By Zephyria 
Seo Chi-young limped on his tingling legs and quickly opened the window first. Then, he began to rush busily around the house.
Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time someone had visited his home. Unless it was for a gas inspection or a delivery, people he knew personally almost never came by. Since he started living alone, he hadn’t had the luxury of letting Nuru into the house, and even when he met friends, it was almost always outside.
Thinking back, even until he was in school, friends would often visit his place on holidays, or he would go to theirs.
“……..”
The fact that someone wanted to come over to his house made them feel truly like a friend.
As the thought crossed his mind, Seo Chi-young became suddenly shy; he haphazardly hugged his blanket and headed up to the rooftop. What am I thinking, I’m not a child.
But perhaps because he was getting older, the feeling was stronger. The older he got, the less he felt like letting people into his home unless they were exceptionally close. Maybe that was why, at the prospect of someone visiting, his hands and heart were both frantic and excited as he tidied up.
That was partly because of the person visiting, of course.
Even after Seo Chi-young had quickly cleaned the house, he continued to peer around the place until Jang Ui-geon arrived. By the time his heart had settled and he was starting to feel a bit exhausted, Jang Ui-geon called to say he was nearby. His heart leaped right back up again.
Shortly after, he heard the heavy mechanical sound of an engine entering the alley. Just as he was brushing off the sound as ordinary, the phone rang.
“Chi-young, could you come outside for a moment?”
As soon as Seo Chi-young answered, Jang Ui-geon spoke without any prior explanation, but Seo Chi-young simply nodded and went outside. There, right next to the building entrance, he spotted Jang Ui-geon.
“Sorry for visiting while you’re resting on your day off.”
Taking off his helmet and stepping off the motorcycle, Jang Ui-geon gestured to Seo Chi-young. Seo Chi-young mumbled, “Oh, no,” while staring at him in bewilderment, hesitating as he walked forward. Then, he looked down at the motorcycle the man was sitting on. No way…
“The motorcycle I mentioned earlier, this is it.”
“Here are the keys,” Jang Ui-geon said, holding out his hand. Seo Chi-young instinctively reached out. Only after the keys landed in his palm did he think, Wait, this isn’t right.
“I bought it in college so I could get around easily, but I haven’t had a use for it since. It’s been a few years, but I’ve kept it well-maintained, so there shouldn’t be any problems. I rode it here just in case, and it was fine.”
“I, …..”
With a troubled expression, Seo Chi-young looked back and forth between the motorcycle and Jang Ui-geon. To Seo Chi-young, the motorcycle looked far too heavy; at a glance, it seemed far too excessive to simply accept.
“Um, Ui-geon. This is a bit much for me to take…”
As Seo Chi-young spoke, awkwardly holding out the hand with the keys, Jang Ui-geon let out a laugh that sounded like a sigh.
“I can’t take this back. I have somewhere to stop by this evening, and since it’s a gathering to see some elder relatives, I can’t go on a motorcycle. Besides, since I pulled this out of the storage, my Hyung was so happy about the extra space that he shoved his own luggage in there, so there’s no room left to put it. If you really don’t want it, just give it to a scrap yard.”
“Uh.., but..”
Seo Chi-young stammered, but after looking back and forth between the motorcycle and Jang Ui-geon, who was now entering the building, he followed behind with a troubled face.
He should have thought of it beforehand, but only after Jang Ui-geon entered the house did Seo Chi-young realize he had nothing to offer a guest. However, when Seo Chi-young tried to leave for the supermarket, saying, “Just a moment…”, Jang Ui-geon quickly stopped him.
“I don’t really drink things like juice. I rarely snack, either. Do you happen to have just some water? Ice would be nice, but it’s fine if you don’t have any.”
After glancing around the kitchen-living area, which was less than two pyeong, Jang Ui-geon entered the room as Seo Chi-young had told him to.
Seo Chi-young quickly poured some water. Fortunately, he added a couple of remaining pieces of ice.
Jang Ui-geon was sitting under the window. Although it was a semi-basement, it was close enough to the ground floor that light came in well, but since people passing by were visible through the window, he usually kept the door closed during the non-summer months while ventilating through the living room window.
“………”
Jang Ui-geon sat in the room, which felt somewhat empty due to the lack of furniture. Seo Chi-young watched him as he looked around the room with interest, feeling a very strange sensation.
Jang Ui-geon was sitting in his house.
