Chapter 8

Yi-tan had come to the shop where Myeong-joo worked more than once. Myeong-joo ignored him each time, refusing even to show his face and sending word that he could not leave his work. Seen in that light, the way he had behaved in Chief Kim’s office must have looked brazen beyond belief. Myeong-joo had merely slipped back into the faultless role of brother-in-law he remembered from the other life, but to Yi-tan it must have been baffling. Only now did he understand why the young man had hurried him out of the office. The tips of Myeong-joo’s ears flushed scarlet.

With an awkward expression, Myeong-joo ventured, “About before… I’m sorry. The shopkeeper wasn’t fond of employees slipping away from work…”

Yi-tan gave a slight shake of his head. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

The shopkeeper was hardly mild-tempered, but neither was he cruel enough to drive away a visitor. Myeong-joo had blamed the man without thinking, and Yi-tan’s quiet refusal only made him feel more sheepish. The atmosphere was strangely awkward; cold sweat prickled along his skin. Perhaps a man with so much to feel guilty for would suffer the pangs of conscience even when the other person knew none of his sins.

Out of habit, Myeong-joo felt at the breast of his coat. Naturally, no cigarette pack appeared. He was pinching pennies so fiercely that he could not even buy a bowl of noodles from a street stall; tobacco was hardly going to be plentiful. He clicked his tongue inwardly, at a loss.

“Were you about to smoke?” Yi-tan asked.

Myeong-joo wondered how he had known. A small ashtray lined with damp tissue sat on the waiting-room table. Myeong-joo had not even noticed it, yet Yi-tan’s eyes had gone straight there. Wondering why the young man cared, he answered before he could think to dissemble.

“I’d like one, but I don’t have any cigarettes on me. I meant to buy a pack, but I was pressed for time.”

He had been in a hurry, true enough, but time was not the problem. Only the miserable state of his purse had been pressing him. There was no reason to tell Lee Yi-tan that. Myeong-joo already felt wretched enough without advertising his poverty as well.

“Then have one of mine.”

Yi-tan reached into the inner pocket of his dress uniform and produced an unopened pack marked Arirang. Myeong-joo let out a small, involuntary laugh. In the life when Yi-tan had been his brother-in-law, the man had favored imported cigarettes. This brand was hardly to his taste. It looked as though Yi-tan had stopped at some nearby tobacco shop on the way into the institute and bought whatever was at hand.

There were government campaigns urging civil servants to use domestic goods, and people said a soldier caught smoking foreign cigarettes could expect at least some form of disciplinary action. Yi-tan, surprisingly, had enjoyed that minor rebellion. There had even been a time when the forbidden foreign brands made him seem all the more masculine and wild in Myeong-joo’s eyes.

In any case, there was something disorienting about receiving a cigarette from a face so much younger than the one in his memories. Their reunion did not seem to be going nearly as badly as he had feared. A little of the tension left Myeong-joo’s shoulders.

“When did you learn to smoke?” Myeong-joo asked with a faint smile.

Yi-tan smiled softly. “From you, Instructor. Don’t you remember?”

“From me?”

Yi-tan only smiled at his startled question and offered no explanation. Instead, he broke the seal on the pack and presented a cigarette with both hands. There was not a trace of servility in the gesture. If anything, the composure with which he offered it lent the exchange the solemn courtesy of accepting a cup of well-aged grain wine. The formality steadied Myeong-joo enough that he could thank him without showing how shaken he was.

Myeong-joo accepted it with a small nod. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“It’s nothing.”

That was all. Yet Myeong-joo found the atmosphere between them unexpectedly warm. The tension, guilt, and inexpressible self-disgust that had weighed on his shoulders before Yi-tan entered the waiting room had somehow slipped away. A few exchanged words had been enough for simple happiness to wash the rest aside.

And the moment he realized that, shame—his oldest companion—came rushing back. He had forgotten what he had done and was standing here secretly delighted because his brother-in-law had spoken to him. Even after receiving the heaven-sent miracle of living his life over again, Cha Myeong-joo remained a thoroughly pathetic man.

