Chapter 19: A Culinary Möbius Strip and Lingering Questions

A face that seemed to glow, framed by hair still damp from a recent wash as if advertising its freshness, filled Jung-hyun’s vision. Though he had grown accustomed to it, the sight was always a feast for his eyes.

“Please set out the spoons. And the table needs wiping too.”

Jung-hyun, meanwhile, set about salvaging the ruined doenjang-jjigae.

Adding more water had made it too bland, so he put in a bit more doenjang paste, which then made it slightly too salty. It was a culinary Möbius strip, seemingly without end.

The root of the problem was his boast that he would cook a homemade dinner tonight, completely forgetting that he usually ate out for almost every meal.

Meanwhile, Yoon Tae-yeol, who had finished setting out the side dishes, subtly approached Jung-hyun.

Despite living abroad for nearly a decade, his innate Korean heritage meant that the aroma of doenjang-jjigae wafting through the air during mealtime was enough to stimulate his appetite.

“Is it almost ready?”

Jung-hyun’s face brightened considerably at the voice so close by. He had been slowly losing his sense of taste after several attempts, and a timely ‘royal food taster’ had appeared.

“Want to try it?”

“Yes.”

As Jung-hyun offered a small spoonful with a new spoon, Yoon Tae-yeol’s hand lightly brushed against his. The close proximity, due to Yoon Tae-yeol leaning forward, made Jung-hyun flinch momentarily, though fortunately, it wasn’t noticeable.

“It’s quite good.”

Upon hearing the concise assessment, a flicker of disbelief crossed Jung-hyun’s eyes.

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s delicious.”

He even claimed it was delicious. What a considerate guy.

At least he hadn’t frowned while tasting it, suggesting it wasn’t utterly inedible. Reinvigorated with confidence, Jung-hyun ladled a full bowl of soup and headed to the dining table.

Although all the other side dishes were store-bought, the spread looked quite appetizing. As he ate his meal with an appetite that reminded him of the ‘blessed’ way neighborhood elders used to praise him in his youth, Jung-hyun spoke.

“What did you talk about with the cleaning lady? She was beaming.”

After lunch, he had gone for a smoke before returning to the office, where he spotted Yoon Tae-yeol and the cleaning lady standing together in the hallway.

The lady, with a wide smile, was chatting before she noticed Jung-hyun, offered a brief greeting, and immediately looked back up at Yoon Tae-yeol, eager to continue their conversation.

Yoon Tae-yeol replied nonchalantly to the question.

“She asked if I had a girlfriend.”

Jung-hyun paused for a moment, then nodded with a knowing expression. He had heard similar remarks himself long ago, as if she moonlighted as a matchmaker.

And Yoon Tae-yeol, to anyone, was an exceptionally prime catch… ‘Catch’ sounded a bit odd, but anyway. Upon seeing him, she must have thought, ‘What a windfall!’ He would have thought the same.

However, there was one fact the cleaning lady didn’t know. Due to the severe discord between his parents, compounded by personal circumstances, Yoon Tae-yeol was deeply cynical about what one might call ‘eros-driven’ emotions.

‘Was it difficult? Not particularly.’

‘When I asked if it was okay to only contact them when I felt like it, everyone said it was fine. If they couldn’t handle it, we’d break up.’

When Jung-hyun first stumbled upon Yoon Tae-yeol’s views on relationships, he thought, ‘What kind of scoundrel is this?’

To put it bluntly, he only wanted to sleep with them when he felt like it, with nothing else required—words that absolutely shouldn’t come from a high schooler who still had ‘milk on his lips.’

But every tomb has a story… Years later, after hearing Yoon Tae-yeol’s innermost struggles, Jung-hyun finally understood. He realized that experiencing such things would naturally lead to distrust and cynicism about affection.

Moreover, his own reckless words and actions from the past came to mind once more.

‘I actually confessed back then. But I didn’t know any better at the time.’

It was fortunate, then, that their connection hadn’t been severed. Watching Yoon Tae-yeol silently focus on his meal, Jung-hyun subtly asked him.

“Are you still not dating?”

“No. …That day we met after I returned to Korea, my disrespectful question to you, Senior, was in the same vein. I apologize again.”

“If you’re sorry, how about doing the dishes tonight?”

“Even if I weren’t sorry, I’d still do them. You worked hard preparing dinner, sweating so much.”

Jung-hyun had half-intended to tease him, but he remained perfectly calm. Far from being embarrassed, he played along with a perfectly natural retort.

“Sweating would’ve been the least of it. I almost filled my stomach just tasting the soup.”

The image made him chuckle. And then, Yoon Tae-yeol finally understood. He now knew why, even after two full bowls, there was still so much soup left in the pot.

