Chapter 55: The Price of a Cigarette

Seo Yeon-ho finally realized where his hand had strayed. Startled, he quickly withdrew it, his heart pounding fiercely in his chest.

‘Should I explain that I didn’t do anything strange?’

Seo Yeon-ho inwardly reassured himself, urging himself not to be nervous. Hadn’t Han Tae-young accidentally touched him when he was drunk? He was only flinching because he was ‘that way’; if they were both straight, it would have been a non-issue.

“My apologies. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

He apologized, hoping to gauge Han Tae-young’s reaction. However, Han Tae-young offered no reply, either having not heard the apology or simply being too lazy to respond.

“Are you sleeping?”

As Seo Yeon-ho pressed, feeling a surge of frustration, a soft thud came from the cup holder. He looked down to see the lens case Han Tae-young had been holding, now lodged in the cup holder.

‘He must have really been asleep.’

At this point, it seemed less like a catnap and more like a deep slumber. The tension draining from him, Seo Yeon-ho twisted open the lid of the canned coffee he had placed in the cup holder. His throat was parched, and with no bottled water in sight, he had no other option.

After quenching his thirst with the bland coffee, Seoul was soon within sight. Seo Yeon-ho was startled to realize they were already nearing the city. It felt as though barely twenty minutes had passed since they left the filming location, yet here they were.

Since both his watch and the navigation system couldn’t be lying simultaneously, the conclusion was singular. He had been lost in thought, completely oblivious to the passage of time.

Seo Yeon-ho furrowed his brows, swallowing a sigh. He had wondered why Han Tae-young, despite his insomnia, had fallen asleep so quickly. As it turned out, it wasn’t that Han Tae-young had fallen asleep early, but that his own sense of time had been utterly skewed.

‘What if there had been an accident?’

After a moment of self-reflection, Seo Yeon-ho drove into the city, where the bridge lights twinkled like fireflies. It was an hour when traffic was unlikely, so arriving at Elysium was swift.

Seo Yeon-ho parked the car and turned to rouse Han Tae-young, who was still deeply asleep.

‘Should I let him sleep a little longer?’

Watching Han Tae-young breathe in soft, even sighs like a child, Seo Yeon-ho hesitated to wake him. He worried that waking him now might disrupt his sleep again.

While he might not have experienced insomnia, Seo Yeon-ho was intimately familiar with sleep deprivation. During his time being run ragged by Cherry Picker, he often slept only two or three hours a day, rushing between overseas events and regional performances. He prided himself on understanding the hardships of sleeplessness.

However, the problem was that his own departure would be delayed.

‘I’ll just rest here until Han Tae-young wakes up. It’s hot outside, and I don’t even have air conditioning at home.’

Having rationalized his decision, Seo Yeon-ho turned off the engine and unbuckled his seatbelt. He considered unbuckling the passenger seatbelt as well, but he hesitated to reach across the console box. The memory of his clumsy incident with the lens case earlier still bothered him.

‘He doesn’t seem too uncomfortable, so I’ll just leave it.’

Thinking this, Seo Yeon-ho glanced at the forgotten lens case in the cup holder. It was the culprit that had put him in an awkward situation, so his brow involuntarily furrowed. Why had he been so eager to open that lens case earlier? He could have checked if Han Tae-young had removed his lenses later.

“I really need to fix this habit of getting fixated on one thing and ignoring everything else.”

Seo Yeon-ho muttered softly. Despite being frequently admonished by the Glitch members for his lack of flexibility, he hadn’t improved. Occasionally, the youngest member would say his tenacity was reliable, but those instances were rare.

Seo Yeon-ho rested his chin on the steering wheel for a long time before picking up the lens case. He had been so startled earlier that he didn’t want to look at it, but staring at the parking garage wall was tedious.

*Click, click.*

As he twisted open the lid with one hand, he saw the colored lenses settled at the bottom. Seo Yeon-ho’s previously gloomy eyes brightened.

‘He took out his lenses.’

A sense of satisfaction swelled in Seo Yeon-ho’s heart. Han Tae-young had a rebellious streak. Even if advice was beneficial, he would ignore it if he disliked the person offering it or if it didn’t suit his mood.

Seo Yeon-ho twisted his body to face Han Tae-young, observing his profile. If Han Tae-young were a Glitch member or if Seo Yeon-ho were truly his manager, he would have ruffled his hair and praised him.

“You listen well. Good boy.”

Seo Yeon-ho spoke to himself, metaphorically patting Han Tae-young’s head with his eyes. Patting his head would be crossing a line, but praising him with words felt acceptable. Of course, ‘acceptable’ was purely by Seo Yeon-ho’s standards. Han Tae-young would undoubtedly be furious if he heard those words, demanding to know who Seo Yeon-ho thought he was.

However, Han Tae-young was not awake; he was sound asleep. So deeply asleep, in fact, that he wouldn’t notice if someone carried him away. Thus, he couldn’t get angry at anything Seo Yeon-ho said.

*Beep—beep—beep!*

A sharp disaster alert blared. Seo Yeon-ho fumbled for his phone.