It felt somehow like a lie or a dream, so he stood rooted to the spot in front of the room, only approaching after his eyes met Jang Ui-geon’s.
“It’s close to the shop. Does it take about 10 minutes to walk from here?”
Taking the cup, Jang Ui-geon moistened his lips and asked. Seo Chi-young sat quietly before him like a scolded student and nodded, “Yes.”
“But there are many traffic lights in between, so if you hit every light, it takes about 15 minutes. If you’re lucky and don’t hit any, you can make it in 5 if you run…”
“I see,” Jang Ui-geon nodded. Then, he suddenly gave a crescent-eyed smile.
“Not this way, but I used to go across the street often in middle school. There was a huge comic book store over there.”
“My father hated it when his children read comics, so he’d scold me severely if I got caught,” he added with a smile, and seeing that, Seo Chi-young’s tension began to ease. “My father was like that too,” Seo Chi-young replied with a faint smile.
“Then, starting in high school, I went down a more decadent path and went to clubs almost every three days, so eventually, my father got so angry he told me to just go read comics instead.”
At Jang Ui-geon’s words, Seo Chi-young recalled his own memories. Back in high school, there were many rumors surrounding Jang Ui-geon in various directions. That he’d met and slept with a celebrity at a club, that a fight broke out at a club and he and Kwon Kang-hee had taken down fourteen people, that the club owner was Jang Ui-geon’s older cousin… there were many rumors, whether true or not, but looking back, it seemed he did go out partying often.
“That’s right. There were a lot of rumors back then.”
As Seo Chi-young murmured with a nod, Jang Ui-geon arched an eyebrow. Then, he asked with amusement.
“Rumors? Rumors about me? Haha, what kind were they?”
Seo Chi-young started to say, “Uh, well,” but hesitated. Now that he was about to speak, he realized there weren’t exactly any good rumors. Fighting, sleeping around, partying. That was most of it.
Seeing Seo Chi-young hesitate and gauge his reaction, Jang Ui-geon laughed out loud. It seemed he was already aware of those rumors.
“You don’t actually believe all that, do you?”
At Jang Ui-geon’s smiling question, Seo Chi-young quickly nodded.
“Of course not. Since it was exaggerated to the point of saying you fought fourteen people, the other kids probably just talked for the fun of it without believing it.”
“Fourteen..? Ah, that story. Haha, it really was an exaggeration. There were only nine.”
“So that’s why the kids were so cautious whenever I suggested we go out together,” Jang Ui-geon laughed to himself. Seo Chi-young watched him, his smile gone, only his eyes moving. Seeing this, Jang Ui-geon burst into laughter. Even though Seo Chi-young looked at him puzzled, he murmured, “Chi-young’s face is too much like a mirror…” and laughed for a long time.
Seo Chi-young felt a bit awkward, but seeing Jang Ui-geon laughing so cheerfully in front of him made him feel good, and he found himself staring blankly. When their eyes met, he stealthily looked away.
Letting out a contented sigh, Jang Ui-geon suddenly leaned over and flopped down. Using the neatly folded blanket as a cushion, he closed and opened his eyes as if he were about to sleep.
“It really feels like I’ve come to visit a friend’s house.”
“……..”
At Jang Ui-geon’s sudden murmur, Seo Chi-young only blinked at him. His lips hesitated for a moment but offered no response. At the word ‘friend,’ Seo Chi-young became unnecessarily shy and lowered his gaze, while Jang Ui-geon simply turned his crescent-eyed gaze toward him.
“I have many friends I get along with and drink with often, but for some reason, I don’t have many friends I actually visit or who visit my home. I had a few in middle and high school, but now there are none. Jun-young and Kang-hee, we meet often enough, but our schedules didn’t align well, so we met frequently for a while… well, now that Jun-young is moving and those two will live together, we probably won’t run into each other as much.”
Suddenly, Jang Ui-geon fell silent. Hearing those names, Seo Chi-young also fell silent. After a period of silence, staring at the ceiling as if looking into the past, Jang Ui-geon eventually gave a small laugh.
“Jun-young is such a picky eater that he hardly eats meat, and even when he does, he only has one or two pieces of premium Hanwoo sirloin. That’s why I was really surprised when he first started coming to Chi-young’s shop.”
“……..”
“Even yesterday, he was worrying about what he’d do if he suddenly craved it right before closing, since he won’t be able to come here often after moving. He’ll probably keep visiting diligently even after he moves.”
