Leaning against the tree amid the awkward silence, my head, drained of strength, kept tilting downward. In my lowered field of vision, Choi Seol’s broad shoulders swayed gently. He’s really tall. Now that I thought about it, his chest had been pretty broad too. Broad enough that I’d fit snugly against it…
Get a grip. Shaking my head against the heat rising in me again, I tried to straighten my posture, but Choi Seol’s sharp glance made me give that up too. In the end, I obediently turned my eyes toward the stream.
Before long, my sweat-dampened bangs swayed in the cool breeze. As the heat filling my head gradually faded, the tension drained away with it. All the strength left my body. Everything around was quiet, and the rustling wind and the wide shade sheltering me felt good.
It was while I’d forgotten Choi Seol was even beside me, my eyes closed, that—
“I have this book.”
I thought I heard the sound of pages turning, and then a noticeably softer voice reached me. Opening my eyes again and turning my head, I saw a familiar book in Choi Seol’s hand. Trying to recall where I’d seen it, I shifted my gaze and noticed my book bag slung right beside him.
“That’s my boo—”
“Looks like you borrowed it from the library. Did you check out the whole series?”
“…No, just that one volume.”
It was such a popular fantasy novel that when I’d gone to the library, only volume one had been left. The rest had no telling when they’d be available.
“I have the whole series. Want me to lend them to you?”
At the unexpected words, my eyes went wide.
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll bring them tomorrow.”
“…Really?”
When I asked again, unable to believe it, Choi Seol’s brow furrowed.
“You think I’m lying?”
“No, that’s not it… I’m just happy.”
Honestly, even Choi Seol lending me something at all felt unreal, and on top of that, it was a book I actually liked. It felt like a dream. But sensing that asking again would surely ruin things, I lowered my eyes to the ground and mumbled timidly.
“I’m just really happy. Thank you.”
Even to my own ears, my voice sounded quite shy. With my face already flushed from the heat, I must have looked pretty ridiculous to Choi Seol. But there was no response. After a long silence, I slowly lifted my head to find Choi Seol staring intently at me. At the look in his eyes, like he was seeing something rather strange, I unconsciously touched the back of my hand to my cheek.
Did it get too red again? Being the type prone to flushing easily, I’d often been teased about that on top of my name. Worried the book offer might fall through if I messed this up, I stayed still and glum, when suddenly a heavy scent rushed toward me. At the same time, Choi Seol’s face drew close right in front of mine. A hand touched my forehead, then his forehead touched mine.
“Doesn’t seem like you have a fever.”
“…….”
For a moment, silence stretched on like that. His mouth, which had been examining me with near-serious sharpness, soon curved gently as he gave a short laugh. Then he straightened the waist he’d bent and slung the bag over his shoulder.
“I’ll head back now. You rest a bit more before you move. I’ll swap the bags back tomorrow at school.”
As it turned out, what Choi Seol had taken was my bag. Before I could even say anything, he calmly crossed over to the sidewalk behind the tree, leaving only his own bag behind.
I couldn’t move. Nothing was physically restraining my body, but it felt like I’d been bound tight by a snare.
What was that just now? It had seemed like he was just checking my temperature, but even so—his palm had touched me, his forehead had touched me, and then… something extremely hot had touched me too. The moment I realized that heat had been his body temperature, my face flared up.
Neither the leaves shielding me from the scorching sun nor the breeze blowing in off the stream could take that heat away. The day was hot, and this place I’d come to in order to cool off from the heat was far too hot.
Maybe, on a day like this, in this kind of heatwave, it was only natural.
I just decided to think that way.
A sweltering midsummer day, longing so badly for winter. It was because of that kind of day that I’d been shaken.
I foolishly believed that.
*
“Ugh, dust.”
Pulling out a book that had been left neglected under the bookshelf for a whole week, a thick clump of old dust came along with it. Wincing, I brushed off the dust and checked the cover front and back. Thankfully, aside from one dead, withered spider stuck to it, the book was clean. Still, I didn’t feel great about it. This was a book I’d kept carefully wrapped in plastic and treasured for the past ten years. And here I’d left it sitting in a pile of dust for a whole week. If I hadn’t given up thirty minutes of my morning sleep today and woken up early, I probably wouldn’t have worked up the nerve to even take it out today either.
“This is all because of your original owner.”
Clutching the book and muttering excuses as if to dodge responsibility, I was about to get up when the sound of footsteps on the wooden floor of the porch grew closer. The moment the alarm bell rang in my head, I shoved the book right back into the dust pile.
“You’re up early?”
Sorry, book. Forgive your pathetic owner.
Holding back tears, I gave an awkward smile to Choi Seol, who’d just stepped over the threshold.
“My eyes just opened on their own. Looks like you finished your walk early today too. Doesn’t it usually take about an hour when you go out?”
“Today I jogged lightly to that pond you told me about and came back. It’s a pretty good route for a walk.”
Isn’t that not really a walk, though? I asked again, doubting my ears.
“You went all the way there and back? That round trip that takes thirty minutes?”
“It only takes about fifteen minutes if you run.”
This guy’s relentless. Same difference.
The path along the rice paddies that he’d run, the one he said—it had been nicely paved a few years back during construction, making it a decent route for walking. Even so, with no shade at all, it wasn’t a path anyone would dare even walk during the day, let alone run. Early morning or not, it was the middle of summer right now.
