Salt Society Chapter 63

I was incredulous at my body, which was undergoing changes one by one. Hearing that muscle loss also occurs, I thought I should reinforce my strength training a bit more, and I made do with pork cutlet and buckwheat noodles for lunch.

Since the portions were quite large, I figured it wouldn’t be bad to walk around the neighborhood before going in, so I ventured out for a stroll in my slippers. Then, as I turned a corner, a fruit and vegetable store appeared.

“Welcome!”

A man who looked to be in his early twenties at a glance greeted me with a sly air. Even his pronunciation was closer to “Wel-cum.” Despite being a medical service professional himself, Kihyun, who didn’t particularly like others exercising a service spirit toward him, only let the corners of his mouth turn up slightly in a smile and examined the fruit.

Even though I hadn’t even thought of it as being hot yet, many summer fruits were already out, decorating the stalls. A store employee who was biting into an apricot came out to explain.

“What are you looking for? Shinbi peaches are selling well these days.”

“I don’t eat hard peaches, so…”

“Then this. But the flavor hasn’t fully set into this one yet. Soft ones are only tasty once it gets to be July or August.”

It was surprising that the clerk who approached was taller than expected and quite handsome. Below the arms of his short-sleeved shirt, tattoos were wrapped around his thick forearms. The words of the nurses at the hospital—that it was hard to catch a vein on forearms with many tattoos—randomly came to mind.

“Does our hyung only eat peaches? What about tropical fruits? We have mangosteen and apple mangoes too.”

Kihyun, feeling that if he spoke just a couple more words today he would use up all his stored-up social energy, roughly shook his head and asked for plums. The employee looked seriously disappointed.

“Pluuummms? Ah, what to do, my shop has almost everything, but that’s the one thing we don’t have.”

Upon hearing they didn’t have any, he should have just accepted it and turned around, but his feet wouldn’t move. The fruit store employee glanced at Kihyun, raised one eyebrow, and asked.

“It seems this hyung really wants to eat plums. Do you want to come back tomorrow? Eat apricots today.”

He naturally induced him to purchase apricots, but Kihyun wanted plums. It was because it felt like someone was giving a command to his brain to eat plums.

Normally, whether it was plums or apricots, his preference was to only have a single bite if Cho Yeonoh repeatedly urged him, but today, just thinking about plums made his mouth water. In the end, he shook his head and said he would come next time, and it was just as he was about to turn around.

Wasn’t there some luxury sedan parked in front of the store? There was Cho Yeonoh, leaning his elbow on the window frame with both side windows rolled down. The fellow asked in a flat tone.

“What brings you to buy fruit?”

“…”

Kihyun ignored him and walked. Glancing at the time, it wasn’t even 6:00 PM yet, and he couldn’t understand why he was already off work and acting like that.

The car followed Kihyun, driving slowly with its hazard lights blinking. The cars behind him honked at Cho Yeonoh, who was driving slowly on the two-lane road. Cho Yeonoh didn’t budge; he stuck his arm out the window and waved it toward the front. It was a hand signal telling them to go first. The cars following him began to roll down their windows and swear.

“Is driving a nice car everything?! Fuck, I’m dying from being busy, but how long are you going to stay stopped, you crazy bastard.”

And then they overtook Cho Yeonoh’s car and passed by. Why is he being like that again? Just as Kihyun was trying to go on his way while holding back a sigh of exasperation, Cho Yeonoh spoke up.

“Aren’t you getting in?”

“…”

Kihyun didn’t answer. Cho Yeonoh, who was watching Kihyun silently, shifted gears and said.

“Fine, then.”

Then he sped off. Only then did Kihyun let out the long-held sigh. The midday sun beating down on the crown of his head was extremely hot.

⏳

So Kihyun was someone who could sleep just fine even in places swarming with lizards while out on field training. During winter training, he had slept in even worse places.

Since it was a comfortable house with a roof and enclosed on all sides, there was nothing difficult about adjusting. The number of dishes he could cook was increasing, and since walking had become a daily routine lately, he would sometimes go quite far.

Cho Yeonoh, who had been hovering around for a few days, seemed to realize he couldn’t keep coming down to Ilsan every day, and hadn’t been seen recently. Having watched the guy, who was busy beyond imagination, by his side all along, he naturally thought it would turn out this way. Thanks to that, Kihyun was in the middle of enjoying peace.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect peace. Because resentment toward Cho Yeonoh seethed from time to time. Even though the reason for moving all the way to Ilsan lay clearly with Cho Yeonoh, curses burst out every time he thought of Cho Yeonoh, who had come to him and mentioned having moved in as if they had merely had a light spat.

