Indeed, everyone who had visited here had no intention of leaving before seeing His Highness Second Prince, as the winding line along the wall stretched on endlessly.
“By the way, weren’t you about this tall?”
Seo Baek-han lowered his hand to about his sternum and tilted his head. Then he lowered his hand to his navel, then lifted it slightly, as if that wasn’t right.
“Was I that small?”
“Maybe not, maybe you were bigger than that… When did we see each other?”
And Joo Tae-hyun was inwardly shocked. Was he really that short in his memory? He was told he was quite tall back then… But he didn’t bother to show that his pride was hurt. Now Joo Tae-hyun could maintain a blank face, like someone without any emotion, without any special effort. More than Seo Baek-han had once praised him for not showing his feelings on his face.
“Wasn’t it the National Museum event?”
“Pardon?”
“The day I first saw you.”
“That…”
Did Seo Baek-han just say National Museum… event, not a concert? Did I hear wrong?
Leaving Joo Tae-hyun, who was blinking in slight embarrassment, Seo Baek-han cracked his neck from side to side, rummaging through his tangled memories.
“Two years ago, no. It was before I came to America… It must have been three years ago. I definitely remember you wearing a very fancy Tailcoat.”
He had never ridden a roller coaster because he didn’t find it particularly interesting, but if he did, he wondered if this was how it would feel. A sensation of hot blood rushing down to his feet, turning him pale white from the top of his head.
Joo Tae-hyun didn’t mean to, but he was so embarrassed that he just shut his mouth. The embarrassment soon turned into a slight resentment towards Seo Baek-han.
How… could he not remember? It was a concert at Changgyeonggung Palace that the Queen herself had invited him to. How could he forget that?
The words he wanted to ask Seo Baek-han dangled on the tip of his tongue, but Joo Tae-hyun held back like an adult. He wasn’t a twelve-year-old kid anymore.
…He didn’t want to seem like he was the only one who cherished that summer night that Seo Baek-han didn’t even remember.
“Ah, no. It was the palace… I think it was Changgyeonggung.”
Seo Baek-han muttered as if he had belatedly remembered, his face covered in fatigue.
“It was a concert, right?”
Joo Tae-hyun couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just nodded. What… was that. Was he just too tired to remember for a moment?
“Right. You ate a lot back then.”
If that was the case, it was awkward to resent Seo Baek-han. Should he be grateful that he remembered? He was grateful that he was staying by his side to take care of him even though he was so busy and tired…
‘I’m alone, so please go play with me… Hyung didn’t send you, did he?’
‘No? Do I look like I’d listen to that kind of thing?’
Joo Tae-hyun, who had been a little discouraged, quickly perked up. Right, it was Seo Baek-han, not someone else. There was no way Seo Baek-han would easily forget that he had approached him of his own volition.
But he couldn’t help but feel a little downcast, as if he was the only one who cherished that night. That historical summer night, which had become a guideline for Joo Tae-hyun’s life, seemed to have been just another day for Seo Baek-han.
Joo Tae-hyun lowered his head slightly. A fresh wave of bitterness washed over him.
In fact, even if Seo Baek-han didn’t remember the summer concert, he shouldn’t complain to him. It was Joo Tae-hyun’s first major public activity, but it must have been just another palace outing for Seo Baek-han.
He was seven years younger than Seo Baek-han, so he couldn’t call him a friend, and they weren’t studying in the same area, and he had collected one-sided information about Seo Baek-han through searches, but Seo Baek-han probably didn’t know anything about him.
They just had a few overlapping conditions, and they had only met once at the concert that day.
He had asked his family for Seo Baek-han’s contact information and managed to get in touch with him under the pretext of sending him a thank-you message, but since then, Joo Tae-hyun was always the one to ask how he was doing first.
He realized while contacting Seo Baek-han that building a friendship with someone, trying to get them to like you, took more effort than he had imagined. He had to put in this much effort to become someone who liked you as a human being.
Maybe it was because his hyungs and noona always doted on him… He unconsciously thought that Seo Baek-han would naturally welcome his contact and naturally find him cute.
“Looking at you like this, you’ve only gotten taller, but you’re so skinny.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Your waist is tiny. Did you have this made separately? The 〈Haechi〉 group uniform will be too big for you.”
Telling him to come here for a moment, Seo Baek-han grabbed Joo Tae-hyun’s waist with both hands and pulled him towards him.
“Hyu, Hyung?”
“I knew it. Your waist is too thin, you.”
Seo Baek-han stroked Joo Tae-hyun’s waist with a serious face. His arms were long enough to create some distance between them, and he wasn’t touching bare skin because he was wearing a jacket and shirt, but Joo Tae-hyun could only open and close his mouth, his face flushed as if he had spread red paint all over it.
Like a fish that had fallen onto land and forgotten how to breathe, like a frog that had been hit by a naive person’s slingshot and collapsed without even screaming… It meant that he probably didn’t look very good.
“It looks like all the weight went to your height. The group uniform can’t be tailored like a custom suit, so you’ll just have to wear it as is. Or you can gain some weight.”
Seo Baek-han picked up a champagne glass. He knew that he was an adult now, but it felt strange to see him naturally pick up alcohol. It was even more so because the drink Seo Baek-han held in his other hand was a glass of orange juice for him. It was as if that liquid alone had drawn an invisible line between him and Seo Baek-han.
“Then, Hyung. Should a man have a thick waist?”
“Well, not necessarily… But wouldn’t it look better than being skinny? But that’s a matter of personal taste.”
Personal taste.
Joo Tae-hyun took the juice glass that Seo Baek-han offered and rolled the unfamiliar words around in his mouth. It felt like a word that was only allowed for adults, like champagne. Judging by the fact that he was given fruit juice just because he was young, not a drink that took his personal taste into consideration.