[Korea Meteorological Administration] XX Month XX Day. A magnitude 5.3 earthquake occurred 32km southeast of OO City at OO o’clock.

‘An earthquake occurred.’

Seo Yeon-ho, who had been searching for news on his phone, suddenly looked up. He felt as though Han Tae-young’s breathing had changed. Sure enough, Han Tae-young, now awake, was pressing his palms against his eyes.

Han Tae-young let out a deep sigh before asking, “Where are we?”

“Your apartment parking lot.”

Hearing Seo Yeon-ho’s answer, Han Tae-young squinted to check the time.

“Did we just get here?”

“Oh? Uh…”

“It took longer than usual.”

Han Tae-young looked at Seo Yeon-ho, his eyes demanding an explanation for the delay.

“I got a little lost. The road out was confusing at night.”

He offered a vague excuse, feeling too awkward to admit he had waited for Han Tae-young to wake up.

“Is the navigation just for show? It’s not that complicated there, why would you get lost?”

Han Tae-young chastised Seo Yeon-ho with a scornful look.

“Fine, I’m sorry for getting lost. Our work is done now, right?”

Seo Yeon-ho was about to get out of the car, tired of the nagging, when Han Tae-young suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Don’t go. Buckle up again.”

“Why the seatbelt?”

Seo Yeon-ho’s face hardened, wondering what new argument Han Tae-young was trying to pick.

“Let’s stop by the convenience store.”

Seo Yeon-ho tilted his head. As far as he knew, the closest convenience store to Elysium was at the complex entrance.

“Isn’t it faster to walk to the convenience store than to drive?”

“Walking is a hassle. I have a car and a driver, why should I walk?”

Seo Yeon-ho looked at Han Tae-young with a gaze that screamed, ‘You infuriating brat.’

“What?”

“Never mind. It’s fine.”

At this point, it was surprising he wasn’t asking to be carried like a Joseon Dynasty nobleman. Seo Yeon-ho shook his head, then grabbed his seatbelt and asked, “What are you buying?”

“Cigarettes.”

Seo Yeon-ho remembered the pack of cigarettes he had bought previously but rarely touched. He hadn’t thrown them away because it felt like a waste of money, and now it seemed fortuitous.

“If it’s cigarettes, I have some. I’ll give you mine.”

“No.”

Seo Yeon-ho’s eyes widened in surprise; he had never imagined a smoker would refuse free cigarettes. Had Han Tae-young perhaps misunderstood his offer as a sale?

“I’m not selling them, I’m just giving them to you. Still no?”

“Even if they’re free, no. The ones you smoke are what gay guys smoke.”

Han Tae-young’s tone wasn’t aggressive. Yet, Seo Yeon-ho’s body stiffened as if he had just heard an insult.

Did Han Tae-young dislike gay people?

He had once said something about ‘homo bastards.’ However, it was difficult to conclude that Han Tae-young was homophobic based solely on that one remark. It was rare for men his age to speak favorably of gay people.

“Why aren’t you driving? I said let’s go to the convenience store.”

At Han Tae-young’s prodding, Seo Yeon-ho clenched his fist.

“You wouldn’t know because you haven’t worked at a convenience store, but a lot of older men smoke the cigarettes I do. It’s a prejudice to say only gay men smoke them.”

This wasn’t what he had intended to say. He should have said, ‘What’s wrong with gay people smoking them?’

Seo Yeon-ho felt pathetic for subtly avoiding the core issue. Han Tae-young, on the other hand, never minced words.

“So that’s why you’re so sulky? Because I disparaged them as ‘gay cigarettes’?”

Han Tae-young propped his elbow on the console box and chuckled. There was no malice in his laugh. But that only made Seo Yeon-ho feel even more unsettled.

He hadn’t been this bothered when others mocked or made jokes about gay people. So why did his chest feel so tight now, and why did he feel so down, as if he had heard rumors about himself?

“Why do you look so bad? Are you hot?”

Noticing Seo Yeon-ho’s stiff expression, Han Tae-young checked the interior temperature. But Seo Yeon-ho wasn’t feeling down because of the heat.

Seo Yeon-ho was annoyed that Han Tae-young’s shoulder had encroached into the driver’s seat. He wanted to push away Han Tae-young’s arm resting on the console box, even though this wasn’t his car.

His lips tingled, like an itch on a healing scab. The urge to ask Han Tae-young what he thought of gay people was the cause of that sensation.

A loud warning blared in his head, telling him not to stir up trouble. Seo Yeon-ho ignored the warning ringing in his mind and thought.

If Han Tae-young was simply echoing what others said, casually disparaging gay people because it was common, couldn’t he change?

If Han Tae-young’s initial impression had remained, Seo Yeon-ho wouldn’t have felt inclined to offer any blunt advice. The truly awful Resident 2104 he had experienced was, after all, an irredeemable piece of trash.

However, spending this day with Han Tae-young had led him to believe that Han Tae-young wasn’t beyond salvation. He had fewer old-fashioned tendencies than Seo Yeon-ho had expected. While he couldn’t be called open-minded, he wasn’t someone who refused to listen. If cajoled, he was certainly amenable to reason.