Place to Be Chapter 56

Seo Chiyoung slowly looked around. The dimly lit interior did not, however, feel gloomy or bleak. Instead, an appropriately pleasant, loose air was flowing through the room.

So this is the kind of place it is. The place he frequented.

“…”

He felt a bit sorry for even comparing it to that park.

In contrast to Seo Chiyoung, who sat there frozen awkwardly, Jang Wigeon naturally pulled a menu and spread it out in front of him like a fish in water.

“What kind of things do you like?”

“Uh… I don’t really know about these things… just anything is fine.”

Seo Chiyoung stammered and muttered. Jang Wigeon, after leafing through the menu half-heartedly, said to the bartender, “Give him one that isn’t too bitter or sweet, with just a little alcohol. For me, the usual.” The bartender grumbled, “Geez, that’s vague,” but nodded obediently nonetheless.

Jang Wigeon asked Seo Chiyoung, who was sitting all alone on the round, high stool, “How is it?”

“Does it seem okay?”

Seo Chiyoung only nodded without answering. Actually, he wasn’t sure if it was okay or not, but it was at least quieter and more secluded than the place he had stepped into a long time ago.

This was the place Jang Wigeon said he stopped by occasionally. However, rather than him looking around with curious eyes, more curious gazes were actually coming his way. While Jang Wigeon shared a few words with a staff member who was serving, the bartender handed a glass to Seo Chiyoung. He had seemingly put it out even before the order slips piled up in front of him.

“Thank you,” said Seo Chiyoung, bowing his head, and he took a sip of the pretty amber liquid inside the rounded, sleek glass. He couldn’t tell if the taste was good or bad, but as he sipped a second and third time, it gradually began to feel palatable.

“Is the taste okay? Does it suit your palate?”

At Jang Wigeon’s question, Seo Chiyoung answered politely, “Yes,” and nodded. “That’s a relief,” said Jang Wigeon with a smile, and a glass was placed in front of him as well, likely another result of cutting in line.

Jang Wigeon, who acknowledged the bartender with a wink, picked up his glass and spoke to Seo Chiyoung. “Well, then.”

“I see a face I haven’t seen in a while, so I’ll go over and say hello.”

Jang Wigeon gestured lightly toward the table where the man he had briefly greeted upon entering was sitting, and then stood up as he spoke. “Uh,” Seo Chiyoung looked up at him anxiously.

“Uh… excuse me,”

As he reflexively grabbed the sleeve of Jang Wigeon, who was rising from his seat, the man turned back with a puzzled look. Seo Chiyoung’s lips just parted and closed before he slowly let go of the sleeve.

“…No. Go ahead.”

Jang Wigeon, who had been looking at the softly-speaking Seo Chiyoung with a strange expression, suddenly turned his head and laughed quietly.

“I’m not coming back.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m going to go to that table, talk for a bit, and then head home when the time is right.”

Seo Chiyoung, staring blankly at the smiling Jang Wigeon, asked in embarrassment.

“Uh… why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?” Jang Wigeon laughed with a look of disbelief.

“Mr. Chiyoung, you came here to meet people. If you’re constantly with a companion, people won’t approach you. There’s the method of speaking first to someone you like, but I don’t think you’re the type for that.”

“…”

“And.”

Jang Wigeon paused for a moment, laughing for a while as if something was incredibly funny, then bent down and whispered quietly into Seo Chiyoung’s ear.

“The people here won’t eat you, Mr. Chiyoung. You don’t have to be so anxious.”

“…—, No, I’m,”

Seo Chiyoung opened his mouth with a heating face, but before he could even stutter out an excuse, Jang Wigeon patted his shoulder lightly and stepped away.

“Good luck. Don’t be too tense, just have the mindset of sharing a light conversation. Right, you can just think of it as talking to a customer who came to the shop. Like how Junyoung and I first started frequenting your place.”

“Wish you luck,” Jang Wigeon said playfully and walked toward the man sitting further inside who was waving at him. They seemed to be quite close, as he sat down at that table without hesitation and began talking.

