Our band members came to visit me and I was discharged safely not long after. I have to go back to the hospital next week to get my stitches removed though.
I was discharged after being told not to lift heavy objects or exercise vigorously. To celebrate my safe discharge, we had a club dinner instead of practice today, and we came to an all-you-can-eat rib restaurant not far from school.
As soon as Eunho put his bag down, he went off to get some side dishes like an excited puppy, and Noah left, saying he was going to get an apron. I thought I should get a drink, so I got up and asked Yejun, who was preparing to grill meat.
"Hey, what do you want to drink? I'll get it."
"Hey, Bonggu, your arm isn't feeling well either. I'll think of something."
"Uh... huh?"
"What do you guys drink?"
I was startled by the sight of Ha Min suddenly appearing from the side. Fortunately or not, Ha Min didn't seem to notice my awkward appearance.
After realizing something strange that day, I skipped lunch and went to school right after I was discharged from the hospital. I went around the first, second, and third grade classrooms and checked the class rosters, but I couldn’t find a student named Yu Ha-min. I couldn’t see even a single strand of Ha-min’s hair until I met him in the band club room. It was so easy that I felt like I had been wandering around all day.
I couldn't even focus properly in class and was running simulations in my head about what would happen next. Here's what I imagined...
'This is why I don't like people who are quick-witted... You should just disappear now, hyung.'
Imagine being completely fooled by Ha Min, who says such villainous lines...
'I was going to fatten it up and eat it, but I got caught so I guess that won't work...'
Actually, I started to think that maybe a vampire with a hidden identity was approaching us to eat us...
'Actually, I died at school a long time ago.'
I wonder if the student who lost his life unjustly is wandering around us because he cannot go to the afterlife with a grudge... and I also added the additional imagination that he might be wandering around because he needs a companion...
I really imagined all sorts of things, but of course, there was no conclusion.
So my conclusion is...
“I brought tteokbokki. Does anyone want to eat it together?”
"...me."
...Should I eat first and think about it? Maybe because I skipped lunch and wandered around the school, I was really hungry. As soon as Eunho put down the tteokbokki and fried food, Noah and Ha-min appeared, each holding a cup of drink in each hand. Ha-min handed us the cups and ran to get his own, and he looked exactly like a younger brother to me. He was a lot taller, though.
He was my younger brother who entered high school before me. I stared at the back of his dark head, and soon Ha-min came back with a cup full of cola. When everyone sat down, Ye-jun smiled with the corners of his lips raised and lifted his glass.
"Okay, then. Congratulations on the discharge of our Flave's guitarist, Chae Bong-gu!"
""Cheers!!""
Starting with Yejun hyung's toast, cups containing colorful drinks like cola, fanta, and cider clinked.
They say even the Diamond Mountains look better after a meal, and the smell of grilled meat made my appetite start to return. I was only hospitalized for a few days, but maybe because of the bland hospital food I ate during those few days, all the food I ate in the secular world started to taste even better. On top of that, since I skipped lunch, I didn’t even have to watch the video to imagine how delicious it would be to have Eunho’s side dishes or the pork ribs grilled over charcoal.
As I was lightly filling my hunger with tteokbokki, Yejun hyung cut up the well-cooked marinated ribs into bite-size pieces and placed them in front of me. Yejun hyung’s sense was really good at giving me the first piece of meat. I said I would eat it well with a look of gratitude in my eyes and quickly put the meat in my mouth.
"Eww eww!"
"Eat slowly because I won't take it away from you."
Freshly grilled meat is sweet and salty and delicious. Should I order some cold noodles? Cold noodles go well with ribs. I elbowed Eunho, who was eating his food aggressively next to me.
"Hey, Eunho. If I order some cold noodles, do you want to eat half? I don't think you can finish it all by yourself."
"Huh? Really?"
Eunho was eating more than half of the tteokbokki and fried food that he had scooped up on his plate. He even brought meat to him and ate three pieces with each chopstick. Seeing him do that, I thought to myself that if he hadn't done music, he would have definitely become a mukbang creator.
Wow... you're eating so well...
"Who wants more cold noodles?"
"I'm okay."
"Hamin, do you want to share some bean curd?"
"Yes"
Ding dong-
"One water cooler and one rain cooler."
I ordered cold noodles, clenching my fist and shaking my index finger twice. I glanced at Ha-min, who was wrapping up ssam next to Ye-jun, who was grilling meat.
Eunho, who had been refilling the meat without fail, was holding the tongs and grilling the meat. The meat was tightly packed on the charcoal fire. It was inevitable to do so in order to satisfy the appetites of five high school boys who were in the midst of their growth.
