Place to Be Chapter 24

While waiting for the intestines to cook, Yoon Junyoung, who was eating the remaining vegetables, suddenly blurted out.

“It’s the same for you not having an eye for people. Every person you fool around with is as light as a feather… No. Is it your attitude that’s as light as a feather?”

“A feather… I’m just searching for a destined love only for me. I’d appreciate it if you called me the last romanticist of this era.”

Jang Wigeon laughed as he spoke slowly, but Yoon Junyoung snorted and didn’t even pretend to listen.

Seo Chiyoung smiled silently. It seemed that habit of his was still the same. Since high school, Jang Wigeon was someone who always carried rumors of that sort around with him. Still, he seemed to treat those he dated well; compared to the amount of rumors, malicious words were almost never heard.

Well, it seemed like it would be that way. Jang Wigeon seemed like the type who would be exceedingly kind to people within a certain boundary.

Perhaps that’s why it was even more regrettable. Both Jang Wigeon and Yoon Junyoung.

“Stop making your aunt worry and why don’t you start dating someone seriously now. Instead of always making useless jokes to me.”

Yoon Junyoung spoke quietly. Seo Chiyoung hesitated for a moment, his hands faltering, but he said nothing. Did he know how cruel the words contained in Yoon Junyoung’s usual, ordinary, and nonchalant voice were?

“…I guess so…”

Jang Wigeon muttered with a laugh. As his gaze stared silently at his beer glass, Seo Chiyoung wondered what he was thinking, and his mouth felt as bitter as if he had tasted strong liquor.

“I’m going to the restroom for a second,” Yoon Junyoung said as he left his seat. In the spot where one person was now missing, there was silence for a while.

Then, there was suddenly the sign of Jang Wigeon laughing. Seo Chiyoung, who hadn’t dared to lift his head and was staring only at the iron plate, raised his eyes curiously. Jang Wigeon was looking at Seo Chiyoung with a low laugh.

“Do you know what kind of face you’re making right now, Boss?”

“Pardon…? Uh…”

Seo Chiyoung wiped his face with the back of his hand as if flustered. Jang Wigeon laughed for a while and then spoke.

“You have a face like a calf with fodder stuck in its throat.”

He didn’t know what kind of face a calf with fodder stuck in its throat made, but since it didn’t seem like it would be a very good face to look at, Seo Chiyoung rubbed his face sheepishly. Jang Wigeon smiled calmly while looking at Seo Chiyoung, then suddenly asked in a slightly lowered voice.

“Do I look that pitiful to you? Because of Junyoung?”

Seo Chiyoung shut his mouth. Those words, spoken with a low laugh, were closer to a joke than a serious question. Seeing him say such things somewhat lightly as a joke, perhaps Jang Wigeon had also become accustomed to Seo Chiyoung to some extent. Thinking that his heart hadn’t become that heavy after all, Seo Chiyoung also felt a bit relieved.

As he watched Seo Chiyoung maintain his silence without an answer, Jang Wigeon continued as if he hadn’t particularly expected one.

“It’s been like this for a long time. Long enough to be sick of it. So it’s not like it’s suddenly driving me crazy with pain or anything. So… I wish you wouldn’t make that face. I think seeing that face would make me feel more sorry for you instead.”

Just what kind of face had he been making? Seo Chiyoung nodded sheepishly. Then, after remaining silent for a moment, he spoke haltingly.

“I am on your side, Mr. Jang Wigeon. Only in my heart…. Since, I don’t know how I could be of help in other ways…”

Even though he had spoken seriously with his own sincerity, the moment Jang Wigeon heard those words, he stared intently at Seo Chiyoung with a face as if he had been struck on the back of the head, and then suddenly burst into laughter the very next second. Laughing loudly enough for the people inside the shop to stare, Jang Wigeon didn’t stop laughing for a while; seeing Seo Chiyoung only blinking his wide eyes in bewilderment, he waved his hand. Even so, the laughter did not stop.

“No… Ahaha, no, it’s just that my heart feels reassured. No, really, thank you…. For being on my side. It’s the first time I’ve heard someone say they’ll take my side. No one has ever stepped up to say they’d be on my side before.”