Meanwhile, Yi-tan reached into his uniform once more and drew out a gas lighter. The silver case bore the words Special Corps, Azalea Brigade, along with the brigade’s distinctive pink azalea emblem. He sparked it and carefully brought the wavering flame toward Myeong-joo.

Myeong-joo had not expected Yi-tan to light it for him and flinched before recovering. He set the cigarette between his fingers, hollowed his cheeks with a sharp breath, and drew on it several times until the tip caught.

“…”

With his eyes lowered, Myeong-joo had been concentrating only on getting the cigarette lit. Then he glanced up without thinking and met Yi-tan’s eyes. If he had possessed the composure to take it in stride, nothing would have happened. Instead, he startled. He swallowed a little of the breath he should have exhaled, and smoke scraped harshly down his throat, wrenching a cough from him.

“Kh—khh…”

Yi-tan’s brow tightened as he stepped closer. “Careful, Instructor.”

He began patting Myeong-joo’s back. The sudden closeness startled Myeong-joo so badly that the coughing refused to settle. Yi-tan watched his face redden from the fit, then went to the waiting-room door and gave a short order to someone outside. Myeong-joo tried to see whom he was addressing, but his throat burned so viciously and his eyes watered so hard that he could barely gather himself.

Yi-tan returned almost at once with a glass of water, so quickly that it seemed as though someone had prepared it in advance. “Are you all right?”

He put the glass into Myeong-joo’s hands as he spoke, and their fingers brushed. Myeong-joo’s lips parted uselessly. The contact stirred something he could not put into words, made worse by the fact that Yi-tan was still much too close. Then the young man began patting his back again.

The cologne rising from beneath Yi-tan’s cuffs washed over Myeong-joo once more. Mortification twisted through him. It felt almost as if he were being rebuked for all those times he had thought of Yi-tan while pleasuring himself to that very scent.

But leisurely guilt was not the urgent problem. The more immediate horror was his body: with Yi-tan’s scent surrounding him at such close range, arousal came almost by habit. If his trousers began to tent, there was no chance Yi-tan would miss it from this distance.

Myeong-joo tried to cross his legs as casually as he could. At the same time, he raised the hand holding the cigarette toward his forehead, intending to rub between his brows and hide as much of his face as possible behind his palm. He might even have succeeded, had Yi-tan not stopped him.

Yi-tan caught his wrist. “You’ll burn yourself. Drink the water first, Instructor.”

“Ah, no… yes. All right.”

He lacked the strength to refuse. Under Yi-tan’s unwavering gaze, Myeong-joo raised the glass to his lips with a trembling hand. There was an old saying that there was no medicine for choking on plain water; at this rate, he might prove it true. How pathetic must his burning-red face look? He drank half the glass, set it down on the table, and resumed smoking slowly, careful not to look at Yi-tan.

His voice still rough from coughing, Myeong-joo said, “Sit down too, Lieutenant. I feel awkward being the only one seated.”

If Yi-tan had not immediately obeyed with the crisp, measured movement of a model new recruit, Myeong-joo might have succeeded in easing the awkwardness. Unfortunately, the seat Yi-tan chose was directly opposite him—and so close that one careless shift would bring their knees together.

“…”

Myeong-joo turned his face aside to exhale and quietly drew his legs back. Retreat seemed wisest before even the back of his neck ripened red. Because his eyes had followed the turn of his head, he could only feel Yi-tan looking at him. He did not dare glance back to confirm it.

Neither man spoke, the quiet in the room growing heavier by the second.

“…”

The strange silence dragged on. At this rate, Myeong-joo had the absurd feeling he might turn as red as a jujube bitten by frost. He forced the corners of his mouth upward and finally broke the quiet.

“What brings you to the institute, Lieutenant? I came because I know Section Chief Kim.” He added that his own business was nothing important. It was a natural enough question; he truly was curious why Yi-tan had come. And having asked it, he could hardly go on staring at the wall forever. Myeong-joo summoned his courage and looked at him.