“Isn’t that overdoing it? The cut on your forehead hasn’t even fully healed yet.”
“Light jogging like that is something I’ve always done regularly anyway. If anything, I must have kept up exercise consistently over the past ten years, because my stamina’s better than what I remember of myself.”
I bet. Even at a glance, it was a body that had clearly been well looked after. Had I only glanced, though? My eyes drifted naturally to Choi Seol’s upper body. His sweat-soaked T-shirt clung tightly to his skin, baring the firm contours of his torso without mercy. It was quite a stimulating sight to face first thing in the morning.
“Anyway, why don’t you exercise a little too?”
“Sure—wait, exercise what?”
Answering absentmindedly, I jerked my head up to find Choi Seol looking at me with worried eyes.
“You haven’t gone outside even once this past week.”
“Me? I have gone out.”
“You don’t mean the yard, do you?”
“That counts as outside too. And besides, you went into town with me to get your forehead disinfected.”
“The day we went to the hospital? We took a taxi the whole time that day.”
“Don’t you remember walking around for an hour or two near the hospital running errands before catching the taxi? By my standards, that’s a ton of movement.”
“Don’t tell me… you really don’t exercise at all normally?”
“Come on, no way. I do a little.”
“You don’t.”
Tch, caught. Then and now, half-baked lies never worked on this guy.
“How can you live like that?”
“What’s wrong with it? It happens.”
I shrugged, unfazed. Starting from that kind of judgmental look all the way to the nagging that would follow, I’d heard it thousands of times over from people around me, including my mom, so it didn’t even register as a hit anymore.
“Let me say this now—nagging me about exercising is strictly off-limits. Do you have any idea how much I nearly died from marching and winter training, using my body nonstop through every season for almost two years in the army? So when I came back here, I made a decision. Unless someone’s paying me to do it, exercise for me from now on is breathing, and that’s it.”
“…Doesn’t your body feel stiff if you used to do it and then stop?”
“Stopping after doing it felt like heaven, let me tell you.”
At my attitude, not giving an inch, Choi Seol let out a sigh.
“You’re going to end up in trouble like that. You need to move your body at least a little to stay healthy.”
“I’ll take care of my own health, so worry about yourself. Someone who just got in a car accident recently is going to get sick pushing himself like that. No matter how much memory you’ve lost, you’re still a patient. That’s exactly why I haven’t said anything until now about—”
Catching myself mid-sentence, I clamped my mouth shut and studied Choi Seol.
“What?”
“Nothing, never mind. Anyway, since I got up early, I’m already hungry at this hour. You go wash up. I’ll go put the rice on.”
“I already did it. I made doenjang soup too, so it just needs reheating. I’ll wash up quick and come out.”
“……Okay.”
Choi Seol went outside first. This kind of exchange, flowing back and forth so naturally, always belatedly hit me with the reality of my situation. It had already been a week. Choi Seol had been rapidly infiltrating my daily life in that time—to the point where it had become natural for him to walk into the kitchen and cook himself.
“This is a problem.”
Just as my thoughts were growing complicated, my phone buzzed. Even though it was early morning, I wasn’t even curious who it was anymore. Still, having racked up quite a debt with her lately, I couldn’t just ignore it, so I reluctantly grabbed the phone and pressed the call button.
— Hey, did Flower Boy go inside?
“Why, did you see another vision of the Grim Reaper today?”
— No, today’s was more the type that could plausibly exist in this life. Relatively speaking, that is—the odds of this one existing are slim too.
“Who is it this time?”
— Dolsoe.
I doubted my ears for a moment. Was there some drama lately with a male lead named Dolsoe? No matter how I racked my brain, no actor came to mind, so I asked again just in case.
“Did he go help the elders with their farm work again?”
The only reason I knew what Choi Seol was up to outside, despite being holed up indoors myself, was thanks to this noona’s diligence. In the week I’d been staying here, Choi Seol had taken charge of not just my household affairs but the goings-on outside too.
Going for a walk at the crack of dawn and helping the elders with their work, then going out for an evening walk and helping the elders again—and coming back with armfuls of crops as thanks. The guy I’d firmly believed was a cold, aloof type back when I only saw him at school, turning out to be someone with such a wide-ranging knack for getting involved in everyone’s business. You really did have to live with someone to know them. Or maybe my eyes had been deceiving me and I’d picked up the wrong guy instead of Choi Seol.
— He did that too, but he did something even more impressive.
Wait, there’s still more meddling left to come?
I got needlessly tense.
“What is it?”
— Running.
“…….”
— So make sure to feed him meat soup with lots of rice today.
A sudden irritation flared up.
“It’s doenjang soup this morning.”
— Hey, is he going to get any strength from that?
“Why does he need strength? And there’s no meat scraps left to make soup with anyway. Won’t be any for a while either.”
Between Choi Seol’s hospital bills, medicine, and clothes, a month’s worth of living expenses had been cut in half already, leaving me to suck my thumbs for a while. And yet here was this noona, not the least bit concerned about her neighbor’s circumstances, just as I was starting to feel a little hurt.
— Listen here. You know why the lady of the house fed Dolsoe rice?
