Place to Be Chapter 25

During those several times, he had heard such words and said them himself while trying to build excitement during foreplay. However, none of those soft whispers accompanied by hot breaths and touches remained in his memory. There were no words that pierced his heart more than that nonchalant remark.

Words spoken to him, but words that did not belong to him.

For a moment, he felt suffocated.

As time flows, will someone eventually be by his side too, instead of him spending his days alone like this? Perhaps. But could the words that person might whisper truly sound sweeter than that one light joke?

He had never pitied his own life. Even if he had thought things were difficult, painful, or unhappy, he did not feel self-pity for his life.

However, right now, Seo Chiyoung felt pity for himself. It felt as if the life he was living now would just continue to flow on like this. Even if he felt the small pleasures of life and the tranquility of daily routine, spending time as happy as others alongside them until he met the day this life ends, words that dig into the heart like that would never be his.

Suddenly, his body felt chilly. Perhaps it was because the inside of his chest had turned cold.

He became lonely. He thought it would be nice if someone were by his side. Someone. Anyone. Yes, even just for a moment was fine. If he couldn’t warm his chilly heart, he wanted at least his body to be warm.

A long time ago, the emotions of those difficult and rough days when he went out to find someone in search of a very brief warmth came back to him anew. It felt like he had been in this same bleak and aching mood back then too.

“…—.”

Seo Chiyoung, lying on his side and curled up like a baby in the womb, moved his hand down. Over his clothes, he quietly cupped his genitals, which were limp without any desire. After stroking a couple of times, the sleeping member seemed to twitch as if its pulse were quickening, but after fumbling like that a few times, Seo Chiyoung soon let go of his own accord. The desire that had begun to faintly rise also easily subsided.

He already knew that this sort of thing couldn’t fill the chilly coldness. Even though he knew, the hollow feeling did not vanish until the moment his consciousness fell into the sleep that rushed in before he could realize it.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The cell phone inside his pocket vibrated once and stopped. It seemed a text had arrived. Come to think of it, it felt like some text had come earlier too, and though he thought he should check it later, he had forgotten.

However, even now, while thinking he should check it, Seo Chiyoung couldn’t put his hand in his pocket because he had to quickly bring beer first after hearing an order from inside shouting, “Give us a beer here and one more serving of intestines.”

Today was a busy day.

There were days like that sometimes. There were days when it felt like he was hexed and barely one or two customers stopped by all day, while there were other days when the place was so packed he had to move without resting for a single moment. Today was the latter.

Having many customers wasn’t necessarily only a good thing. Because there was no room to breathe in his mind as well as his body, minor mistakes were frequent, and because he couldn’t take care of them properly, there were occasionally people who left with displeased faces. At those times, even if the profit was better than other days, he didn’t feel refreshed.

At least today, although he was frantically busy, it was okay because he hadn’t made any particular mistakes and no strange customers had passed through.

“It’s crowded today.”

When Yoon Junyoung arrived after 10:00 PM, there was only one seat left in front of the prep table outside the shop. All four tables placed inside the shop were full, and people were already sitting in the three chairs placed in front of the prep table. Yoon Junyoung, looking around at the people packed inside the shop, silently sat in the one remaining seat.

“Oh… welcome.”

Seo Chiyoung greeted him with a troubled face. Since Yoon Junyoung had come, perhaps Jang Wigeon might come too, but there was no seat for Jang Wigeon to sit in. Looking back, it seemed like the people sitting at one table would be leaving before long, so he thought he should move them over there if that spot became vacant.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it this crowded. Is the shop not going to collapse? I was already worried about when it might fall down.”

To Yoon Junyoung, who muttered with a face where one couldn’t tell if it was a joke or serious, Seo Chiyoung gave a bitter smile. The words muttering spiritlessly, It really is going to collapse soon, disappeared inside his mouth. Suddenly, his heart was darkly shaded.

