Winter Season Chapter 10

Ring.

Yihyeon, flinching at the sound of the bell from the door, turned his head. It was out of the thought that perhaps those hulks dressed in black had come looking for him, but the ones opening the door of the sundae-guk restaurant and entering were a boy who looked to be in middle school and a middle-aged woman.

Quickly giving a small bow to the entering customers, Yihyeon tightly gripped the dishcloth he was holding.

After storming out of the VIP lounge in that manner, Yihyeon had developed a habit of looking around whenever he was on his way to work or walking through dark places. This was because it felt as if Gu Seunghyeok or his subordinates might appear whenever he turned a corner.

Contrary to his expectations, however, no one came looking for Yihyeon, and even while working, he never encountered Seunghyeok or those around him. While wiping a table with a dry cloth, Yihyeon thought that perhaps he could consider that day’s events as a mere happening.

Buzz.

A short vibration rang from his apron pocket. Pulling out his phone to check, Subin’s name was displayed on the screen.

[Did you find your wallet?]

His wallet, which he had left perfectly fine in his locker, had vanished without a trace yesterday dawn. His condition hadn’t been great to begin with, as he had been feeling shivery since he arrived at the club, but it became even more chaotic as people crowded in due to a group of models who had stopped by after a photoshoot.

While it was already an ordeal to move through the bustling crowd with a sagging body, he had been busy beyond belief cleaning the restrooms and preparing dishes and simple appetizers in the kitchen.

By the time he received a call to come out to the hall for a moment and began making cocktails to help Yunjin, the bartender, he was in a half-dazed state. Chased by drunks and ear-splitting music, he had walked around with a somnambulant mind.

It was only after sending all the customers out and finishing the closing shift—while packing his things to go home as quickly as possible—that he noticed his wallet was missing. He had briefly visited the convenience store in the middle of his shift to buy cigarettes and put it back in his locker, but no matter how much he searched, it was nowhere to be found.

There was no way a CCTV camera would be installed in the crude, small staff breakroom attached to the side of the warehouse, and he lacked the energy to interrogate those around him to catch the culprit. Furthermore, it was his own negligence for not using a lock out of laziness.

Since it wasn’t a particularly expensive wallet nor was he carrying cash, there was nothing seriously problematic except for the annoyance of having to have his ID and cards reissued. However, it had been an especially difficult dawn. In an already exhausted state, the occurrence of an unexpected event made him mentally weary.

It was for that reason that he had proposed to meet in the evening to Subin, who was about to leave while giggling with other employees. He could have just borrowed bus fare, but for today, he did not want to be alone in a cold, empty house. Subin had looked a bit surprised at the hand clutching his sleeve, yet he answered that he would come to pick him up as if he had been waiting for the request.

“Give us some more peppers and ssamjang here!”

“Yes.”

Yihyeon, who had been staring blankly at an empty table, abruptly lifted his head at the customer’s shout. After handing a plate containing fresh green chili peppers and ssamjang to the customers dressed in hiking gear—who had ordered a single bowl of sundae-guk and were tilting a soju bottle in the corner—he returned, and the kitchen auntie sitting at a table spoke to him.

“Yihyeon, is something wrong by any chance?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

She watched Yihyeon, who was organizing the cutlery box with a light smile, with a worried gaze.

“Are you eating well? Somehow your face looks like it’s becoming more and more half its size.”

When Yihyeon curled his lips up instead of answering the voice filled with concern, her wrinkled brow narrowed.

“Dear, this won’t do. Don’t be like that; I’ll pack some side dishes for you when you get off work later, so take those and eat. The more a person lives alone, the more they have to look after their own body.”

“I will. Thank you.”

After finishing the organization of the cutlery box, no more work was in sight. Since it was past lunchtime, there were no customers coming in, and side dishes like peppers and onions were all set up. Yihyeon, looking around for a moment, went back to the kitchen and dampened a dishcloth.

