“Great personality.”
Then, after a beat, he sneered:
“I think you’re kind of the worst, actually.”
Nunbi was still squeezing the water parsley in a death grip, but he held his ground and shot back.
“….”
“….”
A brief silence. Woonjeong fixed Nunbi with that same unreadable gaze and said nothing. The sound of the waterfall was loud.
“That’s just how I am.”
Woonjeong answered. Then he looked at Nunbi and smiled — easy, unhurried. Nunbi was so caught off guard that he parted his lips without even realizing it. He admits it just like that…. It left him so dumbfounded that he swallowed a sigh whole. If this was how the man operated, everything was going to be a challenge.
“Boring.”
Woonjeong turned away. Boring? Ha. Nunbi pulled a face — strange, this person is genuinely strange — and stood there cycling through breaths before he got his head back together. Then he quickly rearranged the water parsley poking out from every direction in his bundle. The boy straightened up, limped out from the water’s edge, and on impulse threw his words at Woonjeong’s back, already several paces ahead.
“Hey! Just so you know, I have no intention of fighting with you.”
At Nunbi’s voice, Woonjeong stopped where he was.
“I mean it. I hate making problems.”
It was true that the guest had been on his mind — but no matter how he thought about it, Nunbi had no desire to get tangled up with Woonjeong. That went for good ways as much as bad. Woonjeong turned around, unhurried. He stood with his weight shifted to one side and pushed the damp hair back from his face.
Nunbi pressed on, unflinching.
“I don’t know how long you’ll be staying here. But we’ll have to see each other’s faces for a while either way, and if things are uncomfortable between us, you never stop thinking about it. We don’t need to be close or anything, but….”
There was nothing to gain from making each other’s days harder. Woonjeong regarded him with an expression that was hard to read.
“Just don’t pick fights for no reason.”
Nunbi said that, then immediately glanced away, wondering if he’d gone too far. He had no intention of just lying down and taking it if Woonjeong provoked him — but he wasn’t looking for a quarrel right now either, so that ought to be enough. Nunbi passed quietly around Woonjeong and made his way out from the water’s edge. Come to think of it, a fair bit of time must have passed. If he dawdled any longer, he might not make it back before the dharma service ended.
“I have to head back now. Are you staying longer?”
“You really don’t cry easily, do you? Doesn’t match how you look.”
Woonjeong said it out of nowhere, aimed at Nunbi hugging his armful of water parsley.
“What?”
What was that supposed to mean. The randomness of it threw Nunbi off slightly. Come to think of it, things had been like this for a while now. And that bit about how he looked — it was almost like…. What. Like someone who wanted to see Nunbi cry. Nunbi tilted his head.
“Well…. There’s nothing to cry about. You cry when there’s something worth crying over.”
“Is that so?”
Whatever was going through his head, Woonjeong just pulled the corners of his mouth up into that easy smile when Nunbi said that. The meaning behind it was completely beyond Nunbi — but he’d just decided to stop trying to understand Woonjeong, so he let it go: Sure, I guess so. My answer must have been funny. This person seemed determined to get a look at Nunbi crying. It wasn’t going to happen with Woonjeong, of all people. To Nunbi’s eyes, Woonjeong could be sharp sometimes, and his inner workings were unreadable — but at the end of the day he was just a rich young master who didn’t know how the world worked. The type who’d whine whenever things didn’t go his way, which put him nowhere near Nunbi’s level — someone who’d lived through more than his share of hardship and heard more than his share of things no one should have to hear.
Ah. A thought surfaced as Nunbi turned it over. Could that be it? Of course! This young master in front of him was the type to whine when things didn’t go his way, so of course staying at a temple wouldn’t be to his liking. In which case, maybe….
“….”
Woonjeong might be stuck here against his will, and that frustration was spilling onto Nunbi for no good reason. Nunbi owed a great deal to that family. Not because anyone had told him to, but out of something like a feeling of debt — that was why he kept finding himself thinking about Woonjeong. So after a brief hesitation, the boy said:
“Um…. Actually, if there’s anything you need while you’re here —”
He tacked it on.
