GB 68

“… Still like this.”

Haero had a peculiar way of folding clothes. Unlike others, he didn’t put the top on top, but placed the bottoms last, and wrapped the socks with the belt. If he had followed his usual habit, he would have tied the clothes with the belt. As if ready to grab and run at any moment. This was as much as he had improved.

Yoon Moo-hwa stared at Haero’s uniform, recognizable anywhere due to its distinct characteristics, then lightly tapped it with his foot. Whether by chance or not, Haero’s clothes ended up slightly separated from the other sailors’ clothes they had been touching.

Then Yoon Moo-hwa stepped back to a position where he could see the sea but was hidden in the shadows.

He crossed his arms and gazed intently at a corner of the chaotic little sea playground.

For a very long time, Haero didn’t appear. Someone’s panicked voice asking where the medical officer had gone pierced Yoon Moo-hwa’s ears.

But Yoon Moo-hwa wasn’t flustered. It was something he had experienced before.

After a while, Haero burst through the surface.

Completely unaware of how he had made others worry, he was smiling broadly as if he had finally come back to life, running his fingers through his hair.

‘That kid still had a knack for surprising people.’

* * *

After the swim call ended, everyone headed to the showers. Haero was no exception. The senior officers went in first to wash, leaving Haero last. The relatively small shower room was empty except for Haero. It was very quiet, as everyone had washed quickly and left to enjoy their personal time before dinner.

Haero was humming a song while lathering shampoo in his hair. 

It wasn’t pleasant to hear. Haero was regrettably bad at singing.

Absorbed in his own singing, Haero didn’t notice someone quietly entering the shower room.

Someone walked in, not minding that the hem of their uniform pants was getting wet, and stood at a distance from Haero, looking at his bare back.

Soon Haero felt the gaze on his back, but couldn’t open his eyes immediately because of the foam. As he reached out to turn on the water, the person behind him was faster. They covered the lever and turned on the shower in the next stall. The water pressure was weak, but the noise of water hitting the metal tiles was enough to drown out a quiet conversation.

Haero groped for the hand covering the lever and quietly asked, “… Captain?”

“…”

“Moo-hwa hyung…?”

“So, how does it feel to finally be on board?”

It was Yoon Moo-hwa’s voice.

Haero’s heart started pounding. His shampoo smelled of fig. It was sweet like lavender, but with a distinctly different texture. The scent was so strong that he hadn’t noticed Yoon Moo-hwa approaching.

“I told you that  you’d be a hindrance.” Yoon Moo-hwa’s voice was husky and moist, as if mumbling in his sleep. Maybe it was because of the shower room.

“I said you’d be a hindrance… Yet you still came on board. Are you satisfied?”

“…”

“Are you satisfied, or do you find it more trivial than you thought?”

“Are you testing me? If I say it’s trivial, will you make me leave? You can’t do that.” Haero retorted without backing down. 

Yoon Moo-hwa probably smirked at his cheeky response. 

Haero desperately wanted to see that smile. But he couldn’t open his eyes. In the brief moment he had blinked, foam had gotten into his eyes, and they still stung sharply.

“Ah. Since we’re at sea anyway, I couldn’t make you leave, could I? I thought the same at the naval academy, but you left on your own.”

‘After telling me to leave on my own.’ 

Haero felt a surge of anger. But knowing this was deliberate provocation, he had no intention of letting it slide. He didn’t want to give any excuse for insubordination.

Unaware that his attitude was already grounds for insubordination, Haero shot back, “I could have held out.”

The reason he could speak like this, even after four years, was because Yoon Moo-hwa was still, still comfortable. In front of him, Haero’s true self inevitably emerged.

“I could have had you fired.” And Yoon Moo-hwa was still annoying.

“Yeah. That’s why I came out first.”

Haero slowly turned his body. He swept back his curly hair covered in bubbles and opened his eyes, enduring the pain. His eyelids twitched slightly, and tears naturally started to form to remove foreign substances from his eyes. In his blurry vision, he could see Yoon Moo-hwa’s silhouette.

“I guess I should have just stayed. If you had cut me off, you would have felt sorry for me.”

“Me?”

“But then you would have treated me with guilt. That’s not what I want. I don’t want you to look at me out of a sense of responsibility or guilt.”

“…”

“If I had to focus more on being a soldier instead of bringing me along, if promotions had to come faster, if you had to live perfectly, then I would only be part of your mission. I… I can’t be like your mission. I can’t be like that.”

Haero wanted to show that he was alive and moving, so he spread his arms. Although naked, he didn’t feel ashamed at all.

