Along with those words, the child pressed the call button and answered the phone. Before he could snatch it away saying “no,” the call connected. From the other end of the line came a voice asking “Hello?” in a sleepy tone.
“Oh, hello.”
—Hyung, what are you doing today?
At the sudden question, Seo-an scratched his eyebrow awkwardly. Ji-yu’s eyes sparkled again as she grabbed the edge of the table and bounced up and down. The child’s gestures were full of pure anticipation.
In the end, Seo-an replied with a voice mixed with a sigh.
“Uh… I promised to go to the amusement park with Ji-yu today,”
—Amusement park? Awesome, hyung goes to places like that too?
“Mm, yeah. Ji-yu wants to go. Why did you call?”
Seo-an pushed the child out of his line of sight and asked why Hae-won had called first. He thought maybe if the conversation shifted elsewhere, they could naturally skip over the amusement park topic. Coaxing and soothing the child would be his job, but it would definitely be better than going with Hae-won.
Seo-an, who had climbed onto the sofa, stroked Ji-yu’s head. The child, who rested her chin on his thigh and swayed her body, seemed to want to go to the amusement park with Hae-won as soon as possible.
—I was going to ask to take hyung and Ji-yu to the amusement park today.
The words that came through were a single line that clearly showed Hae-won’s cheeky personality.
“Don’t joke around…”
Seo-an replied in an absurd voice.
Right away, Hae-won hurriedly continued speaking.
—I was originally just going to suggest eating together, but amusement park? I want to go too. Can I go?
“No, Hae-won-ah. You were with the kid all week long, and even on the weekend…”
There’s no need for that, just rest. Let’s have dinner together. He was trying to say that, but the child’s fern-like small hand suddenly blocked his mouth. His expression naturally frowned at the hand that hit his lips hard enough to make a “thwack!” sound, but the child didn’t care and shook her head vigorously and shouted.
“Nooo! Samchon, samchon! Samchon’s going to go, right? Samchon’s getting ready to go!”
What followed was a hearty laugh.
—Ji-yu really likes samchon, huh?
“Yeah! Ji-yu likes samchon. Samchon, samchon! When we get there, ask daddy to buy you something yummy!”
—Ask Ji-yu’s daddy?
“No? Ask samchon’s daddy. Ji-yu’s daddy has to buy Ji-yu something yummy.”
Why is she so firm about this too?
Another big laugh burst out from the other end of the line, but Seo-an couldn’t just laugh. What if he goes on about this being another chance or something. He barely managed to think it would be nice to just comfortably maintain their relationship as next-door neighbors, just that level of relationship. He was also afraid he might want to forcibly piece the fragments back together.
But that was purely his own circumstances.
—Hyung, then I’ll get ready and head out.
At the phone that cut off right after, Seo-an could only let out a long sigh. The situation ended while he was too dumbfounded to say anything.
“Kwon Ji-yu, you don’t hit daddy’s lips like that. Who hits daddy?”
Even with his energy completely drained, he didn’t forget to correct the child’s behavior.
“Mm. Sowwy.”
At the dejected voice that followed and the cute hand stroking his lips, he ended up patting her head after all.
While getting the child ready, Seo-an kept holding his phone the whole time, inwardly wondering if a message would come saying it was a joke, or that no matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t go to the amusement park after all.
But what message?
“Yo.”
A very happy-looking Hae-won was standing right in front of the door.
Seo-an hesitated at the sight of him as soon as he opened the door. What “yo.” Being dumbfounded at the cheerful vagabond-like greeting was only for a moment.
“Yo!”
Ji-yu copied it exactly.
“Is that like your own special greeting or something?”
“Yeah. Funny, right?”
Ji-yu let out a bright, cheerful laugh.
With one hand stretched straight up and simultaneously sticking out her belly while saying “yo,” the form was so alive it was beyond absurd.
“What have you been teaching the kid?”
“What do you mean? It’s a cool guy’s greeting. Right, Ji-yu?”
“Yeah!”
What cool guy. Even though it was absurd that he was doing this with a four-year-old, watching the two of them both going “yooo!” in the same pose just made him squeeze his eyes shut.
What are they really trying to do like that…
Still reluctant, just as he let out a deep sigh, Hae-won naturally stood next to Seo-an.