“….You should come often too, Ui-geon.”
Jang Ui-geon slightly arched an eyebrow and looked at Seo Chi-young. Seo Chi-young met that gaze—which seemed to ask why, or perhaps seemed reluctant—and continued.
“We’re friends. ….And regardless of who it is, it’s better to meet as often as possible if you can.”
Later, a time may come when you want to see missed faces but cannot. Whether it be a friend, a lover, or family. It would be best if such a situation never occurred.
Having kept his head down for a moment, Seo Chi-young murmured, “They don’t say ‘treat people well while they’re here’ for nothing,” and laughed awkwardly.
Jang Ui-geon looked at the slight smile on Seo Chi-young’s lips for a moment, then eventually gave a small laugh.
“Right.. You’re right.”
Letting out a breath like a light sigh, Jang Ui-geon seemed uncomfortable lying diagonally on the blanket, so he shifted his angle and rolled onto his side. As this brought him face-to-face with Seo Chi-young, Seo Chi-young became shy for some reason, scratched the back of his neck, and lowered his gaze.
Jang Ui-geon spoke with a somewhat languid tone.
“It’s like this now, too. Being able to lie down so comfortably in someone else’s house makes it really feel like I’ve come to a friend’s place.”
As he said this and closed his eyes, Seo Chi-young stared down at him. The sight of Jang Ui-geon closing his eyes while using his blanket was very unfamiliar and wondrous, but the man lying there had given him the definition of what he was.
“Fri, ….Friends, right. …We went to school together.”
Adding the last part made it sound like an excuse, so Seo Chi-young shut his mouth, his face flushing red.
Jang Ui-geon, who had been languidly closing his eyes, looked at Seo Chi-young. As if he had heard something incredibly strange or embarrassing, Jang Ui-geon stared intently at Seo Chi-young and then beamed.
“Ahaha, that’s right. …. Yes. You’re right.”
Because that face looked so genuinely happy, Seo Chi-young’s heart fluttered. I see, I can get as close as a friend.
Seo Chi-young’s smiling expression slowly faded.
It was strange. How should he describe this feeling? This sensation of someone he never thought he could be friends with, or have any close relationship with, suddenly being right before his eyes.
Longing, emotion, thrill, joy. …..It wasn’t those things.
Seo Chi-young realized a moment later what was closest to that nameless emotion.
I missed this man.
Those ordinary days, the days that flowed by without particular hardship or joy. And the one who existed with the clearest outline within those days was this man.
Facing Seo Chi-young, who was staring intently at him, Jang Ui-geon’s expression slowly vanished. He tilted his head with a puzzled look and looked at Seo Chi-young.
“What’s wrong?”
“…I just thought that I missed you.”
Only after saying it did he realize it would be a confusing statement to the other man. This longing belonged entirely to Seo Chi-young. The memories of that time. The emotions.
As expected, Jang Ui-geon looked puzzled for a moment. However, he soon smiled as if it didn’t matter and spoke half-jokingly.
“Right, I missed having friends too. Truly. Sometimes when I heard my younger sister talking about going to the bathroom with her friends, I couldn’t understand it and thought it was strange, but on the other hand, I thought it would be fun to have friends like that.”
“…. Um.., I still don’t quite understand…”
Seo Chi-young murmured with a serious face. Then Jang Ui-geon also laughed and said, “Right. Me too. I didn’t understand, but when I told her that, my sister said that men need to understand women’s psychology, and if I can’t understand it, I should just memorize it. So I memorized it. That women go to the bathroom together with friends.”
“Then she told me that’s not it either. My complex little sister,” Jang Ui-geon added, shaking his head with a mock sigh. Seo Chi-young let out a small laugh.
He felt happy. It wasn’t any special conversation, but it really felt like spending a pleasant and joyful time with a friend. He felt he understood why so many people had surrounded Jang Ui-geon in high school.
Although he didn’t yet feel the same effortless intimacy he had with Kim Kyung-chul or other friends, it was still enjoyable and comfortable enough.
“She’s a cute younger sister. I’d like to meet her sometime.”
“She’s so cute that she already has a husband. So there’s no point in meeting her. ….Ah, no. You wouldn’t have meant it in that sense, Chi-young…”
Having likely heard many requests to introduce his sister, Jang Ui-geon laughed and waved his hand lightly, then added as an afterthought. The moment he said that, Seo Chi-young unconsciously lost the smile from his face for a second.
