Go Woojae, with his tremendous sense of responsibility, will make a tearful face. Then wouldn’t that be more fun? Gye Sajun let out a light laugh and replied. But it wasn’t an answer Woojae liked. He slammed down the laundry he’d been scrubbing hard and started sneering as if finding him utterly pathetic.
“Ah, annoying. That bastard who doesn’t know the value of money. Never earned a single penny with his own hands…”
“Should I get a part-time job too?”
“Fuck off. That’s a position that should go to someone who needs it.”
What kind of way of speaking is that again? Gye Sajun stole a glance at Woojae’s face, who was suddenly reciting seriously, through the mirror. The face imitating an enlightened sage looked like a child playing around.
“Food.”
Running out of things to say, he changed the topic to the most common subject. This topic didn’t seem to rub Woojae the wrong way, as a calm answer came back.
“Don’t know. I’ll pick up whatever. Yeah.”
“Let’s go eat together.”
“I’m eating with Bang Minwook though?”
That was a line he didn’t quite like. Woojae seemed to cherish his roommate quite a bit despite not knowing him for long. Why is he sharp with me but generous to Bang Minwook, who’s also an alpha? Gye Sajun was endlessly curious and dissatisfied about that.
“Why?”
“Because he’s my roommate.”
It was an answer as if asking why he’d even question that. Gye Sajun regretted getting a single room for the first time. If the roommate was a beta instead of another alpha anyway, it wouldn’t be a problem getting caught.
“I’ll eat with you too.”
“Why?”
“We’re neighbors.”
“You eat with neighbors too? Since when?”
In fact, Gye Sajun had no neighbors. The closest house to the main family home was where relatives lived, so it was awkward to call them neighbors.
“Starting today.”
Still, I want to eat together. If it’s Go Woojae. Gye Sajun spoke the joke-like words seriously. That didn’t seem to ruin Go Woojae’s mood. Woojae chuckled and allowed them to share a meal.
“Geez. Then follow me. You’re dead if you act up about buying me food.”
Woojae had become strangely soft since that rainy day. The more he was like that, the more dangerous it was. Gye Sajun stroked his parched throat for no reason. It wasn’t a thirst that could be soothed with water. Woojae was spraying water again on the tracksuit covered in foam.
“Hey, are you going to the MT?”
“Motel?”
At the sudden question, Gye Sajun asked back monotonously.
“No! The department MT, you crazy bastard!”
“The MT you know is motel, though.”
Woojae’s face turned bright red as he popped veins and shrieked, but Gye Sajun just answered in a puzzled voice. He’s getting angry again. Looking closely, he seemed embarrassed too.
“Ah, geez. Really. So embarrassing. It’s not like that.”
It was the correct answer. Go Woojae was embarrassed right now. Why? But more than that, he had to answer his question.
“Mm, are you?”
“I… want to go, but.”
“Then just go.”
“Is it that easy? Must be nice when it’s easy.”
Why did he ask me? He was suddenly curious, but Gye Sajun didn’t bother to ask. For now, he was just thinking that he should participate in the MT too. Then Woojae muttered with a smile while doing laundry with splashing sounds.
“Really funny. You and me having this kind of conversation.”
“Really? I like it too.”
“That means you like it? You talk about new humanity and whatnot, but aren’t you a complete dumbass? Can’t even understand what people say.”
Everyday conversation with others was actually unfamiliar to Gye Sajun. Because no one particularly talked to him, and no one had ever tried to have a conversation with him. Woojae’s point was perhaps appropriate. He didn’t really know proper communication methods. But he’d never felt uncomfortable. Lately it was a bit uncomfortable though.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
I’m uncomfortable because I don’t know what Go Woojae is thinking. Gye Sajun adjusted his posture and looked more carefully at Woojae’s face in the mirror. The face seriously absorbed looked pretty. He looked less like a man doing laundry and more like a scholar reading a book.
“Do I know either? I’m the same, ditto. What the heck is inside that great head of yours anyway?”
The forearm that tensed up from wringing the laundry was full of wild charm. That was Woojae’s thought, of course. He could see in the mirror the owner of much thicker forearms standing behind with arms crossed, but he deliberately ignored it. When he shook out the wrung-out tracksuit with sharp movements, water droplets splashed and it spread out in a somewhat wrinkled form.
“Ugh, my back hurts. That’s it. Just need to dry it.”
“…Smells good.”
“This? It’s cucumber soap. Want one?”
“Yeah.”
Woojae took out new soap from the cupboard and gave it to Gye Sajun.
“This is really expensive and good, but I’ll be generous and give you two.”
At most, it was worth a thousand won combined. That meant he needed three thousand of these to be able to go to the MT. He felt the disparity anew, but Woojae shook his head. Gye Sajun lifted the soap and brought it close to his nose.
“Go Woojae’s smell.”
“That’s the soap smell!”
