“Jegyeong, you don’t have anyone to hang out with besides me, right?”
“……Hmm, yes. You’re just asking if there’s no one I simply go around with, right?”
“Then would I have given chestnuts to someone who looks like they’d have more friends than me?”
If I went outside right now, grabbed a random person, and asked, “Hello, I’m lonely, would you be friends with me?” anyone and everyone would answer, “Ah, of course. I can be even more than friends. Shall we go to a motel together?” To someone with a face like that, why would I bother? (Of course, people wouldn’t actually say that, but you get the idea.)
“Let’s go to the 11th floor together. We have some time left, so we can look at what goods they’re selling. And eat lunch. You haven’t eaten anything besides a few chestnuts, right?”
“So that’s why you asked your friend for three servings of lunch?”
“Two birds with one stone.”
I answered as we left the arena and walked back toward where we’d entered to get to the 11th floor. Jegyeong hurried after me with long strides a moment later, matching my pace and walking beside me.
“I’ll buy the drinks.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It feels wrong to just eat and drink for free.”
“Then what, did I pick up those chestnuts off the ground?”
“Those were a gift.”
“I’ll count mine as a gift too. I can’t really eat things other people give me, anyway.”
At those words, Jegyeong fell silent. He seemed hesitant, unsure of what to say. Had I misspoken? Feeling the atmosphere grow stiff, I quickly added:
“No, nothing bad happened with food or anything. My family just overprotects me. You saw him try to inspect the chestnuts earlier, right?”
“Ah…… I thought I had been rude.”
“How is offering to buy me food rude?”
I answered with a deliberate smile to reassure him. Jegyeong’s face, which had looked slightly tense, relaxed considerably.
Before I knew it, we had reached the door. I stood in front of it and raised my hand to pull the handle. Then the name tag I was holding caught my eye, and I hesitated for a moment.
I would have to spend time in crowded places until the event started, so I couldn’t exactly wear my name tag openly. My nickname floated around all sorts of communities constantly…… It would be troublesome if some stranger suddenly approached me.
“What’s wrong?”
Jegyeong, who had been watching me hesitate while looking at the name tag, asked. Since he was whispering right beside me, my right ear, which had to take the full brunt of his voice, felt like it was burning.
“It’s a bit much to wear a name tag around beforehand.”
I fiddled with my earlobe, hesitating for a long while, before untying the jersey tied around my waist. I shook out the sleeves, wrinkled from being tied up for a while, put it on, hung the lanyard around my neck, and pulled the jersey zipper up with a smooth zipping sound. The air conditioning was blasting, so the building was cool; I figured I could just go around like this.
Watching me deal with the name tag, Jegyeong subtly pulled at his T-shirt to check inside. His gaze was so serious that he looked as if he were measuring whether he could fit the name tag inside his shirt. No, this was definitely the real deal, not merely an “as if.” Why would you think of putting it there, you psycho?
Startled, I flicked the shirt Jegyeong was pulling at, making him let go. Then, as he looked at me after examining his own torso, I reached my hand straight out toward him.
“Why are you trying to put that against your bare skin like a pervert. Give it here.”
“What’s wrong with putting it there.”
Even though he said that, Jegyeong held his name tag out to me as if to hand it over.
But before it could touch my hand, he changed direction, spread the lanyard evenly, and hung it around my neck himself.
And he didn’t stop there. He took the name tag dangling outside my jersey and tucked it inside the jacket, then tapped the area of my stomach where the name tag now rested with his pale index finger, smiling softly.
“Thank you. Keep mine safe for me.”
What’s so hard about holding onto a single name tag? I shrugged.
While I adjusted my clothes, Samchon, who had been waiting behind us, opened the door first and checked the surroundings, then held the door so Jegyeong and I could step out into the hallway. Samchon had suddenly found himself escorting two grown men.
As we went down the emergency stairs right next to us, Jegyeong kept glancing behind me, perhaps because Samchon kept following us. I’d left it alone earlier, but since we’d be together for the remaining time, I spoke up first in case he felt awkward for no reason.
“He’s a bodyguard, so don’t mind him.”
“Ah…… so he really is a bodyguard.”
Perhaps having recognized him as someone in the same industry from the start, Jegyeong accepted this calmly without any sign of surprise.
