GBH 79

As Choi Se-kyung and Yi-heon wandered the dark streets, they could somewhat understand why Choi Myung-hyun had suppressed him. Every night, he would pick out and beat up gang members who were alone. While a normal person would feel aversion, Se-kyung was indifferent. Though I’m not taking Myung-hyun’s side, even Song Yi-heon agreed that Se-kyung’s personality was unusual.

The fact that he wasn’t just purely kind appealed to me as a gang member, but Choi Myung-hyun, an ethical prosecutor, likely felt differently. Given what happened when Se-kyung was 6 years old, Myung-hyun probably suppressed him  in his own way of trying to raise him properly.

As he guessed Myung-hyun’s state of mind, he traced Se-kyung’s back with a different gaze. Foam flowed down along his shoulder blades and the curves of his back as he ran his arm through his wet hair. His elastic body, toned with appropriate muscles, gleamed with a milky sheen as it was washed by the soap.

As if scolding him for peeking, a water droplet from the bathhouse ceiling fell on the tip of his nose. He roughly wiped his nose where the cold drop had landed and recalled what Hong Jae-min had said before. It was the night he had brought Jae-min home to sleep.

“I’m telling you, he tried to push me out from the second floor to kill me!”

“Hmm…”

At the time, Jae-min had tried to expose Se-kyung’s chilling nature, how he seemed to enjoy the situation of pushing him out the window. But in fact, Kim Deuk-pal had witnessed the scene from the floor below. Jae-min’s pig-like squealing was so loud that even he, who was getting blankets on the first floor, could hear it.

Wondering why on earth there was such a commotion in the middle of the night, he stuck his head out the downstairs window to tell them to shut up. Just as he was about to scold Jae-min’s yellow head bobbing around upstairs, he saw Se-kyung pressing on Jae-min’s neck.

He didn’t notice Jae-min flopping around like a live fish, but Se-kyung’s indifferent expression was vividly clear as if right in front of him. He wielded control over a person’s life and death without losing his composure.

He watched Se-kyung for a moment and then closed the window.

If Choi Se-kyung had been a purely kind student, Kim Deuk-pal would have kept his distance. After all, there’s nothing good about a gang member like him corrupting a normal student. If Kim Yeon-ji or other students he’s friendly with at school had insisted on following him, he would have personally found out their parents’ contact information and safely delivered the students to their homes. But Choi Se-kyung was different.

Kim Deuk-pal didn’t feel particularly guilty about hanging out with Se-kyung. Perhaps it was because of the twisted side he occasionally showed.

Kim Deuk-pal couldn’t stand by when he saw people wronged, to the point of turning the steering wheel to save a stranger like me and deciding on revenge instead. But he wasn’t attracted to purely kind personalities either. If he were to state his personal preference, he was drawn to provocative things.

While he strongly believed that the young, weak, and powerless should be protected, he was intrigued by those who provoked him, like Se-kyung.

But that doesn’t mean he can let a young kid like that have his way.

Just then, Se-kyung, finished washing, walked towards the bath with a wet towel around his waist. With each step, muscular thighs that didn’t match his delicate face showed through the small towel that was too short to fully cover his lower body. As Se-kyung entered the bath and sat down, the hot water overflowed, and he properly sat down, saving his banana milk that was about to be swept away with the water outside the tub’s edge.

Se-kyung leaned back against the edge of the tub and stretched out both arms, his chest expanding. Kim Deuk-pal tried to assume a similar posture but became self-conscious of his less developed chest muscles and pink n1pples compared to Se-kyung’s, so he sat properly and sipped his banana milk.

As the elders say, as one ages, one should cultivate the inner self rather than the outer appearance. It wouldn’t do for me to compete in muscles with a young kid, failing to act my age.

Wait, but I’m a teenager right now? After glancing at Se-kyung’s chest muscles, he secretly resolved to bulk up and spoke up.

“Hey, happiness isn’t anything special. Graduating from university, getting a good job, meeting a nice girl, having kids, and making a family – that’s happiness.”

