Still, the trip I left on with Baek Sahyun wasn’t as bad as I thought.
First of all, Baek Sahyun’s driving skills were unexpectedly quite stable. If he had shown even the slightest sign of speeding or trying to drive drowsy, I would have struck him down with my fist, but fortunately that wasn’t the case.
Baek Sahyun, who had remarkably broad shoulders, was still absorbed in driving while holding the steering wheel in proper posture. After getting tired of glancing at the guy, I leaned my head against the car window.
“You’ll get in trouble if you sleep.”
“Which country’s Baek Sahyun-ssi was it who told me to get some shut-eye?”
“That was just a moment ago.”
As expected, that ghost-like bastard Baek Sahyun warned me without even looking at me.
This bastard is really a funny fucker. Even though I confessed my actual age—that is, an age at least three or four years older than his—he’s spouting words like getting in trouble and whatnot. And isn’t he starting to make completely arbitrary rules again?
I answered with a snort.
“What are you, a young punk, talking about scolding an adult? You told me to sleep earlier, so I’m going to sleep. Stop yapping.”
“Ah, you were an adult?”
Baek Sahyun asked back without any hint of sarcasm. When I witnessed a faint smile hanging on the guy’s lips, I immediately fell into confusion. Why is that psycho bastard smiling? Did I crack a joke or something?
I thought about it, but well, I didn’t seem to have shared anything particularly funny. Whatever, forget it. Getting tired, I lifted my head that had been pressed against the car window and said.
“Then at least turn on some music.”
So I could at least focus on that. Maybe because I died in a car accident, I suffered from a stuffy and anxious feeling the entire time I was in the car.
To be precise, the honking sound and intense headlights that struck me in front of the garbage dump that day wouldn’t leave my mind.
The wide-open highway. Baek Sahyun stretched out one hand and touched the car’s touchscreen. After pressing the button a few times, the noisy song sound I was expecting soon spread out. But Baek Sahyun clicked the button again and quickly changed the type of music.
A classical melody that seemed like something renowned professors would listen to began and filled the car.
I was startled.
“What is this?”
Calm, quiet, and gentle.
Honestly, I was dumbfounded by music that didn’t suit Baek Sahyun at all, whether looking forward or back. Horror movie background music would have suited that bastard much better than this.
However, Baek Sahyun seemed to like his song selection as he leisurely nodded his head. He even hummed a little tune as if he was getting into it.
Since a handsome man with elegant features was doing that, it appeared just like a scene from a movie, but knowing the guy’s true nature, I wasn’t entranced by that outward appearance.
“Hey. Stop playing around and put on a bright song.”
Back in the days when I lived day to day on what I earned, I used to enjoy listening to refreshing summer songs with one wireless earphone I picked up on the street. When I was deeply immersed in the joy given by cheerful rhythms and clear voices, even the dawn delivery part-time job felt like somewhat manageable labor.
But Baek Sahyun, whose only labor in life was probably decorating himself, wouldn’t readily listen to my opinion. The guy retorted in a leisurely tone.
“Just listen. This is good.”
“I don’t like it, so change it.”
“No, Heejae-ya. Think about it carefully. Wouldn’t it be better to change your taste at this opportunity?”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“…Why should I change my taste?”
“Well, that’s because you, Heejae.”
Gulp. I felt tense, not knowing what answer would come out of the guy’s mouth.
“You’re a ghost. And I’m a person.”
“……”
“It won’t work if a ghost tries to crawl up to a person.”
My ears grew heavy with the melody flowing out like a funeral song at that moment, but since I would only lose if I got into a verbal fight with the guy anyway, I decided to give up here.
When I leaned my head against the car window again without answering, Baek Sahyun whispered slyly.
“Heejae-ya. Are you going to sleep?”
“……”
“Are you really going to sleep?”
It was an extremely ordinary question, but perhaps because it passed through the guy’s mouth, it only sounded chilling. What does he care whether someone else sleeps or not?
I knew that sleeping soundly while ignoring the driver didn’t look good, but it was 100 times better than the behaviors Baek Sahyun had shown until now.
When I remained silent, Baek Sahyun also seemed to quickly lose interest and muttered.
“Alright. Sleep well.”
That’s right. For a crazy bastard, the medicine isn’t a beating but complete disregard. It was the moment I was leisurely smiling triumphantly, as if I had found my own solution.
“I should just crash the car anywhere and die.”
