Salt Society Chapter 11

Thinking that way, I felt like a fool for being swayed by every little thing. Kihyun sighed and followed Cho Yeonoh, who had entered first.

In the entryway were the wingtip shoes he had taken off and placed neatly even while that drunk. In fact, the commuting sneakers Kihyun had taken off after getting home from work looked more like they belonged to a drunk person. Finding that both absurd and funny, Kihyun looked down at them for a long time before stepping inside the house.

The sound of dripping water came from the bathroom in the living room. Usually, he tried not to show his fastidious nature, but perhaps because he was drunk, Cho Yeonoh was acting true to form by losing his self-control and heading straight to wash up.

When that fellow gets drunk, his shower time becomes quite long. Thanks to a personality that doesn’t tolerate his own slight germaphobia, it isn’t noticeable normally, but it pops out on days when the boundary between reason and instinct grows faint. As a result, he used to create shower times so long that one might wonder if he was sleeping inside.

Kihyun turned his head away from the bathroom door. With a face like someone quietly enduring something after swallowing something bitter, he cleared away the messy items on the living room table. This was because he didn’t know what kind of nagging that guy—who was fastidious enough to go wash immediately despite being drunk enough to stagger—would do when he came out.

It was while he was pouring leftover beer into the sink and rinsing the beer can with water. A click sounded from the bathroom door. Thinking he was coming out now, Kihyun crushed the can, put it in the recycling bin, and left the kitchen, but the fellow was nowhere to be seen.

He thought he had washed up quickly for once, but the bathroom showed no signs of having been used, except for the warmth wafting out. Seeing the slippers stood up against the wall, he was dumbfounded. There was no doubt that he had meticulously wiped the walls of the shower booth where water had splashed using a squeegee. Even that squeegee was something Cho Yeonoh had bought.

Thinking simply that he must be getting his clothes out of the dressing room to change, Kihyun sat blankly on the sofa, but Cho Yeonoh showed no intention of coming out even after the moisture on Kihyun’s hands had dried. Wondering if he had fallen asleep while looking for clothes, Kihyun headed that way.

The apartment, with a price far beyond what could be bought with So Kihyun’s salary, was one of the assets his mother had left behind. It had three rooms; one was used as a bedroom, one as Kihyun’s study, and the remaining one as a dressing room.

Cho Yeonoh, who thought only of staying over every single day, put the most effort into Kihyun’s bedroom first, and the dressing room second. The house was in Kihyun’s name, but Cho Yeonoh had brought in most of the furniture himself. He said something about shaking it down from a female cousin who ran a department store.

They say many things are easily achieved in the world they live in, but Kihyun didn’t know that also applied to the furniture to be placed in his house. Even when asked why he was buying it, Cho Yeonoh was actually confident.

—What, do you want to do that Dutch pay thing or something? I don’t have that kind of talent.

He didn’t know how absurd he felt at those words spoken with a furrowed brow. The energy to dissuade him further drained away, so he just figured, fine, if he wants to brag about his money, let’s leave him be.

Cho Yeonoh had also practically remodeled the interior of the dressing room. After seeing him call in a contractor to build glass cabinets and install them all as built-ins, Kihyun was so fed up he didn’t stop him, and even though they were just wardrobes, they even had lights inside the doors. It wouldn’t be strange for such a dressing room to be in Cho Yeonoh’s house, but it was unfamiliar in his own.

For Kihyun, for whom sports brand athletic wear was the extent of his wardrobe even at age thirty, it was enough to just fold them roughly after washing so they wouldn’t wrinkle, but for Cho Yeonoh, who had to go to work in a suit, it seemed cabinets were necessary. Ultimately, those enormous wardrobes were all for Cho Yeonoh.

Come to think of it, it seemed right for Cho Yeonoh to spend money on all the furniture that came into this house. Because the sofa in the living room, the bed that was as large as the bedroom itself, and even the recliner placed suddenly in the study were all for Cho Yeonoh’s convenience.

“What are you doing here?”

And Kihyun finally found Yeonoh in that dressing room where the accessories were bigger than the main body. It seemed he hadn’t seen him enter here immediately after showering because he had been cleaning.

He thought if he had finished washing, he should just put on any clothes and go to sleep, so why was it taking so long? Kihyun, who had opened the door while speaking to Yeonoh because the light was on, froze involuntarily.

