HLC 61

While Song Hyun-soo was fastening the remaining buttons, Yoon Joo-ho took the shoe box out of the shopping bag.

“Try them on. See if they fit.”

Song Hyun-soo, who was tucking the hem of his shirt into his pants, glanced back over his shoulder.

“They’re my size.”

“I want to see the overall look, so just try them on.”

Realizing that arguing was futile, Song Hyun-soo took off his slippers and put on the shoes. Yoon Joo-ho, watching from the sofa, pressed his eyelids with his cigarette-holding hand and said in a tired voice.

“Excuse me, who wears ankle socks with a suit?”

“Is that not allowed?”

Yoon Joo-ho shook his head.

“Like red wine and fish?”

This time, Yoon Joo-ho nodded in response, stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, and stood up.

“There’s so much I need to teach you.”

He muttered this and left the practice room.

Are ankle socks really that strange with a suit? Song Hyun-soo sat on the backrest of the sofa, alternating kicking his feet up and down. He thought long socks looked more like something an old man would wear. He shivered, thinking he might have been humiliated again, like last time, if he had attended the party like this without Yoon Joo-ho’s coaching.

Hearing Yoon Joo-ho’s footsteps approaching down the hallway, Song Hyun-soo straightened his loosely bent back. The returning Yoon Joo-ho held a pair of black socks in his hand.

“Thank you. I’ll wear them and wash them…”

Hmph. As he reached out with both hands to receive the socks respectfully, Yoon Joo-ho let out a strange laugh.

“Why?”

“You said you’d wash them.”

“…”

Yoon Joo-ho tapped the toe of Song Hyun-soo’s shoe with the hand holding the socks, tilting his head and smiling. Song Hyun-soo, on the other hand, scrunched up every muscle in his face.

“You’re quite vulgar, senior.”

Abandoning his polite demeanor, Song Hyun-soo snatched the socks from his hand. Yoon Joo-ho, still looking amused, took off the tuxedo jacket he was wearing and walked towards the hanger. As he hung the jacket on a hanger, he explained.

“For formal occasions, short socks are absolutely not allowed. They need to be long enough so that no bare skin shows even when you cross your legs and your pant legs ride up. Remember that.”

Song Hyun-soo, sitting on the sofa and changing his socks, nodded seriously. Just as he explained that bare skin shouldn’t show when crossing legs, the socks Yoon Joo-ho gave him were as long as children’s knee-highs. To wear them properly, Song Hyun-soo had to pull his pants up quite high.

“…”

As he took off the short socks to change the other one, a shadow fell over him.

“Your second toe is longer.”

He bent his body but only lifted his head to look up. Yoon Joo-ho, with both hands in his pants pockets, was looking down from beneath his lowered eyelids. His expression, a mixture of slight annoyance and bored weariness, was one Song Hyun-soo had never seen in any work.

While seeing Yoon Joo-ho’s new face was fine, the distance between them had been uncomfortably close for a while now. His lower abdomen was almost at Song Hyun-soo’s nose.

“A lot of people are like that.”

Song Hyun-soo retorted indifferently, lowering his head and quickly picking up the new socks. He felt strangely embarrassed to show his bare feet. The fact that only his feet were exposed while he was dressed in a strict suit felt surreal. What was so special about feet? These were thoughts he wouldn’t normally have.

He felt it was all because of Yoon Joo-ho. The gaze looking down from beneath his long lashes, as if he knew everything, was meaningful.

He quickly put on the socks and slipped his feet into the shoes.

The size was Song Hyun-soo’s size, but whether it was due to the shape of the shoes or because they were new and not yet broken in, they weren’t entirely comfortable despite being expensive. However, it wasn’t so uncomfortable that he felt the need to mention it to the person who had prepared them for him. He stood up and walked a few steps, nodding.

“They fit well.”

Then, as if asking if he was satisfied now, he shrugged his shoulders at Yoon Joo-ho with resignation. Yoon Joo-ho, touching his lower lip with one hand and scanning Song Hyun-soo’s attire, approached a stool.

He then unknotted a tie hanging from the neck of a hanger and approached Song Hyun-soo.

“What now?”

To the hesitant Song Hyun-soo, he held up the tie in his hand.

“It’s a bow tie, do you know how to tie it?”

“No.”

“Then stop treating me like a pervert and stay still.”

Yoon Joo-ho straightened Song Hyun-soo’s shirt collar, tied the tie, and gauged the lengths of both sides.

“Start by holding one side a bit longer, like this. Are you listening?”

“Are you teaching me?”

“Or do you want me to do it for you every time?”

That wouldn’t be so bad either.

Yoon Joo-ho, who had briefly scowled, continued his explanation after confirming Song Hyun-soo had become still.

“Take the longer strand and bring it up from underneath like this, tie it once…”

The scent of Yoon Joo-ho’s cologne, applied a bit more heavily than usual for the party, formed a bubble around them, making it feel as if he was almost embracing him. The distance was indeed as close as being embraced.

“This side, the strand you held longer, bend it like this. Make sure the bow shape faces forward.”

Song Hyun-soo, who had been tense due to the extreme proximity, suddenly relaxed his shoulders and let out a soft laugh.

“Why are you giggling when you should be learning seriously?”

“I wasn’t giggling, I was smiling.”

“So. Why are you smiling?”

