Rabbit Hole Chapter 34

“Yeah. Telling me not to go, hugging me. Want to try kissing too? Though we’ve already done everything there is to do.”

Geumseo was confused. Not caring at all, Go San even draped his own leg over Geumseo’s body, pressing them completely flush together. Geumseo’s heart was still pounding. He thought it was because he was scared, but when Go San said it was because he liked him, he wondered if that might be the case. After all, his heart was beating fast.

“…Go San-ah. You really don’t know Heo Sangmuk, right? You’re not connected to him even distantly through the owner or anything?”

Go San didn’t answer.

“Go San-ah. Are you asleep?”

Geumseo barely managed to lift his head, which was pressed so tightly it was hard to move. Then the soft sound of breathing touched his forehead. Being able to fall asleep anywhere as soon as your head hits the pillow is a blessing for an athlete. Go San was a blessed person.

If that’s the case, and if I end up liking that Go San just as he says, then what about me?

Geumseo bit his lip, then suddenly hugged Go San tightly. And tried to fall asleep.

∞ ∞ ∞

Go San was brimming with energy. While Geumseo, who had woken up early as was his habit, sat blankly on the sofa, Go San moved busily. He had already been out for a run and now said he was going for weight training.

“Weight…?”

“Yeah. You want to come too?”

“No, I have to go to work….”

“What are you talking about when you don’t even have a job.”

Ah, right. That was true. Only then did Geumseo recall his situation. He had quit the gas station a while ago, and as of yesterday, he couldn’t go back to the bar either. Because he had caused such a scene. Honestly, the scene was caused by Heo Sangmuk, but the one getting fired was himself, not Heo Sangmuk. He’d had plenty of unfair things happen to him before. Yet each time, it felt newly disgusting.

“Do I have to go exercise too?”

“Do it if you want.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Why force someone who doesn’t want to.”

Go San brought out a cap and pressed it firmly onto Geumseo’s head. Coincidentally, it was the exact same cap as Go Unha’s, the very one that had made him mistake Go San for Unha hyung.

Go San opened two effervescent vitamin tablets. He put them into each water bottle and arbitrarily shoved one onto Geumseo. A large t-shirt and Go San’s pants. He looked sloppy, like someone who had stolen his older brother’s clothes. No, with this kind of fit, there’d be no need to steal them. He just looked like a vagabond, plain and simple. When Geumseo said he felt a bit awkward going out like that, Go San arbitrarily made him put on a padded jacket over his top and replied indifferently.

“But they’re too expensive as clothes for that.”

“So, a beggar?”

“What’s a beggar.”

At times like this, you could tell Go San had grown up in another country. Geumseo thought about looking it up to show him, but decided it was too much trouble. Go San didn’t seem that curious either.

No shoes, no pants. This was because he had left all his own clothes in the staff room. The clothes Go San had destroyed, whether directly or indirectly, probably accounted for 70 percent of Geumseo’s wardrobe by now.

“After we’re done, let’s go get your money.”

When Go San, with the cap pulled down low, wearing only a black short-sleeved t-shirt and a padded jacket, said that, it felt quite threatening.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever gone to collect money.”

And yet, Geumseo felt a little excited by those words. Until now, there had only been people coming to collect money from him; he had never gone to collect it himself.

“I’ll get your money for you.”

“…Oppa will.”

“Huh?”

Go San looked at Geumseo through the mirror. He was smiling with an ambiguous expression, hard to tell if he found it absurd or funny. Those lips were crooked.

“That man yesterday, when he talked about himself, he kept saying oppa this, oppa that.”

Geumseo had tattled without even realizing it. Whether he was aware of it or not, the act was quite thrilling.

“What a crazy bastard. Should I really go beat him up after all?”

“I told you, you’ll go to jail.”

“I’d just hit him moderately.”

“Still, you can’t. You’re a public figure.”

“I’m a public figure?”

Surprisingly, Go San lacked self-awareness. Well, no wonder. That’s why he lives however he wants. No, it’s hard to definitively say he lives however he wants, since he’s still going to train like this now…. The evaluation of Go San was shifting from rock bottom to increasingly <unknown>.

