Ordinary Person A

#39

Oh-yul had made it thinking of Ho-woo. Ho-woo carelessly poured the affectionate gesture that had been carefully hung on the doorknob into the sink. He took out 3-minute curry from the cupboard and heated it up.

“What? Why are you throwing away perfectly good food?”

“It went bad.”

Ho-woo, who had made the red dried squid completely inedible by pouring water over the tightly clumped mass, smiled as he forced the tasteless curry and two large glasses of water onto Do-hyun.

Like that worst day three years ago when he last dated, the two friends sat facing each other with glasses of water between them.

“Is this your first heartbreak in 3 years?”

“No.”

It wasn’t heartbreak since it never even started. It was just a self-deprecating act towards himself.

“This is consolation for your misaligned buttons.”

Throwing out a humorless joke, Ho-woo gulped down the magic potion in the water glass that would wake him from his long nap. Like three years ago, he would shake this off cleanly after this night passed.

It was time to wake up from the dream and return to reality.

Foam

drr….

At the small vibration sound, Ho-woo forcibly pushed up his heavy eyelids. His stomach, filled with alcohol all night, was turned upside down, and his head especially felt like it was about to explode. It felt like all the metal in the world had been put in his head and beaten.

Ho-woo let out a groan at the rising nausea and dizziness. At the small sound, Do-hyun, who had been curled up in a corner wrapped in a blanket, opened his eyes with a deathly face, then soon fell asleep again.

Since Ho-woo didn’t set alarms separately on weekends, his phone rarely rang except for illegal loan solicitations or useless advertising calls or texts about changing phones. Thinking that the short vibration that woke him up early this morning was probably of that kind, Ho-woo checked his phone and frowned at the strange message.

[GGG.]

The message with three Korean ‘giyeok’ characters in a row was from an unfamiliar number. It was too precisely punctuated with a period to be a mistake.

drr….

Ho-woo’s expression turned bewildered at the next message that came immediately from the same number.

[Make sure to carry what I gave you. Don’t leave it at home.]

This time it was a normal sentence, but the content was quite meaningful. Ho-woo exhaled a sigh while pressing his still throbbing head, receiving a text from someone he couldn’t identify at all.

His mood was already foul, and receiving such a prank text at the crack of dawn made it even worse. In his sunken mood, there was no way for polite words to come out.

[Who are you? Stop messing around and get lost.]

After sending a reply with harsh words, Ho-woo turned off his phone completely this time. He planned to sleep in more and then go out for hangover soup with Do-hyun.

Beep-

With a clear sound, the black screen that turned off showed his irritated face fully reflected. A haggard and hollow-eyed Lee Ho-woo. An ordinary person A with nothing special, just living like others, with an average appearance was there.

The face of the man who said he liked Ho-woo while looking at this appearance was very sincere and shining. The expression, voice, and gaze that said he would always be sincere to Ho-woo were still vivid, but now they were trapped in the TV.

It would be right to give up cleanly since there was no chance of him coming back, but can emotions be divided so neatly? Even when he thought he should push Oh-yul away, his heart had wavered helplessly. Even now that he had been pushed away instead, the emotions that had wavered then didn’t disappear without a trace.

Like a sticky swamp, it seemed it would take quite a long time for the body that had been slowly sinking to the deep bottom of the sea, pressed down by the heavy affection Oh-yul had poured on him, to float back up to the surface.

Ho-woo curled up irritably, burrowed into the blanket, and closed his eyes.

***

On a late Saturday morning, Do-hyun, who woke up groaning from a hangover, suggested with a face still not free from worry as he gulped down hangover soup.

“Do you want to stay at my place for a while?”

“……”

“Won’t it be awkward to see his face?”

Ho-woo slowly shook his head. He didn’t understand why he should avoid Oh-yul when he hadn’t done anything wrong. Or rather, he didn’t want to understand. Ho-woo was righteous. Except for the fact that seeing Oh-yul’s face would be awkward and the remaining emotions created a miserably gloomy mood, Ho-woo was fine. Because in his love life, such things were just trivial matters.

“It’s okay. He hasn’t been coming home lately anyway, so I probably won’t see him for a while. And it would be uncomfortable for you if I stayed with you.”

“Me? Why would I be uncomfortable? We were originally going to live together anyway. Since we didn’t do it then, it would be good to try it now.”