“You can tell me. I’ll help.”
Woonjeong just smiled quietly at that. Like he didn’t quite follow.
“Why would you help me?”
Nunbi went quiet again. What do I say to that? But in the next moment, the look on Woonjeong’s face shifted — slowly, gradually easing — and Nunbi couldn’t help opening his eyes a little wider in surprise. What was that? The air around him seemed to change all at once again. This time something seemed to dissolve. Or had that been his imagination?
“You’re too good-natured. Offering to help me like that.”
Woonjeong stepped closer. One step, then another. Nunbi drew his shoulders in without thinking.
“If you were going to do that anyway, you could’ve done it sooner. That day when you ran off — I ended up cleaning up that tray all by myself.”
A low, quiet murmur. The boy, who had braced himself with his eyes half-shut, was genuinely surprised by what followed.
“Really? You…. cleaned it up yourself?”
“Who else was going to?”
Nunbi had been thinking, Well, obviously not you — the Bosal devotees would have handled it — before he reconsidered and kept his mouth shut. A soft breeze was playing over the stream. The air, the current — everything felt fresh. Somehow, Woonjeong didn’t seem interested in getting a rise out of Nunbi anymore.
“You’re lying.”
Nunbi said it flatly, and Woonjeong let out a small laugh.
“…Really?”
Summer sunlight glittered in front of him. Woonjeong glittered too.
“That day…. I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
In the end, Nunbi said it in a small, deflated voice. Strictly speaking, he hadn’t so much flipped the tray as lost his grip on it — but still, if Nunbi had been a little less worked up that day, held the edge of the tray just a little more firmly, it wouldn’t have come to that. Even if the whole thing had started because a certain precious young master had acted out of line. That he’d cleaned it up himself — that part was genuinely unexpected.
“That’s not something you need to apologize for.”
Woonjeong said it, and Nunbi looked at him, puzzled.
“You weren’t asking me to apologize?”
“….”
“You weren’t?”
He asked again, getting no answer. Woonjeong had gone expressionless for a moment, but then he let out a small laugh.
“You don’t let a single thing go.”
Nunbi felt a quiet triumph bloom somewhere inside him. It was deeply satisfying. Anyway, Woonjeong pushed his head back through the shirt he’d set aside. The moment a breeze carrying the scent of early summer grass drifted across the stream, the guest stood in front of Nunbi — put together again — and smiled.
“Do we have to go back soon? It feels a little soon.”
The moment he said it, meeting Nunbi’s eyes quietly.
“….”
A cool breeze came and moved through Nunbi. The sound of leaves brushing together. The glinting ripples of the stream. Cicadas. Just then, a branch swayed in the wind, and bright sunlight broke apart across Woonjeong’s beautiful face. Was that why? Woonjeong was shining. He was luminous. The face that had been picking fights just moments ago was now radiant and unguarded, as if none of it had ever happened. And in that instant, for the second time, Nunbi felt a premonition of something.
Strange. The idea of being friends — it was probably better to put that away. An instinct told him to just keep things distant and let it be, and Nunbi’s instincts like that were usually right.
“I…. was told not to go out, but I snuck out.”
Nunbi turned his gaze away and answered quickly. All of a sudden a chill passed through his chest. He felt like he needed to get back soon. It was strange. The sunlight, the ripples on the water — as if by agreement, they moved across Woonjeong’s face, glittering here and there like they were showing off. That scene was bright even to Nunbi’s sparse experience of beauty, and maybe there was no reason at all to look away from it. And yet, strange as it was — Nunbi didn’t want to look. No — it felt like he shouldn’t.
“Same as me, then. I snuck out too.”
Woonjeong looked brighter than the early summer playing across his face. Nunbi nodded, as if he had nothing particular to say to that, and simply turned away. It was because he had an inexplicable feeling that he needed to put some distance between them.
“But you, though —”