“What?”
I looked at the guy, shocked to the point of fainting at the extreme threat. Thud. My heart dropped vertically. Fuck…, what is that bastard saying right now? Not just my heart, but all my internal organs felt like they had fallen to my feet.
I couldn’t hide my trembling gaze. It was when even my fingertips were convulsing at the feeling of my trauma about hit-and-runs being torn open.
“Who knows. Maybe I can also enter someone else’s body like you.”
For some reason, Baek Sahyun, who had returned to his original expressionless face, recited. It was after the laughter that had filled his pale face had disappeared without a trace.
Unable to understand Baek Sahyun’s intention, I just blinked my eyes. My heart was still pounding violently. Baek Sahyun let out a slow sigh, “Haa.”
“We’ve arrived.”
Then he added while turning the steering wheel.
I, who had been distracted by what I just heard and unable to look beyond the car window, barely regained my attention thanks to a ‘snap!’ sound. Baek Sahyun had flicked his finger right next to my face.
“Get out quickly.”
Then, the guy who even personally unbuckled my seatbelt whispered. The way he spat out even such simple sentences in imperative form was truly unbearably unpleasant.
If it were up to me, I wanted to refuse and say I didn’t want to, but perhaps because of the long drive, my desire to breathe in the outside air was strong. I quickly got out of the car and first corrected my breathing.
Thud. After pushing the car door closed, I belatedly looked around at the scenery.
Walnut cookies, elvan stone squid, chicken skewers, baby potatoes, fish cake bars…
“A rest stop?”
This was definitely a rest stop. As I muttered to myself, soaked in the familiar atmosphere, Baek Sahyun, who had already approached my side, asked.
“Have you been here before?”
Well, of course. How many people in South Korea haven’t been to a rest stop?
But well, it was my first time at the Gangneung rest stop. As I was looking around the rest stop, turning my head this way and that, Baek Sahyun wrapped one arm around my shoulder.
“Don’t be too country-bumpkin-ish, Heejae-ya.”
I felt his thick arm muscles deeply wrapping around my back. The fact that I was having embarrassing skinship with a guy was horrible and made me shudder, but Baek Sahyun didn’t care and dragged me along.
At a glance, it seemed like he had stopped at the rest stop because he got hungry while driving. But the guy showed behavior that exceeded my expectations.
“Baek Sahyun-ah. Aren’t you the one being country-bumpkin-ish…?”
Baek Sahyun, who had been dragging me around here and there in the rest stop for a while, poured out snacks all at once onto an outdoor table. Since we were sitting side by side on one bench, I slyly watched out for other people’s eyes.
Just in case, I complained into the guy’s ear.
“Hey, fuck. Doing this makes us look too gay. Why aren’t you going to the opposite side and sitting here? Fuck off, quickly.”
It would have been fine if no one had shown interest in us at all. But unfortunately, perhaps because of Baek Sahyun’s flashy appearance, we were attracting all kinds of gazes.
Most of them were people looking at us like a gay couple, just as I had worried earlier.
Even while the crowd’s attention was focused on us, Baek Sahyun leisurely tore open a snack package and said.
“Can you eat this as is?”
In the guy’s large hand was a nicely grilled elvan stone squid. Since he had torn the bumpy leg part into pieces the size of bird feed, I was dumbfounded and asked.
“…Who eats squid like that?”
Then Baek Sahyun shook his head back and forth on his own, regardless of my question.
“This won’t do. It doesn’t look appetizing.”
Wondering what kind of mentality this was when he had already touched it with his hands, I ripped up the remaining body.
“Hey, you have to tear it into big pieces like this to make it look appetizing. When you tear it like that, it doesn’t look tasty at all. Here, say ‘aah.'”
This was one of the behaviors that had naturally become a habit from taking care of Jang Haesu, who had a small appetite. Whenever I found people picking at their food, I would hold food up to their mouths so they would eat properly.
After bringing the large piece of torn squid near Baek Sahyun’s lips, I added a few words as an elder.
“If you didn’t think you could eat it, you shouldn’t have ordered it in the first place. Since we already bought it, stuff it in so we can hurry up and leave. It’s not like this is your first time eating elvan stone squid…”
In the middle of my nagging, Baek Sahyun threw out an unexpected confession that left me dazed.
“It’s my first time.”
“Huh?”
The guy’s cheeks were slightly reddened.
“This is also my first time at a rest stop.”
