“So… I’m so cold….”
Surim mumbled on. He was rattling off things like how it was hard to endure because he was cold, how he was shivering even now, and especially how he felt like he’d freeze to death when he was alone at home, when at some point something dropped onto his body with a thud.
When he checked with his hazy vision, it was a suit jacket. One that still felt warm as if it had just been taken off. When he turned his dazed gaze to the side, Song Hanyeong said.
“You said you were cold.”
Surim reflexively nodded and covered his body with the jacket. Though it wasn’t direct warmth, when he buried himself in the clothing that still had a person’s body heat, the cold seemed to fade a little.
Surim smiled broadly and rubbed his cheek against the jacket. Just before falling asleep, he thought he heard something like laughter. It was a very small sound, like a breath.
* * *
When he opened his eyes again, he was inside a car. He was sitting in the passenger seat hugging the suit jacket.
“…Manager-nim…?”
“You’re awake now.”
Song Hanyeong, who had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, spoke with half-crushed pronunciation.
“Are you more conscious now?”
“Is this the library…?”
“Not yet.”
Song Hanyeong chuckled and got out of the driver’s seat. In the time it took to blink, the passenger door opened. Surim was led out of the car by Song Hanyeong’s hand. His head felt foggy and his vision was dizzy.
“Let’s go home.”
Getting out of the car, straight along the wall into the alley. Song Hanyeong was finding his house well while supporting Surim as if half-embracing him. Surim, who had been staggering along, tilted his head and looked at Song Hanyeong.
“How do you know my house…?”
“I saw the address on your resident registration card.”
“That’s strange…. My house is hard to find….”
It was a house deep in the alley that his friends complained about being confused about which alley it was every time they visited. But to find it so precisely without wandering around was amazing. Does Manager-nim have a map in his head?
“Someone I know lives nearby.”
“Ahh, so you know this neighborhood…. But we’ve never run into each other….”
I thought it was fate, but isn’t it…? Surim, whose intoxication was starting to fade, carefully hid the thought that briefly came to mind.
“Wait, would you like to stop by the house…?”
“Now?”
“Yes, at least for a cup of tea….”
At that moment, the fact that the stolen cup was on the living room coffee table flashed through Surim’s mind. He snapped to attention. If Song Hanyeong saw it, he might be caught stalking.
“It’s late, so I should go.”
“Yes, thank goodness…. I mean, that’s too bad.”
“……”
Surim pretended not to notice Song Hanyeong’s strange look at his slip of the tongue. They happened to be in front of the gate.
“Thank you for bringing me home.”
“Okay.”
But why does Song Hanyeong keep switching between formal and informal speech like that? Surim thought to himself, having completely forgotten that he’d already asked once before and been told his taste was strange.
Until Surim bowed his head, went to the front door, beeped in the password, and entered the house, Song Hanyeong watched the whole time before finally turning around.
‘He really is a kind person.’
How many people would bring a drunk subordinate all the way home?
Surim hummed a tune as he roughly kicked off his shoes and stepped onto the wooden floor. At the same time, a chilly coldness soaked his body. The warmth that had been heating his body until just before was nowhere to be found, and it was strangely cold. Surim stopped hesitantly and looked at the desolate living room. Nothing had left this house and only things had come in, yet it seemed emptier than before.
‘It’s cold….’
His feet wouldn’t move as if frozen. But he couldn’t just keep standing in the entrance either. Surim roughly threw his bag on the dining table and staggered to the bathroom. As soon as he entered the bathroom, he noticed the shoes he’d worn when he went jogging the day after sending off his hyung. He’d meant to wash them but had forgotten.
“Right. I need to go jogging….”
What would he do by getting healthy?
Surim quickly refuted the bad thought that crossed his mind. He had to keep the contract. In exchange for maintaining a healthy body and providing 400ml of clean blood every month through a thorough vegetarian diet, he had received various compensation. With that contract, Surim had protected his sick hyung.
…But now his hyung was gone. Now that there was nothing to protect, why should he live the same as before? Of course, if he didn’t keep the contract, ‘that man’ would be angry. He might demand enormous penalty fees, citing breach of contract.
Thinking about the luxurious single room his hyung used and the best treatment, the hospital bills were worrying. It would probably be a scale that couldn’t be resolved just by selling this house inherited from his parents. But that was something he could just pay back over time.
