CEL 25

“So you decided to do tutoring?”

“Why are you bringing up what I already said in a text?”

“You didn’t say it out loud.”

“Text and words are the same thing.”

Hamin’s scolding made Jaeha’s lips twitch slightly. What Hamin said counted only as ‘I found tutoring.’

He started to wonder if he really had feelings for this person who seemed like a sociopath. At the same time, his pale face let out a sigh and he answered, “Yeah, I decided to do tutoring.” He sounded like he was coaxing a child.

Even though he gave that answer while lying down, it didn’t make him feel annoyed. Instead, he let out a silly laugh. He was glad to see his face after a long time, and Hamin’s reaction wasn’t bad.

Not bad.

Yeah, their relationship lately wasn’t bad. Even if he hadn’t seen his face in a while, Hamin had been replying fairly diligently to his texts.

When he asked if he had eaten, he would list the side dishes in detail. When he asked if he had slept well, he wrote down his sleeping hours down to the minute.

Especially the reply that said ‘one fried egg, half a can of ham’ left him with his mouth wide open.

Is he really sane?

Anyone who eats one bowl of rice with two side dishes shouldn’t be called an adult, but a fairy. Even back in kindergarten he had eaten more than that, so in Jaeha’s eyes, Hamin just looked worrying.

He thought Hamin should put on some weight. If only his arms, legs, face, and torso filled out a bit…

Even while thinking Hamin would freak out if he heard it, he calmly asked,

“Did you find it online?”

“No, the boss at Kim Hyunwoo’s work place’s nephew?”

Listening to the description that felt like ‘a relative’s relative,’ he nodded. Then Hamin added,

“They said it’s a kid.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you need to know how old they are to tutor them?”

“I said that too, but they told me to just meet in person.” Hamin rubbed the back of his neck for no reason and turned his eyes away.

Meeting up without a reason, spending time without a purpose, felt strange. Walking aimlessly at an awkward hour, talking back and forth, the situation felt unreal.

How long are we going to keep walking?

As he was thinking foolishly that at this rate they would end up walking to the edge of Seoul, Jaeha suddenly stopped.

“We’re here.”

“…So there was a destination?”

“Then did you think we were just walking?”

Their dumbfounded looks met briefly and then broke apart. He lifted his head and looked at the signboard. The logo shining with neon bulbs was familiar even to Hamin.

“Are we watching a movie?”

“I like that.”

The random answer made him turn his eyes toward him. ‎A smile was plastered on his face.

What did I just say? Did I say, let’s watch a movie?

Hamin couldn’t understand what part of that short sentence he liked, but after a moment he concluded that Jaeha really liked movies. He thought maybe that played a part in him becoming an actor.

Hamin looked at Jaeha with a slightly strange gaze. The one he was more familiar with wasn’t this version of him, but the thirty-five-year-old one.

To be honest, the younger him looked, how should he put it… a little self-centered and unpredictable. Maybe even a bit bothersome.

“Do you like movies?”

“Not really.”

“You’ve been to a theater before, right?”

“You sometimes treat me like a caveman.”

He complained and furrowed his brows, Jaeha hid his laugh by pretending to clear his throat.

On the escalator, he deliberately stood close to Hamin. Hamin’s face showed a hint of annoyance, but he didn’t push him away.

“They say this one is fun.”

He showed the reservation screen as he spoke. The pitch-black pupils were turned toward the phone.

“When did you even book it?”

He didn’t look interested in the movie itself, yet his eyes scanning the letters looked unusually serious. Staring at the face that looked like it was searching for answers in the text, Hamin asked,

“But these days, isn’t that… superhero thing? That series at number one?”

“You know that, sunbae?”

His expression said, don’t treat me like a caveman, which made Jaeha let out a small laugh. He chuckled and nodded.

“That one really is first place, but I thought you wouldn’t watch it.”

“I didn’t watch it.”

It was just that the title was familiar since it was a popular series. But the thought that he went out of his way to choose a different movie for his sake gave him a strange feeling.

Is friendship supposed to feel this ticklish?

Once inside the theater, Hamin kept rubbing the back of his neck and his hand like someone with an allergy. Otherwise, he had no way to bear the ticklish feeling.

Not just the fact that he booked a movie while thinking of him, but even the words, “Popcorn over nachos, right? I thought you’d dislike nachos, they’re too hard,” made his gums feel ticklish.

After getting the waiting ticket, he needlessly stared into the crowded people when the slack-looking Jaeha asked,

“But who did you watch movies with, alone?”

As he asked the question, the alarm for number 657 rang and the two of them went toward the pickup counter. While sticking a straw into the big drink and tossing the trash, Hamin answered,

“With a lover.”

At those words, the large hand lifting the popcorn stopped still. Then Jaeha stiffly turned his head like a broken robot.

“With a lover?”

“With a lover.”

“Sunbae, dating is between two people.”

“I did it with two.”

“No, I mean two people together.”

“I haven’t done it with three yet.”

When nonsense met nonsense, his features scrunched all at once. His look said, are you in your right mind. Hamin shrugged his shoulders, and the flood of questions continued.

“When was it? With who? How many?”

“A long time ago. With someone you don’t know. Three.”