He knew that the shop was included in a redevelopment area. Even around the time not long after Seo Chiyoung opened the shop here a few years ago, the consent forms had already been circulated a long time prior. He frequently heard that it was an urban shopping district, so the consent rate wasn’t high and things weren’t progressing smoothly, and that noises often broke out from the union side.

At first, he worried every time he heard those words, but since things had been sluggish for several years, he was just at the point of letting it pass as “I suppose so” even if such talk came up.

To Seo Chiyoung, who had been living while nearly forgetting about it, the owner mentioned it in a passing manner when he went to pay the monthly rent a few days ago. That it had been finalized, so he would have to vacate by the end of this year or early next year at the latest.

Worry rushed in along with a sense of bewilderment, but there were no words Seo Chiyoung could say. Since it was a story that had been coming out since a few years ago when he first rented the place, there was no way to say anything specific now. In fact, it wasn’t a story that didn’t exist at all; it was just that he had been living while forgetting it and now that it was heard suddenly, he felt bleak.

Before long, he would have to move the shop or close it down.

However, on the way back, he looked at the papers posted at real estate offices and searched through local information magazines, but the shop rents in this neighborhood were outrageously high. He had saved as hard as he could, but numbers were written that were impossible to reach with Seo Chiyoung’s meager savings.

The end of this year or early next year at the latest.

He kept racking his brain lately about how much he could save until then, but it seemed it wouldn’t be easy at all to find another spot in this neighborhood to run a shop. If it truly wasn’t feasible, he would have to look into a completely different neighborhood and move, but then the foundation he had built up until now would become useless. That was also a significant loss.

“…It seems a bit under-fried.”

Seo Chiyoung, who was agonizing while tapping a calculator in his head again, snapped to his senses at the sound of Yoon Junyoung’s voice muttering abruptly in a dissatisfied tone. Looking at the plate he had held out to him a moment ago, Seo Chiyoung clicked his tongue, Oh no. Because Yoon Junyoung likes them stir-fried a bit more than usual, he usually grills them to be a bit more golden, but while he was absent-minded, he had momentarily forgotten.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll do it again for you.”

Seo Chiyoung quickly took the plate back and poured the contents onto the iron plate. Get it together, he scolds himself internally.

Let’s just forget for now. He had no choice but to forget and diligently save money. Worrying right now wouldn’t lead to anything anyway, and since there was still a bit of time left, he had no choice but to save until they actually told him to leave.

Seo Chiyoung took a deep breath and busily responded and moved about to the sounds heard occasionally from here and there, like “Please bring some more water here,” or “Just one bottle of cola here.” In the midst of that, he put the golden-brown stir-fried intestines back on the plate and held it out in front of Yoon Junyoung.

Yoon Junyoung, who had been staring blankly at the street as if lost in thought, didn’t notice even when the plate was placed in front of him, and only turned his head when Seo Chiyoung, who had been watching his mood for a moment, spoke to him, saying, “Excuse me, it won’t taste good if it gets cold.” “Ah, yes,” he answered shortly, and the hand moving the chopsticks was slower than usual.

“…Has something bad happened? Your expression doesn’t look good.”

When Seo Chiyoung asked cautiously, Yoon Junyoung was silent for a moment and then shook his head. “Not really,” the voice answering bluntly was lower than usual. Seo Chiyoung didn’t say anything.

Just then, the people sitting at the table inside the shop stood up. To the people returning after paying, Seo Chiyoung greeted them with, “Thank you, please come again,” and was about to go over there with a tray and a cloth to clear the spot, but he stopped his steps and looked back at Yoon Junyoung.

“Uh… by any chance, is your friend coming later too? If so, I think it would be better for you to move your seat to the inside…”

Yoon Junyoung, who was sitting in the corner of the outside seats which were already full, tilted his head ambiguously.

“Well, I don’t know. We didn’t make plans, but there are times when he shows up even though we didn’t make plans at other times too. I don’t know how he found out…”