***

On the road to the columbarium on the outskirts of the city center, the car was quiet.

Even though Jung Sijun was someone who lived as he pleased, he had at least a minimum level of awareness. He could understand from context without asking. He seemed to vaguely remember hearing the news of Yoon Kihyun’s father’s death and sending condolence money.

Jung Sijun was terrible at social life, but he fairly faithfully followed his family’s teaching that ceremonial occasions should be properly attended to.

Yoon Kihyun, who had been looking at the scenery outside the window with a pale face, suddenly spoke up.

“It’s my father.”

“What is?”

“Where we’re going now.”

His gaze in the passenger seat was still on the outside. It was a face deeply immersed in thought. Jung Sijun didn’t bother to mention that he’d sent condolence money or that he knew.

Yoon Kihyun already didn’t think well of his speech habits or behavior. Even showing his best side wasn’t enough, so he didn’t want to make an unnecessary verbal mistake.

“My relationship with my father wasn’t good. Rather than not good, I should say we were no different from strangers.”

“…”

“It’s funny to visit someone I haven’t seen since childhood, who only came looking for me when he was sick, just because I had some strange dreams…”

Yoon Kihyun, who had been muttering quietly, fell silent.

‘What good story is this to go into detail about?’

As if possessed by something, he’d said things he didn’t need to say. What kind of social life could he possibly have when he couldn’t even properly control his troubled mind?

Since he couldn’t take back words already spoken, he had to stop here. Jung Sijun was clearly his employer, so he wasn’t someone to confide personal matters to in detail either.

“Even if it’s superstition, it’s more comfortable to check if you’re bothered by it, right?”

Jung Sijun, who had maintained quite a long silence, replied in a nonchalant tone.

It wasn’t wrong. If he checked with his own eyes, he’d feel at ease, but he really didn’t like leaving work during clear work hours for this reason.

How did he end up having this kind of conversation with Jung Sijun? Lately, he’d been continuously experiencing firsthand the saying that you never know how things will turn out.

“Still, you’re a filial son.”

At Jung Sijun’s words, Yoon Kihyun turned his head. The profile watching the road ahead while concentrating on driving looked extremely serious.

These days, he’d only frequently seen the face with pursed lips throwing tantrums and bothering people, but could this guy even make such an expression?

“Filial son?”

When Yoon Kihyun asked back, Jung Sijun continued.

“You said the relationship wasn’t good, but you’re going because you’re worried, right? If the relationship was really bad, whether you had an unsettling dream or not, you would have thought it was just a meaningless dream and wouldn’t have gone.”

“No, I hated my father. A man who only came looking for his child when he got sick, why should I—”

Yoon Kihyun felt uncomfortable with the word filial son. More accurately, it felt awkward.

It was an instinctive rejection. To attach the cringeworthy word “filial son” when there was no bond with his father to speak of.

“I just couldn’t abandon my father because I wanted to pretend to be good. Because I hate people pointing fingers at me.”

“Pretend to be good?”

“Honestly, I didn’t want to be called a son who abandoned his poor sick father. I was already overwhelmed with that public property talk, and I didn’t want to hear bastard even more. That’s why I even took out loans to pay the hospital bills.”

“…”

“You can think of me as a pushover. I think so too.”

When he turned his head, his face reflected in the passenger seat window glass. Even though it wasn’t something to be angry about, the face getting angry looked ugly.

In fact, he knew it was an unnecessary venting of anger.

In the relationship between his father and himself, Jung Sijun was a complete outsider. He didn’t even have a reason to hear these words from him, nor were they in that kind of relationship.

However, he couldn’t stand the frustration that seemed stuck somewhere between his esophagus and solar plexus. Of all times, the person next to him had to be Jung Sijun.

After pouring it out like excretion, his heart felt somewhat relieved, but how Jung Sijun thought of him was a separate matter.

It was a situation understandable enough for him to get angry asking why he was suddenly throwing a fit at him, so Yoon Kihyun was gauging his reaction when—

Jung Sijun, far from getting angry, asked back in a voice with a hint of laughter instead.

“You’re a filial son, aren’t you? Whether the relationship was good or bad, even if you say that, you took care of your father.”

“I didn’t cry at the funeral home, and except for the first day, I wasn’t even sad.”

