Chapter 18: Sleep Like the Dead

March 30th

Mu-yun stirred and shifted his body, then paused.

His consciousness, which had seemed as if it would never wake, half-submerged in another world, snapped back in an instant.

Without even blinking, he opened his eyes wide and first checked the owner of the weight draped over his body.

Turning his stiff neck, he saw a nose bridge stretched like a sculpture in the faint darkness.

“What the…”

A dry, cracked voice escaped.

Mu-yun slowly moved, slipping out of Tae-i’s embrace, where Tae-i had been using him as a pillow.

Checking where he was lying with swollen eyes, he involuntarily let out a hollow laugh.

Kkammi, who had been sleeping alone on the rug at the foot of the bed, lifted his head, glanced at him, yawned as if his mouth would split, then lowered his head again.

The scene was so natural that for a moment, Mu-yun mistakenly thought he had fallen asleep in Tae-i’s house.

He soon shook his head to chase away the sleep and reached out to shake Tae-i’s shoulder.

“Hey.”

At the low voice, Tae-i didn’t budge, as if he had no intention of getting up.

Mu-yun shook Tae-i’s shoulder again.

“Won Tae-i.

Hey, Captain Won.

Wake up.”

When he shook harder than before, Tae-i finally rubbed his face against the pillow and opened his eyes.

“Why are you waking me up?”

He raised his wrist to check the time and grumbled in complaint.

A hollow laugh escaped Mu-yun’s lips.

“Why am I waking you?

Why are you here?”

Tae-i frowned.

“What are you talking about….

Who was the one who grabbed me and wouldn’t let go when I came to get Kkammi this morning?”

As if it was even hard to keep his eyes open, Tae-i’s eyelids closed again.

Flustered, Mu-yun opened his swollen eyes wide.

“I did?”

Tae-i peered at him with half-closed eyes.

“You grabbed Kkammi and wouldn’t let him go… so I just slept here too.”

He wondered if that was any way to explain the situation, but Mu-yun soon found himself live-streaming the morning’s memory reel in his head.

As Tae-i had said, he was the one who had grabbed the person who came home after work.

Though the memory was intermittent, as if he had been intoxicated by drugs.

He remembered coming home from work, sleeping a bit, waking up, walking Kkammi, coming back, eating dinner, then suffering from a headache while thinking about something, and taking medicine again.

Mu-yun rubbed his forehead with his fingers.

He wondered if he had ever slept this long recently, but waking up after sleeping like a collapsed person, the persistent tinnitus and headache were gone.

He rubbed his face with his palms and swept his unruly hair back with his hand.

Then he pushed away Tae-i’s arm that was draped over his lower abdomen.

“Move it, man.

I need to go to the bathroom.”

Tae-i giggled in his sleep.

Only after coming back from the bathroom did Mu-yun look at the clock glowing in the darkness.

He hoped the number 10 the hands pointed to wasn’t morning, but the date had already passed.

“My day off flew by.”

It was still a holiday today, but the feeling was a bit different between being on standby and not.

“Can’t do anything about what’s passed.”

Swallowing his regret with a bitter smile, Mu-yun started moving.

When he opened the blackout curtains in the bedroom and living room, he finally began to hear the sound of rain.

The sky was dark, not sunny, but it was much brighter than when the curtains were drawn.

Leaving Tae-i, still sleeping, he went out to the living room.

Kkammi followed him out but, rather than moving around, quietly found his spot and sat down.

“Want to stretch with hyung?”

Mu-yun spoke to Kkammi and slowly began to loosen his body.

Due to the habit he had since his school days, he didn’t even need a mental preparation before exercising.

Carefully stretching his stiff muscles, he loosened the large muscles starting from his upper body.

After slowly warming up, his body temperature rose as if just by doing that, and his movements became much smoother.

After raising his body temperature with nearly 20 minutes of stretching, he stood at the kitchen shelf and brewed coffee.

Then he opened the refrigerator.

He should have gone grocery shopping yesterday, but he had suddenly craved jjamppong and ordered it, so there was nothing.

The only edible thing was Kkammi’s dog food, which he had received from Tae-i.

“No matter how hungry I am, dog food is a bit much.”

Clicking his tongue, Mu-yun returned to the living room and threw himself onto the sofa.

Sitting like that, drowsiness washed over him again.

***

“Wake up, brave warrior.”

At the touch shaking his body and the wetness licking his lips, Mu-yun struggled to open his eyes.

Then he closed them again.

It was bright.

Seeing him let out a small groan, a clicking sound was heard, and soon the light that had stung his eyes seemed to fade, growing darker.

Cautiously opening his eyes again, the lighting was a deep, dark orange, as if the brightness had been lowered.

Tae-i bent down and met his gaze.

“Did I fall asleep again?”

Mu-yun rubbed his eyes and asked quietly.

Tae-i’s head nodded vigorously.

“Yeah.

You slept really well.

You’ve only been sleeping three or four hours a night until yesterday, haven’t you?”

Mu-yun covered his yawning mouth with his hand and nodded.