Jaeha didn’t seem happy with any of the answers, but after the last one he openly sighed.

Is it really something to react like that just because I’ve dated before?

Hamin ignored the unpredictable changes in mood and picked up his cola. Looking at the cup bigger than he expected, he thought he could probably skip dinner. As he was thinking that, Jaeha’s large body blocked his way.

“What?”

Is it still about dating?

Jaeha’s expression looked complicated. A little annoyed, a little gloomy, maybe angry. But there was no clear reason for any of it. Why would Jaeha be angry or gloomy over his dating history.

Hamin had never placed much meaning on dating in his life. He just met someone because people told him to try it, spent some time together, then broke up when it was time. Everyone had said the same thing, that he seemed to put work first. So he gave up wasting time on it. Dating itself wasn’t good or bad.

“I just did it because people told me to try.”

“You know it’s really bad manners to talk about an ex in front of your lover, right?”

“It was an ex-girlfriend.”

His tone and face looked too serious for it to sound like a joke, so even as he said it he checked his reaction. Hamin hugged his drink close with a slightly confused feeling. From the start he couldn’t understand why Jaeha kept obsessing over the act of ‘dating.’

Looking at him, Jaeha said seriously,

“We’re dating right now.”

“…What?”

“All the texting we did until now, that was dating.”

“…Dating what?”

His black pupils shook.

Even if there was no purpose behind it, Hamin thought the time he spent with him wasn’t bad. Talking with him was funny, and being together felt comfortable.

But that didn’t mean he wanted to date Han Jaeha.

Hamin swore he had never, not even once, looked at a kid more than ten years younger as someone to date. No, he had never even thought of a man as someone to date in the first place.

His light brown gaze dropped. Seeing that serious look, Hamin felt it was time to settle things with him.

“You and I are close senior and junior. If I’m generous, friends.”

“We agreed to date.”

Faced with that childish stubbornness, his lips moved awkwardly. He had said that at first, but no one would take those words literally.

He didn’t know why Jaeha was acting like this now, and he searched for words with a heavy feeling. Then out of nowhere, a bomb dropped.

“I want to sleep with you, sunbae.”

Hamin didn’t ask back, sleep with him? The sentence that hit his ear was too violent. He couldn’t bring himself to hear it twice. Staring blankly at Jaeha, he heard him add in a voice that chewed on each word.

“Then I think I’ll know why I’m acting like this.”

After that bombshell, their conversation stopped. It was partly because the movie had started, but also because Hamin was too shaken by the sudden blast.

Was Jaeha gay?

He had never heard such a rumor, so either he had hidden his sexuality very well, or it was childish curiosity from being young. Hamin hoped it was the latter.

He fixed his gaze in front, but his mind was a mess. The protagonist racing toward the climax on screen didn’t stick in his head at all, so he turned his head slightly. It wasn’t meant to carry any special meaning. But he immediately regretted the choice.

Jaeha wasn’t watching the screen from the start. His head was tilted, and his especially ticklish gaze was on him. His round pupils folded into crescents as soon as their eyes met, and a faint smile hung on his lips.

Boom.

Right then a loud gunshot that shook the whole theater thundered. Maybe because of the sudden loud sound, one side of his chest pounded violently.

Without knowing it, he groped his left chest and clenched his fist.

Something felt wrong.

‎

‎

After that day, the messages exchanged between them increased drastically.

Han Jaeha

I ate eggs and ham again today

I had sushi 1:03 PM

Han Jaeha

Do you like sushi too, sunbae? 1:04 PM

To be exact, only Jaeha’s messages increased.

He really texted nonstop. He didn’t even wait for replies anymore.

“…Did he get heatstroke?”

It was easier to believe the early heatwave had fried his brain a little than to accept the current situation.

For more than a week, he couldn’t concentrate on studying. That nine-pyeong one-room apartment, usually dim, felt unbearably stifling today.

He had to do something.

Even when he took his first divorce case, it wasn’t this hard. With deep lines forming on his brow, he was wrestling with it when a welcome message arrived.

Boss

Hamin-ah~

Can we move the tutoring date up???ㅠㅠㅠ 1:16 PM

Boss

My nephew keeps whining about not wanting to go to school ^^… If you can, how about starting tomorrow~???? 1:17 PM

Hamin immediately typed out a reply. He thought about how to deal with a kid throwing tantrums about school, but what mattered more was that it gave him a reason to avoid Jaeha.

After replying to the boss, he entered the chat he had been ignoring. In the meantime, enough messages had piled up to fill the whole screen.

“Persistent bastard.”

My tutoring got moved up, so I’ll be busy for a while 1:20 PM

Right after he sent it, a flood came in. ‘Why?’, ‘Doesn’t that violate some law?’, ‘Then when do we hang out?’

If he had known this would happen, he would’ve said he couldn’t be contacted during break. He should’ve gone to some exam prep dorm and turned off his phone. He regretted it too late, staring at the chat window as it scrolled quickly up.

He stayed calm with every reply, but when a message came saying, ‘Wear that tomorrow, that reddish short-sleeve one, the ugly one,’ he immediately frowned.

Why was he so interested in other people’s clothes.

Hamin thought Jaeha must be the only person in the world who had complaints about what he wore, and he locked his screen.