Surim suddenly felt that all the obligations he had to keep were too burdensome. He wanted to eat meat that he hadn’t put in his mouth since he was fifteen years old.
No, what he really wanted wasn’t even meat. Actually, he wanted to see his hyung right now….
“……”
In the corner of his unconscious gaze toward the sink, a mug came into view. Surim shuffled over and grasped the cup in his hand. From the cold mug, he felt some warmth that couldn’t possibly exist.
Song Hanyeong was the only desire of value to Surim right now. So that foolish thoughts couldn’t encroach on his mind again, Surim stayed like that for a while. Let’s just endure the weekend first. When Monday came and he saw Song Hanyeong, he might want to keep enduring again.
Surim filled the cup with hot water and steeped a Solomon’s seal tea bag. After driving out the impulse that had suddenly heated his mind, realistic thoughts came rushing in next.
‘I almost got caught stealing the cup from Song Hanyeong….’
If he had let Song Hanyeong into the house without thinking, instead of the kindness of seeing him home, he might have had to face a face full of contempt and disgust. Just imagining it was really scary.
‘But I need to keep it here so I can see it often.’
When he fell into bad thoughts like before, this cup was a big help. Just thinking about Song Hanyeong pulled Surim up from that mire. The stuffiness and suffocation of sinking into the depths of a lake disappeared as if washed away. And the cold that chilled his waist also warmed up a little.
Surim slurped and cooled the hot Solomon’s seal tea as he slowly exhaled a hot, deep breath.
Meow.
Surim listened to the cat sound coming from outside. Perhaps because it was a neighborhood with complexly tangled alleys, many cats lived in this area. Strutting through the narrow paths between houses like their territory and getting food and snacks from humans friendly to them was their daily routine.
At the cat’s meow, Surim reflexively thought of his close friend.
“I wonder where Kkamang is right now….”
From when they first met until now, he’d never seen Kkamang in the evening. It seemed he thoroughly kept a routine of staying in this neighborhood in the morning and going somewhere else in the evening.
Surim sometimes felt regrettably disappointed that cats were rule-bound creatures that thoroughly kept to routines. How nice it would be if they made surprise visits sometimes.
Meow. Mrow.
This time, not only the cat’s meow but also the sound of scratching at the front door could be heard. Surim’s eyes widened as he ran and opened the front door.
A handsome black cat walked in confidently as if entering his own home. To anyone watching, it would look like a cat that had just gone out for a bit. Surim stared blankly at the sight of Kkamang jumping onto the dining table with small footstep sounds.
“You, what brings you here at this time?”
Could the rumbling throat sound be this welcome? Surim belatedly came to his senses and gently scratched Kkamang’s chin. Purr purr, the characteristic sound cats make when they’re happy flowed out.
After watching for a moment, Surim quickly pulled his hand back. When Kkamang made purring sounds, he would always bite Surim’s hand right after. As if the fact that he made such a sound hurt his pride, and as if he could only be satisfied by punishing the bad hand that dared make him do that.
Kkamang stuck his face into the cup containing Solomon’s seal tea and sniffed. It was a face full of curiosity. Surim chuckled and pulled over a chair to sit.
“Kkamang-ah, shall I tell you a secret?”
Meow.
“I stole this from the company.”
Mew? Purr….
“At the company….”
Even though it was just a cat, he felt a bit embarrassed to reveal his inner thoughts. Surim averted his gaze slightly and continued.
“At the company… there’s someone who saved me before. But he insists he mistook me for someone else, that it wasn’t him.”
Kkamang tilted his head. Surim tapped Kkamang’s black nose with his fingertip.
“It’s not that I wanted to trouble that person out of spite, just….”
He just wanted to have it. That was pure desire with no room for excuses. He wanted to possess what Song Hanyeong’s body heat and lips had touched.
It was strange. When he was only following that man with his eyes, the emotion filling Surim wasn’t such a damp desire. It had been a soft and lovely heart like a delicate heartbeat, a gentle spring breeze, a single petal stuck to his cheek. But to change like this as soon as he got close.
Surim couldn’t believe himself. At this rate, at this rate he really would become a creepy stalker.