“A while ago, a frien…”

A while ago, a friend’s older brother taught me how to tie shoelaces properly. A method that would never come undone. He must have known I always walked around with my shoelaces untied. I first felt how reassuring and protected it felt to have someone by your side who could teach you things properly. I didn’t expect to feel that again because of you, Yoon Joo-ho. Life is long and full of surprises, I thought, and that’s why I smiled.

Instead of saying that, Song Hyun-soo trailed off. Then he shook his head firmly.

“No.”

“You’re so anticlimactic.”

Glancing up, Song Hyun-soo saw Yoon Joo-ho looking down at the nape of his own neck with a focused expression. Yoon Joo-ho filled his entire vision. It was a face too overwhelming to handle at this distance. He couldn’t breathe comfortably for fear of his breath touching his jaw or neck. To escape the pressure, Song Hyun-soo turned his head.

“The next part is complicated. This time, bend the strand you brought up…”

The two men, dressed in handsome suits, faced each other in the mirror. The taller one was meticulously adjusting the other’s tie with neat fingers.

In the mirror, Yoon Joo-ho seemed to be taking meticulous care of him. Like an older brother, like a long-time friend. Like Baek Kang and Lee San. And…

Keeping his gaze fixed on the mirror, Song Hyun-soo opened his lips as if drawn by an invisible force.

“Senior.”

“What.”

“Have you tried… journaling?”

“You’re really not concentrating, are you?”

“I’m listening. You said to bend the strand you brought up. I’m just curious if you’ve tried journaling.”

Yoon Joo-ho in the mirror scowled, as if he could strangle him with the tie at any moment.

“Lately, I’ve been doing it one side each night before bed.”

“Does it work?”

“I don’t know yet. Have you tried it?”

“…I’ve tried it.”

Yoon Joo-ho paused, as if hesitating whether to tell the truth, then answered calmly, pressing one side of the tie he had pulled up from below over the other knot.

I had braced myself for it to be shoved away without even being opened. You’ve tried it.

Song Hyun-soo shifted his gaze from Yoon Joo-ho in the mirror to the real Yoon Joo-ho in front of him. And this time, he looked straight up at him.

“Senior.”

“What now.”

“Happy birthday.”

“…”

Glancing down, Yoon Joo-ho slightly raised his eyes to meet Song Hyun-soo’s gaze. Then, he chuckled lowly and looped the tie knot once.

“You’re a bit late.”

Why? Even though this distance was uncomfortable, making it hard to breathe properly. Yet, he wished this moment could last longer. He felt a pang of longing and tenderness, like reminiscing about a happy past experience. Feeling a dull ache in his chest, he silently gazed up at Yoon Joo-ho’s face.

“Insert this strand, the one you pulled up, through the back of the knot and pull.”

Yoon Joo-ho, carefully adjusting the shape so that both wings of the tie were balanced, finally removed his hands from the tie and stepped back.

“Done.”

He looked like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, wearing a bow tie for the first time in his life. He was dressed from head to toe by Yoon Joo-ho.

Song Hyun-soo, gazing at his reflection in the mirror, went to where he had left his bag and brought back a shopping bag.

“It’s your birthday present. I thought it might get hectic later, so I’m giving it to you now.”

Yoon Joo-ho’s hand paused at the luxury brand logo on the shopping bag. He rolled his eyes and glanced at Song Hyun-soo.

“It feels like I’m getting my liver extracted by a flea.”

“It’s fine to get this much when you land a gig that pays well. My employer pays a lot. Gives me money, clothes… just gives me everything.”

Yoon Joo-ho chuckled at Song Hyun-soo’s jest and took out a box from the shopping bag. As he untied the ribbon and opened the box, Song Hyun-soo exclaimed anxiously.

“But you might already have it! Still, I put a lot of thought into buying it, so please don’t say anything too mean…”

Yoon Joo-ho opened the box and checked the hat inside.

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t have this.”

“Really? That’s a relief.”

Phew. Yoon Joo-ho, who had been quietly watching Song Hyun-soo’s relieved smile, took the hat out of the box.

Thump. And he placed the hat on Song Hyun-soo’s head, so deep it covered his eyes.

Song Hyun-soo quickly took off the hat and put it back in the box, then approached the mirror.

“Ah, why are you doing that? You’ll mess up my hair!”

“It won’t get that messed up.”

“You get your hair and makeup done every day, senior, but this is a chance I might not get again.”

Song Hyun-soo, smoothing his slightly flattened hair, suddenly remembered something important.

“Ah! I should take a picture.”

He found his phone in the pocket of the jumper hanging on the hanger. Then he returned to the mirror, turned on the phone’s camera, and adjusted the composition. Yoon Joo-ho’s reflection, with his hands in his pants pockets, appeared on the screen.

“Senior, maybe we could…”

“Are you sleeping? Still dreaming?”

Only Yoon Joo-ho in the world would refuse a request to take a photo like that.

He took his left hand out of his pocket, checked his watch, and turned towards the door, the shopping bag Song Hyun-soo had given him hanging from his fingers.

“Finish up in five minutes and come out. We’re leaving.”

“Already? There’s still plenty of time!”

I shouted at Yoon Joo-ho’s back as he left the room. Just before he exited the doorway completely, Yoon Joo-ho grabbed the doorframe with his hand and looked back at me.

“Rehearsal. The bartender needs to see the bar beforehand, doesn’t he?”

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