Chapter 14.02

unedited

“Why didn’t you wear your glasses?”

Jaeyoung didn’t respond for quite a while. Then he got stuck at a stop signal and made eye contact with Sangwoo while they were waiting.

“You have to know that for great things to happen, small sacrifices must be made.”

“Why is that phrase brought up in this situation?”

Jaeyoung just told him that he didn’t need to know and kept driving. Sangwoo didn’t disturb the guy who was already in an anxious state of mind.

Jaeyoung stopped the car at a remote paid parking lot, not the one belonging to the multiplex. He didn’t properly respond when Sangwoo asked why. There were 11 minutes left until the movie started, so they half-ran, half-walked to the movie theater. Jaeyoung made Sangwoo angry as he dragged his feet in order to buy popcorn when they arrived.

He hadn’t thought that the process of going to the movies with him would be greatly satisfying, but he hadn’t expected it to be this hectic. He felt like he got a glimpse of how Jaeyoung usually went about his day, why he couldn’t keep deadlines, and why he often was late to meetings.

“You may enter salon five for The Revival of Superman.”

Sangwoo showed the digital tickets he had loaded on his phone in advance to an employee, so he was guided inside. Even as three minutes had passed since the movie began, Jaeyoung still walked slowly.

“We’re late. Let’s hurry.”

“They show ads for 10 minutes.”

“It definitely says that it starts at 35 past, but it’s 38 past right now.”

Jaeyoung handed Sangwoo the popcorn bucket and then stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Sangwoo had a lot of complaints, but he didn’t have any choice but to chew and swallow what had been put in his mouth. He was planning on expressing his thoughts once he finished eating it, but Jaeyoung covered his mouth in the same manner. Meanwhile, they appeared in front of the salon.

“It’s L13 and L14.”

“These are good seats.”

Jaeyoung glanced at the seating chart and entered the dark theater. There weren’t many people as it was the tail end of the movie’s screening period and quite late. Their row of seats were empty, with the exception of an elderly couple in the corner.

As Jaeyoung had said, ads were in full swing on the screen. After sitting down, Sangwoo turned off his cell phone, placed it in his pocket and leaned back, so he felt better. He slowly blinked his eyes as if to expel all the recent chaos from his mind.

He felt thirsty suddenly, and Jaeyoung offered him soda as if he had read his mind. He thought that he was going to drink it by himself, so he had only brought one straw. Sangwoo opened his mouth to complain, but then closed it again.

‘Why would you care about such things? Between two people who’ve even kissed.’

That’s because he already knew how he would respond.

Without a word, he slurped the tangy drink. When he handed Jaeyoung the cup back, the guy bit the straw. The dark drink was rapidly pulled up the transparent straw. As he did that, Sangwoo wondered why he stared at people’s faces that intensively.

The lighting that changed in the dark space lit up on the side of Jaeyoung’s face. Dark, then bright; his face changed accordingly. The shadow that his nose made on his cheek narrowed and widened repeatedly. Even though Sangwoo had just drunk, his mouth was dry. The surface of his eyes tinged because he hadn’t blinked.

Who was the winner of this long staring contest? It was probably Jaeyoung. That’s because when the screen darkened and all the lights dimmed, Sangwoo closed his eyes and then kissed him.

Even if he got startled along with their surroundings

Let’s say that he had thought that he was asleep the first time, and that they had been drunk the second time, and that the other times had been gently agreed on. This time, however, he had acted with permission at a person who clearly was awake. Since he had covered his eyes with his hand, he had missed the beginning parts of the movie.

‘I’m doomed.’

Sangwoo didn’t like such things. He shot a glance at the man who had seduced him, but he was just looking at the screen with an indifferent expression. The hand was casually placed on the joint armrest as if it were natural, and wickedly bobbed up and down like a spider. Sangwoo forced himself to sit properly and look straight ahead.

Fortunately, the plot was so simple that it didn’t prevent him from understanding it even if he had missed the beginning. An alien who can fly at lightning speed, has skin that can withstand any physical damage, and whose energy source is filled up by sunlight, has emerged. The plot was of a super-alien with x-ray vision, who can fight off the enemy’s plan to exploit his weakness.

