“The sky might be fine, but I’d get fired.”
“This guy, really—!”
“Peanuts are flying.”
When Seungun pretended to wipe his face, Gi Siyoung relented and took another bite of the choco bar, closing his mouth and chewing thoroughly. Having eaten exactly half, Gi Siyoung held the choco bar out to Seungun again.
“Did you finish it already? Should I keep it for you?”
At that, Gi Siyoung scrunched up his face.
“Do you think I’m a pig, eating the whole last one in one go?”
“What? Why are you suddenly getting angry?”
“The rest is for Im Seungun-ssi to eat! Im Seungun-ssi!”
“……”
Gi Siyoung crossed his arms and curled up his body again. The precious campfire was far too small to warm two well-built men. Seungun shuffled forward on his bottom. Then, not wanting his skin scraped by grass or branches, he held out the thin checkered shirt he’d been wearing to Gi Siyoung.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
Gi Siyoung twisted his lips and answered sullenly.
“Cover yourself with it. To maintain body heat.”
“No thanks.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Seungun personally draped the shirt over Siyoung’s shoulders as he refused his clothes. Unexpectedly, Gi Siyoung didn’t resist the hands forcibly covering his back with a shirt less than half his body size. Though it was a thin summer shirt that looked flimsy, perhaps because he’d been wearing it the whole time, some warmth had seeped into it, so the sensation wasn’t bad.
Gi Siyoung buried his forehead against his forearm and lowered his head. The clothes smelled faintly of sweat and grass. However, it wasn’t dirty enough to immediately throw off.
“Well… it is less chilly.”
“I ate that lunchbox earlier, but Gi Siyoung-ssi, you didn’t eat anything because of filming. Please finish the rest of the choco bar too. I’m fine.”
“People don’t die from skipping one meal. If humans died from skipping one meal—”
Seungun unwrapped the choco bar and shoved the whole thing into Gi Siyoung’s chattering mouth. Gi Siyoung’s eyes went round like a rabbit’s as he stared at Seungun with a bewildered face, then ultimately had no choice but to chew the bite-sized choco bar.
Crackle crackle. The campfire blazed. Seungun continuously gathered dry grass from around them. He put in leaves to keep the embers from dying out and kept fanning constantly. Because burnt fragments fluttered around, soot speckled his face here and there.
A light piece of fabric dropped onto the back of Seungun’s head as he fanned diligently. When he turned around, Gi Siyoung was back in short sleeves. He’d rolled up Seungun’s clothes and tossed them.
“Let’s take turns wearing it.”
Gi Siyoung suggested.
“It’s not that cold in front of the fire.”
“But you do seem cold.”
“……”
“Let’s be honest—when rescuers come, would it look better for me to be wearing that, or for you to be wearing it?”
His forearms, which said that, had scratches from being scraped by grass on the way down here. Seeing that, Seungun felt a sense of responsibility he couldn’t quite explain. While working beside him, he’d had to treat Gi Siyoung like a hothouse flower, like an ornamental rose from which not a single petal could fall, treating him like a product from one to ten. It was unsettling to see scratches here and there on a body that didn’t suit such marks.
“How’s your ankle?”
Seungun asked casually while poking at the campfire.
“The same.”
“Haa, I still can’t hear even the sound of ant footsteps. Are rescuers even coming?”
“How about we just roll down this mountain instead?”
“What?”
“This is frustrating. If I curl up like a bean worm, you kick me downward like a soccer ball. Then you follow me down and kick me again.”
“……”
“If we go down like that, it cuts the time in half, we don’t have to use my ankle, and it’s comfortable, right? Isn’t that killing two birds with one stone?”
“If we did it Gi Siyoung-ssi’s way, it wouldn’t be killing two birds with one stone but getting deeper into trouble.”
“It was a joke. You’re taking a joke like it’s a documentary.”
He’d made one joke to someone sitting there with a face that said they wouldn’t be rescued today, and now he was fanning the embers with an even more dejected expression. Watching him, the choco bar he’d eaten earlier felt like it was blocking up his insides.
“Honestly, you’re regretting it inside, right? I should’ve just told Myeongwoo hyung to stay and gone down myself. Unluckily stuck spending the night on a mountain with Gi Siyoung, my fucking luck is really shit.”
“Stop talking. You keep saying if you keep talking like that, you’ll get hungry.”
“I’m so used to enduring hunger that I’m fine.”
Seungun glanced back at him. It was a somehow sad-sounding statement. Seungun had often gone hungry because there was nothing to eat. However, Gi Siyoung had probably often been unable to eat despite delicacies spread all around him. Thinking about which would be more painful, it was probably the latter.
