Swallow Hunting

“If you eat something sweet, you’ll probably feel a little better. Or you can vent to me instead.”

“......”

“I may not look like it, but I’m amazing at giving advice. All the neighborhood moms used to grab me and pour their hearts out.”

Mrs. Jeong served Haejun some tea and briskly finished the rest of the chores. She moved so quickly that before long, the work was already in sight of being done. After neatly stacking the tower of dishes and cooking utensils from the sink into the dishwasher, she straightened her bent back. Letting out a little groan as she stretched, she came and sat across from Haejun.

Haejun idly turned the lukewarm teacup in his hands. His lips itched with the urge to let it out. He wanted to swallow it back down, but the worry clung stubbornly to the root of his tongue, refusing to go down no matter how much tea he drank.

Maybe Mrs. Jeong might know the answer. She had far more life experience than he did, after all. The gentle smile on her face, as if she would listen to absolutely anything, pushed him on.

“...Actually, it’s not my problem. It’s about my friend. He’s basically like a brother to me, so I’ve been worrying about it with him.”

“Really?”

Haejun nodded emphatically. If she asked who it was, he had every intention of selling out Yohan, but Mrs. Jeong didn’t go that far.

“My friend... confessed to someone he likes, but got rejected.”

“Is your friend a man or a woman?”

“A man. So he knows he has to give up, but he says he has no idea how to sort out his feelings.”

“Does he want to give up?”

“Yes. He says there’s absolutely no chance it’ll work out.”

“Hm.”

Mrs. Jeong stroked her chin. She didn’t think for long.

“They say no tree can withstand ten strikes... but that only worked back in our day. These days, that would just be rude. Well, why does he need to stay hung up on one person? Tell him to sort his feelings out quickly and find someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“The best way to heal heartbreak is always with new love.”

Mrs. Jeong covered her mouth and laughed softly. It was simple, realistic advice.

But it didn’t apply to Haejun.

He wasn’t even sure someone existed in this world who could replace Lee Kangjoo, and even if by some miracle he met someone like that, he doubted his heart would move.

More than anything, even if by some camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle miracle he ended up liking someone else, the terms of his arrangement with Lee Kangjoo included not meeting other people. Either way, it was impossible.

“But my friend’s busy, so I don’t think it’d be easy for him to meet someone else for a while....”

“Then how about telling him to go on a little trip? When the body grows distant, the heart does too. He’ll need time to sort out his feelings.”

Yohan had said something similar before. If nothing else worked, then at least stay away from Lee Kangjoo for a while.

Hearing the same advice come from both of them made it feel like that really was the right answer.

But that, too, was difficult for Haejun.

He missed Lee Kangjoo even when he was looking right at him, so if they were apart for even a few days, it might feel like thorns were growing in his eyes.

Mrs. Jeong laid her hand over the back of Haejun’s and stroked it gently in comfort.

As if she had figured out long ago that even though he called it a friend’s story, it was really about him.

“Tell your friend that time heals all wounds. Later on, when he looks back, even all the pain he went through will become part of his memories.”

“Will getting rejected really become a memory too? He’s having a really hard time....”

“Of course. Before I met my husband, I dated a few times too, you know? Breakups were hard, but after enough time passed, they all became memories.”

As if recalling the past, Mrs. Jeong gazed wistfully into the air. Soon she returned to the present, looked at Haejun, and smiled softly.

“So your friend will get over it soon too.”

Haejun desperately hoped her words would come true.

He hoped his feelings would be cleaned away exactly the way Lee Kangjoo wanted—so they could become nothing more than a neat, tidy relationship between customer and service provider, with no feelings beyond that.

So that he could stay by Lee Kangjoo’s side a little longer.

“I hope my friend gets better soon too.”

A bitter smile slipped out. He took a sip of the cold tea and hid the twist of his lips behind the cup.

* * *

When Mrs. Jeong left in the afternoon, Haejun was left alone in the house.

The smile he had worn out of habit all day gradually faded. After rubbing his face with both hands, nothing remained but a completely blank expression.

He moved to the sofa.

He hated the silence, so he turned on the TV, but even as his eyes watched the screen, all that replayed in his head was the conversation he had with Mrs. Jeong. Finding someone else, or going somewhere far away for a while—both methods did seem like they might work.

The problem was that he had no desire to do either.

The source of everything was his feelings.

If he could just kill that, then he could stay comfortably attached to Lee Kangjoo’s side.

Haejun tried to face reality.