Seo Chi-young already knew well that Jang Ui-geon was aware of his sexual orientation, yet he still flinched reflexively whenever such things were mentioned. Having experienced harsh words because of that orientation several times, he had no choice but to shrink and become more closed off in that regard.
Especially since people he opened his heart to could hurt him more easily.
So, even if the person was someone who would never hurt him with such words, he would unconsciously shrink when the topic came up. Jang Ui-geon seemed to easily guess why Seo Chi-young had momentarily lost his words. Being gay himself, Jang Ui-geon must have seen many people who were defensive about such things.
“I became aware of my own orientation in middle school.”
Jang Ui-geon suddenly spoke up. Seo Chi-young glanced up at him. Seeing the face smiling cheerfully without a cloud in sight made this topic, which always weighed on his heart, feel a bit lighter.
“It wasn’t like I suddenly realized it at one point. Actually, until then—and even after—I dated women a lot, and I did a lot of things that were quite precocious for a kid. So it’s not that I couldn’t be with women, but even then, the person I liked most was Jun-young. Once I’d played and learned enough with girls, I started wondering what it would be like to sleep with this guy. That’s how I ended up sleeping with a man… and unexpectedly, it was great. Eventually, I’ve almost completely turned this way.”
“Well, rumors were already spreading through the school in high school,” Jang Ui-geon laughed. That was true. After hearing those rumors, Seo Chi-young had confessed to him. I’m like that too.
Perhaps Jang Ui-geon recalled the same memory as Seo Chi-young, but he didn’t mention it. Instead, he continued with something else.
“My family found out in high school, and for about half a year, the atmosphere at home was truly bleak. Have you ever been hit on the head with a golf club? A 3-iron. It’s a killer. …..Now they’ve all given up, so they don’t say anything.”
“My father is a man with quite a temper, so he hits hard when he hits,” Jang Ui-geon said, parting his hair and showing it to Seo Chi-young. It wasn’t visible normally because of the hair, but as he pushed the hair aside, a hideously crushed scar was visible slightly above his forehead. At the time, it must have been a terrible wound.
“I didn’t go around bragging that I sleep with men, but I didn’t hide it either, so I occasionally saw people hurling insults right to my face—but that was the extent of it. Since they were people who didn’t matter and were completely irrelevant to me, I didn’t get angry, and I felt nothing. …After a while, I actually became comfortable with it in that regard.”
Jang Ui-geon gave a thin smile. Seo Chi-young gazed at him blankly before slowly nodding his head.
It seemed he had always been that way. With a confidence rooted deep within, he must have stood tall and proud, unafraid of anyone’s cold gaze or sharp tongue. Just as he was now, and just as he had been then.
“Chi-young, how did you realize your orientation was this way?”
Seo Chi-young hesitated for a moment at Jang Ui-geon’s words, which shifted the topic back to him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to say it or wanted to hide it. It was simply that he had never talked about this before, and it felt awkward. Especially since the person he was talking to was Jang Ui-geon.
Jang Ui-geon waited quietly for Seo Chi-young to speak, and after a long silence, Seo Chi-young began to speak haltingly.
“In high school… I went to a study cafe, and I started going to a gym to exercise… and I met a man there. We talked a few times and became a bit close… I didn’t know at first, but that man…”
However, mid-sentence, Seo Chi-young fell silent.
To be precise, it wasn’t that man. The moment Seo Chi-young accurately recognized his own orientation was the day he happened to see Jang Ui-geon while wandering the streets. At that moment, Seo Chi-young realized poignantly that the way he looked at him was not admiration.
“………”
Seo Chi-young lowered his head. He didn’t want to say any more. No, he couldn’t. Even if Jang Ui-geon knew that Seo Chi-young liked him, he couldn’t tell him that.
With a slightly flushed face, Seo Chi-young scratched the back of his neck and mumbled vaguely, “I just figured it out after thinking things over after I ran away back then.”
However, for some reason, there was no response, only silence. Though Jang Ui-geon’s knees were clearly within his field of vision, the space above them was silent, as if he had fallen asleep while sitting.
Seo Chi-young hesitantly lifted his head. But then he froze.
Jang Ui-geon was staring at him with an expressionless face. The light in those black eyes was so fierce for a moment that Seo Chi-young’s heart turned cold, and he instinctively hunched his shoulders.
