By Zephyria 
Mother sat on the mat where Yi-ho had been, using the apples brought as offerings as snacks while she drank the ritual liquor. Beside her, Yi-ho diligently attended to her, pouring a glass onto the grave every time Mother took a sip.
“How is work these days? Still busy?”
“Ah… it’s much more manageable now. The lectures I gave every Tuesday night have ended, and I only work overtime about twice a week.”
“Why do it twice a week? Now that you’re a team leader, you should just tell them to handle it themselves and leave.”
“Mom, people like that lose their jobs around the age of forty…”
The terrifying term “restructuring” didn’t exist for no reason.
Mother stared at Yi-ho for a moment before taking another drink. It felt as if she had something she wanted to say but swallowed it along with the liquor. In the silence, Yi-ho gazed blankly up at the sky. The sky was a deep, vivid blue, signaling that autumn had truly arrived. Just then, he felt a sharp smack! on his forearm.
“Ah…!”
“Another one tried to attack.”
Mother showed him the dead mosquito on her palm. A bloodstain was visible, as if it had already fed on Yi-ho’s blood. Of course, the mark of Mother’s hand on Yi-ho’s forearm was larger than the mosquito bite.
Yi-ho recalled the time he had gone to his mother’s house when his relationship with Min-gyu had soured after he had impulsively confessed his feelings.
There, Yi-ho had spent a night without a single thought, and Mother had let her son stay without saying a word. Those two days were a time when each other’s presence felt both natural and unnatural.
Mother let out a long sigh. Now, the scent of cheongju was faintly mixed into her breath.
Hesitating, Yi-ho spoke first.
“…Mom, what kind of person do you hope I meet?”
“Huh? Why so suddenly?”
“You were holding back from talking about marriage earlier.”
“I do that every time, so why ask today? Did someone appear?”
So that was her “holding back.” Mother’s eyes sparkled. Unable to meet her expectations, Yi-ho replied with an awkward expression.
“No. If I can’t make it to marriage, well, I thought I’d find out what your ideal conditions for a spouse are and try to meet them…”
In the first place, Mother’s standards were things Yi-ho had to meet; she couldn’t exactly demand them from someone else’s child. Mother took another drink with an expression that said, I thought as much. The bottle of cheongju was nearly empty. In truth, Yi-ho had poured quite a bit of the liquor toward his father’s grave halfway through. His father would likely understand.
Mother didn’t answer for a moment, then after a sigh, she slapped Yi-ho’s back. This time, it wasn’t for a mosquito; she hit him to actually make it hurt.
“Ack!”
“What kind of person? Someone who likes you, of course.”
“…….”
“Marriage, well, sure. You might not do it, but if that’s the case, make sure you have someone who loves you and stays on your side. Someone to celebrate the good times with and suffer through the hard times with.”
“…Is that how Dad was?”
“I wish he had been, but once he’d raised you and things became comfortable, he left us early on his own.”
“Dad didn’t do it because he wanted to, so he’ll be sad hearing that. Especially since we came all this way to greet him.”
“What can a dead person say? I came because the living person’s heart was lonely.”
Yi-ho looked back at the burial mound.
“Mom, I don’t know about other things, but I’ll definitely find a person like that.”
“You have a polite way of telling me not to nag you about marriage.”
“It’s not that…”
“Let’s head down. The alcohol is hitting me. Min-gyu is waiting, too.”
“Ah, okay.”
After folding the mat and descending the mountain, Min-gyu, who had been in the car, came out and opened the rear door for them. With Yi-ho driving, the car departed from the ancestral burial ground.
“Mother, did you have a good talk with Father?”
“Yes. Thank you for the bouquet. Yi-ho’s father would be grateful too.”
“You’re very welcome.”
Slightly tipsy, Mother fell asleep with the vibration of the car. Min-gyu, sitting in the passenger seat and glancing at his phone, spoke.
“Yi-ho, I heard there’s a place that makes great spicy fish stew on the way. Does Mother like stew? Should we stop by so she can cure her hangover?”
“Ah, yeah. She loves it. Where is it?”
“It’s near Yangpyeong. I’ll put it in the navi.”
Min-gyu took Yi-ho’s phone and operated the map app. Yi-ho’s gaze lingered on the phone as it was handed back, on the hand that came close to him, and then on Min-gyu’s profile as they sat side by side.
∗ ∗ ∗
The sun began to set. About ten minutes before clock-out time, more people started stretching or looking out the window.
“Let’s start wrapping things up.”
As if the marketing team had a collective task, Min-gyu stood up and gave instructions while leaning on the partition. Though he spoke in a soft voice, it carried so clearly to the neighboring development team that the developers also began finishing their work as if entranced.
After confirming that his work had been safely saved to the server, Yi-ho turned his head and locked eyes with a gaze already fixed on him. Min-gyu’s eyes twitched slightly, as if sending a coded signal. The corners of Yi-ho’s mouth quirked. The moment it hit 6 o’clock, the two team leaders packed their bags. They were exemplary in following the rule: ‘The team leader must leave first so the team members can leave comfortably.’
The two blended in with the crowd of departing employees and rode a packed elevator down. And of all things, they ran into Department Head Gye in the parking lot.
“Team Leader Song, Team Leader Cha, what brings you two together?”
Min-gyu answered with a smile.
“We’re carpooling. Gas prices are just too expensive these days.”
