By Zephyria Paper cups clinked in the air. Seo Jeong-won swallowed the overflowing soju in large gulps.
“Ugh, it’s lukewarm and tastes bad.”
“The alcohol is sweet, sweet. Wow, the alcohol is really hitting me today.”
“I should have bought a cup with ice.”
“Want me to go buy one now? While I’m at it, I’ll get ice cream and soju glasses too.”
Kang Da-hyun, noticing Seo Jeong-won’s furrowed brow, asked as if he was about to jump up from his seat. He looked ready to leave the flower shop at any moment if asked.
“Let’s just drink it before it gets even more lukewarm.”
Yeah, might as well get it over with. He wasn’t sure if this expression was appropriate for the situation, but since he’d decided to confess, it was better to get drunk quickly.
Seo Jeong-won finished the last sip of alcohol and grabbed the soju bottle.
“Trying to drink yourself to death?”
“I thought you said I was being weak.”
“That was a joke.”
“No, I need to get drunk quickly.”
His alcohol-soaked lips twisted slightly. Seo Jeong-won stopped Kang Da-hyun, who was trying to drink at his own pace, and emptied his paper cup repeatedly.
His pale face began to flush. He felt like he was getting a little drunk. His vision wasn’t spinning, but his head was.
“Still, isn’t this too fast?”
“I… found Hyung.”
“What?”
Seo Jeong-won’s cheeks flushed red from the sudden influx of alcohol. He raised his gaze from the table and met Kang Da-hyun’s eyes. He bit his wet lip tightly and confessed with a sigh.
“But… he’s in a coma.”
“Crazy.”
Seo Jeong-won refilled his glass and drank it down again. One bottle disappeared in the blink of an eye. He rubbed his damp mouth with the back of his hand and shivered.
“Hey, then…”
“I was busy trying to get the hospital bills. I really… needed a lot of money.”
“What, what could put him in a coma? Who contacted you? An accident? A car accident?”
“I got a call at the beginning of the year.”
Kang Da-hyun listened to Seo Jeong-won’s story, which he had been hiding for over half a year, with his mouth open. He couldn’t close his surprised mouth. He was frustrated that he wasn’t being told more details.
“Tell me properly, and stop drinking.”
“So, at the beginning of the year, I got a call from Hyung’s… Hyung’s number.”
He had drunk too much alcohol in a short amount of time, and he was getting drunk quickly. Seo Jeong-won’s body leaned forward. His voice began to slur. He blinked his large eyes and then closed them tightly.
“He’s in a coma…”
“What the fuck, out of nowhere.”
Seo Jeong-won opened his mouth intermittently. He occasionally paused to gather his thoughts as he tried to sort out his tangled words, but he explained the current situation without too much delay.
Meanwhile, Kang Da-hyun was chugging from the soju bottle. Seo Jeong-won considered stopping him, but decided to let him be.
“Hyung was in a fall accident and was in critical condition for a year, but this time… the hospital said there was no hope of him waking up and suggested removing the respirator. But, to do that… they needed family consent.”
“Who made that call? Huh? The person who caused the accident? The police? The hospital?”
“Hyung’s fiancée… or rather, his ex-fiancée.”
“Ex? What’s that supposed to mean? So they’re not together anymore?”
“…Yeah, they’re not. She’s nobody to him.”
It was as if he was saying it to himself. He emphasized the parts that didn’t need emphasizing, trying to alleviate his guilt. Seo Jeong-won scoffed at his pathetic self.
“She said she knew Hyung wasn’t in contact with his family… so she had been taking care of him instead.”
His throat felt scratchy as he explained. His head was foggy, as if it was filled with mist.
“Hyung was going to get married? But he didn’t contact you? Wow, Gyu-won Hyung is usually not that cold. No, well, yeah. I guess he could be.”
Kang Da-hyun rambled in a drunken voice. He nodded his head emphatically as if to say he was right.
“If he wanted to cut ties completely, he could do that. Honestly, he had every right to.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Hyung… had every right to.”
“Still… how could he not contact you even once? Huh? Isn’t that too much? Fuck. He just took off while you were living like this, he wouldn’t have known how you were doing here. Huh? He was just living well on his own…”
Kang Da-hyun’s resentment and understanding continued like a round song. He thought from Seo Gyu-won’s perspective, but then cursed and got angry.
Watching him, Seo Jeong-won didn’t know what he was trying to say. He listened quietly and then spoke when Kang Da-hyun’s mouth finally closed.