“I know.”

Se-kyung said, tilting his head back. His usually soft-looking hair was wet and pushed back from his forehead, revealing a face that highlighted his sensitive nature. However, Se-kyung seemed relaxed, apparently enjoying the temperature of the hot bath. He grumbled irritably, annoyed that while Se-kyung was giving him a headache, he seemed as if he were in paradise.

“If you know, why do you keep following me around saying you like me? Go out on the street. There are plenty of pretty and nice girls. When you go to college and date, you’ll be embarrassed that you ever liked me.”

An old man in the same bath looked at them strangely, apparently having overheard the conversation.

“I know that too.”

You know you’ll be embarrassed? Just as he was about to crush the banana milk carton in sudden anger, Se-kyung spoke.

“That’s how it is.”

The surface of the water rippled gently along with Se-kyung’s chest as he laughed silently. In the rising steam, Se-kyung was completely relaxed. Whether this comfort was due to the temperature of the hot bath or because of his presence, Se-kyung didn’t say, but he thought he knew why Se-kyung was so unguarded.

“Rather than being happy smiling like an idiot next to someone else, I want to be unhappy with you.”

As Se-kyung said this, tilting his head towards him, Kim Deuk-pal knew without him having to say it explicitly why he seemed so comfortable. For some reason, he moistened his parched throat with banana milk.

“…Kid, you should think about living happily.”

“Let’s be unhappy together.”

However, Choi Se-kyung’s relaxed appearance as he proposed unhappiness was excessively comfortable. The ease Se-kyung was enjoying now was due to the comfortable unhappiness he could experience by his changed side.

Gone was the indifference and boredom that came from usually showing insincere kindness. Se-kyung, filled with vitality like moisture, looked young and reckless, as if willing to dedicate his life to unhappiness.

Pressing his throbbing head, Kim Deuk-pal didn’t forget his original purpose of trying to make Se-kyung give up his feelings.

“You know, that’s just youthful impulses. It won’t last long.”

“Don’t provoke my competitive spirit. It makes me want to really check how long it will last.”

“I’m older than you think.”

“As long as we live in the same century and meet, that’s enough. I’ll do better.”

He glared at Choi Se-kyung, who switched to formal speech as if to tease him whenever he mentioned age.

“This isn’t something that can be solved just by doing better, you know?”

“That’s right. It’s something we need to work on together.”

Se-kyung took the banana milk and sucked on the straw end that he had bitten. The lukewarm drink was sweet to his body, warmed by body temperature.

“It’s delicious.”

Se-kyung drank about half of the remaining yellow drink and handed it back, saying,

“At least our tastes seem to match.”

“Look at you talking big when you can’t even eat silkworm pupae.”

Se-kyung pretended not to hear and twisted his waist towards Song Yi-heon. Wrinkles formed on his lean side, and the water rippled with his movement. A bead of sweat on Se-kyung’s chin rolled down his appropriately muscled, firm chest. As Yi-heon unconsciously followed the droplet and raised his gaze from Se-kyung’s abdomen, blurry under the water, he met a sly smile and realized his mistake.

“So, do you like my body?”

“I just looked because you’re in good shape. Don’t get any ideas.”

“You’ve been staring so intently since I was showering, how can I not have expectations?”

“Hey, just because I looked a little…!”

However, having grown somewhat used to Choi Se-kyung’s pestering, Song Yi-heon bit his molar to suppress his urge to flare up and responded:

“You seem to be getting cocky because you’re young, handsome, and fit, but that doesn’t last long. You think you won’t age?”

Se-kyung looked at Song Yi-heon with wide eyes as if doubting his ears, then turned his head away embarrassedly and fiddled with his earlobe.

“You’re really making me fall for you.”

“Huh?”

This wasn’t right. Se-kyung’s reaction was the opposite of what he expected, thinking he would be put off by the preachy lecture. The faint blush on his cheeks was different from the heat of the bath. Se-kyung rolled his eyes over the back of his hand pressed against his cheek, trying to cool down the flush. Though he struggled to make eye contact out of embarrassment, his eyes curved with excitement.