Seo Chiyoung looked at him with an awkward face. The man, who likely never caused a situation that required someone to take his side and who would have navigated most things alone without anyone’s help, laughed repeatedly. Seo Chiyoung muttered with a slightly gloomy face.

“Well… it’s probably because people think you’ll be fine even if they don’t take your side. Everyone has a heart that wants to take the side of the weak, after all.”

Only after seeing Seo Chiyoung’s somber face did Jang Wigeon’s laughter slowly subside. He no longer laughed out loud, but with a face still full of laughter, Jang Wigeon said to Seo Chiyoung.

“I am a weak person. So please take my side just as you said.”

At the half-joking, half-serious words mixed with laughter, Seo Chiyoung remained silent for a moment and then nodded. Jang Wigeon was likely saying it as a joke, but Seo Chiyoung was sincere. Though he assumed Jang Wigeon would think he was joking as well.

As Seo Chiyoung nodded with a serious face, Jang Wigeon laughed out loud again for a while, then looked at Seo Chiyoung with eyes where laughter was clearly etched in the corners.

“Ah—you really are an interesting person. What should I do? I think I’m starting to like you, Boss.”

Those words were a joke. Anyone who heard them would know it was a joke, and Jang Wigeon’s tone, expression, and voice were all saying it was a joke. And Seo Chiyoung knew that too.

And yet.

Seo Chiyoung’s face stiffened instantly. Rather than stiffened, it might be more accurate to say it froze stiff. Seeing Seo Chiyoung staring at him with wide eyes, not even thinking of hiding his expression by lowering his head, Jang Wigeon gradually withdrew the laughter from his loudly laughing face. Leaving only an ordinary level of a smile, Jang Wigeon gave a bitter smile, perhaps feeling a bit sorry seeing Seo Chiyoung so stiff and bewildered by the sheer embarrassment.

“What are you going to do if you take every one or two jokes so seriously?”

“…”

Seo Chiyoung hesitated and then bowed his head deeply. “I know…” he muttered in a crawling voice that was barely audible, but for a long time, he could not lift his head.

Before long, Yoon Junyoung returned and asked with a puzzled face what was going on, but Jang Wigeon, still smiling, did not answer, saying, “The Boss might collapse if I say any more,” and Seo Chiyoung also kept his reddened face lowered while silently stirring the intestines.

“But are the intestines still not ready?” Even when Seo Chiyoung quickly held out the intestines to Yoon Junyoung, who was looking into the iron plate, the laughter did not disappear from Jang Wigeon’s face, but fortunately, the topic did not come up again and they moved on.

“…”

Seo Chiyoung let out a sigh. Just recalling the thoughts made his face feel like it was turning red again.

“I have to sleep…”

He muttered as if scolding himself and tossed and turned in another direction, but sleepiness did not newly wash over him to cover his consciousness.

…Yes. The reason he couldn’t fall asleep even with a body exhausted from fatigue and a heavy head was because of that. The thing that had been stuck in a corner of his mind without letting go ever since a while ago was that short sentence.

—I think I’m starting to like you.

He couldn’t believe it himself, that he was being this shaken by a word that had passed by so lightly it would be funny even to call it a simple joke or a prank.

Seo Chiyoung quietly pressed his heavy eyelids with his fist.

He thought with a sigh that he seemed to have liked Jang Wigeon even more than he had thought. He had believed he was just looking back at the past with longing and tasting those emotions once more while ruminating on memories.

However, even now, he wasn’t expecting anything. Truly, he knew that those words had no meaning.

And yet.

“…”

The cheek touching the back of his hand is hot.

It wasn’t that he had never heard words of that sort before. Even if he had spent breathless days without a moment’s rest after graduating high school, there had been a few times—even if they could be counted on one hand—when he had met someone. It’s not that he had dated. He had absolutely no leisure to date.

It was just that around the time when he felt so lonely and exhausted that he thought he might die, he couldn’t endure that struggling spirit even with a body that felt like it would collapse from fatigue, so he had gone out to meet someone just to get through that moment.