“The mission of raising me safely is over now. If you expected obedience rather than safety, that’s an even more failed mission. You’re not someone who dwells on past missions, are you?”

He was bold to the point of being shameless. Yoon Moo-hwa’s eyes slowly scanned Haero from head to toe. His gaze was intense and slow. It was an overtly appraising look, to the point of feeling insulting. Haero clenched his fists to hide his trembling fingertips.

“Yes. It’s over.”

Was he sneering? 

Yoon Moo-hwa’s smile was too brief to interpret.

“But Haero, there’s something you don’t know.”

Yoon Moo-hwa rubbed away the foam that was about to drip below Haero’s eyebrow with his thumb. His finger with the fingerprint was thick and large. Haero flinched and shuddered. His feigned bravado crumbled in an instant.

“You must have boarded this ship wanting something from me, but the prerequisite for that to happen is that I have to like you. It means I have to see you in that way…”

“…”

“But as you said, if you’re no longer my mission or my brother… If I have no feelings for you, what will you do then? Will you get off the ship? Do you think you’ll want to?”

Haero’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Yoon Moo-hwa locked eyes with him while rubbing his brow bone persistently.

“If you’re just a military doctor lieutenant on my ship, nothing more, if you have to be satisfied with just being on the same ship…”

“So you’re going to treat me just as a lieutenant?” Haero intercepted Yoon Moo-hwa’s hand that was touching his eyebrow. “Then you should really treat me like one. What superior talks to a subordinate like this? You’re treating me like a 12-year younger brother you raised.”

Haero grinned. The corner of his mouth trembled slightly. “And actually, it doesn’t matter. I told you. When we meet again, I’ll make you feel the same way about me.”

Yoon Moo-hwa’s eyebrow twitched.

Haero thought he was annoyed. He wasn’t sure which part annoyed him, but he had to consciously plant his feet firmly to not step back as the other approached him.

“I’m telling you, it’s not you who caught me, but I who came to catch you.”

“You’re now at your last…”

But then, there was a clicking sound from outside.

Both of them held their breath. A tense atmosphere flowed. At the moment the sound was heard, before he even realized it, Yoon Moo-hwa had twisted his wrist and grabbed Haero’s wrist in return.

“Ah, here it is.”

There was a rustling sound as if someone had left something behind. And a moment later, the door opened and closed again.

That sound made them realize where they were, what state they were in, and what kind of relationship they had. At least for Haero it did. That’s how much he had been thinking only of Yoon Moo-hwa. He had been focused solely on him.

Yoon Moo-hwa turned his head back towards Haero from the direction of the door.

His startled expression vanished instantly, and he released Haero’s wrist that he had been holding. He turned off the shower head he had set aside and took a step back. The hem of his pants was wet.

“The typhoon that formed near the equator is moving faster than expected, so there’s a high chance we’ll encounter it tonight. The typhoon is small in size and is predicted to dissipate quickly, but there may be injuries, so the medical officer will need to work hard in various ways tonight.”

His voice was crisp and concise, which made it all the more irritating. Haero glared at Yoon Moo-hwa. Here he was, naked with the shampoo foam almost gone, looking like a pathetic wet rat, and in this situation, he’s giving orders.

However, Yoon Moo-hwa said what he needed to say and left the shower room.

Or rather, he tried to leave.

As if he had something more to say, he hesitated for a moment, his shoulders twitching slightly, before striding away.

“What’s this? Just leaving after saying useless things.” Haero grumbled as he turned the water back on.

He stayed until all the dead foam washed away, then covered his wet face.

“…”

His legs were trembling…. As the tension left his body, he felt like he might collapse right there.

He had glimpsed just how cold Yoon Moo-hwa could become, how far he could go. He really did have the power to remove Haero from this ship. 

Should he be grateful he wasn’t told to leave immediately?

“You, this is your last…”

It was fortunate that someone had entered at that moment.

He could guess what the next words would have been. Something about a final warning or such. 

It wouldn’t have been pleasant to hear. Absolutely not. Maybe it would have even hurt. Was he going to talk about Haero’s place? 

That his feelings hadn’t changed at all from the past, and that everything Haero was doing was just forceful, nothing more than throwing a tantrum?

“…”

He still hated the scent of lavender. Haero had been an adult for a full 4 years now. He resented Yoon Moo-hwa’s 16 years that had passed much earlier than his own. Even knowing that it wasn’t his fault, he felt incredibly bitter.

Why does time flow equally and at the same pace for everyone? If it flowed slowly for him and quickly for Haero, he could catch up soon.