Stranger

After Story 1: Daily Affairs

I woke up to the ring of the bell. I wondered who it was in the early morning. I couldn’t think of anything except for the parcel delivery service.

Yeon Woojeong was sleeping. I lifted my hand naturally and realized it was empty, so I looked for my phone and checked for the time. It was 9 o’clock.

I left the bedroom and looked at the intercom. A man wearing a blue vest said.

—We are from the moving company.

The moving company?

I recalled what Yeon Woojeong said in the car on the way back from Suncheon.

“We will move tomorrow.”

I naturally thought it meant we would prepare to move. We got a lot to pack and a lot to organize, after all. I never thought that the moving company would come right away.

I opened the front door on the first floor, then went back to the bedroom. I wished him to enjoy a late sleep, so I didn’t want to wake him up.

“Mr. Yeon.”

Still, he had to wake up before the employees came. I shook his arm, and he woke up grimacing.

“They came to move.”

Yeon Woojeong raised himself, sighing. He left the bed, holding my shoulders for a while, then left the bedroom.

The bell rang once again just in time. He pressed a button in the intercom, opening the door.

“Good morning!”

Yeon Woojeong, who was still dazed, quickly regained his senses as soon as the people came in. He greeted them and gave them instructions on what to move and pack.

One person went to Yeon Woojeong’s room, one person to the second floor, and the rest went to the book room. Well, the only baggages were beds and some clothes, so moving all those books would be a hassle. 

“What should I do?”

“You don’t need to do anything?”

Yeon Woojeong sat on the sofa and threw his head back. I watched the people moving around and then sat down next to Yeon Woojeong. It felt strange to see other people in the house where only Yeon Woojeong and I lived.

Yeon Woojeong’s head rested on my shoulder. He yawned.

“There’s a lot to do today.”

“What will we do?”

“We have to go buy some furniture.”

“I still haven’t thought about it.”

“A bed and a desk, also a drawer. Let’s buy those first for now.”

“Why bed?”

“Yours is low because it’s for a bunk.”

I don’t care even if it’s low, though. I felt it was a waste of money, but I said nothing. I wanted him, who looked tired, to rest even for a moment.

Yeon Woojeong spread his legs, hitting my leg, and gathered them back. Seeing that, I held his knees strongly.

“Stay still.”

“Acting well-mannered, huh?”

Yeon Woojeong yawned again. We were idling like this, but the employees were moving busily. An employee holding a blue box went down from the second floor.

“There are only clothes on the second floor.”

The employee put down the box in the living room and then went to another place. Yeon Woojeong, staring at the box, suddenly got up. He took out a familiar piece of clothes from the box that wasn’t sealed tight.

It was my old, tattered padding jacket. He took that, shoved it into a trash can, then walked back.

I stared at Yeon Woojeong in silence. He also said nothing, sat next to me casually, and rested his head on my shoulder again.

I looked down at Yeon Woojeong’s hand on the sofa, and I slightly stroked his little finger. Yeon Woojeong then bent his finger and hooked it around mine. 

“Haha, you brothers get along well.”

An employee came over, wiping his sweat with the towel around his neck. It was fascinating that he saw Yeon Woojeong and me as brothers when we had no resemblance at all.

“We have finished packing up, and the only thing to do is to move the furniture.”

“Yes. Thank you for your good work.”

He and I took a shower, then took some clothes from the boxes and changed. While the people were moving the furniture, Yeon Woojeong led me outside.

“Where are we going?”

“To eat.”

“How about moving?”

“They will move everything to the new home. We are moving today, so how about we have jjajangmyeon?”

“Okay.”

I was only staying still, didn’t lift even a finger, but I would eat jjajangmyeon.

The sky outside the window was clear and bright. A new home. I felt somewhat weird, but I also felt happy. I think I knew what it was like to be overwhelmed by the thought of leaving my first home with Yeon Woojeong. 

We arrived at a Chinese restaurant. It was the fanciest Chinese restaurant I had ever seen. Yeon Woojeong walked in casually, and the server guided us to a room.

“Have you ever been here?”

“Yeah. With my colleague, sometimes. Everybody loved it. What do you want to eat?”

“Jjajangmyeon.”

Yeon Woojeong smirked, called the server, and ordered a lot of things with jjajangmyeon.

“Everything will be done once we finish this and go home. We will stop by and take a look, then let’s go out and buy furniture.”

“Are you not tired?”

“This much is nothing.”

There were a lot of times when he looked worn out, but he always surprised me at times like this. Tiredness was evident on his face, but he didn’t grumble or complain.

Looking at him wiping his hands with a wet tissue, I took a sip of tea. The warm tea warmed my stomach.

“Mr. Yeon. There’s one GED in April and one in August. I’ll take the August one.”

“I see. You will need to take a photo to submit your application.”

“Yeah… Six months is short, right?”

March was around the corner, so it couldn’t be counted as six months. People at least took a year to prepare for the national college entrance exam, so it worried me, but the difficulty was lower than the national exam and I just needed my average score to pass 60, so I didn’t worry much.

“But I saw on the internet that there are a lot of people who passed it in just 6 months.”

“I wondered what you did with your phone last night. Were you looking for that?”

“Mhm.”

Yesterday, as soon as we got home, Yeon Woojeong washed and slept like a log, while I lay next to him and looked for information using my phone.