All the problems that existed between him and Cho Yeonoh were not of the nature to be summarized in such a way. Cho Yeonoh and So Kihyun hadn’t argued because they supported different teams, and they hadn’t fought because So Kihyun failed to listen to Cho Yeonoh’s nagging and didn’t stand the slippers up after using the bathroom.

If it were such a small problem, he wouldn’t have come all the way here. Furthermore…

—We are breaking off our friendship, Yeonoh.

He wouldn’t have said such words. However, he was fed up with the guy acting as if they had briefly parted after a light quarrel.

…No, actually, it was the same as being fed up with himself for caring this much. In the end, Kihyun had no choice but to laugh at himself. His heart felt heavy, as if he were wandering by Cho Yeonoh’s side wherever he went.

That was why he tried even harder to stabilize his life. Fortunately, he liked the place he had moved to. Being a quiet and secluded city, it met Kihyun’s preferences. There were many places to walk, and a nearby grocery store often carried interesting products, so it was good for going to look around.

Today, he also bought two kinds of sauce at the grocery store and bought madeleines on the way back. The madeleines with lemon zest smelled so good that he ate three of them on the way.

Since it was Bumhee’s car after all, he couldn’t eat to his heart’s content inside. While he was eating a madeleine with the driver’s side door open and his feet out, a dog that was out for a walk stared intently at Kihyun. Since a dog couldn’t eat bread, he felt sorry, but the owner said, “He always stares holes into what others are eating. Sorry, young man,” and then picked up the dog that was stubbornly refusing to go and disappeared.

The afternoon sunlight brushed past the leaves of the roadside trees and created shadows over the madeleines. After eating the last madeleine, he realized there was nothing to eat at home, so he considered buying more but just pressed the start button of the car.

And then, while returning to the villa and parking the car in the parking lot, a thought suddenly occurred to him. It was, when did I first see that car?

Kihyun narrowed his eyes and stared at the car. It was a common domestic car. Not black, but white. The moment he saw a white mid-sized sedan—the color most preferred by Korean citizens—parked in the lot in front of the villa, a certain feeling flashed by.

Kihyun slightly narrowed and then relaxed his eyes, drove the car smoothly to park in a vacant space, and then got out carrying his things.

While closing the driver’s side door with an nonchalant face, he glanced at the license plate, and as expected, it was a car he had seen before. It was the car he had encountered the day before yesterday when he suddenly wanted to eat blueberries and went to that fruit store from last time. Also in front of the cafe where he had stopped yesterday morning to buy a sandwich and apple juice.

Kihyun made a humming sound in his throat and passed that car just as he was, entering the villa’s entrance. He used the stairs instead of the elevator, no different from usual. Seeing that his patellar ligament and Achilles tendon didn’t pull as he climbed the stairs, the condition of his ankle was not too bad today.

Standing in front of his front door, Kihyun checked just in case to see if the thin piece of paper he had hung on the door hinge had fallen to the floor. The thin, long piece of paper had not only fallen to the floor but was half-torn. Someone had entered the house and come out.

Tsk, he clicked his tongue. Since there were no signs of forced entry, it didn’t seem like a thief had broken in. The time Kihyun had spent away from home before returning was only about two hours, and there was no way a burglar would rob a villa complex where general households are concentrated during the day when children are coming home from school.

When he opened the door lock and went in, just as Kihyun expected, nothing in the house had changed. No signs of someone intruding, no signs of anything being rummaged through.

Kihyun naturally approached the living room window, drew the curtains, and then changed his clothes. Since he had been out wearing jeans, he needed clothes with better mobility. He took off the shirt he was wearing and changed into a flexible t-shirt, then put on a black ball cap.

Just in case, he took out sports tape and C-tape to tape his ankle, and put on sports socks that came up over the ankle. He went to the entrance and picked up sneakers with non-slip treatment on the soles and placed them on the balcony next to the kitchen. It was a balcony located in the exact opposite direction of the living room window.

After that, he took out the car keys for the new car he had received earlier this week. It happened that someone had canceled their reservation, so he was able to receive the new car sooner than expected, but he liked Bumhee’s car so much that he had notified him he would use it a bit more and was not returning it. Director Lee, who was too busy to use the car, had lazily told him to do so. That was why he had been driving Bumhee’s car even after the new car arrived.

The other side might have caught on to the newly received car, but somehow it didn’t seem likely. Because the day before yesterday was the first time he had discovered a car tailing him.