deluded.”
The man spoke in a rarely strong tone.
“Because the moment you fall, you’ll know instantly.”
“In love?”
A long silence that seemed hesitant came back. Eventually, it changed to affirmation.
“Yes.”
He quietly added:
“In love.”
His profile was bleakly sunken like a plaintive confession from some time ago. Gazing at it, I asked:
“Was it that good?”
For a moment, the driving shook enough to feel the wheels turning.
“Whoa. Why are you so surprised?”
“…Just,”
Thinking of something else for a moment. He muttered. It’s okay, I patted him soothingly.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“…What?”
“The lover talk. I just asked out of casual curiosity, whether it was that good.”
“…Ah.”
Ah. The man pronounced it once more briefly and then fell silent for a moment. He had an unfamiliar and bewildered expression as if recognizing the question for the first time.
“You were talking about that person.”
Then who have we been talking about this whole time? Feeling absurd, I asked something I’d been curious about since I opened the floodgates.
“You didn’t know you were gay until you slept with him?”
“…I’d thought about it, but never seriously considered it.”
“So you did suspect it.”
I hadn’t really intended it, but somehow it ended up looking like an interrogation. An awkward silence continued for a moment. As I was gradually thinking about changing the subject,
“Junior prom.”
He opened his mouth first.
“When I first tried with a partner, that is, with a woman.”
It was a dry and calm voice as if talking about someone else.
“I couldn’t ejaculate.”
“Mm.”
The moments when the man’s polite and dictionary-like vocabulary and honorifics are most awkward and also most sexy are exactly these. Instead of saying “came” or “finished,” the words climax and ejaculation being pronounced as inorganically and calmly as chemical symbols is incredibly erotic.
“Unlike me, she had a lot of experience and comforted me at first, saying it could fail the first time.”
“Nice girl.”
“But I think I vaguely thought it might not be that kind of problem.”
“So you became certain after doing it with your current lover?”
“Do I have to answer?”
“Huh?”
“It’s fine that you’re curious about a lot of things. It means you’ve become interested in me.”
He said with his gaze fixed forward.
“But I don’t want to make that person a topic of conversation even in passing.”
It’s a soft but cold tone. Suddenly I remembered how he’d greeted Pujo hyung. Pushing people away politely and skillfully.
“Likewise, I don’t like hearing about the people you dated coming from your mouth either.”
“Huh?”
“It feels like an unwelcome guest has intruded into our relationship.”
Surprised by the unexpected point, I released my supporting arm and straightened my back.
“Was that… the case?”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
It was a gentle sentence in suggestive form throughout. But my heart turned cold enough to make me stammer without realizing it.
“Oh… yeah. Right. I was a bit thoughtless.”
“I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying let’s focus entirely only on each other.”
When the car stopped in front of a house that didn’t look like a restaurant, the garage opened and a valet parking attendant approached. The hand that unbuckled my seatbelt held my hand as it was and intertwined like interlocking fingers.
“Isn’t that much more like a secret rendezvous, as you wanted?”
The man smiled kindly. I replied ambiguously, “Uh. Well, I guess so.” That touch caressed my hand soothingly for a while before slowly falling away as if reluctant.
“Huh? Kang Ikwon.”
It was just as we were walking through the garden and entering inside. A man wearing glasses walking toward us called out in a surprised voice. Who? The name that came from Glasses’s mouth felt unfamiliar for a moment, so I looked around, and soon realized that it was the man’s name that wasn’t yet familiar to my mouth or ears.
“I didn’t think I’d see you here. I really didn’t expect you to come.”
“Thanks to you.”
Unlike the friendly attitude of the other party, the man seemed not very pleased to run into him like this. Then, the welcoming look in Glasses’s eyes faded when he spotted me.
“…Huh?”
“Say hello.”
Kang Ikwon casually pulled my shoulder and hugged me, standing me beside him.
“This is Cha Gyujin.”
“…Huh huh?”
“We’ve been meeting with very good feelings these days.”
“You…”
You…
The same groaning sound burst out from me as well as from Glasses. He’s declaring it so easily and lightly like a dinner menu at the restaurant entrance. What did he mean about it being like a secret rendezvous? I glared at the guy inwardly and rubbed my neck with an awkward feeling. It wasn’t time to only worry about the lover’s ears who should be in a foreign land far away.
“This is Park Seoyun, a university classmate.”
Regardless of our stunned reactions, Kang Ikwon’s introduction continued.
“Cha Gyujin…”
Glasses, who seemed as flustered as me, slowly rolled my name in his mouth as if confirming it.
“Cha Gyujin.”
“Hello. Uh…”
I tried to add an introduction but had nothing to say, so I just ended it.
“…Something like that.”
“If the greeting is over, let’s go.”
Kang Ikwon said with an attitude so refreshing it was cold. The hand holding my shoulder was soft but strangely forceful. Park Seoyun, who had been standing still like someone struck by lightning, grabbed my arm as we passed and belatedly offered a greeting.
“—Hello.”
“Yes… well, I’m fine.”
But you don’t look fine.
As if peering into my conflicted feelings, Park Seoyun pressed in while offering a handshake, as if to say you’re not in a position to worry about anyone.
“Nice to meet you, Cha Gyujin. May I ask what you mean by ‘something like that’?”
“No. I don’t really know either, so just hear it and let it go.”
I replied as we clasped hands. That’s right. What should I introduce myself as to Kang Ikwon?
It was when Park Seoyun, who had been alternately looking at me and Kang Ikwon as if observing, was just about to bring up someone’s name.
“Perhaps Jiho—”
“That doesn’t seem like a name that should come up here.”
Kang Ikwon, who had been looking at us with a displeased face, cut in sharply as if slicing with a knife.
It’s the lover.
I instinctively felt it in his decisive tone of cutting it off. Park Seoyun didn’t seem embarrassed by Kang Ikwon’s reaction, which would have been awkward. He still didn’t take his eyes off me and slowly, slowly nodded his head.
“Then… let’s talk later.”
“Even later, it’s the same.”
Kang Ikwon was cold. It couldn’t be pleasant for the lover’s story to come up in front of me, but this blatant blocking was also uncomfortable in its own way… Park Seoyun finally turned his gaze toward Kang Ikwon. A suffocating current flowed between the two glaring at each other for a moment. I twisted my fingers with an uncomfortable feeling. Ah, it’s not even a three-way confrontation but already this atmosphere.
“I apologize, Cha Gyujin.”
At the end of the subtle staring contest with Kang Ikwon, surprisingly, Park Seoyun offered a clean and straightforward apology. He was indeed a friend of Kang Ikwon who fit the saying “birds of a feather.” Neat attire, proper posture, natural manners ingrained in him even in this situation. From the circumstances, he seemed to know Kang Ikwon’s lover well, yet he treated me with polite courtesy instead of contemptuous looks. What was in his eyes looking at me was even closer to sympathetic goodwill.
“I’m sorry if my attitude was unpleasant.”