Lee Yi-tan was staring straight back, as though he had never taken his eyes off Myeong-joo even once. Caught without warning in the yoke of that gaze, Myeong-joo went blank. He forgot entirely that he had meant to study Yi-tan’s expression for clues.

“I’m afraid I must ask your understanding. I can’t answer that,” Yi-tan said evenly. “It’s classified.”

“Ah… I see.”

Only belatedly did Myeong-joo realize that Yi-tan had flatly refused his question. He had been nodding along in a daze before the slight, uncompromising firmness in the young man’s tone finally registered. Then he noticed the unfathomable quality of Yi-tan’s gaze as well. Why is he looking at me like that?

The unfamiliar look unsettled him. Even in the other life, when Myeong-joo had lived like a moth eating through his brother-in-law’s wealth and reputation, Yi-tan had never regarded him with eyes like these.

“But I can make a fair guess as to why you came here, Instructor,” Yi-tan added, unhurried.

Another inexplicable chill crept up Myeong-joo’s back. Yi-tan could not possibly have discovered his Harmonization Saturation, yet Myeong-joo had the powerful sensation of having been caught at something. Ridiculous. Even if Yi-tan did find out, it was hardly as though disaster would strike.

Still, there was no harm in caution. Yi-tan’s eldest sister, Lee Seol-heon, took a keen interest in human-rights abuses within the Special Corps. Myeong-joo did not yet know what kinds of experiments awaited him, but considering how much the institute was willing to pay, he assumed there would be times when even basic humane treatment could not be taken for granted. Yi-tan was not his sister; there was no reason he needed to know any of that. Myeong-joo stretched his lips into a mild smile and answered lightly.

“Mm. I didn’t come for anything particularly important.”

Yi-tan regarded him in silence. “Is that so?”

The short answer told Myeong-joo nothing. He could not tell whether Yi-tan believed him, doubted him, or simply considered the matter none of his concern. Those straight, heavy brows gave him a disciplined, upright appearance while revealing nothing beneath it. His pale tawny-brown eyes were like thick iron doors: nothing inside escaped, and no intruder was permitted entry.

There had been countless times when Myeong-joo could not fathom what his much younger brother-in-law was thinking. He had sometimes wanted to ask Myeong-in whether, as Yi-tan’s wife, she could read him any better. But even such an innocent question had seemed dangerous; what if his own feelings showed through it? So he had never asked. Today was no different. Unable to read Yi-tan’s intentions, Myeong-joo could only conclude that their meeting had been pure chance. If so, regrettably, it was time to part.

“Well… it was good to see you today, Lieutenant.”

He would have preferred to soften the farewell with a little graceful small talk, but around Lee Yi-tan, Myeong-joo possessed no such talent. An awkward smile was the best he could manage. He had prepared himself for his short, terminal life to end without ever seeing Yi-tan again. To have been granted even this glimpse of his face felt like unexpected good fortune.

A little bitter and a little happy, Myeong-joo started to rise. All that remained was to finish his discussion with Section Chief Kim, obtain a firm answer on the money he would receive, and then report to work.

“Instructor.”

Yi-tan called him once more. Myeong-joo, already rising, ground the cigarette out in the ashtray and looked at him questioningly. “Go on.”

Myeong-joo’s expression invited him to speak, yet Yi-tan only continued to stare without a readable change in his face. Awkwardness crept over Myeong-joo again. The gaze was so persistent that he nearly wondered whether something was stuck to his cheek. When he finally straightened from his half-risen posture, Yi-tan stood as well—soundlessly, like a beast moving through tall grass.

“Will you be going home for the New Year?” Yi-tan asked.

Myeong-joo nodded before he had time to wonder why. “…Ah, yes. Most likely.”

The moment he answered, the gaze that had been fixed on him dropped away. Yi-tan inclined his head in a neat, respectful bow.

“Then travel safely.”

“You as well, Lieutenant…”

And that was the end of it.

Myeong-joo hurried out of the waiting room like a man fleeing pursuit. Only after he had put a long stretch of corridor behind him did he slow and look back. Lee Yi-tan had not followed. Even so, the inexplicable sensation of being chased clung to his back, and a long sigh escaped him.

***