This was because Cho Yeonoh was standing in front of an ironing board wearing only underwear with a towel draped over his head. He was ironing something with a turned-on iron. Stunned, Kihyun asked.

“I asked what you’re doing?”

“There’s nothing wearable, so I’m going to iron something to wear.”

The way he answered blankly was a beat slow, clearly showing he was drunk. It was certain he hadn’t sobered up even while showering. When Kihyun looked to see what on earth he was ironing at this time of night, it was his own portion of underwear that Cho Yeonoh had long ago brought over to Kihyun’s house. Kihyun was lost for words in absurdity.

“……You, you’re saying you’re going to iron your underwear, right now……?”

Because he liked his clothes to have sharp creases, the fellow rarely even wore jeans. The reason was that it was annoying because jeans, by their nature, couldn’t be ironed. He didn’t know he would go as far as ironing underwear, which was utterly absurd. It seemed that in his drunken state, he couldn’t bear unironed underwear.

Kihyun shook his head in disbelief, then suddenly his gaze was locked onto Yeonoh’s lower body. Wondering whose underwear that guy was wearing. Since there wasn’t just one or two pairs of underwear brought over, he thought he’d be wearing his own, but seeing the underwear that had been pulled out and finished being ironed folded neatly on one side, he wondered “no way.”

Fearing the worst, it turned out as expected, and Kihyun asked with what reason he could muster.

“……Isn’t that mine?”

“Mine are all wrinkled, so I’m wearing yours for a moment.”

Cho Yeonoh answered calmly again. His voice was languid and low-pitched, which suddenly made Kihyun’s spine tingle.

“You really……”

A rough breath escaped him involuntarily. Kihyun tried to think of something else. Something other than the sight of him standing there with wet hair, wearing only Kihyun’s underwear. He felt that if he didn’t make such an effort, only things that worsened the situation would stick in his mind.

For instance, he felt he would keep thinking about the reason why the front looked so full. Whether it was because the underwear size didn’t fit since he was wearing Kihyun’s, who had a significant height difference, or if it was……

Moreover, it had been a very long time since Kihyun had seen the fellow’s semi-naked body. Cho Yeonoh didn’t often take his clothes off in front of So Kihyun. Even after showering, he used to come out after getting dressed in the bathroom. But he couldn’t believe what a sight this all was.

Thinking those thoughts, his gaze headed downward again involuntarily. Because of the height difference of over 10 centimeters, the boxer briefs, which were far too small compared to what Cho Yeonoh usually wore, failed to hide the distinct volume and expressed its size as it was. A thick pillar with a slightly raised end, protruding near the thigh of the underwear…… Kihyun really wanted to think of something else.

“……Finish up and come out. I’ll dry your hair for you.”

“Okay.”

To those words, he answered meekly again. Cho Yeonoh liked drying So Kihyun’s hair. Kihyun found it bothersome, and only after saying not to do it several times did he replace it with Kihyun drying Cho Yeonoh’s hair instead. Though he didn’t know why they had to do such a thing.

Seeing him answer immediately even now, he must have liked the suggestion of having his hair dried. Because that fellow wouldn’t answer at all to things he disliked.

Since Cho Yeonoh actually had a sweet and affectionate side, it was always burdensome for Kihyun to keep up with that part of him. This was because it was entirely different from what Kihyun had experienced while living as friends with Cho Yeonoh over the past years.

When he was friends with the fellow, they hadn’t bickered about drying each other’s hair. It was a natural thing. The two were friends, and contact between them was at most hugging in the joy of the team winning after a game of basketball for drinks at school. It meant they had never done something like drying each other’s hair between friends.

Kihyun had never dried a girlfriend’s hair even when he was dating them. Since they were all relationships from high school, there were no occasions for it, but another reason was that he wasn’t of an affectionate personality in that way, having grown up under a conservative and patriarchal father.

But Cho Yeonoh was different. There were times when he would carry a hair tie inside his school uniform shirt sleeve, claiming he would braid his girlfriend’s hair. Every few times Kihyun saw the fellow carrying a black hair tie on his wrist, he used to be swept by an unknown emotion.

Kihyun thought that even the reason Cho Yeonoh tried to dry his hair might be a minor habit coming from his life with past lovers. Once he fell into such thoughts, he could no longer purely enjoy all the actions the other took to care for him.

Just then, Cho Yeonoh seemed to have finished ironing, as he unplugged the iron, organized the cord, and came around the ironing board.

“……!”