Chapter 10

His younger brother had returned from the United States. Gyuhan no longer asked whether Gyuwon had stashed some delicious rice cake over in America. The last time he had asked over the phone, he ended up hearing a voice he never wanted to hear.

—“What kind of rice cake do you think? The delicious kind. We eat it at the dining table, eat it in bed… Ah, so good. How’ve you been, hyung?”

It was his brother’s boyfriend—and former sex partner.

Hearing that voice had made Gyuhan feel instantly awful even though he had been doing just fine a second prior, so he had slammed the phone down. But if he were asked that carefree question again right now, he felt he could give a proper answer.

No, I’m not doing fine at all.

“Hyung, you lost weight. Are you not eating well lately? Are you super busy?”

The worried voice dropped over Cha Gyuhan, who was slumping limp against the back of the sofa, head tilted back. Turning his head slightly, he saw his brother walking over carefully with a tray holding two cups and some neatly plated dessert. Because the tray was daintily small compared to his bulky frame, Gyuwon’s chest and arms were pulled taut with tension, bulging tighter than usual. Especially thanks to his wardrobe, which had begun adapting with seasonal flair unlike in the past, his pumped chest muscles and cleavage were on full display.

Gyuwon’s cleavage got deeper. Haah, and here I haven’t even been able to hit the gym these past few days.

Staring with hollow eyes, Cha Gyuhan hauled his upper body upright.

“Nah. Just dieting. Hyung registered with the matchmaking agency again. This time, I swear I’ll get you a sister-in-law, Gyuwon-ah.”

Subtracting the diet part, it was practically the truth, so Cha Gyuhan drew self-consolation from his own words.

Setting the coffee down on the table, Gyuwon said tentatively, “I don’t need a sister-in-law, hyung.”

“No way. Still, this time hyung is really going to build a family and… Ah, hot!“

Because of the low coffee table, Cha Gyuhan had spread his legs, bent forward, and grabbed the cup—which was tiny compared to his massive hands—slurping it down noisily like gulps of hot soup broth, only to jerk in shock. Seeing this, Cha Gyuwon promptly snatched some tissues and brought them over.

“Uh-huh. Thanks. Hey, does this tissue smell like flowers?”

Cha Gyuhan, who only ever used cheap toilet paper rolls, sniffed the tissue curiously. It was nice and soft.

“Man, this coffee is scorching.”

“That’s because you gulped it down like that, hyung. Be a little careful.”

“I’m fine. I’m sturdy.”

That was precisely the problem.

Gyuwon looked at his older brother with worry.

His hyung, Cha Gyuhan, was indeed sturdy. So sturdy that his body moved exactly as he willed it, crisp and effortless, leaving him carefree and untroubled by everything in life. Most matters were accomplished before his brain even had to think, solved before reaching any stage of deliberation. Even if he assembled furniture incorrectly, he simply hammered the pieces together through sheer brute force until it served its intended purpose anyway. Having lived a lifetime of such repetitions, he sorely lacked caution. Gyuwon worried that Cha Gyuhan’s disposition would get him hurt one day.

“Hyung. Even if Father washed his hands of the underworld, bad things can happen at any time. So can’t you just listen to me when I tell you to be careful?”

Cha Gyuhan felt touched by his brother’s words.

How could anyone speak so sweetly? To ease his younger brother‘s worries, Gyuhan ruffled that fluffy head of hair vigorously and grinned.

“Alright, alright. I’ll be careful from now on.”

“Mm-hmm. And before you sign any contracts or anything, make sure to ask Jio-hyung first. Also, don’t just open new cell phone lines without—”

“Gyuwon-ah. Don’t bring that guy up.”

Gyuwon was taken aback by Cha Gyuhan’s sudden shift into dead seriousness, cutting him off mid-sentence.

With a grim face, Gyuhan pulled back the hand that had been ruffling Gyuwon’s hair, picked up his coffee cup again, and muttered darkly. “He’s a bastard who’d ruin three lives in one shot. Don’t know how he’d pull it off, but he’d wreck me, himself, and your sister-in-law…”

“Huh? How could he covet a sister-in-law who doesn’t even exist, hyung? Did you fall down a rabbit hole? Get into a new fandom or something?”

“Ip-ddeok? What’s that? Like Yeop-dduk[1] spicy tteokbokki?”

“Not rice cake! Did you get a favorite anime character?”

“No? Why are you bringing up characters?”

“Because you’re talking about a nonexistent sister-in-law…”

The two brothers’ conversation was so thoroughly misaligned that finding common ground required taking the longest possible detour.

“Agh, no. Anyway. There’s this thing. Son of a bitch. And after I told him so many times that networking is a crime.”

Because the concept had been so horrifying, Gyuhan had strained to scrub it from his mind, leaving him remembering the meaning while completely blanking on the name. Since he had merely fished for whatever word sounded vaguely similar, Gyuwon couldn’t make heads or tails of it and simply ignored him, picking up his fork instead.

Time to eat some dessert. It was a cake flavor that had recently exploded in popularity in Korea, dominating Gyuwon’s social media feed while he was stuck in America caring for his lover. He had craved this for so long.

“If Go Woonha ever tells you he wants to do networking, you tell him no and punch him right in the face. Got it, Gyuwon-ah?”

“Hyung, I still don’t know what you mean by ‘networking.’ You can’t be talking about an internet connection.”

“Yeah, not that. It’s when three people do it, but not like an orgy together. Two people do it while one watches, you know? Except that one person is your wife.”

“Ah.”

Cha Gyuwon finally understood.

“Netorare?”

And immediately, his face darkened.

At that gloomy expression, Cha Gyuhan slurped down the rest of his coffee. Since it had cooled, he downed it in a single shot, rested his elbows on his thighs, and growled, “Why?! Did that bastard ask you to do it?!”

“No, it’s not that… Please don’t talk about stuff like that here. This is a dopamine-clean zone.”

“Dopa-what?”

“Dopamine. If stimulating topics like that get mentioned even as keywords, Woonha-hyung might lose his mind. So please don’t bring up anything that could trigger him.”

True to his word, Cha Gyuwon’s apartment contained nothing that could warrant an R-rated tag—except for desserts, squishy plushies, and cute, big-headed chibi figurines. Not even a hint of blood or violence.

“Hah.” Cha Gyuhan scratched his head. “Why don’t you take up knitting while you’re at it?”

“I’m actually considering it. Wondering if that kind of wholesome dopamine might help…”

“…”

“And… let’s stop talking about Woonha-hyung. Talking about my dear hyung with my hyung feels kind of awkward.”

Dear hyung? Pretty sure that ‘hyung’ isn’t me. Dear hyung?

Cha Gyuhan was quietly devastated. A massive sense of loss pressed down on him. “Haha! Of course, gotta do that!” he answered boisterously, but the way he raised the empty coffee cup to his lips betrayed his deep inner turmoil.

He, Cha Gyuhan, had cut ties with his closest friend who was practically a brother, and his actual brother had grown into someone begging him not to badmouth his boyfriend. A crisis had struck him, not unlike a midlife crisis. Worse, this wasn’t something he could resolve by simply taking a few punches. How was he supposed to fix this? Lost in utter helplessness, Cha Gyuhan could only swallow his coffee and heavy sighs. No matter how dull his emotional and intellectual faculties were, and no matter how foolishly he had aged, life had a way of calculating trials by absolute value—dishing them out with ruthless equality.

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