“Anyway, that’s why I needed the money. It’s weird to keep asking someone else to take care of Hyung. She doesn’t have any obligation to do that.”
“Ah, I don’t know. But… hearing it like that, I guess it makes sense.”
“Yeah.”
Kang Da-hyun raised his voice again as if in response to Seo Jeong-won’s quiet reply.
“Then you should have contacted me sooner. Fuck! How long have I been looking for you? No, even if you had contacted me sooner… a year ago, we were just twenty, it would have been even more hopeless. Should I be grateful? Ha, fuck, what is going on. You really.”
“…”
“You should have told me if something like this happened. I misunderstood you without knowing anything. I even felt Alpha pheromones coming from you.”
Kang Da-hyun’s face was red as he added that he felt so much that he was even repulsed.
“Loan sharks were coming after you, and because you’re so naive, I thought you’d been scammed by someone, ha… Anyway, I thought all sorts of things. So that bad, that kind of thing isn’t happening, right? Huh?”
Seo Jeong-won shrugged at the barrage of questions. He couldn’t answer and just smiled awkwardly. That kind of bad thing… it felt like he was doing something similarly bad right now.
If Kang Da-hyun had been even a year older than him, he probably would have consulted him first.
But Kang Da-hyun was also twenty-one, just like him. He had probably had his share of worries, but they were clearly different from his, so he couldn’t even confide in him.
“Anyway, that’s what happened. It wasn’t a good thing, so I couldn’t talk about it. I’ll pay back the money I borrowed soon.”
“Take your time. I can live without it. Anyway… it turns out I met Hyung after all.”
Kang Da-hyun tilted the soju bottle and filled Seo Jeong-won’s glass. Unlike before, he didn’t even fill the paper cup halfway.
“Drink slowly. So, what about the hospital bills now? Are they taken care of?”
“Yeah, I’m… getting help.”
“Ah, I saw in dramas that there’s a system in hospitals that helps with that kind of thing. That?”
“…Something like that. More than that, I’m worried because there are so few customers at the flower shop.”
Seo Jeong-won changed the subject because he didn’t want to explain the situation in more detail. He was glad that Kang Da-hyun was drunk. He didn’t ask any more about how he was paying the hospital bills and nodded his head emphatically.
“There really aren’t any customers. How can not a single person come?”
“Maybe it’s because there were so many witnesses when the loan sharks made a scene…”
Seo Jeong-won, holding the cup with a listless hand, drank it down and lowered his eyes with a gloomy expression. He complained in a slurred voice that business was so bad that he was worried about making a living.
“But we still get customers who come to repot plants, and we sell plants every now and then, although it’s really rare. Actually, there’s not much to buy here, is there? Even you can see that, there’s too… little, right?”
“Well, this place is a bit small, cluttered, and doesn’t have a variety of plants. And… what is it, there are too many dead ones. Would you want to buy, uh, wouldn’t want to buy. Uh. This is diverse enough.”
He blurted out too honest and direct words without thinking. Kang Da-hyun, seeing Seo Jeong-won’s eyes welling up as if he was about to cry, avoided his gaze and mumbled.
He must be too drunk. Seeing Seo Jeong-won’s fair cheeks, flushed and moist eyes suddenly look pretty. No, Seo Jeong-won was always pretty. From childhood until now.
“It’ll get better. When I come to pick apples this time, I’ll promote it a lot to my Aunties.”
“Thank you, really.”
“Eat some snacks too. Are you drunk?”
“Am I drunk? I don’t really know. I think I’m a little dizzy.”
In response to Seo Jeong-won’s mumbling voice, Kang Da-hyun picked up a piece of chicken and put it in his mouth. He was only drinking alcohol without eating anything, so of course he would get drunk. At his urging to tear it apart and eat it, Seo Jeong-won opened his small mouth and bit off a small piece of crispy chicken.
“…Delicious.”
Kang Da-hyun watched Seo Jeong-won tear at the chicken with a pitiful look and muttered the words he had often only thought to himself.
“If you were an Omega, we would, we would even get married. Then I would… at least help you in this situation.”
“What?”
Seo Jeong-won’s glossy, wet eyes turned to Kang Da-hyun. Not noticing the bewilderment in them, he scratched the back of his head and continued.
“No, it’s just that, honestly, we’ve been together our whole lives, so it wouldn’t be weird, right? You could run the flower shop and I could run the orchard, huh? You too, you don’t… think I’m okay?”
“What are you talking about? All of a sudden…”
“Just pretend to be an Omega and cause an accident?”
“Why would I…?”