True, until just a few years ago, Jaeha had lived going back and forth between semi-basements and studio rooms with his father, Hyun Sejun. So rather, Chairman Hyun Hongwon’s grand mansion might still feel more awkward to him.
Does he want to relive memories with his father at Taesung’s house? Like those old rich people who had a hard time during the war in their childhood deliberately seeking out and eating corn cakes while shedding tears?
They reached the convenience store intersection. Jaeha stopped one step behind and turned his body halfway back. As if staging a protest that he’d go back up to Taesung’s house.
Damn bastard.
His stubbornness is fucking strong, so he has no intention of listening to what people say.
He wanted to throw him down the steep slope and let him roll down, but if Jaeha tattled to Hyun Hongwon about today, Hyun Hongwon would look at Taesung with disappointed eyes again. He didn’t want to disappoint him. He didn’t want to become a useless person. Fuck, even if he became a sewage drain like that manhole cover,
He didn’t want to be abandoned.
“There’s nothing at home, fucker. We should at least buy some ramen.”
Jaeha excitedly grabbed Taesung’s arm with both hands.
They entered the convenience store and picked two packs of ramen and one can of kimchi.
“Hyung, can I have ice cream?”
“Just one.”
Right after answering carelessly, an eerie chill flowed from behind. Taesung turned his head with an ominous premonition. Jaeha was just opening the door of the showcase refrigerator packed full of expensive ice cream.
“Crazy, hey, hey, stuff like this is what old people with bad teeth buy to melt slowly with their tongues. You, fuck, you’re young so your teeth are strong.”
There’s a section in the middle of the convenience store with ‘Ice Cream’ written in huge letters, but who knows who he’s trying to bankrupt by going to the showcase first. Even after being dragged by Taesung to stand in front of the ice cream display, Jaeha looked at the cone ice cream section first. Thinking this wouldn’t work, Taesung forcibly chose the ice cream he would eat.
“This looks good. You can only eat stuff like this when your teeth are good, so eat plenty now. Got it?”
The cheapest-looking one.
Purple Pollapo.
“It’s delicious.”
Jaeha chattered as they climbed the slope again.
“Right. At your age, that kind of thing suits your taste best.”
Jaeha stuck out his tongue dyed purple and smiled.
That sight alone looked like such an innocent child that Taesung found himself smiling along without realizing it.
His disgusted insides settled down a bit.
The sky had turned the color of Pollapo before he knew it.
The whole world was violet.
“What are you stuffing your face with from the morning?”
Jaeha, who had been holding a retort container in one hand and a cute plastic spoon the perfect size for eating yogurt in the other, annoyingly munching on something, waved his hand—or more precisely, his spoon—at Yeom Chaewoo, who had just returned from the wholesale market.
“Porridge.”
“Mine?”
“You must’ve been tasting fruit since dawn. If you eat more carbs, you can’t manage your blood sugar.”
“Forget it, forget it. What do I expect from you?”
Yeom Chaewoo made a punching gesture and entered the bathroom to wash off the sweat she’d shed since dawn. As soon as the old door painted over with blue paint closed with a creaking sound, a scream of “Hyun Jaeha, you bastard!” could be heard from inside, so it seemed she’d discovered the cockroach he’d sprayed with foot cleanser in the morning and left.
Jaeha scooped up a spoonful of vegetable porridge and popped it into his mouth.
As expected, it didn’t suit his taste.
“You, you, you’re on morning shift duty today.”
Yeom Chaewoo, who had just come out after splashing water, pointed her finger flashily and barked. Jaeha stuck out the tip of his red tongue and licked up the porridge around his mouth while shrugging his shoulders.
“Ew, but shouldn’t something that big have gone extinct around the Paleozoic era?”
“It’s climate change. Soon human-sized grasshoppers will fly around and dinosaur-sized chickens will walk around. But did you buy Shine Muscat?”
“They said it’s not selling.”
“Hmph.”
Jaeha turned his body around in a huff. Yeom Chaewoo spread both arms and sighed toward the sky, expressing with her whole body that she was going crazy. That bastard, if only he didn’t have money. Yeah, eat all the Shine Muscat you like, I would’ve thrown you upside down at the Garak Market vegetable building 2 unloading area.
Yeom Chaewoo rubbed her short hair with a towel and opened the refrigerator door. Then she casually grabbed a bottle, thinking ‘When did I buy 500ml water?’ Instantly, Jaeha, who had been sitting turned away, glared at her with eyes opened fiercely like a fox. Yeom Chaewoo threw the 500ml water bottle at him and took out the 2-liter water she usually drank.