Unable to understand why he was suddenly glaring at him with such eyes, Seo Chi-young only blinked his eyes wide, as if trying to read his mood.
But after casting that chilly gaze upon him, Jang Ui-geon seemed to notice Seo Chi-young’s reaction and slightly frowned his expressionless face. As he let out a displeased sigh, the fierce light in his gaze softened slightly.
“Do you still know who that was?”
The voice, tinged with disapproval, asked the question, and Seo Chi-young shook his head, somewhat bewildered. Jang Ui-geon remained silent for a moment and then sighed once more.
“There are often strange guys in this circle. They specifically target people who look gentle and unlikely to resist…”
But as he spoke, Jang Ui-geon suddenly frowned and remained silent for a while, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Only after the deep crease between his brows vanished did Jang Ui-geon look back at Seo Chi-young. Looking at him with a faint frown, he clicked his tongue and spoke.
“Chi-young, you don’t go out and play much, do you?”
At the sigh-laden question, Seo Chi-young nodded hesitantly.
“Come with me next time. I think I mentioned it before, but there’s a place I go occasionally; there aren’t many low-life humans there, and it’s decent. For someone who isn’t used to it, it’s better to choose a place rather than a person.”
Seo Chi-young gazed blankly at Jang Ui-geon, who spoke lightly and calmly as if discussing a mundane topic, and gave a vague nod.
Ah, he’s worrying about me.
The fierce gaze from before, the sigh, the furrowed brow—it was all because he was worried about Seo Chi-young. It wasn’t because something about Seo Chi-young had displeased him.
But.
Seo Chi-young sighed quietly. He pushed down a feeling that tasted subtly bitter and looked at Jang Ui-geon. “Yes, thank you,” Seo Chi-young replied awkwardly in a stiff voice, and Jang Ui-geon gave him a soft smile.
The silence that followed for a while soon transitioned into stories from their high school days. Although they didn’t share the same memories, they shared the same subject matter, slowly exchanging words about things from long ago. It was a quiet and peaceful holiday afternoon.
Seo Chi-young had forgotten the conversation they had then, and Jang Ui-geon must have forgotten it too. Since then, that kind of topic had never come up. In fact, there was no room for it to come up.
Not long after the building renovation permit was issued, the frequency of Jang Ui-geon’s visits to the shop dropped by half. Unlike the renovation of a general building, the renovation of a traditional house was several times more difficult, starting from hiring a professional contractor.
From scouting a contractor, setting the renovation schedule, and securing materials until the actual construction began, the look of exhaustion never left Jang Ui-geon’s face. He, who used to visit almost every other day, now barely managed to come two or three times a week, and his encounters with Yoon Jun-young at the shop naturally decreased. As Yoon Jun-young’s moving date approached, he seemed to try and come more often, but the best he could do was visit the shop near midnight.
While he still led the atmosphere with the same cheerfulness as always, signs of fatigue leaked through—the slightly sharper lines of his face, the occasional silent sighs, and the way he rubbed his forehead as if exhausted.
‘Are you alright? I think it would be better if you went back and rested.’
When Seo Chi-young spoke cautiously, unable to watch any longer, Jang Ui-geon gave a bitter smile.
“Do I look that exhausted?”
“….Yes.”
“Oh dear… I shouldn’t show my weak side when I’ve come here to rest.”
Jang Ui-geon laughed, speaking playfully.
‘But it’ll get better soon. The preparations are mostly done, and construction starts next week, so I’ll be fine after that. I just have to hang in there until this week.’
Waving his hand as if it were nothing despite his tired face, Jang Ui-geon’s complexion had indeed improved by the time he visited over the weekend.
It was Saturday evening. Jang Ui-geon, who entered the shop with his shirt and collar buttons loosely undone, looked much better than he had a few days prior. He still looked tired, but the face that smiled and said, “I’m here, Chi-young,” looked as if a great weight had been lifted.
Seo Chi-young smiled brightly upon seeing him. “Welcome,” he said with a nod, a smile appearing on his face before he even realized it. Jang Ui-geon stopped for a moment and looked at Seo Chi-young, then sat down with a deeper smile.
“Is the busy work finished? You look better.”
Now, even without a separate order, Seo Chi-young would serve a plate of gopchang and a bottle of beer unless told otherwise. Only occasionally, when he waved his hand saying, “I brought my car today,” would he serve barley tea instead of beer.