Yoon Kihyun retorted as if refuting.

He added unnecessary words because that’s actually how it was. While receiving mourners at the funeral home, he had no energy to cry, suffering from the fatigue weighing down his entire body. Rather than sad, he only felt relieved.

“Do you have to sob to be sad? The kind of sadness differs from person to person and there can be multiple kinds, can’t there?”

Jung Sijun smoothly stopped the car and looked at Yoon Kihyun. His eyebrows twitched as if asking what the problem was, but it wasn’t an expression reproaching him.

“And even if you really don’t think about your father, if there’s a problem at the columbarium, it’ll be another petty headache, so it’s not bad to check once. Don’t think too deeply about it. Thinking about it will only give you a headache.”

It was definitely true. However, it felt somewhat incongruous because it didn’t quite match Jung Sijun’s usual image.

Wasn’t he the guy who not only constantly deposited money under the name of settlement money, bringing up reasons about feeling sorry, but also arbitrarily brought gifts?

It was unexpected that the guy who acted unreasonably knew how to say surprisingly normal and rational things.

‘Is he trying to comfort me in his own way? Jung Sijun?’

Whatever Jung Sijun’s true intention, Yoon Kihyun felt comforted by Jung Sijun’s attitude and words. Ridiculously.

“What? Why are you staring like that?”

“How am I staring?”

“You’re looking at me like it’s very unexpected. Right now.”

Jung Sijun’s eyebrows twitched again. Ah, he definitely seems to be in a bad mood now. Yoon Kihyun gauged Jung Sijun’s emotional change and ended up chuckling.

“It just doesn’t fit your usual image…?”

“Ah, even when someone thinks and tries to comfort you—”

At Jung Sijun’s grumbling that came back in a sulky tone, Yoon Kihyun burst out laughing without realizing it.

Jung Sijun was the first to say such things even after roughly hearing the situation.

His friends all just reacted saying he was crazy or frustrated. There was even talk that because of that damn affection deficiency, he might ruin his own fate someday.

Hearing these words from someone he didn’t even want to see until recently made his feelings complicated.

Should he say Jung Sijun as a person looked different now?

‘My mood right now is a bit… strange.’

Yoon Kihyun was laughing but also seemed to be crying.

Jung Sijun’s mind was equally complicated as he observed Yoon Kihyun’s peculiar expression.

‘Since loans were mentioned, it must have been hospital bills that couldn’t be covered even with the center salary…’

Were the loans settled? The thoughts continued, leading one to another.

As far as Jung Sijun knew, the medicine costs alone for Yoon Kihyun’s illness were twenty million monthly. He lived in a gosiwon, quit the center, then returned as a personal guide after accepting his offer.

‘Even if it was less than now, wasn’t it at a level that could be covered to some extent with the center salary?’

Something didn’t add up.

Even if the loans were settled, since he had a disease requiring expensive treatment costs, if he quit the center, treatment would become difficult. If loans still remained, wouldn’t that make even less sense?

Jung Sijun recalled Yoon Kihyun he’d encountered in an unfamiliar city. He still remembered the face looking down at him with a pale complexion, wearing the smell of alcohol like perfume. And what about how he looked when they reunited at the bar?

Thinking about it now, Yoon Kihyun at that time seemed like someone who’d let everything go.

He turned his head and looked at the person sitting in the passenger seat. The still pretty beauty had a face openly showing his troubled feelings.

Right now they were heading to the columbarium where his father was enshrined.

His father’s hospital bills. Loans. His illness with medicine costs alone at twenty million. Him staying in an unfamiliar city.

It was an extreme thought, but looking only at the clues given to him, there was only one conclusion.

‘Don’t tell me he was trying to die?’

Jung Sijun traced with his eyes the profile of Yoon Kihyun staring blankly out the window. He couldn’t dare ask. Because the content was far too private and extremely rude to ask based on speculation.

‘No way, that can’t be it.’

He tried to deny it, but the hypothesis he’d already thought of continued to float around in Jung Sijun’s mind.

If his assumption was true, what should he do? No, could he even do anything in the first place?

Jung Sijun kept glancing at the man in the passenger seat the entire time he drove obediently.

The pale face staring blankly out the window. That face continued to weigh on his mind.