As soon as Jaeha caught the water bottle, he tore it open and drank desperately. 500ml without breathing, all at once.
“Acting crazy, really crazy.”
She’d think she should give treatment befitting a money patron, but whenever she saw that childish behavior, she lost her mind.
Yeom Chaewoo also competitively emptied the remaining water and buried her body on the sofa with a thud. She swiped up the screen, roughly scrolling past videos posted on SNS, then stared at Jaeha. Jaeha was scraping the bottom of the porridge bowl with the plastic spoon, making scratching sounds. To anyone watching, he might look like someone having their first meal in a week.
“Is work going well?”
Scratch scratch.
What’s so great about that damn Shine Muscat? A strong will not to even mix words could be felt from the back of Jaeha’s head.
“No, I mean, is it really okay for me to just be running this store like this? That ahjussi said scary people will come soon and trash the store, so if there’s damage, you have to compensate for it. You know that, right?”
Scratch scratch.
There was no greater enemy.
“I got one bunch for you to eat. Happy now?”
In the end, Yeom Chaewoo had no choice but to declare surrender first again. Jaeha turned around promptly as if he’d been waiting for these words and smiled while sucking on the empty spoon. His smiling face was so annoyingly good-looking that Yeom Chaewoo covered her head with both hands.
“Don’t worry about money, and if scary people come, just go into the nearest police box. They’re not impressive enough bastards to mess with public authority.”
“How can I not worry about money? You know too. I got involved in this work looking at money alone.”
“You said no when I offered to just give it to you.”
“Ha, bourgeois. You really don’t understand. What I need is money with perfect freedom guaranteed. Say I received 100 million from you. I’d ultimately have to live in front of you for life in the position of someone who received 100 million in charity. So even if it’s the same 100 million, I have to take what I earned through my work, with my ability, to live a life not subordinate to anyone.”
“You already squeezed all the capital from me anyway.”
“Uh-uh, that was receiving investment funds for business. It’s different from free money, man.”
The difference between money earned thanks to the capital and opportunity Jaeha gave versus money Jaeha just gave.
It seemed that just the addition of the very small element of Yeom Chaewoo’s own labor as seasoning made the value of the two feel vastly different to her.
Is it like the difference between plain buckwheat noodles and perilla oil buckwheat noodles?
Because the important thing is that perilla oil goes in.
So is that why Taesung scoffed at Jaeha’s suggestion to buy ‘an officetel overlooking the city center’ and live together, but moves into the pretty-but-worthless officetel he scraped together money to buy himself?
It was funny how he said he didn’t want Jaeha’s money, but was satisfied with money earned doing dog work for Jang Hyeokjin. It was also ridiculous how he rolled his body around carelessly until his hole wore out, but the moment he woke up, he acted like a chaste priest, guarding his body and freaking out asking what was done to him.
Though Jaeha himself was also pathetic for backing down without even being able to violate that worn-out body.
“Mm…”
Only then did Jaeha stop scraping the bottom of the porridge bowl and attempted a shot toward the recycling bag. The separated spoon fell helplessly midway, but the bowl went right into the bag.
“Vegetable porridge tastes bad.”
“What nonsense after scraping it all up?”
“That’s probably why it was a freebie. They give useless stuff as freebies.”
Yeom Chaewoo, who had been tapping her phone screen, glanced sideways at Jaeha. Jaeha was noisily crushing the plastic bottle he’d emptied in one go.
“Give me the prettiest freebie. That way they’ll taste it and come back to buy more.”
“Is that so?”
Jaeha, who had been staring expressionlessly at the fallen spoon, curled up the corners of his mouth again.
“Then I should taste it first.”
The wound on his neck couldn’t be covered at all with a shirt. In the end, he had no choice but to take out the turtleneck knit that had been shoved in the closet. After pickling it halfway with deodorizer to remove the musty smell that had soaked into the closet and roughly sticking his head in, Taesung realized why he hadn’t been wearing this.
First of all, it was too tight around the neck. He roughly pulled at the neck part, but it had no intention of stretching. On top of this, made of what cheap thread, the skin directly touching the knit stung as if scraped by coarse fur. Why did his past self not throw this thing away but put it in the closet?
‘Why? Because it was a waste, so you shoved it away again.’
It was clothing he wanted to tear apart and throw in the trash right now, but there was no other option at the moment. Taesung rolled up his sleeves and scratched his reddened skin. The intercom rang with a visitor notification. It seemed Manager Kim had brought the car from Knox.