“I’ll hold back, being young, handsome, and fit. You enjoy my prime while I’m young.”

Only then did Song Yi-heon realize how Choi Se-kyung had interpreted his words. His mouth fell open, and he immediately sank into the bath. Bubbles rose over Song Yi-heon’s head as he didn’t surface, sunk in self-loathing until Se-kyung pulled him up…

Emerging from the dense steam of the hot bath into the changing room felt refreshing to every pore. Vigorously drying his cool, almost chilly body with a towel, Song Yi-heon unilaterally informed Se-kyung behind him:

“Since you’re not going to school, let’s eat breakfast before going home. I know a good hangover soup place nearby.”

On weekdays they would part ways to go to school, but today being the weekend, they could have breakfast together. Song Yi-heon’s wicked lips curved more diabolically than a demon’s as he plotted to torment Se-kyung with blood sausage soup and silkworm pupae soup, imagining how Se-kyung would turn pale if he knew.

Imagining Se-kyung’s ashen face when presented with silkworm pupae soup made Song Yi-heon hum involuntarily.

Still humming an unidentifiable tune, Song Yi-heon stood at the vanity. The vanity, with a mirror covering the entire wall above the waist, was sparse but sufficient with just a hair dryer and a green bottle of lotion. He squeezed a generous amount of the unknown lotion into both palms.

“Heave-ho!”

A man’s skincare routine should be short and intense. After vigorously slapping on the lotion he had squeezed out with gusto, the mirror reflected a refreshed person. Song Yi-heon was captivated by his own reflection. With his face clean and moisturized with lotion, he looked strikingly handsome.

The time when a man looks his best, when baseless confidence soars, is after a bath – this was true regardless of age. Song Yi-heon examined his jawline from various angles in the mirror, giving himself high marks.

“Looking at it this way, I’m not bad at all.”

He was quite satisfied, perhaps because his complexion had improved and he no longer looked sickly as before. Though lacking in manly charm, he felt he wouldn’t be outclassed anywhere with this appearance. Song Yi-heon contentedly inspected various parts of his face.

His chin was smooth, as he rarely needed to shave due to sparse facial hair. When he was Kim Deuk-pal, even if he shaved with a sharp blade every morning, stubble would appear by early evening, but Song Yi-heon found it convenient that he only needed to occasionally run a razor over his face…

“Huh…?”

As he was listing the conveniences compared to when he was Kim Deuk-pal, at some point he began to trace his face unfamiliarly. He stroked his cheek and touched his nose bridge. In the mirror, a pale, thin boy mimicked his awkward gestures.

The men around him looked at him as if he were crazy as he pressed close to the mirror, tracing his face, but Song Yi-heon didn’t notice his surroundings as he caressed his stiffly frozen mouth. Though he was touching his own face, it felt as foreign as if he were caressing someone else’s.

Se-kyung, now dressed, stood beside Song Yi-heon. As he reached for the hair dryer first, he asked Song Yi-heon, who was staring blankly at the mirror,

“What’s wrong?”

“…It’s nothing.”

Staring at the mirror in bewilderment with a face that was clearly not alright, his denial lacked credibility. However, Song Yi-heon ultimately didn’t explain.

“I was just lost in thought for a moment… Dry your hair.”

He forcibly turned on the hair dryer for Se-kyung, who couldn’t hide his worried gaze, and stroked his dry face. The breath touching his palm trembled faintly.

For a moment, he couldn’t remember his original appearance. The face of Kim Deuk-pal, who had lived for over forty years, was blurred and wouldn’t come to mind. What he could barely recall was the face lying in the mortuary, seen through Song Yi-heon’s eyes.

Though this perspective of another’s gaze eventually triggered the memory of Kim Deuk-pal’s original face, the shock didn’t easily subside.

Something was changing. Before Song Yi-heon’s soul returned, the adapting soul was changing regardless of Kim Deuk-pal’s will.