Ho-woo poked at the hangover soup that wouldn’t go down at all, and finally put down his spoon. He knew he should put something in his stomach that had only been filled with 3-minute curry and alcohol, but it wouldn’t go down well.

“It’s not a demand, it’s a suggestion, so think about it. My place is closer to your company too.”

With those words, Do-hyun didn’t bring up the topic of Ho-woo coming to stay at his place anymore. He just tried to maintain a comfortable atmosphere by talking about trivial everyday things.

Would it have been better if Do-hyun had confessed to me instead?

Ho-woo stared at his long-time friend sitting across from him. From the age of 10, the point where Ho-woo’s memories were sharply cut off, Do-hyun had always been by Ho-woo’s side. He was a good friend and didn’t approach Ho-woo beyond that. As if there was an invisible line.

So Ho-woo didn’t show it either. Even when sometimes the gaze looking at him deepened, or when the actions shown to him were excessively affectionate, they just stopped in front of that line and didn’t invade each other’s territories.

And that relationship would continue to be like that in the future. Lee Ho-woo was selfish, so he wouldn’t break this relationship first, nor would he move forward. No matter how Do-hyun thought of him, Ho-woo didn’t want to lose Do-hyun. Because everyone who loved him had left.

“If you’re done eating, let’s go.”

Ho-woo urged Do-hyun and stood up. His portion of food hadn’t even decreased by half. Do-hyun made a face like he wanted to nag about it but then tightly closed his lips.

“Eat dinner properly.”

His only friend, who had spent as much time together as family, just casually threw out a trivial grumble to eat the remaining meals well as he passed by.

“It doesn’t make sense that there’s only 3-minute curry and jajang in the cupboard.”

“It’ll be fine once I start eating.”

At Ho-woo’s nonchalant answer, Do-hyun, who became quite displeased, clicked his tongue briefly. He took out his card and paid for all of Ho-woo’s food as well, then pushed Ho-woo’s back.

Even though Ho-woo tried to resist the force pushing him without telling him the destination, Do-hyun was much more diligent than the lazy office worker Ho-woo. Standing in front of the mart, pushed by the strength of a diligent office worker who never skipped exercise, Ho-woo chuckled.

“I don’t know how to cook though?”

“Who said you have to cook? There are good instant foods these days.”

Ho-woo followed Do-hyun, who strode into the mart ahead of him, and bit the inside of his mouth as he went around the mart following Do-hyun, who was pushing a cart and shopping.

His life rolls on this well without changing even without a specific person. The sounds of people passing by in the mart were just noise. Even if he found a familiar name in it, Ho-woo tried his best to ignore it.

“Look, human. These days they even have things like this, but your cupboard is full of yellow boxes.”

Do-hyun grinned as he waved a bag of half-packaged samgyetang in front of Ho-woo’s eyes. It was a familiar expression to Ho-woo. That mischievous yet playful smile had always been in Ho-woo’s reality.

Realizing once again that the man with softly curved dark blue eyes and slightly fox-like curved eyes was rather a detached dream, Ho-woo smiled, furrowing his brow.

“Well done, Kim Do-hyun. You even know about this.”

“And I know how to cook too.”

Do-hyun added his own boast as he swept most of the instant foods he could get his hands on into the cart – samgyetang, yukgaejang, seolleongtang.

“Is that so.”

“Yeah.”

Despite Ho-woo’s indifferent response, Do-hyun didn’t mind. After looking around at the food piled high in the cart, he picked up a few more sweet snacks that Ho-woo liked and put them in the cart.

Do-hyun, who had bought enough to overflow the large cart, kicked away Ho-woo who was trying to pay and took out his own card to complete the payment.

“You bastard. Did you have to kick me away so mercilessly?”

“If I had politely said ‘Please step aside’, would you have moved?”

Well, not really.

Do-hyun, who was smirking with bags full of goods in both hands, read Ho-woo’s face and snorted. Do-hyun’s words weren’t wrong, but he had really kicked mercilessly, so Ho-woo raised the end of his eyebrow sharply while rubbing his sore bottom with his hand.

“This time, eat well. Don’t get sick like three years ago.”

Ho-woo nodded vaguely, knowing what Do-hyun meant. Arriving at Ho-woo’s house, Do-hyun put down the bags on the floor and rolled up his sleeves at the sight of the house interior that clearly showed traces of yesterday.