The private loan debt that only kept growing no matter how much he paid it back, and the comfort and safety of the house that came as the price of being with Lee Kangjoo.

Human greed never ends.

Once you have a warm, full nest, you start slowly wanting other things too.

He had even dared to hope Lee Kangjoo might feel the same way.

That he would want to see him, miss him, lose sleep on lonely nights the way Haejun did.

That he wouldn’t give even a glance, let alone affection, to anyone else.

“......”

For someone who had nothing but debt and what lay between his legs, wasn’t that far too much to want—more than he deserved, more than enough to overflow?

At this point, even a generous god would probably be disgusted, pointing a finger at his greed.

Haejun let out a dry little laugh.

It was a savage sneer directed at himself.

If no matter how hard he tried, his feelings stayed the same...

Then would his relationship with Lee Kangjoo end?

If that happened, would he have to go back to the life he had before meeting him?

Selling his body at night, pouring alcohol down until it burned a hole in his stomach, wandering around in search of another owner who would stuff money into his pocket and tell him he was pretty.

A life drifting anxiously on a tiny rowboat.

“......”

He wanted to avoid that at all costs.

Haejun steeled himself.

All he had to do was get rid of his feelings.

In a reality where even breathing felt difficult, he had no spare energy to waste on something like emotions.

It was a simple problem.

No matter how much he thought about it, no method appealed to him, and he still had absolutely no idea what to do.

But like Mrs. Jeong said, time would solve it.

His phone rang.

Thinking it was Lee Kangjoo, he snatched it up immediately. The anticipation in his eyes quickly dimmed.

It was the owner of the delivery company.

Someday, he might have to get hired there again.

Preparing for a future that could change at any moment, Haejun slapped both cheeks lightly and fixed his expression. Even if the other side couldn’t see him, the voice always followed the muscles of the face.

“Boss! Have you been well?”

“Yeah. You been good? How’s the ankle?”

“It’s gotten a lot better. I can walk without crutches now. At this rate, I think they’ll take the cast off next week.”

“Good thing. I was worried. Been eating beef bone soup?”

“Yes. People keep feeding it to me....”

Not just Yohan, but Mrs. Jeong, and even Lee Kangjoo had all insisted that if he wanted the bone to heal faster, he needed it, so they made sure he had at least one bowl of milky broth a day.

Maybe because of that, his ankle was healing much faster than the hospital had predicted.

“Well, the thing is... it’s not that, but....”

Since they were short on people, maybe he was calling to ask him to work.

Haejun flexed his ankle a little as if getting ready. There was no pain at all, but it still felt a bit early to start working again.

“You’re not out there doing anything stupid, are you?”

“...Huh? What kind of stupid thing?”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything, but....”

The boss hesitated.

Growing impatient, Haejun pressed first. “What happened?”

Only then did the man speak.

“Some weird bastards came looking for you.”

“Weird bastards?”

“Looked just like gangsters. Gold chains hanging all over, and those Japanese-style tattoos all over their arms. They were swaggering around asking if I knew you.”

The hand gripping the phone tightened.

He didn’t even need to ask who it was.

Who else but Choi Manseok would act like this to find him?

The last time he had run into Choi Manseok by chance, the bastard must have memorized the company name printed big across the back cargo box of the bike. After skulking around and spying, once he saw Haejun wasn’t showing up for work, he’d shoved his face in directly to ask.

One of Choi Manseok’s vilest hobbies was driving a debtor’s life into fear and anxiety, then cackling about it.

That man had always overturned his daily life without warning.

When tightening the leash, this works best—that was what he used to brag about proudly himself.

“They didn’t break anything, did they?”

“Hell no. If they had, I’d have killed them first. Me, back in the day, I even won titles in ssireum.”

Thinking of the boss’s thick arms, it did feel like no matter how much Choi Manseok charged at him, he wouldn’t budge. Haejun could vividly picture Manseok making a tactical retreat.

“Anyway, I pretended not to know you, but that bastard’s eyes were like a snake’s. Didn’t look normal. Those filthy types are always the ones waving knives around, so keep your head down for a while.”

“Yes. Thank you, boss.”

He could have ignored it, but he had gone out of his way to call and warn him.

Haejun was genuinely grateful.

When he thanked him sincerely, the boss brushed it off and hung up.

Haejun set the phone down and rubbed his face with both hands.

Leaning back against the sofa, he steadied his wavering heart once more.

Reality came before feelings.

At least now, he had to come to his senses and cut away the branch of himself that kept stretching toward Lee Kangjoo.