By Zephyria 
“Hic.”
As the employee let out a startled hiccup, Kim Si-baek tilted his head, looking at Tae-un’s nonchalant expression.
“Want me to carry you on my back like old times? You’ve gotten so much bigger, won’t your legs drag?”
“I’m much heavier than I look. It would be hard for you too, Hyung.”
“Just looking at you, I can tell you’re heavy because of the muscle.”
Even in a three-piece suit, his firm body, packed with muscle, was evident; his muscle density must be incredible. By the way, it wasn’t even that cold for October, so why was he wearing a coat draped over his shoulders? Was that the fashion these days?
Tae-un slid his fingers out of his sleeves and overlapped his hand with Kim Si-baek’s as he spoke to the employee.
“I’ll take this one. The number should be 01X-XXXX-0804.”
“0804?”
It was a number—or rather, a date—that was impossible to forget. Kim Si-baek looked up at Tae-un anew, clicking his tongue.
“Isn’t that the day you and I first met? How did you get this number?”
Tae-un gave a bright, eye-curving smile.
“I bought the number.”
Then, he leaned down and pressed his lips close to Kim Si-baek’s ear. At the secret whisper that felt like a lick against the fuzz of his earlobe, Kim Si-baek reflexively shrugged his shoulders.
“All my passwords are the same, too.”
The way he mentioned the passwords being the same felt as subtle as a confession. Or rather, in a sense, it was a confession.
“Good grief.”
It was a bit absurd, but it felt good.
When the employee brought the documents needed for activation, another problem arose. He didn’t have an ID. To be precise, he didn’t have an ID for Earth. The biometric chip proving his identity in mak slecht was embedded under his skin.
Kim Si-baek grabbed Tae-un’s wrist and whispered in the corner of the store. It wouldn’t be good for others to hear that he lacked identification.
“Can we just take the phone and activate it later?”
“Why?”
“I don’t have an ID. Isn’t that illegal?”
It was a long time ago, but since Kim Si-baek had been a police officer, he knew well. Korea was a country where resident registration cards were issued to all adults following the attempted assassination of the president. Although there had been a great disaster called the Great Cataclysm, since the government remained intact, existing laws likely still held; activating a phone without an ID had been illegal twenty-one years ago.
“We can just activate it under my name for now.”
“That’s a burner phone.”
“But Hyung, it’s not like we’re using it for a crime. It’s tacitly allowed for family members to activate phones for each other. Aren’t we family?”
“Strictly speaking, not legally.”
“We really aren’t…?”
Because he spoke so gloomily, wearing a blatantly disappointed expression, Kim Si-baek’s resolve to be firm about the law melted away. Tae-un didn’t miss the moment he fell silent and pushed further.
“Or, once Hyung gets an ID later, I could just become your adopted son. Then we’d be real family.”
“…?”
Kim Si-baek tilted his head. He felt like he’d heard somewhere about the reason for being adopted by a close member of the same sex…
He failed to notice the employee, who had been listening intently with pricked ears, be absolutely shocked upon overhearing the phrase ‘adopted son,’ thinking, Is that the thing they do instead of same-sex marriage?
In the end, half-dragged by Tae-un, he ended up activating the phone under Tae-un’s name. Though he still felt it was unnecessary, he didn’t feel too bad once he actually received the new phone.
“Hyung, this is the messaging app. I’ll sign you up right now. I’ll unify your ID as ‘un-iS2S2’ across everything.”
“Oh.”
“This is the camera.”
“Oh.”
Tae-un wrapped his arm around the bewildered Kim Si-baek and took a selfie, then arbitrarily set it as the wallpaper.
“Use this for the internet.”
“Oh.”
“This way, you can listen to music too.”
“Oh.”
[Death and Beauty asks if you have nothing to say other than ‘oh’.]
Kim Si-baek, who had been an analog human even in mak slecht, couldn’t quite grasp what was what as the screens flicked by rapidly under Tae-un’s fingers.
“I’ll save my number here too.”
Tae-un, using his large hand to delicately tap the keypad, saved the first number in the empty phonebook.
♥Un-i♥
“Send me just one text, Hyung. It’ll be the first text I receive from you, so I want to keep it.”
“How do I write a heart?”
When he sent a single heart as Tae-un instructed, Tae-un beamed a soft smile upon checking the message. Smiling so purely, he looked like nothing less than an angel.
