Midday Guest Chapter 14

“Walking test. It’s a designer participating in Paris Haute Couture, and the rehearsal call just came in.”

If Jung Yiwon was famous for being the brain of Yonggung-ri, Shin Heeyoung had once been famous as the village’s idol. Shin Heeyoung, who always said his dream was to appear on TV, had been diligently traveling to Seoul for auditions since middle school; eventually, he got his name on a model agency’s roster and even made his debut. Since last year, he’d mentioned traveling for interviews with overseas agencies, and it seemed he had finally achieved a good result.

“Really? Then you passed the final audition?”

“Normally, it would be a final pass. But suddenly they want to do a separate walking test, so it’s become a situation where I’ve neither passed nor failed. It’s a bit annoying… but what can you do.”

Shin Heeyoung said they should start by bathing and stripped off his clothes. After a quick wash, they sat in the hot tub, and Shin Heeyoung leaned his head against the edge, making a groaning sound.

“Ah, damn, I shouldn’t be at an age where this feels so good…”

Yiwon smiled, empathizing with Shin Heeyoung’s words.

“Who would have thought the day would come when you’d come down to the Yonggung-ri you wanted to escape so badly just to recharge.”

Yiwon replied, “Right,” and sprawled out in the same way. Beside him, Shin Heeyoung twisted his body to look at Yiwon and asked.

“When are you coming back up?”

“…Huh?”

“I’m asking when you’re going back to school.”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it yet.”

“You are going to do it, right?”

“I have to…”

His words trailed off, lost in thought. Breaking free from this cycle, which seemed like nothing yet wasn’t, was truly not easy.

“Rest only until this year and let’s go up together next year.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“How much more thinking do you need to do? You just have to go.”

“Is life really that easy?”

“It’s because it’s hard that you live like that, obviously.”

Shin Heeyoung, who had been rambling on, suddenly said something out of the blue.

“Hey, you’re not avoiding going back to school because you’re dating, are you?”

“What are you talking about.”

“Don’t play innocent. I saw everything.”

Shin Heeyoung moved closer to Yiwon’s side and rubbed his shoulder against him as he spoke.

“I saw the two of you sitting side-by-side doing the dishes this morning. You were doing dishes with your shoulders, for god’s sake.”

Seeing him use the expression “sitting side-by-side doing dishes,” it seemed Shin Heeyoung had seen Cha Seokjoo.

“That guy’s aura was no joke. Even in our industry, it’s not easy to see someone who looks like that… Where did you meet him?”

“Hey, it’s not like that.”

“Don’t even think about fooling this hyung.”

“Hyung, my foot. You’ve got it completely wrong.”

“He was brutally handsome. His physique was killer, too. Ah, I wish I could be hit on by a guy with a frame as big as a door—.”

“Watch your mouth, seriously.”

“You’re being extra. It’s not like you’re the only gay person in the world.”

Yiwon lightly struck the surface of the hot tub water with his hand and furrowed his brow.

“Hey!”

“Ah, damn, I swallowed water.”

He shouldn’t have consulted Shin Heeyoung about dating from the start. After confiding that he wanted to see someone for a long time but didn’t know how, the first and last question he received was whether he might just not be interested in women.

‘No, think about it. If you think about how the two of us stuck together all through middle and high school. Even in a tiny place like Yonggung-ri, kids managed to have flings. Only you and I had zero interest in that area.’

‘…’

‘As for me, I knew my orientation early on, so I just accepted it. But I thought you were just crazy about studying and had no interest in dating. Thinking about it now, though. If you were a guy who was only crazy about studying, it would have been hard for you to get close to me, too.’

It was something Yiwon had suspected to some extent as well. He hadn’t confirmed it yet, but it was at the level where he thought, maybe that’s it. To put it another way, it wasn’t something he needed to hear a definitive answer on like this.

“Shin Heeyoung, stop.”

When Yiwon looked at him with a serious face, Shin Heeyoung flinched and backed away.

“Okay. I think I lost my mind for a second because I came from a place where every other guy is like that. Sorry.”

Shin Heeyoung adjusted the sheep-head towel on his head and started flapping his lips again.

“By the way, judging by how you’re talking, I guess you haven’t slept with him yet.”

His reflection never lasted more than three seconds.

“Why does the conversation keep leading back to that? What kind of life are you living in Seoul?”

“A fucking happy sex life?”

“You crazy bastard…”

Yiwon simply closed his eyes. Then he spoke quickly.

“There’s nothing between us, so there’s no sleeping together or anything.”

“Nothing between you? Really?”

“Yeah, he’s a guest. A guest at the guesthouse.”

And he kept the words “and that man is a gangster” to himself.