“He’s been with me since I was little, so now he’s practically one body with me.”
“Aha. One body.”
“He feels bad if people act self-conscious because of him, so just pretend he isn’t there.”
After that incident when I was young, a bodyguard started accompanying me even when I attended school, and many of my peers began keeping their distance from me. At the time, Samchon was a rookie who had just joined my mother’s company security team and was on the younger side; suddenly assigned as my guard, he was stiff and taciturn, still carrying military discipline, and since he wasn’t approachable even to children, my classmates had felt alienated.
Eventually, the effects came back to me, and there was a time when Mun Seonhwa was the only person I could call a friend. When Samchon realized that no one was left around me, he had been so at a loss that he burst into tears.
Back then, having just returned to daily life after therapy, I was easily frightened and preferred having one dependable adult over friends, but Samchon seemed to still be traumatized by it; even now, when he accompanied me, he wished I would pretend not to know him.
The blurry image of a fully grown adult, nearly twenty years older than me, huddled up and crying flickered through my mind, and I fell into old thoughts for a moment. Then I heard a small muttering voice beside me and turned my head.
Jegyeong, who had been staring at the stairs as if lost in thought, tilted his head and met my eyes. Hadn’t he said something just now?
“What?”
Instead, Jegyeong looked at me with an innocent face and asked what was wrong. Was he playing dumb?
“Didn’t you say something?”
“Hm? Ah. I said that if he’s been with you since you were young, you must have a deep bond. You must know a lot about each other too.”
He wasn’t playing dumb; I had been lost in thought and hadn’t heard him.
“Of course we know a lot about each other. He’s someone who sees my every move…… But what can you do? I’ve gotten so used to him, he really feels like one body with me, like a shadow following me around. Sometimes I even forget he’s there. Ah, Samchon is a nickname.”
Reacting a bit late, Jegyeong’s eyes sparkled as if hearing something interesting. Energized by that look for no reason, I became chatty and blabbered all sorts of stories. From trivial things like going to school in mismatched socks after oversleeping, to trying to secretly pick the lock of the PE equipment shed because there were no spare soccer balls at lunch and getting caught by the grade head and PE teacher, leading to a chase.
At the story that Samchon knew every black mark of my past because I’d never gone anywhere alone, Jegyeong’s eyes curved gently.
“Do you ever go outside alone?”
“Almost never. No, at this point, should I just say never?”
“No shift changes, no one else standing guard in his place?”
“None. There are some circumstances that make it difficult to change people out.”
Perhaps because his main job was a bodyguard, he showed interest, and as I answered this and that, we arrived at the 11th floor before I knew it. Muffled, noisy voices came from beyond the metal door below the stairs.
“Then today, you’re the only one with two bodyguards.”
As I took the remaining steps, Jegyeong whispered softly near my ear and quickly scurried down ahead. Then he waited for me from below with a bright face. That figure suited a large dog who had run ahead and was waiting for its lagging master more than a bodyguard.
Of course, he’d probably get sulky if I said that outright. Swallowing the urge to tease him, I followed him down as he wagged an invisible tail.
Following Jegyeong as he pushed open the fire door and went out, there was a break area with a drink vending machine and benches to sit on instead of the narrow hallway from the previous floor. In the small, not very spacious area, people clustered together chatting turned their heads toward the sound of the door opening. Gazes that had briefly paused returned to us, glancing our way.
I could understand. I would have looked too.
Beyond the break area, a crowd could be seen bustling from the lounge toward the elevators and escalators. My stomach churned slightly, but since the event would start soon, I had to meet people and get something to eat without any break. I’d had a little food before coming, so I could skip it, but I didn’t know about Jegyeong.
I gestured briefly to Jegyeong, took out my phone, and made a call. In the meantime, the people sitting in front of us who had been stealing glances while eating snacks hurriedly got up and began clearing out.
The moment I thought we could sit here, the steady ringing tone cut off. Soon, crackling static came through the speaker.
— “Where are you?”
“Here…… by the vending machine across from the escalator.”
As I answered, I raised my head to check our position again and looked straight ahead. Then, in the distance, I saw someone who hadn’t been visible before—wearing a white fur coat with the hood flipped up, something heavy dangling around their neck—stop walking.