Seo Chiyoung, staring vacantly at Jang Wigeon, slowly looked around. Just like the one and only time he had come to a place like this very long ago, it still felt like this wasn’t a place where he belonged. In the shop where a quiet and sophisticated atmosphere flowed, there simply weren’t any female customers; at a glance, nothing else seemed particularly unusual.

However, Seo Chiyoung felt a faint sense of dissonance in the informal, subtle sense of distance between the people talking quietly at various tables in the dim light. If he hadn’t known anything to begin with, he might not have noticed at all or just wondered briefly, but perhaps because he knew almost everyone in here was gay, the way they placed a hand on the person next to them’s thigh or the way legs subtly intertwined under the table didn’t look ordinary; he felt needlessly sheepish and had nowhere comfortable to look.

Seo Chiyoung was turning his head awkwardly when he made eye contact with Jang Wigeon, who was tilting his glass at the inner table. Jang Wigeon seemed to be suppressing a laugh upon seeing Seo Chiyoung’s anxious face, but he soon waved his hand slightly as if to say it was okay. Seo Chiyoung bowed his head and gave a faint smile. But right then, the bartender, who had been clearing through the order slips one by one, suddenly spoke to Seo Chiyoung as if it were amusing, causing his smile to vanish in spite of himself.

“How do you know Mr. Wigeon? He’s been coming here for years, but this is the first time he’s come with someone.”

A man sitting three or four seats away at the end of the bar, watching with interest, chimed in, “Exactly.” Seo Chiyoung hesitated on what to say, but he soon realized there was only one way to describe their relationship without having to hesitate.

“We’re high school classmates. We happened to meet again by chance recently…”

“Oh, then Gyeonghwa High School?”

The man at the end of the bar acted as if he knew the place, causing Seo Chiyoung’s eyes to widen.

“Yes… are you close with Mr. Wigeon?”

He hadn’t known they were close enough for the man to know which high school he attended. Even while Jang Wigeon had been sitting at the bar with Seo Chiyoung until a moment ago, though they seemed to know each other through eye contact, they didn’t particularly talk, so he thought they were just acquaintances who recognized each other’s faces.

However, it seemed Seo Chiyoung’s thought wasn’t wrong. The man laughed and waved his hand.

“No, I just happened to hear it before. I’ve been coming here for a long time and so has Mr. Jang Wigeon, so we know each other’s faces, but we’re not exactly what you’d call close. But well, since Mr. Jang Wigeon tends to stand out even when he’s just staying still, there are more stories heard about him compared to others. Let’s see… if you’re high school classmates, by any chance, is your name Yoon Junyoung…?”

Seo Chiyoung shut his mouth. It seemed Jang Wigeon had mentioned Yoon Junyoung’s name so often that the name came out of a stranger’s mouth immediately upon hearing the word “classmate.” And only then did Seo Chiyoung think he vaguely understood the reason why people looked at them with curious eyes when he entered this place with Jang Wigeon.

Suddenly, the area around his chest felt heavy. Seo Chiyoung smiled bitterly and shook his head.

“No.”

The man said, “Is that so?” and tilted his head. The bartender also looked on as if it were unexpected.

“Since the way Mr. Wigeon treated you was exceptionally affectionate, I thought you would be that Mr. Yoon Junyoung, too.”

“Mr. Wigeon is originally affectionate to everyone.”

As Seo Chiyoung muttered with a faint smile, the bartender seemed to sink into a bit of thought, wondering, “Well, how should I put it,” but he soon shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

“Well, seeing as you use polite speech, I guess you weren’t that close of friends even if you are classmates.”

“We hardly even spoke back in high school… we just happened to meet again recently.”

“I see,” the man nodded. “Mr. Hansu, give me one more of the same,” he said, handing his glass to the bartender. He seemed to rise from his seat, but then he naturally approached and sat in the seat next to Seo Chiyoung. Occupying the seat where Jang Wigeon had been sitting until a moment ago, the man pulled his chair in and gave Seo Chiyoung a broad smile.