Receiving a water bottle filled with barley tea instead of beer today, Jang Ui-geon smiled brightly as he took the cup Seo Chi-young handed him with four pieces of ice in it.
“Yes. I don’t think I’ll be this tired until I start preparing to open the shop. Construction starts right away next week. Getting the permit and doing the groundwork is the tedious part; once that’s done properly, there isn’t much else to worry about.”
Drinking the barley tea as refreshingly as he would a beer, Jang Ui-geon let out a relieved sigh. Then, with a smile in his eyes, he looked at Seo Chi-young.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to eat ten servings during that time. Actually, I wanted to come in between, but by the time I went to the provinces or traveled around to meet contractors, it was usually past 10 PM. I tried coming the other day just in case, but you were already closed.”
“Oh… if you wanted to eat that much, you should have called… I would have come out.”
Feeling unnecessarily sorry, Seo Chi-young murmured in a troubled tone, to which Jang Ui-geon replied half-jokingly, half-seriously, “I’ll do that from now on. Or I’ll just visit your house.”
Seo Chi-young raised his eyebrows slightly and then curled the corners of his mouth. He smiled shyly, somehow glad of those casual words. Perhaps that smile remained on his lips without him knowing, because as he placed the fried gopchang on a plate and handed it to Jang Ui-geon, he paused, noticing Jang Ui-geon staring at him blankly.
“……..?”
When Seo Chi-young looked puzzled, Jang Ui-geon—who had been looking at the area around his mouth as if lost in thought, or perhaps thinking of nothing at all—suddenly snapped back to his senses and lifted his head. Meeting Seo Chi-young’s eyes, he looked somewhat awkward and gave a vague smile.
“No… I guess I really am tired. I was just having some idle thoughts. How have things been lately? Has Jun-young come by much?”
Jang Ui-geon shifted the topic, saying, “Come to think of it.” Seo Chi-young answered “Uh, yes,” first, but his face looked subtly uncomfortable.
“He came yesterday too… with Kwon Kang-hee.”
He hesitated for a moment on whether to add more, but seeing his awkward expression, Jang Ui-geon likely already knew the answer before he even spoke.
“I see,” Jang Ui-geon murmured, quietly shaking his cup as if lost in thought. The sound of ice clinking echoed. A faint smile flickered on the corners of Jang Ui-geon’s mouth.
“They seem to be getting along well. ……I didn’t think about it much before, but for some reason, it’s been on my mind lately. Don’t you feel it too, Chi-young? That feeling of emptiness?”
Jang Ui-geon brought it up as if it were a joke. Startled by the sudden question, Seo Chi-young’s eyes widened in momentary confusion, and he soon slowly lowered his head.
“Uh… I, just… ….occasionally.”
He had felt that way. Ever since he had crossed paths with Jang Ui-geon again.
It wasn’t necessarily because of Jang Ui-geon. He had never expected anything from him in the first place, nor had he ever projected that kind of longing onto him.
He simply felt a coldness in his chest and wished he could cover that coldness somehow, even for a moment. And that thought always led toward human warmth. It was almost laughable. In reality, he had never encountered human warmth enough to know it so well or miss it so much.
Yet, in Seo Chi-young’s mind, it was always something warm and cozy. Even if it sank deep into his heart and was forgotten in daily life, whenever the thought suddenly surfaced, he wanted to be touched by it, even if only for a brief moment.
But since that day—the day he had encountered Jang Ui-geon while sitting in the park—he had consciously tried not to think about it. The vague sense of self-loathing that had rushed in along with the emptiness when he sat there alone, and the disastrous melancholy when he met Jang Ui-geon, remained as bitter memories even now.
However, feeling that it would be a lie to say he ‘didn’t feel empty,’ Seo Chi-young hesitated for a long time before answering, “Just occasionally.”
Just as Jang Ui-geon opened his mouth to say something while looking at Seo Chi-young—that was when it happened.
Pausing for a moment, he took his phone out of his pocket. It seemed a message had arrived on the phone he kept on vibrate; after pressing a few buttons and staring at the screen for a moment, Jang Ui-geon laughed to himself.
“This person’s timing is truly uncanny. A greeting at this exact moment…”
Murmuring as if to himself, he fiddled with the phone for a while, seemingly writing a reply. Only after pressing the send button did he notice Seo Chi-young’s gaze and give a brief explanation.
“A shop I used to visit occasionally sent a greeting. I was actually thinking about whether I should go there.”