Sangwoo was tormented in two ways. One was due to there being many incomprehensible parts of the movie, and the other was that Jaeyoung kept moving his hands. His fingers, illuminated in the dark, didn’t know how to remain still. He tapped the armrest with his fingertips, stretched them out as if he were playing, and even flipped his hand so his palm was facing upwards sometimes. Maybe it was because Sangwoo had deliberately not looked at Jaeyoung’s hand for the past two and a half hours, but it seemed like the latter’s facial expression hadn’t changed.  Jaeyoung seemed to be a mentally disturbed person.

After the movie, they walked out of the theater in silence. As they came out of the elevator, warm air hit their arm. The night sky was black and the streets were gray. It was already past one in the morning and the previously crowded main road in Jeoungryun-dong was empty.

“What did you think about the movie?” Jaeyoung, who had not said a word in nine minutes, asked.

He looked relaxed with his right hand in his pocket.

“Should Superman be classified as an animal or a plant?”

“What does that mean?”

“He gets his energy from the air and the sunlight. Even if his body structure is as complex as a human’s, wouldn’t it be right to classify him as a plant rather than an animal if he lives in a similar way to things that survive via photosynthesis?”

“Uh…. I don’t know.”

“And there’s a line about shaving in the middle of the story. How did they cut off his body hair? Not a single strand was burnt off in the middle of the supernova explosion. A regular iron razor wouldn’t work.”

“Uhm…”

“It was sad that kryptonite was his weakness.”

That had been the only scene that Sangwoo had been immersed in. It was a scene where Superman, who was invincible, collapsed on a piece of stone brought from his home planet. It wasn’t until the green stone was brought close to his skin, which hadn’t been affected by radiation from uranium, that he became weak like a normal human. Sangwoo felt a sense of crisis as if he were the one being affected.

“The Deus EX Machina, well.”

“Well what?”

“In short, it’s a cheat key. It isn’t interesting if it’s too powerful, so they always use kryptonite to corner Superman. But then it doesn’t mean much since the crisis is easily resolved.”

“Yeah…”

“Superheroes are usually like that. The important thing is that Superman is very handsome, strong, on our side, and that he’s wearing tights.”

Jaeyoung’s left hand moved in a complex orbit in the air. He clutched the hem of the chest area on his shirt and pulled at it a couple of times as if it were hot. Sangwoo stared blankly at his profile, which looked more scholarly today.

“Sunbae. I didn’t know, but you’re smart.”

“What the hell do you think of me?”

Human scum, thug, psycho, sadist, trash.

So much had changed since before that he really didn’t know at this point. When he took his eyes off Jaeyoung and looked straight ahead, he saw tall trees planted in an orderly fashion on both sides of the street.

“Where are we?”

“This is Jyeongryun Park.”

“Why did we walk this way?”

“It’s a shortcut.”

Sangwoo frowned. If it was a shortcut, why hadn’t they walked this way earlier? Then they wouldn’t have been late. He was pondering this when Jaeyoung tapped the brim of his cap. He looked to his side and made eye contact with him. The moon was shining brightly behind the dark-brown strands of his hair.

“So was it interesting or not?”

“Interesting?”

“Yeah. Shouldn’t you say what you think of a movie if you’ve seen one?”

“Uhm… I don’t know. It was a weird movie.”

Sangwoo was curious about what Jaeyoung thought about it, so he added, “What about you, sunbae?”

Jaeyoung, who was looking ahead while walking, turned his head and looked at him. He responded while making eye contact.

“I thought it was fun.”

“Which part?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“I couldn’t watch the movie because I was watching your face.”

Sangwoo was speechless. Also, for some reason, even his feet stopped moving. Jaeyoung kept walking and Sangwoo remained still in the same spot and stared at his back.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. While trying to calm his heart, where discomfort and pleasure were pouring out simultaneously, Jaeyoung’s back gradually receded into the distance. Sangwoo found a contradiction in his words, so he began to move again. He quickly walked and managed to stand next to him.

“That doesn’t make sense. I didn’t watch the movie. It was fun. One of the two is a lie.”

“Both are true.”

“If you didn’t watch the movie, then how can you say it was fun?”

“Please use your imagination, old man.”

As soon as he heard the carefree answer, he came to a realization. Sangwoo had attacked him for no reason at all, but he hadn’t been able to gain anything from that. Sangwoo didn’t have any choice but to walk behind him with his head down after that.