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“Another bottle here, Auntie,” Daewook called to the tent-bar ahjumma, and nodded his thanks when she brought the soju.
Dohoon made a pained noise. “Sunbae, don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
Daewook waved him off. If ever there was a night for obliterating himself, it was tonight. The facts of Sanha leaving and the trials he’d face in Seoul were too depressing to contemplate, so Daewook let himself brood over smaller, more selfish miseries. His apartment was empty. Haejoon had left, too. Everything was changing, the family disbanded, and where did that leave Daewook? Left behind again. Thrown aside.
He cracked open the bottle and filled his glass. Half of it slopped onto the table, but the rest burned down his throat, bringing tears to his eyes.
Finally the world had the grace to blur its sights and slur its sounds. The pain in Daewook’s heart softened from a sharp pang to a diffuse lonely ache. Regret, too. He could have called Jeongjae to drink with him, once more, for old time’s sake.
Too late now. And logically, he knew they’d still be friends. Still see each other in passing around the apartment block. Exchange news about the kids. Joowon would greet him on the stairs. Jeongjae would invite him to meals now and again, out of pity.
But Jeongjae had loved having the whole family gathered around the table. He’d shone with satisfaction, getting more pleasure from others enjoying his food than he did from eating it himself. He was a generous, warm-hearted man. Daewook was lucky to have been welcomed in his home for so long. But now his presence would only be a reminder of better times.
Nothing lasted forever.
*
“Dad, are you home?” Eight-year-old Sanha appeared in the kitchen doorway while Daewook was ineffectually wrestling with a packet of ramen. “Dad, the ahjusshi downstairs said we should go there for dinner. He’s making bulgogi.”
A pathetic instinct made Daewook tense. Despite his efforts to pour oil on troubled waters, his wife had left. He was losing his family, one by one. To witness his son eating at another man’s table felt like the final defeat. But none of that was Sanha’s fault, and he was suffering too. Daewook forced a smile. “You go. Have fun with your little friend. I already ate on the way home.”
For a moment, Sanha didn’t move. Then he came forward, a silent ghost-child moving past Daewook to pull a saucepan from the cupboard under the sink. He half-filled it with water, put the lid on, and set it to boil on the stove with an air of long practice.
Daewook stopped breathing. Sanha had borne enough in his short life without seeing tears in his father’s eyes. When Sanha came and pried the ramen packet from Daewook’s grip, Daewook cleared his throat and managed, “You can go downstairs. It’s okay.”
Sanha didn’t answer, too busy tearing open the packet and dropping the noodles into the pot. The seasoning followed. “Shrimp isn’t the best flavour, but it’s pretty good.”
He climbed on a chair and took down two bowls from the shelf over the sink. Took two sets of utensils from the drawer.
Daewook blew out a silent, shaky breath. If he had to sacrifice his pride so Sanha could lay down his burdens and eat well tonight, so be it. He went to stand next to Sanha and turned off the stove.
Sanha looked up, enquiring and watchful.
“Bulgogi, you say?” asked Daewook.
Sanha nodded. The first hint of hope dawned on his thin face.
This was worth it. “Bulgogi sounds a lot better than ramen, doesn’t it? Let’s go.”
Daewook followed his son downstairs.
*
He’d never once regretted it. Never looked back. He’d be grateful forever for the smiling, no-fuss way Jeongjae had made room for them at the table. There’d been so much food then—then and every day since. So many delicious familiar dishes, so much laughter and teasing.
But Sanha and Haejoon were gone now. Daewook no longer had an excuse, no reason to impose. He should leave the Yoons to get on with things in their own way. Daewook was a family of one.
Might as well drink.
*
When he’d scuppered his reticence in an ocean of soju, he let Dohoon manhandle him to the noodle shop as if Jeongjae were a wife waiting impatiently for her husband to come home. Ha! Daewook let himself be bundled inside and dumped in a seat. He slumped over the table, only looking up at the sound of alcohol filling a glass. But when he reached for it, Jeongjae snatched it away and drank it himself.
Fair enough. Jeongjae had been drowning his own feelings in working too hard. Alcohol was a better answer than that. Daewook didn’t complain.
Gradually the atmosphere softened and turned melancholy.
Dohoon had left at some point. Joowon would be asleep at home. Here, it was just the two of them, wounded by their sons’ absence, uncertain about the future. Jeongjae got up and returned with honey tea and a cup; Daewook had known he would, despite Jeongjae’s grumbling. Despite Daewook having no claim on him. And then, quietly, over another glass of beer, Jeongjae shared his heavy heart, and let Daewook reassure him—and really, he could joke to himself about Jeongjae being wifely, but this bore no resemblance to Daewook’s experience of marriage. With Sanha’s mother, even before their daughter’s death, Daewook had had to tiptoe to avoid triggering her frustration and dissatisfaction.