Why is that my smell! It’s not even bad, but Woojae, who got embarrassed for no reason, corrected Gye Sajun’s words.
“What does this cucumber here mean?”
Gye Sajun looked at the letters ‘cucumber soap’ honestly engraved on the soap and asked with a serious expression. Woojae answered with an expression like looking at an alien. He didn’t know what this was until now?
“What meaning does cucumber have? Cucumber! Cucumber! Green vegetable, man. That long thing. The thing you season and eat. Make into pickles too. Make cold soup with too. Cut it and use it as a face pack. You know.”
Pack? Gye Sajun’s expression was asking that. Woojae felt awkward for a moment and smacked his lips. Don’t rich people do that? Does that bastard even know what a pack is? Actually, he only knew about that because Nari did it for him.
“It’s made with edible cucumbers? Ground up?”
“…I don’t know about that.”
It’s the cheapest soap, and I use it because it smells more refreshing and better than apricot soap. From today’s conversation, Woojae gained a new curiosity. About whether cucumber soap really contains cucumber.
Since he was going to eat with Gye Sajun, he also had to get consent from Minwook, who he’d originally planned to eat with. As soon as Woojae hung up the laundry, he roughly wiped his wet hands and picked up his phone to call Minwook. The call started without the signal ringing long.
“Hey, Minwook-ah. When are you coming?”
[I, I don’t know!]
“…What are you talking about? What don’t you know?”
[I don’t know! Y-you traitor! How could you, how could you…]
“Why are you like this again? We said we’d eat dinner together.”
[I don’t know!]
The call was cut off abruptly. What kind of situation is this? Woojae stared at the screen of the disconnected phone with blank eyes, dumbfounded. Is it an “I don’t know” disease or what? What doesn’t he know? Keep saying?
“What is it?”
Gye Sajun, sitting in the chair in Woojae’s room, asked lightly. The chair occupied by his long, large body looked like a throne. How annoying.
“No, Bang Minwook… Well, did he get dumped? He seems kind of weird.”
“Dumped?”
Since the only thing that came to mind as a reason for the simple and cheerful Minwook to become this strange was So Juhee, Woojae made the most reasonable deduction. But it wasn’t a topic worth talking about even to Gye Sajun. Because it was Minwook’s private life.
“No… I guess he doesn’t want to eat together.”
“That’s good.”
“What’s good?”
“I wanted to eat something good just the two of us.”
Woojae objected to the monotonous conversation.
“Hey, it’s because of you. You’re the start.”
“What is?”
“Because you keep chanting about buying me food, other people who want to buy me food keep overflowing. It’s very troublesome.”
Honestly, it was a joke. Since after Gye Sajun’s food nagging, people who wanted to buy him food sprouted up like bamboo shoots after rain, he blamed him lightly. But Gye Sajun listening didn’t seem to take it that way.
“Who?”
Because he was interrogating with a tone that felt unpleasant and sensitive, Woojae inadvertently rattled off the list.
“Why, Yeon Sojeong from the same department did too. Jeong Minho too…”
He stopped talking there because a shitty memory came to mind. Woojae crushed his lips and turned his gaze away. Gye Sajun, not liking Woojae’s reaction, stood up from his seat and asked crookedly.
“So did you eat together?”
His tone sounded like an interrogation, as if questioning a criminal. Unpleasantly. The tiresome topic began to ruin Woojae’s fairly good mood.
“Why, can’t I eat together with them?”
“Did you only eat?”
“I don’t know, bastard.”
Minwook’s “I don’t know” disease must have transferred to him too. It was very troublesome. It was a problem he couldn’t explain in detail anyway, and he didn’t want to fan the flames by talking about it for no reason. At Woojae’s refusal, Gye Sajun withdrew surprisingly meekly.
“Fine. I won’t dig anymore.”
“…Really?”
It was truly unexpected. Because he thought he’d dig somehow. Woojae opened his eyes wide and looked at Gye Sajun. The guy pulled up the corners of his mouth in a smile and whispered to Woojae.
“Because I just need to find out even if you don’t tell me.”
“Are you a mind reader? Funny, really.”
Do whatever you want. It’s not like he can know just because he says he’ll find out, so it was absurd and funny that he said that. Gye Sajun frowned, then stroked the tip of his chin with his finger and asked seriously.
“I’ve been curious for a while, but when you say funny, do you mean really funny, or what?”
Woojae faced that picture-like scene and asked back.
“…Are you serious?”
“I’ve never been told I’m funny by anyone before.”
“Of course you wouldn’t be. Because you’re not funny!”
What kind of person is this? Really, the more I know, the less I understand. Gye Sajun instead frowned as if he didn’t understand Woojae’s intention.
“But why do you keep saying I’m funny?”
It was a nuance that he couldn’t understand Woojae, who kept saying he was funny when he wasn’t even funny. Woojae was just flabbergasted.