“Ah, aha. Right, young people need to save money.”
“Exactly. Well, have a good evening, sir.”
The two team leaders bowed politely and hurried away. Only after Min-gyu got into the driver’s seat and Yi-ho into the passenger seat did Yi-ho let out a long sigh.
“…That actually worked.”
“International oil prices have a way of reconciling even enemies.”
Crossing the sunset-lit road, the car turned into the alley of the apartment where the two lived.
The engine shut off, and the navigation screen that had lit the dim interior also turned off. As he went to unbuckle his seatbelt, Yi-ho felt a hand wrap around his shoulder and pull him close. He naturally relaxed his body.
Chu. Lips touched his temple. While kissing him, Min-gyu naturally unbuckled Yi-ho’s seatbelt for him. Leaving the car, the two took the same elevator and stepped off on the same floor.
“I’ll shower and head over to your place.”
“Okay, Darling. You have to give me at least an hour.”
“Ah, give it a rest.”
Min-gyu, never tiring of it, put on a dazzling fashion show every single day. Last weekend, because the season had changed, Yi-ho had to accompany him as he wandered around the department store all day. Yi-ho also bought two outfits to wear until early winter. All of them reflected Min-gyu’s recommendations. And then this morning, Min-gyu had whined for a long time about why Yi-ho wasn’t wearing the clothes he had picked out…
Still, if asked if he liked it, he would obviously answer yes.
Above all, today was a day when Yi-ho also needed a little time.
About an hour later, the two met again as if they had never parted. The flamboyant peacock, seeing that Yi-ho was wearing the light brown knit he had bought over the weekend, curled his lips in satisfaction. Sitting across from each other at the table, sharing stories about work and their daily routines, Yi-ho pressed his voice down calmly and spoke.
“Cha Min-gyu, I looked for a house.”
“Oh, let me see. Where is it?”
Yi-ho let out a long breath before continuing.
“…Don’t look for any other house.”
“Why?”
Min-gyu asked back with expectant eyes, pretending not to know. Wasn’t it obvious what Yi-ho was about to say in this situation?
Yi-ho took steps forward from a spot where he had voluntarily remained stationary for fifteen years. Because he had been stopped for so long, his legs felt stiff at first, but now he was able to walk without hesitation.
And now was the time to take a great leap forward.
“Let’s live together.”
Min-gyu’s eyes narrowed into crescents. Despite showing a genuinely happy expression without filter, he played dumb.
“Cha Min-gyu is expensive. I’m not a person who can be won over with just words.”
Yi-ho had no intention of giving away the one-sided love he had built over a decade so easily. He turned on a screen on his phone and held it out.
“What’s this?”
Min-gyu looked down at the screen and his eyes widened slightly. What was displayed there was a flight reservation. Tickets booked for the Lunar New Year holiday, the most expensive travel period of all.
The destination was Amsterdam.
“…I’m going to kidnap you to the Netherlands.”
“And then?”
“I’ll take your passport and lie down, saying I won’t let you go back until we get married.”
Min-gyu laughed brightly, exposing his teeth.
“Song-i, that’s so cute that I might just keep watching you and drag it out without answering.”
“Uh…”
“Still, in the end, the answer from my mouth will be yes.”
Min-gyu, who had scrolled up and down the screen several times with his thumb as if caressing it, placed the phone back in the center.
“But Song-i. I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious, does it have to be the Netherlands? Because it was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage?”
“You’re the one who told me that.”
“What?”
“The fact that it was the first country in the world to allow same-sex marriage—you told me that. It’s been stuck in my head since then…”
Instead of asking “Me?”, Min-gyu savored this moment and tucked it deep inside. Yi-ho had likely kept moments like this inside for far longer. So, Min-gyu intended to capture these moments even more delicately and meticulously from now on. The flushed eyes, the ears, the cheeks. Things like that.
“Song-i, your eyes are really…”
Min-gyu stood up, approached Yi-ho, and stroked the area around his eyes. He felt he could finally fill in the sentence he had left blank for a long time.
“Romantic.”
“…Eh?”
“The whole world is in here.”
He pulled Yi-ho, who looked as if he were facing a text he couldn’t understand a single word of, into his arms. Fitting together perfectly, as if they were designed for one another.
“Yes, let’s live together. Song Yi-ho.”
A firm voice embraced Yi-ho and gave its consent. As if it had taken a very long detour to wait for this moment.
“Since we’ve spent 15 years together, let’s live together for 150 years. Let’s both get into the Guinness World Records as long-lived grandfathers and leave this world on the same day and at the same hour.”
Yi-ho had plenty of scientific counterarguments to his sentimental sentence.
But for now, he just wanted to nod. The thing Min-gyu called romance—Yi-ho felt he could feel it in Min-gyu’s voice and in the arms that held him firmly.
“Yeah.”
The air of autumn began to turn cool. Without realizing when the time of struggling through the heat had passed, they began adding another layer of clothing to their commutes.
Soon, autumn will fully set in, and the colorful leaves will fall to the ground. When the season comes where one brushes the sleeves of a jumper upon leaving the house, snow will fall and cover the gray roads. Whether it is the first snow or not, it will cover everything.
And as they spend time holding hands like that.
The fallen snow will melt into water, seep into the huddled trees, and call forth the spring.
The final rule between the two was to remain by each other’s side forever.
fin.