Whereas with Jeongjae, even when he nagged and criticised Daewook’s parenting, making Daewook scowl and snatch the refilled beer glass—even then, there was no fear that crockery would crash to the floor. No one screamed or said things like a storm of ice shards to be weathered. It was safe.
Daewook wasn’t sure he could live without this comfort. Jeongjae was his home.
“How do other parents live?” asked Jeongjae, echoing his thoughts on a different, parallel track. “We can’t be the only ones like this. Why are we the only ones who keep feeling strangely empty?”
It was a kind of apology—Jeongjae saying he’d only scolded Daewook because he himself was hurting. Daewook wanted to weep for them both. The best he could do was to fill Jeongjae’s glass with his own hands and watch him drink.
Nothing had changed between them. He may have started out as Sanha’s plus one, but it had been stupid to think they’d go back to being strangers now, just because the boys had gone. They were part of each other’s lives. Daewook snorted. “Remember when Joowon said I should adopt you?”
That won him a surprised chuckle. “I’m not calling you ‘dad’.”
A range of alternatives stilled Daewook’s tongue. Brother? Husband? Honey? Darling? Ridiculous.
Jeongjae put down his glass. “Do you snore?”
“Mmm.” Daewook was still testing and discarding various terms of address. “Only when I’m drunk.”
“Then,” said Jeongjae, slowly. “In that case, when you’re not drunk—if you get lonely upstairs—if it gets too quiet and empty up there—you don’t have to sleep alone.”
Daewook blinked at him, the epithets abruptly dropping out of his mind. Muzzy as he was, he knew Jeongjae wasn’t talking about Haejoon’s room, and he wouldn’t offer the couch.
“I have a big bed.” Jeongjae was smiling a little. In the low light, with booze-blurred vision, it was hard to make out if he was blushing. He might be. “It’s been a long time, but I think I could remember how to share.”
“What if I—” Daewook was glad of the alcohol. He’d never have been able to say this sober. Even with liquid courage, it took a minute. “That is, sometimes Sanha’s mother complained that I cuddled her in my sleep.”
“Why complain about that? You can’t help what you do while you’re unconscious.” Jeongjae let out a soft laugh. “It’s fine. That would be—fine.”
Something in the way he said it gave Daewook the nerve to push. “And if I was conscious?”
Even as the words passed his lips, he winced. He’d spent years deliberately taking Jeongjae’s warm manner and capable hands for granted, burying his awareness. They had bonded through parenting, not anything else, and asking for more could ruin everything. But if Daewook slept next to Jeongjae, it was only a matter of time before salacious thoughts would surface. It wouldn’t be right not to warn him in advance.
Jeongjae was turning the empty beer glass on the table, keeping it within its circle of condensation, looking thoughtful. Would he retract his offer?
“I just meant—” started Daewook.
Jeongjae interrupted. “Only cuddling?” The glass stopped. He looked up, smile uncertain, eyes searching. “If you wanted more—only if it was something you wanted—”
So this wasn’t charity. In some lights, this was the logical next step for them, really, only possible now Sanha was gone and Daewook could turn to other priorities. He put his hand on the table, reaching, questioning, and Jeongjae patted it lightly, hesitated, then covered it with his own. His thumb swept over Daewook’s knuckles, as warm and sweet as honey tea.
Daewook struggled to think through the logistics. It was difficult with Jeongjae touching him. The prospect of their heads side-by-side on matching pillows was distracting, too, as appealing as a table piled with bulgogi and other dishes. But Daewook determinedly made himself consider. The boys were gone, but— “Joowon?”
“Never wakes before her alarm.” The crinkles around Jeongjae’s eyes deepened.
Daewook grinned. “That’s right. She doesn’t.”
“Not that I’m saying we shouldn’t tell her. Just—perhaps not straight away.”
Daewook nodded seriously. He was already leaping ahead—how Joowon would react, and—not adoption, not ‘dad’, but. They couldn’t be official husbands, but so what if the law didn’t recognise their relationship—that had never stopped their family before. “So can I call you ‘darling’?”
“What?”
“I already think of you as my wife,” Daewook confided.
With his free hand, without missing a beat, Jeongjae threw a cleaning cloth at his head.
It was so apt, Daewook had to giggle, and the crinkles around Jeongjae’s eyes deepened in reply. Daewook turned his hand over, so they were palm to palm. “Then, can I sleep over tonight?”
“When you’re not drunk, I said. I can’t stand snoring.” But Jeongjae looked indulgent—even pleased.
Daewook poured the last of the beer into Jeongjae’s waiting glass and pretended to pout. “Such a fuss about a little snoring. Don’t you have earplugs?”
END