[Death and Beauty hurriedly averts its eyes from your brother’s face, feeling a chill.]
And the employee, who had been forced to watch the scene from right beside them, twisted their body invisibly, desperately wishing for them to please leave.
As soon as the two purchased the phone and left, the employee hurriedly sent a message to a group chat with friends: ‘Is Tae-un gay??? I think he just brought his boyfriend??’ That message was also seen by one of Tae-un’s long-time fans who worked at MA Department Store.
Due to the unfamiliar keypad, even entering a single word was an ordeal. Accessing the internet via the phone, Kim Si-baek frowned, finding the small, palm-sized screen uncomfortable. Struggling to recall hazy memories, the first search term he hesitantly typed was, naturally, T… a… e… u… n…
As he suspected, many articles, including Tae-un’s profile, were searched. Feeling proud of his well-grown younger brother, he looked at the photo in the profile.
‘I guess this is an old photo. He looks so young. His bangs are down, and there are no scars.’
A version of Tae-un from a time he didn’t know. A ticklish joy and a sense of regret for not experiencing the young Tae-un mixed together.
As he scrolled down, glancing at the titles of the articles, he saw a familiar word. It was a movie advertisement.
“Huh? Wasn’t this movie released 20 years ago?”
Tae-un, who was driving, glanced down at the phone screen.
“Ah, that one? A sequel was released recently.”
“After 20 years?”
“The first one came out when I was in 6th grade, so it’s exactly 22 years. It should be playing now; do you want to go see the sequel? It’s a movie you saw in the theater four times.”
“But I don’t remember a thing about the plot.”
“It’s a spin-off series, but it was also made into a drama, so you can watch both the previous film and the drama. If you’re interested, do you want to watch it at home?”
“Home? How do I watch old movies and US dramas? Are they airing reruns? Oh, is it on DVD?”
Tae-un’s eyes curved into circles. He had always been a child who smiled a lot in front of him, but now that they had reunited, his faint smiles never ceased.
“Would I really tell you, a former detective, to download videos illegally? These days, it’s easy to find old dramas and movies on the internet. Foreign ones too.”
“Oh.”
Even though Biyendwe had pointed it out, he didn’t have a huge reaction to the advancement of civilization. It was just a feeling of, Oh, things have become more convenient.
Tae-un, who had secretly reserved a hotel restaurant, turned the steering wheel.
“Shall we get takeout for dinner and eat while watching the movie?”
✽ ✽ ✽
For dinner, they bought an assorted sashimi platter and soju. The pungent taste, like industrial alcohol that he had forgotten, stung his throat.
“Do you… drink too?”
Even after pouring the alcohol into the soju glass, Kim Si-baek asked as if he were facing a delinquent child.
“It’s been a while since I got my ID, so I can drink, but my stomach doesn’t handle it well. Maybe it’s because Tae Cheol-hun drank too much.”
“My father was the same even without drinking.”
“Still better than your father, Hyung.”
The reason they could share childhood pains like jokes was that Tae-un shared similar memories. Ruffling Tae-un’s neatly combed hair, Kim Si-baek drank the soju meant for his brother as well.
Since he remembered nothing except the lead actor’s face, he was able to enjoy it like a movie he was seeing for the first time. Next, he played the drama that had been produced as a series.
The sashimi plate had long since been cleared, and he had finished a whole bottle of soju on his own. While stroking Biyendwe, who had fallen asleep curled up on a cushion, Kim Si-baek watched the drama in a state of mindless void and clicked his tongue. To exaggerate, guts and flesh began to fly across the TV screen, which was the size of a bed.
“This is way more brutal than the movie…”
“The drama is rated 19+. Should I turn it off?”
While he was worried about Tae-un’s emotional well-being rather than his own, he pushed his brain to think logically. Tae-un was an adult, not a child. Glancing back, he saw Tae-un staring at the TV screen expressionlessly, and upon feeling the gaze, he beamed. In any case, he didn’t seem scared of the brutality.
However, there was a problem he had overlooked. If the level of violence was rated 19+, there was a high probability that the level of suggestiveness was also 19+. Kim Si-baek, who had only frowned slightly at the brutal scenes, suddenly shuddered with an inexplicable chill when the male and female leads locked eyes intently.
A rule of US dramas that he had completely forgotten suddenly sprang to mind.
Characters lock eyes for a few seconds = They have sex.
He fumbled for the remote, but it was too late.