“Why are you suddenly looking at me with those eyes?”
Gi Siyoung asked confrontationally.
“I feel this sometimes, but there are times when Gi Siyoung-ssi seems like a different person.”
“Where is there a person who’s always the same?”
“……”
“I don’t know what you usually think of me.”
The space behind Gi Siyoung’s back as he added that was pitch black. In the pitch-dark mountains where even the mountain birds that had flown around so much during the day had gone home, only the sound of grass leaves burning away still surrounded them. There might be fierce wild beasts deep in the forest, and with a dead radio and nothing to eat, the situation was dire.
However, it was comforting not to be alone but to have someone to put their heads together with. Moreover, that the other person was Gi Siyoung was something he couldn’t have imagined even a short while ago.
“Actually, I had some prejudices about Gi Siyoung-ssi.”
“What are you suddenly… Did we come on a retreat? I understand that being stuck in a place like this alone with me might make the atmosphere feel incredibly sentimental, but this isn’t campfire time.”
“……”
Cosmic dust. Invisible man…. Seungun didn’t say it aloud and just stared at him quietly. Then Gi Siyoung kicked his toes and asked irritably.
“Haa, fine. Say it. What prejudice? What kind?”
After fidgeting with his toes a few times, Gi Siyoung leaned the crown of his head against a tree trunk. Because pain occasionally shot up from his ankle, he had to bite down and swallow his groans. When Seungun hesitated without speaking, he smirked with a knowing face.
“I don’t know what you heard, but don’t think that’s all there is to me.”
“……”
“I can’t count the people who babble about me just knowing my face and name. With mouths wide open, what can’t they say?”
“That’s true. I’ll acknowledge it.”
That was right. Seungun agreed. Gi Siyoung’s profession was one that was always on people’s lips, always being gossiped about. Even if you said “You chose this path yourself, so deal with it,” the level was always precarious for a lifetime.
Humans are three-dimensional and diverse. Just because it’s one person doesn’t mean they only have one side, and you shouldn’t try to interpret someone based only on others’ subjective evaluations.
“But how long are you going to sit there fanning? Come over here.”
“I have to keep fanning. I need to add firewood too. The embers can’t go out.”
“I’m cold. Come over here and press close. Should I, with my crippled foot, crawl over to you?”
“……”
Seungun looked at the still-burning campfire like watching an animal that would run away the moment you took your eyes off it, and moved his body back a little.
“You’re really frustratingly slow like a turtle.”
“Ah.”
Unable to watch anymore, Gi Siyoung grabbed Seungun’s forearm and pulled him close to his body. As the two men’s body heat pressed together, warmth quickly spread from their chilly forearms. Looking up at the sky, the moon sitting gently on the tree branches was perfectly round. Seungun pointed at the space between the branches with his finger.
“Gi Siyoung-ssi, look. It’s a full moon. It looks like a cream bun.”
“You are hungry. You should’ve eaten when I gave you the choco bar earlier.”
“It’s a full moon, aren’t you going to make a wish?”
“That’s the most inefficient behavior, done only by people with lots of desires.”
“……”
“Because I can achieve everything I want, there’s no need.”
“……”
Relieved that only he heard that comment that would receive everyone’s criticism, Seungun relaxed the tension in his shoulders.
“Haa. I’m tired, I need to lie down.”
“Go ahead.”
“Knee.”
“What?”
“Give me your knee. Are you telling me to lay my head on this dirty ground?”
Gi Siyoung retorted irritably. Perhaps due to his poor condition, he was quite fussy.
“Ah, yes.”
Seungun straightened his bent knees. Siyoung let out a thick sigh and lay down. Crackle crackle. The sound of dry grass burning neatly cut through the darkness.
“I’m not going to eat you, so relax your thighs.”
“……”
Seungun relaxed his legs as he said. Perhaps because Gi Siyoung’s face was small, his head was also light. Seeing Gi Siyoung lying prettily and defenseless on his knee felt strange. If he wanted to, he could suffocate him here, make him lose consciousness, and do as he pleased. However, looking at his haggard eyelids, he didn’t feel like that at all. Instead, Seungun’s gaze, carefully examining his closed face, stopped somewhere.
“Gi Siyoung-ssi.”
“What?”
Gi Siyoung answered in a drowsy voice. When no response came, he opened his eyes slightly and looked at Seungun. Pupils engraved with the flickering campfire were staring directly at him.
“If I’m not mistaken, your pants are torn. I can see your underwear.”