As my hunger subsided somewhat, my mind began to work again. Now... Wouldn't it be natural to ask something right now? With that thought in mind, I asked Ha-min, who was eating meat diagonally across from me, as if I was being nonchalant.
"Hamin-ah. What are you going to do when you get home?"
"Huh? I'm going to stay home and watch Netflix. Why? What's going on?"
"I just asked because I didn't know what to do since I was discharged from the hospital."
"I'll take a break from playing guitar until I get the thread out~ Should I recommend some Netflix that I'm watching these days?"
"Well, it's okay. I saw most things when I was hospitalized."
But since I was born with a bird's chest, I can't seem to get out because my heart is shrunken from the inside out. I should have experienced such supernatural phenomena. The only supernatural phenomena I've experienced were when I was a little kid, like, "Mom knows everything without looking," or when I couldn't find something and asked my mom, she'd say, "It's right here, you punk!"
Ah, if I procrastinated any longer, I didn’t think I’d have a chance to ask questions today. If I dragged the conversation out awkwardly, the other members would probably look at me strangely, so I quickly pressed the cancel button in my head and yelled.
"Hamin, where do you live? I don't think I've ever properly seen you come home from school."
"...."
Ha Min, who usually had a calm and harmless expression on his face, suddenly shut his mouth and hardened his face at my words. As soon as I saw that, I began to regret having openly teased Ha Min. Ha Min, who didn't say a word and had no expression, stared at me, and I felt so scared.
When I think about it, it's quite obvious. A man with a large body of 185cm is acting serious. And on top of that, there's a possibility that he's an unknown being, so I felt like the main character who encountered the highlight of a horror movie. I don't need this kind of experience...!
What was even more terrifying was that Ha-min was staring at me like that, and no one around him said anything. If it had been a normal atmosphere, other people would have joked around saying, "What's wrong with Ha-min~", but since they didn't even look at me, it seemed like they didn't even realize what was happening.
"Where would you like some cold water?"
"Oh, this way!"
"Please leave the cold here!!"
Thankfully, the person who saved me from this horror-filled genre was the employee who served the cold noodles I had ordered earlier. I tried to act as if nothing had happened, enjoying the cold noodles that were served to me as naturally as possible, and pretended not to notice the atmosphere that Ha-min had been in earlier.
With a poker face that was raised from the ground up and acting skills that were dictated by survival instinct, he put the cold noodles on a plate and placed them in front of Eunho, pretending to be as calm as possible. Ha-min blinked and tilted his head with a much softer expression than before, then returned to his usual bashful smile and began mixing and slurping the cold noodles that he and Ye-jun had ordered.
Did I just act natural? I wasn't like someone in a horror movie who ignores warnings and rushes ahead without thinking, and then gets swindled in the middle, right?
But now, Ha-min is very soft and cuddly. Even now, when I see him laughing and chatting with his hyungs, I can't help but lower my guard.
No, don't believe everything you see, Chae Bong-gu! There's nothing wrong with being alert!
I ate all the remaining cold noodles and meat with a feeling of going back and forth between heaven and hell. We even emptied our cups of cola and left the buffet feeling extremely full.
"I'll send you the settlement via KakaoTalk~"
"Okay~ I'll send you the money as soon as I get home~"
"Ah~ I ate well!"
"If Eunho had eaten more there, he would have been kicked out."
As we walked along, chatting as usual, we parted ways in an alleyway to go home. I also waved to my club members and said goodbye as I headed home. I thought about following Ha Min, but I decided to give up today because I was reminded of Ha Min’s serious face that I saw today.
"brother"
"Ugh...! This is a surprise."
My heart almost dropped because of Ha Min who suddenly appeared next to me. It hurt even more because I was thinking about Ha Min right then.
Ha Min-i blinked his eyes and looked at me without saying anything. Could it be that he was trying to swipe me here...? Ignoring the cold sweat dripping down his body, he smiled harmlessly.
"What's wrong, Ha Min? What do you have to say?"
"...."
Even after hearing what I said, Ha Min didn’t say anything. His eyes were slightly sunken, and his face looked complicated. Maybe it was because the light wasn’t shining, but he looked even more miserable, so I forgot how cautious I had been and looked at Ha Min with a worried expression.
"Brother Bambi. Do you know who I am?"
"huh?"
Bambi? Isn't that the deer from the Disney movie? Why is that suddenly appearing? And since I don't know who I am, I couldn't figure out what question Ha-min was asking, and it must have been obvious on his face. Ha-min, who had been staring at me for a while, smiled and shook his head.
"No. Be careful."
I couldn't give a proper answer to Ha Min's question, and I couldn't stop Ha Min as he turned around and walked away, saying it was really nothing.
For some reason.
Because the look in his eyes was like that of a child who had lost something and was hurt.
I just couldn't catch it.