“You don’t want me to go to jail, Geumseo?”

Go San suddenly wrapped his solid arm around Geumseo and pulled him close. In the meantime, the very fast elevator arrived at the underground parking lot. He said they’d take the car because the weather had suddenly gotten much colder. The cold was at its peak.

“Come to think of it. Without me, Yang Geumseo would really starve to death, so I’d better not go.”

“Why would I starve to death without you….”

The passenger door opened. Go San pushed Geumseo inside and bent his waist down. Seeing a hand reaching toward him, Geumseo reflexively squeezed his eyes shut. But Go San’s hand very lightly pinched Geumseo’s cheek, then passed over to the seatbelt.

“Once your body gets used to comfort, it’s hard to go back.”

“…I’ve managed to live just fine even after being comfortable and then ending up like this.”

“I’m different from your father, you see.”

Go San’s eyes glittered even in the shadows. They were like the surface of a swimming pool at night. Dark, so you couldn’t gauge the depth.

“The comfort I give is different from what your father gave.”

Go San and comfort. Geumseo absolutely could not connect those two concepts. Seeing Geumseo’s face, where the message ‘What are you talking about’ was clearly written in his expression, Go San spread his hand wide. Go San’s hand, far larger than the average man’s, covered Geumseo’s chest and pressed firmly on the spot where his heart would be.

“Your father probably provided comfort hoping you could become independent comfortably… but for me, it’s the opposite meaning. So don’t get confused. You’re going to keep being with me. With Go San.”

I’ll make you as soft as fruit right before it rots. Then you’ll be very sweet to eat.

That’s what Go San said. Not with sound, but with his gestures and his eyes. The palm pressing down on his chest was very heavy.

His breath caught with a huk, then the hand lifted away, and he felt relief. But his heart, which had been briefly compressed, still pounded. Just like last night. Geumseo thought it was because the dregs of fear remained, and Go San had said it was because Geumseo liked him. To Geumseo, fear and liking actually felt more plausible than comfort.

After Go San got into the driver’s seat and the car exited the underground parking lot, a long while later, Geumseo asked.

“Like an jade mat?”

“What?”

“You said it’s comfortable and hard to escape. That’s what a jade mat is like.”

“I hate those. I can’t stand hard and hot things.”

“Yeah. I figured you would.”

“Let’s buy coffee on the way.”

Their conversation, twisted to some degree as always, carried on smoothly. If you could call that a conversation.

∞ ∞ ∞

While Go San did weight training, Geumseo lay on the equipment like a rude customer. Go San really didn’t make Geumseo exercise separately. The trainer, too, was wholly absorbed in focusing on Go San. Since Geumseo didn’t have anything else to do on his phone either, the only amusement available to him here was watching Go San.

“Isn’t it hard?”

When he asked Go San during a break, Go San replied, “It’s hard.” Go San’s water bottle was already empty, while Geumseo’s was only about a third gone.

“You’re not going to ask why I do it if it’s hard?”

“It’s your job, why would I ask.”

Go San looked down at Geumseo, who was lying down and thus looking up at him upside down. Having drunk several times, draining the water bottle completely, he asked.

“Is it because of what I said about your father?”

“Huh?”

“I brought that up in the car. Is that why you’re so spaced out?”

“Was I…? No, I’m not spaced out….”

Geumseo rolled his eyes around. Even when he averted his gaze, Go San said nothing. He had distantly forgotten that it had already been three years since his father died.

“As long as you’re okay, it doesn’t matter.”

What is?

Instead of looking at Geumseo blinking his eyes, Go San approached the equipment again. Even though his muscles already looked as furious as they could possibly be, he apparently needed more. Geumseo didn’t know much about sports, and knew even less about competitive society.

Geumseo approached Go San, who was adjusting his posture to grip the equipment.

“…You’ll come with me to get the money, right?”

Watching Geumseo, whose energy seemed to have drained away completely, even the few thorns he had left having fallen out, Go San recalled a certain moment. The image of Geumseo in a black long-sleeved t-shirt and long pants because he had no suit, dripping sweat like needle stitches.

“I said I’d go with you.”