Shin Heeyoung sucked on the sikhye he had placed on the edge of the hot tub and laughed loudly, saying he’d just heard a truly hilarious story.

“Bullshit. What kind of guest has eyes like that? That is absolutely not a gaze without ulterior motives.”

You can’t fool this body. Shin Heeyoung turned his body completely, stared intently at Yiwon, and asked.

“What does he do? If he’s not just a complete passerby, can’t you at least check if he’s interested in this side?”

Yiwon was cautious about saying that the man was a director of a company based on a violent organization and seemed to be a member of a gang. No matter how much of a best friend he was. After a moment of thought, Yiwon gave a vague answer.

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask.”

Shin Heeyoung scrunched his face into a grimace and pressed Yiwon, asking what he’d been doing all this time without even asking something like that.

“But you’ve talked, right? Can you hold a conversation?”

“Well, to the extent that it’s not frustrating, I guess.”

“Then just play around with him for a bit.”

“Play around… Hey, I told you that person is a guest.”

“Ah, this fucking prude, seriously. When you met other people, did you meet them because you knew everything about them?”

“It wasn’t like that, but.”

“Do you have a religious calling? Are you going to shave your head and go into the mountains? Unless you’re doing that, you can at least try getting to know him lightly. Or… do you just have no thoughts in that direction at all? Is my best friend an asexual or a non-dating type or something?”

Yiwon shook his head lightly and continued.

“I have thoughts about it. I’ll date eventually. But right now, my situation is—.”

“You’re so fucking frustrating.”

“And I have debt.”

“I really want to say ‘fucking so what’ to that.”

“A lot of it, even.”

Shin Heeyoung wagged his index finger and cut Yiwon off.

“So to summarize, he feels different from those charm-less exes of yours who were like water mixed with water or alcohol mixed with alcohol.”

“Well, a bit…”

“He comes to mind out of nowhere.”

“That, too, a bit…”

“You feel like you could kiss him.”

“… .”

“And you feel like you could do even more?”

He hadn’t thought that far, so he didn’t know.

While Yiwon failed to answer easily, Shin Heeyoung stood up from the hot tub and laughed as he went back to his spot.

“It looks like there’s nothing left to agonize over, so what on earth are you agonizing about?”

“It hasn’t been long since I first saw his face.”

“Hey, it’s a world where people head straight to a hotel room just by catching each other’s eyes. You want to let it rot by letting it simmer too long?”

Then he sat down outside with a thud and sighed. Grabbing a shower ball and creating lather, he gave Yiwon a mischievous smile.

“In any case, you’re a guy whose dick will rot while you’re busy agonizing.”

“… .”

“Are you the type to have cobwebs in your hole…?”

Yiwon struck Shin Heeyoung’s head with the white plastic washbasin that was sitting on the corner of the bath. However, Shin Heeyoung didn’t seem to find it painful even with the loud thwack! sound, and continued talking incessantly.

It seemed he didn’t even hear the denial. Shin Heeyoung insisted that relationships were essential in a boring rural life, and proceeded to take the progress all the way to the end by himself.

“Hey.”

“Ah, why? What is there to be polite about between us. Honestly, where else are you going to talk about this stuff? What’s the harm in talking a bit.”

“Don’t you have any shame?”

“It’s better than being lonely.”

Shin Heeyoung looked at Yiwon with a serious face. Yiwon sank into the hot tub until only his face was above the water and looked at him quietly.

“Anyway, think about it well. There’s a reason people say it’s a hundred times better to be a hyena wandering in search of love, tasting this guy and that guy, than to be a wolf dying in solitude.”

He was, in any case, a man whose sophistry was eloquent.

After finishing the bath, they went out to the locker room.

Watching Shin Heeyoung carefully dry his hair with a hairdryer and even comb it even in Yonggung-ri, Yiwon thought he was truly destined for a job standing in front of others.

Yiwon sat down on the wooden bench and waited for Shin Heeyoung. He tried to take his phone out of his pocket to pass the time, but he grasped something else. It was the adhesive bandage and ointment Cha Seokjoo had left behind.

Shin Heeyoung smirked when he saw the yellow water-duck bandage.

“What’s this? You’re not a kid.”

“…Exactly.”

Yiwon, who answered as if talking to himself, tilted his head back.

The swelling had gone down and the bruise was gone. However, the scab that had formed where the thug’s jackknife had grazed him was itchy, so he fruitlessly scratched the surrounding area a few times.

While gauging the wound in the bathhouse mirror, he applied the medicine. At that moment, the smile vanished from Shin Heeyoung’s face. Putting down the hairdryer, he squinted and asked.

“Did you get hurt?”

“It’s not serious. I got scratched a bit while working.”

“If you’re going to use your face like that, just give it to me instead. What do you mean, farm work with that face, farm work.”