Whenever he had time, he had been searching for missing animals including Rambo, so he hadn’t properly rested on either his days off or holidays.

“You go sneaking around by yourself on my work days.

Your face is all haggard, police officer.”

As Tae-i grabbed Mu-yun’s head with his large hand and rubbed it roughly, Mu-yun, with his squashed cheeks, mumbled.

“It’s just swollen from sleeping.

Originally, when I wake up in the morning, even my phone doesn’t recognize its owner.”

He grumbled that he fed it on time and took good care of it, but it was an ungrateful thing.

Tae-i laughed loudly.

“So that’s why your lips are sticking out like a beak.”

Mu-yun started to pout, then pressed his lips together.

Finding that funny too, Tae-i giggled.

“Shut up, man.”

Mu-yun, wanting him to stop laughing and let him go, lightly patted Tae-i’s stomach with the back of his hand.

Whether it was because he was in good shape, it was firm without any jiggly belly fat.

Instead of a thud bouncing back, it made a thwack sound.

Tae-i pulled his hands away, rubbed his stomach with his palm, and stepped back.

“Violence is bad, police officer.”

“Stop setting fires, firefighter officer.”

At Mu-yun’s immediate retort, Tae-i snorted.

“Let’s just eat.”

At that, Mu-yun wrinkled the bridge of his nose.

“There’s only Kkammi’s food at my place.

Unless you’re going to steal Kkammi’s bowl, we need to go buy something or order in.”

Tae-i reached out his hand.

Mu-yun, still lying as if fused with the sofa, took his hand and was pulled upright.

“There’s food at my place.

Rolled omelet, seaweed, dried shrimp stir-fry.

And seaweed soup.”

“Really?”

Tae-i nodded proudly.

“My younger sibling just brought it.

My mom made it, so the taste is guaranteed.”

“What do you mean?

Of course it’s delicious.”

Hearing there was hot soup, Mu-yun was completely won over, smiled brightly, and threw his hands up in cheer.

***

Unit 303, Tae-i’s house, not only had the opposite layout but also felt quite different.

Seeing that even the one-person table didn’t seem to have room for a bowl, Mu-yun snorted.

“How about getting a dining table?”

It seemed like a two-person table against the wall in the spacious living room would fit fine.

Tae-i looked at the low, narrow table standing alone in front of the single sofa placed in one corner of the living room and shrugged.

“Kkammi doesn’t like high tables.”

“He was fine at my place.”

“Well, he’s traveled around and gotten used to it now.

At first, he was scared and really didn’t like it.

He’d growl but keep his tail curled under him.”

Saying that, Tae-i vigorously stroked Kkammi with both hands as he rubbed against his leg.

“Then what do you do when someone comes over to eat?”

Tae-i pointed to the space next to the sink.

“Here.”

Mu-yun looked at that spot, then turned to Kkammi.

The dog smiled prettily, as if he knew nothing.

“Then just come eat at my place.

There’s nothing we can do when we’re on duty, though.”

One worked a four-shift rotation, the other a three-shift, but their days off overlapped two or three times a week.

Tae-i chuckled and opened the rice cooker.

“Take this, then go unfold the chair over there and sit down.”

Mu-yun took the bowl of rice with steam rising from it.

After scooping his own portion of rice, Tae-i brought the chair that had been leaning against the wall and unfolded it for him.

“Sit down.”

At the gesture patting the seat, Mu-yun obediently plopped down on the chair.

Tae-i also unfolded a chair and sat down.

Mu-yun picked up his spoon and frowned.

“Your shoulder is in the way.”

“I can’t exactly fold my shoulder, can I?”

At Mu-yun’s complaint, Tae-i pulled his chair back slightly and sighed.

It was a cramped space for two people for various reasons, but they were hungry, and the smell of the seaweed soup, made by stir-frying beef and seaweed until fragrant and then simmering thoroughly, was too much of a temptation on an empty stomach.

“Thank you for the meal.”

“Eat well.”

Mu-yun truly devoured a bowl of rice in an instant.

Tae-i silently refilled the bowl that had disappeared as quickly as a crab hiding in sand.

After devouring that one quickly too, Mu-yun rolled around on the living room floor with a full belly.

Tae-i, washing the dishes, saying he wouldn’t ask a guest to do them, turned his head.

“Are you going to rest all day today?”

Mu-yun, stuck to the floor like stretched dough warmed by the boiler’s heat, let out a long breath.

“No, I’m going out later.”

Tae-i sighed shortly.

“It’s raining outside, so it’ll be even harder to see today.”

“I know.

But I still have to go.”

When it rained, the air became humid, so fires wouldn’t catch easily, so the arsonist probably wouldn’t be out on a day like this.

But it wasn’t a downpour; it was a damp, fine, mist-like rain with cloudy skies, so how things would turn out was unknown for now.

“Captain Won.”

At Mu-yun’s call, Tae-i rinsed another bowl, set it aside, and turned his head.

“Why?”

Mu-yun rubbed his swollen eyelids and sighed.

“Yesterday, no, the day before yesterday, at Geumjincheon Intersection, I saw a cat that looked like Rambo.”

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