“What to do, hyung keeps saying no but the kid keeps saying yes, so it’s quite troublesome, isn’t it?”
At the low whisper, he could only bite down hard on his lower lip.
02.
Seo-an realized once again that roaming around an amusement park with a child wasn’t something that could be done with ordinary stamina. Had his memory been temporarily beautified since he hadn’t taken her around recently?
He thought something like an amusement park would be no problem, but boy was he wrong. Regardless of the perfect weather for playing, he could only feel how tremendous the child’s stamina was. On top of that, once she got fixated on something, they had to repeat it infinitely, so the child was already riding the same ride for who knows how many times.
“Daddyyy!”
From over there, from the moment she could see him until she disappeared. Listening to the sound getting closer from left to right then farther away, Seo-an smiled brightly when the child was in front of him, then let out an exhausted “haa” breath in the gap when the child moved away. Then Hae-won grinned and lightly nudged Seo-an’s shoulder.
“What would you have done without me? Good thing I tagged along, right?”
“I know…”
This time it was sincere.
He didn’t know how fortunate it was to have at least Hae-won here. Having someone to hand the child to when he was tired of holding her, being able to occasionally pretend not to notice and entrust the child to him thanks to being bigger and more built than himself — at least for Seo-an right now, that was a great comfort.
Still, it didn’t seem to be this bad before. The stamina that had drastically decreased while working at the company made him realize the limits of an office worker who sat down to work every day.
“But, being like this—”
Just as Hae-won was about to say something, once again from over there, the sound of “Samchoooon!” gradually got closer. Then whoosh, it moved away. Instead of another response, Seo-an answered by nodding his head.
Hae-won, who had closed his mouth and smiled prettily while waving at the child in the meantime, still looked for Ji-yu with his gaze and said.
“It reminds me of the old days.”
“The old days?”
“Yeah, we went to places like this too. Two big guys even wearing headbands. We took lots of pictures too.”
“……”
For a moment, Seo-an bit his lip tightly.
There was no way he didn’t know which time he was talking about. He remembered Hae-won suddenly coming to find him, grabbing his arm saying let’s go out. He had asked several times where they were going, and the answer that came back was “you’ll know once we get there.” And the place they arrived at was an amusement park.
At first it was bewildering, but that was only for a moment. Hanging out with Hae-won quickly improved his mood, and he had much more energy than usual.
On top of that, why did he want to do everything Hae-won suggested that day? Not only did he take photos, which he usually didn’t take much, but he also didn’t push away Hae-won’s arm draped over his shoulders. He didn’t even mind the people glancing at them because they were wearing matching headbands.
Was that all? On the way back, they sat side by side on the subway, resting their heads on each other’s shoulders and even dozed off. And then when they parted in front of the house…
“It was good, wasn’t it?”
At Hae-won’s words, Seo-an slowly looked at him.
It definitely was good. And that was in the past tense.
“That’s something you do when you’re young.”
After briefly ending his recollection, Seo-an spread his arms toward the child who was struggling to get off the ride. When he smiled welcomingly saying “Ji-yu,” the sound of the young child’s footsteps kicking off the ground became even more hurried.
It became awkward to look at Hae-won. Not simply because he recalled the past, but because the gaze staring at him from right next to him was too blatant. Seo-an deliberately didn’t even give a glance in that direction and rubbed Ji-yu’s cheeks that had turned rosy from the cold wind.
“Ji-yu, aren’t you hungry?”
“Mm, not hungry.”
“But Hae-won is hungry.”
“…Huh?”
“I’m hungry though. When are we eating? Ha, is it because I’m not getting attention? No matter how much I eat, I just get hungrier.”
Hae-won, who had been smiling quite maturely until just now, started grumbling noticeably. Even Seo-an could easily sense that it was because of his reaction.
Even so, Hae-won swiftly picked up the child who was grabbing onto Seo-an’s pant leg and whining to be held. After completely supporting her bottom with his solid arms, he even helped the child drape her arms around the back of his neck so she could lean comfortably. Perhaps having become quite comfortable from seeing him fairly often now, the child comfortably leaned her cheek against Hae-won’s shoulder.
Since Ji-yu happened to only want to ride rides for young children, they, who were taller than average, couldn’t ride together. Because of that, all they could do together was walk around like this, but the child was smiling brightly as if that alone was good enough.
“Samchon, are you hungry?”