He didn’t say which shop it was, but if they sent a greeting, it must have been a place he visited quite often. Seo Chi-young nodded, saying, “Oh…”
Placing the phone on the table and picking up his chopsticks, Jang Ui-geon suddenly looked at Seo Chi-young as if he had just remembered something. “Right.”
“Chi-young, do you want to come along?”
“Uh, what?”
At the unexpected words, Seo Chi-young blinked and looked at Jang Ui-geon. Come along? As he looked at him in bewilderment, Seo Chi-young vaguely guessed where that place was in the next moment. It was the place Jang Ui-geon had mentioned before.
“I mentioned it once before. That we should go together. It’s a bar that people from this circle mostly visit; it’s quiet and decent. I haven’t been in a while, so it might be a bit ambiguous now, but the people are good.”
“Uh… …I’ve never really been to places like that…”
Seo Chi-young murmured haltingly and lowered his gaze. Seeing Seo Chi-young’s face stiffen as if nervous, Jang Ui-geon laughed lowly.
“You don’t have to take it so seriously. If you meet someone you think is a good match, you’re lucky; if not, you can just chat with people. Besides, in your case, if you ever feel that way later on, it would be better to stop by there than to go somewhere dangerous, so I think it would be good just to know the location.”
Asking, “Do you not really feel like it?” Jang Ui-geon didn’t seem like he would force him, as was his usual way.
The thought of meeting someone and forming a light or deep relationship at a shop Jang Ui-geon recommended—thinking this, Seo Chi-young suddenly felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He hadn’t expected anything from him and knew the offer was made out of pure goodwill, but he still felt bitter.
Seo Chi-young pondered for a moment. Just as his heart was leaning toward refusing, Jang Ui-geon picked up his phone again, as if another message had arrived. He checked the screen and chuckled.
“Good grief, I told them I’d visit soon, and they ask exactly when I’m coming… They’re still as thorough as ever, never letting anything slide. The owner here is like that.”
While Jang Ui-geon murmured to himself about a person Seo Chi-young didn’t even know and fiddled with his phone again, Seo Chi-young looked at him with a strange feeling, seeing the faint smile on his face.
“……..You seem to be close.”
“Ah, for a while back then, I practically clocked in there every day. It’s not so much that we’re close, but just a place I can visit comfortably.”
A place Jang Ui-geon visited often, a place where a version of him that Seo Chi-young didn’t know existed. He suddenly became curious about what kind of place it was that he could visit so comfortably, and what kind of person the owner was, who could talk with him so easily.
He wasn’t curious about a place where people of his own kind gathered, but about the shop that Jang Ui-geon had frequented.
“Friday or Saturday… …..Ah, you can’t make it then, Chi-young. If you’re willing to go, I think Sunday evening would be good. What do you think?”
Stopping mid-button press—likely entering a reply about when he would visit—Jang Ui-geon looked at Seo Chi-young. Seo Chi-young hesitated for a moment, but the hesitation didn’t last long. Seeing Seo Chi-young nod, Jang Ui-geon murmured, “Then Sunday evening,” and sent the reply.
“It would be nice if you could luckily meet someone who fits you well there. Me too.”
To Jang Ui-geon’s kind words, Seo Chi-young only gave a clumsy smile instead of an answer.
It seemed Jang Ui-geon’s words about visiting that place often for a while were not a lie. And that he had been absent for a while as well.
In the basement of a simple and sophisticated building on a quiet street. As soon as they entered the bar, reached by stairs next to a gallery that occupied the entire first floor, Jang Ui-geon was grabbed by a man passing by before he could even take two steps.
“Why has it been so long! I thought you’d died somewhere.”
Though speaking gruffly, the man greeted him warmly. Jang Ui-geon told him, “I’ll see you in a bit,” and after confirming that Seo Chi-young, who had followed him in, was keeping up, he walked toward the bar.
Even on the way, Jang Ui-geon exchanged brief greetings with two or three people. As he sat in a center seat at the bar, the bartender—who he later said was the owner—seemed to widen his eyes before a full smile spread across his face.
“Ah, such a precious face. It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen you.”
“Han-su, it’s been a while. You’re as busy as ever.”
The spacious shop didn’t look that crowded because of its size, but in reality, it wasn’t that empty. Jang Ui-geon laughed seeing the line of order slips in front of the bartender. Then, he turned to Seo Chi-young, who was standing blankly beside him, and offered the seat next to him.