“Are you going back to school next spring?”

The hand rubbing the table faltered. Yihyeon swept over his dry lips once before moving his hand again. Even though he knew that stains burned in the shape of a bowl would not be erased, he diligently rubbed the top of the table where the marks remained.

“…I’m not sure.”

“Yihyeon, you should hurry up and graduate to get a decent job. You can’t keep doing this here forever.”

Counting the tuition, living expenses, and the monthly rent the landlord asked to increase in his head, Yihyeon wore a mechanical smile. He felt that if he worked at the club only until this break and balanced part-time jobs during the semester, he might barely manage to endure until graduation without taking a leave of absence, but he had no certainty.

“Sigh, business isn’t good here either, so I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. It’ll be a disaster if the building owner says he’s going to raise the rent more…”

A voice like a complaint seemed to continue, only to die out without reaching an end. The bickering of middle-aged men who had been getting comfortably drunk since daytime and the voice of an announcer flowing from the TV mixed clumsily inside the narrow sundae-guk restaurant.

Strikes, accidents, the cold… words that somehow felt a step away from reality brushed past his ears faintly.

“Oh my… It’s snowing again, it really is.”

The reason Yihyeon, who had been fixing his gaze only on the table, lifted his head was because of that single remark mixed with a sigh. As he lifted his gaze toward the road as if possessed, the sight of pure white, large snowflakes slowly falling through the air beyond the window—which was frosted with blurred moisture—caught his eye.

The pure white dots fell vertically and slowly as if weights were hanging from their feet. White particles, whiter than the breath of pedestrians, revealed their presence against the background of the dark-colored building across the street. As Yihyeon watched that scene blankly, the woman who had been peeling garlic spoke.

“I heard young people these days hate winter coming because of the snow, but I guess that’s not the case for you, Yihyeon?”

Yihyeon slowly straightened his bent waist while watching a young child cross the crosswalk and jump into someone’s umbrella.

The person who appeared to be the child’s father smiled while cupping the cheeks of the girl with braided hair with both hands. Yihyeon, who had been staring blankly at that sight while holding a dishcloth under the bright light, swept his tongue over his dry lips and uttered.

“No, I don’t like it either.”

Because when the world is covered with pure white snow, the blurred sky where the snowflakes fall feels so distant that it is immeasurable, and it feels as if I will be crushed by the white that has swallowed even sound.

Because it is a season where being alone is realized so intensely.

“It’s cold.”

The face reflected on the glass was expressionless while simultaneously dry and powerless. Yihyeon, whose eyes met his own parched face, slowly closed his eyes and then turned his gaze away.

༘⋆🤍˚ .❄️₊˚ෆ

“Yihyeon, don’t be like that and just stay at my place until you find your wallet. You have to get a new transportation card issued and it’ll be inconvenient in many ways.”

Subin, dropping the ends of his eyebrows as if worried, let out a small sigh, but Yihyeon shook his head calmly.

“If I go home and look, the check card I used to use will turn up. They said it only takes a few days for the card reissuance application too.”

“Even so.”

“Hyung, it’s okay. It’s not like I’m a child.”

It was a tone that was soft yet imbued with firmness. Subin, feeling awkward for no reason at the attitude that strangely seemed to draw a line, laughed sheepishly and massaged his own nape.

“Alright, then. I won’t talk about anything else anymore, so just take the taxi I called. You didn’t look well earlier.”

A cool hand was placed lightly on his forehead. Instead of lifting his head to brush the hand away, Yihyeon cast his eyes down and only moistened his dry lips. Subin, who had been watching Yihyeon’s complexion, lightly pressed his lips to the flat forehead and pulled away. Yihyeon blinked a beat late at the sudden warmth.

“Look at this, you have a fever. Do you have medicine at home?”

Subin’s face became quite serious at the unusual heat that transferred through his lips. He narrowed his eyes and repeatedly felt Yihyeon’s hot forehead and nape.