Every now and then, a question arises: Why do happy times pass so quickly?

He had only used his phone and watched some TV, and suddenly it was almost 10 PM. Of course, to Jung-hyun, it was practically still afternoon, so he crunched on snacks, absorbed in the TV screen.

Another hand was reaching for the snacks spread on the table. A large, thick, yet neatly formed hand took turns picking up snacks with Jung-hyun. And always several at a time.

Unlike Yoon Tae-yeol, who sat primly with his back against the sofa, Jung-hyun was lying on his side, his head resting on a cushion.

As the program he was watching ended, he flipped through channels when suddenly a low voice came from above his head.

“Didn’t it hurt?”

“What?”

“When you got the piercing.”

He must have seen it over a month ago. He was quick to ask.

“It was manageable, more or less.”

It was a boastful lie. Though he had gone there of his own accord, once he sat in the chair, he had panicked, shouting,

“Gently! Gently!” and making a huge fuss. But there was no need to tell the embarrassing truth. And while he had been terrified at first, once it was done, there was a strange, pungent, tingling sensation that brought a peculiar catharsis. Unable to forget that feeling, he went back a few more times, and the number of piercings grew quite large.

“The person who used to whine ‘I’m dying!’ just from falling on the court… You’ve become much stronger.”

Jung-hyun shot up to a sitting position, an incredulous expression on his face, upon hearing those words.

“Who, me?”

“Yes. When we went to watch an Angels game, you cried when you tripped in front of the stadium.”

“That’s because I really fell hard then.”

The memory instantly resurfaced. During vacation, he had gone with his basketball team friends to watch a professional game, and he had tripped dramatically over a small divot in the sidewalk.

People say that if you fall in a crowded place, the embarrassment overshadows the pain, but that wasn’t true for Jung-hyun.

His knee had been crushed against the hard pavement, and his palms, extended to break his fall, were scraped raw, causing tears to well up involuntarily.

“I haven’t cried since then. …Except when my grandmother passed away.”

How many years had it been since then? Jung-hyun sighed softly and reached for a can of beer on the table, alongside the snack bag. As he took a sip, the voice beside him spoke again.

“Your grandmother… passed away?”

Jung-hyun turned his head carelessly, then flinched. Yoon Tae-yeol’s usually relaxed expression had, in a flash, hardened considerably. More than just hardened, he looked utterly shocked.

‘Ah. Yoon Tae-yeol doesn’t know, of course.’

In the sudden, almost unbelievable silence, Jung-hyun scratched the back of his neck and parted his lips.

“She passed away that winter, the year you went overseas. I thought about telling you about the bereavement… but you hadn’t been gone long, so I just didn’t say anything.

You couldn’t have come anyway, and I thought you’d be struggling to adjust, so I didn’t want to needlessly upset you.”

“Why would you, Senior, make that decision?”

Jung-hyun held back his words, a bitter expression on his face, at the cold retort. He made him sound like a villain. When it came down to it, a large part of it was his own fault.

Eight years ago.

Jung-hyun only found out that Yoon Tae-yeol, who had occupied a significant part of his room with his large frame until the day before, no, until a few hours before, had gone overseas after he had left.

The feeling he experienced when he came home tired from work to find his room empty and all his few belongings gone was… beyond bewildering, it was even hollow.

What followed was self-pity. Had he done something wrong? Had he unknowingly upset him in some way? Or had he misunderstood, thinking there was some ulterior motive? He truly hadn’t intended anything of the sort.

Whatever it was, it felt like it was all his fault. Otherwise, someone he had taken in and helped when they were struggling wouldn’t have left without a word.

So, Jung-hyun didn’t inform Yoon Tae-yeol when his grandmother passed away. He figured that receiving a bereavement text from someone who had already grown distant or whose feelings had changed would only be an annoyance.

Contact was re-established almost half a year later. He answered a call from an unknown number, and to his surprise, it was Yoon Tae-yeol, who belatedly offered apologies and words of gratitude in an apologetic voice.

The connection, which he had thought was completely severed, was thus barely re-established, leading them to this very day.

…………

Many thoughts raced through his mind, but the actual time that passed was short. Jung-hyun looked at Yoon Tae-yeol again.

When he had apologized over the phone, he had added, ‘I wanted to start anew.’ Honestly, Jung-hyun hadn’t understood, but he had chosen to let it go then.

The awkwardness created by the distance made him hesitant to probe deeper.

But now, unexpectedly, an opportunity arose to hear more about that time. Of course, it felt very late, but since the topic had come up, he wanted to know, even now.

However, it felt a bit too much to discuss sober, so Jung-hyun said, “Just a moment,” and stood up. When he returned, he held a soju bottle and glasses in his hand.