As the owner of the car center told me, I looked into a technical school that had an auto mechanics department, and best of all, it was free. There were two options, March enrollment, and September enrollment, and I thought it would be perfect to enroll in September after taking the GED. Of course, I haven’t taken a deeper look, and it would only be possible if I did well in both.

“What do you think about studying at a cram school?”

“Is it better to go to a cram school?”

“You’re thinking of listening to Internet lectures, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve taken a long break from studying. It’ll be hard to build up the habit alone. And it’s good to immediately ask if there’s something you’re curious about or something you can’t understand.”

He was right. I nodded, and the door was opened. The server entered and set the food on the table. Everything looked appetizing.

The ordered jjajangmyeon was jumbo-sized. Yeon Woojeong used tongs to scoop jjajangmyeon onto my plate. Seeing him picking up his chopsticks, I also picked up mine and took a bite of jjajangmyeon. It was the most delicious jjajangmyeon I’ve ever had.

“You like the taste?”

“Mhm.”

Yeon Woojeong smirked as I picked up tangsuyuk, which was closer to my side, and placed it on his plate. 

“Are you feeling good?”

“… What about you?”

“Me?”

“You’re moving out from the house you’ve been living in.”

Even I felt sad about it, so wouldn’t Yeon Woojeong feel even worse? He played with his jjajangmyeon using his chopsticks, delaying his answer. Meanwhile, I ate all the jjajangmyeon Yeon Woojeong had put on my plate.

“Well. The moment you weren’t there when I came in, that house lost its meaning to me.”

I stopped eating and looked at him. Yeon Woojeong didn’t look particularly angry or sad.

“New house, new mood.”

Yeon Woojeong smirked and took a bite of the tangsuyuk I scooped for him. I nodded eagerly. He let out a laugh.

We took a stroll around after eating, then we got in the car. The bright view of the day passed through the window, and I didn’t take my eyes off the view outside in order to memorize the road. I didn’t want to forget this weather and atmosphere.

I pressed the button to open the window a bit. The wind that came in scattered my hair. I heard laughter, and a finger touched and left my cheek. I closed the window and rubbed my cheek.

The car gradually slowed down. A tall apartment building came into view. As we pulled into the apartment complex, we were greeted with a playground and a walkway set into a small park. It seemed like flowers would bloom once spring came and the day became warmer.

We parked the car in the underground parking lot and got on the elevator. Yeon Woojeong pushed the button to the twelfth floor. I looked around inside the wide elevator and I made eye contact with Yeon Woojeong through the mirror. He bobbed his eyebrows as he saw me in the mirror.

The door opened. We got off the elevator and saw two doors. Yeon Woojeong went to the door on the right one and pressed down familiar numbers.

“Change the passcode.”

“Should I?”

“Yeah. Use at least 8 digits.”

“It’s bothersome.”

“Lazy ass.”

Yeon Woojeong laughed at my criticism and opened the door. Crossing a short hallway that connected to the empty entrance hall, I found myself in the living room. The TV was already hanging on the wall, and the floor was clean as if the moving company hadn’t just finished moving. As I scrubbed the floor with the soles of my feet, Yeon Woojeong said. 

“I called a cleaning company as well.”

No wonder. Sunlight shone down on the spacious, clean living room floor, leaving squarish marks. Yeon Woojeong opened the door to the room closest to the living room.

“This is the remaining room.”

One side of the room was full of bookshelves. The bookshelves were still the same, and it reminded me of the book room in the officetel, except for the absence of the soft chair. There was a bathroom next to this room.

There were two rooms deeper inside. The doors were facing each other, and I liked it because we could go to each other’s room once we opened the doors. I looked alternately between my room and Yeon Woojeong’s through the open doors. It was empty because there was still no furniture, but I would have been happy with just fluorescent lighting. 

It’s our house. The home of us, Yeon Woojeong and I.

“You like it?”

“Yeah.”

I pulled Yeon Woojeong, who was standing in front of me, by his waist and put my chin on his shoulder. He laughed small and poked my cheek.

“We also need to hang new wallpapers. If you’ve done looking around, think about the wallpaper and furniture.”

“I haven’t thought of everything yet.”

“Then let’s just buy a bed first.”

Yeon Woojeong dragged me, who was clinging to him, to the living room. He stood at the place where the sunlight shone.

“Let’s take a rest before we go.”

The only place to sit and rest was only the sofa. As I let go of Yeon Woojeong, he took off his coat and threw it on the floor. Then he lay down there.

“Lay on the sofa.”

“It’s warm here.”

Saying so, Yeon Woojeong tapped next to him. The floor was heated and warm, and it felt comfy because of the sunlight. After taking off my coat and covering it on top of him, I lay next to him. Yeon Woojeong closed his eyes. I stole a glance at him, then I put my arm under his neck. A smile bloomed on Yeon Woojeong’s lips as I did that.

I felt drowsy staying like this, and I liked it. Yeon Woojeong turned to me, pulled me into his arms, and quickly fell asleep as if he was very tired.

I ran my eyes over the straight bridge of his nose and his thick eyelashes, then cradled his head in my arms, hoping the sunlight wouldn’t disturb his sleep. I kept the view of the living room in my eyes. Our home. A place that would be my home and my sanctuary. I kissed Yeon Woojeong on his head.