The World’s Greatest Sex Friend
“So, what have you been up to lately?”
There were no women around today. Instead, three drab, hairy men were huddled together at a pub, having ordered two chickens and hunkering down for the long haul.
“Just living, you know. Same old, same old.”
The two men sitting across from me were high school friends. It wasn’t some grand, formal reunion; it was a meeting we’d been lazily scheduling for months, finally scraping together the motivation to actually make it happen. It’s a common pattern. Once you start working, your body gets worn out, and as you deal with the various demands of life, you naturally drift apart. These were faces I hadn't seen in ages, only meeting up because our schedules finally aligned by sheer luck. For office workers to carve out an evening to share a pint of draft beer, purely out of the loyalty forged in our school days, is a miracle on par with the Avengers assembling.
“God, you’re giving the most boring answers ever. Seungwoo, have you really turned into just another piece of livestock tethered to your company?”
“……And you? Did you have any exciting events? Did you crash and burn on crypto again?”
“Hey, man, I only wiped out once! Besides, I’ve been making some profit lately!”
“Then you buy the food.”
“After getting beaten to a pulp by my mom, I’ve been playing it safe and only made 15,000 won! With today’s inflation, that won’t even buy a headless chicken!”
That was Kim Seong-ung, a guy with a prickly personality who’d been my best friend since our sophomore year of high school.
“Ah! Then you can just pay for the beer.”
“Shut up, you!”
And sitting next to him was Park Seong-hyeon. Interestingly, we met in the middle of our senior year, and through some twist of fate, our duo evolved into a trio.
“You’re just trying to brag about how house prices skyrocketed again, aren’t you?”
“Haha.”
“Damn it… I should’ve dumped my money into land, too. That ‘world-class’ look on your face is so annoying.”
One of the hallmarks of aging men is that finance and investment frequently dominate their conversations. Unlike Seong-ung, who saw hell after getting hooked on the wrong coin, Seong-hyeon took out a loan to buy a house and rode the market up. Ever since then, he hadn’t stopped with the indirect bragging in our group chat, clearly meant to tease Seong-ung. But for me, who had been sitting on the sidelines, I didn’t feel envy or jealousy. I just thought:
“……You’ve got guts. Doesn’t the interest on that amount stress you out?”
“I told you, didn’t I? Since the value of money is bound to keep dropping, securing a solid physical asset is actually the safest way to protect your wealth.”
“Oh, look at that, we have an economics professor right here.”
I retorted to his stiff-necked arrogance with a dose of sarcasm. Seong-hyeon just laughed a pleasant “ha-ha,” but then, perhaps finding me the strange one, he leaned forward and asked:
“I want to ask you the opposite, Seungwoo. Is there really nothing going on with you?”
“……Huh?”
“Honestly, whether it’s crypto or taking out a loan to go all-in, it’s fun. You’ve been at your job for a long time and you’re stable, so is there nothing you’re doing?”
“Yeah, you were even talking about marriage back when you were with your ex-girlfriend, right? What do you live for these days?”
“…….”
My face twisted as if I’d just bitten into a piece of dung. Between the sudden mention of my ex and the beer loosening my tongue, I almost blurted it all out, but I slammed on the brakes. In my heart, I wanted to brag about Yeoeun. I’d been so deeply immersed in romance lately. She was so insanely beautiful that I wanted to show her off. But the more I chewed on it, the more I realized it was better to keep my mouth shut.
‘For starters, I can’t even proudly call her my girlfriend…’
The first reason was that my relationship with Yeoeun was complicated. The second was that even if I laid it all out, it sounded like such a fantasy that even I wouldn’t believe it. I saved one middle-aged man, and he introduced me to a beauty who would make anyone go weak at the knees? What kind of fairy tale was that?
“……Not much.”
Above all, there was a part of this story that was difficult to bring up lately. As I silently lowered my head, Seong-hyeon, who had been quick-witted since our school days, didn't press for details.
“Well, that’s fine.”
Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “Anyway, about that reunion I mentioned earlier, are you guys going to show up?”
“Hey, we’re not old men, why would we go to something like that?”
To Seong-ung’s immediate tackle, Seong-hyeon replied like he was soothing a fussy child.
“Why? Isn’t it nice to see familiar faces like today? Aren’t you curious how everyone’s living?”
“Curious, my ass.”
After downing his 500cc draft beer in one go, he added, “…Phew! The traffic was backed up all the way here today, I barely made it through. Besides, what’s the point of going to those things other than a bragging contest? …Well, I guess it’d be fun if you went.”
“Hahaha.”
Seong-hyeon just brushed it off with a relaxed laugh. To be serious, unlike Seong-ung’s grumbling, given Seong-hyeon’s personality, he would never brag at a reunion. We were friends who bickered often, so we teased each other lightly, but he wasn’t the type to talk like that to anyone who wasn't a real friend. More than anything, Seong-hyeon knew how to handle Seong-ung easily.
“It’s a shame… I heard Shin Yeon-ju is coming to the reunion?”
“!!? Shin Yeon-ju! The beauty of our class?! Wow~ it’s been ages since I heard that name!”
“Well, you shouldn’t get your hopes up too high. I heard she’s changed a lot, got tattoos all over the place and stuff.”
“Ugh…”
“Ah! And do you know Han-byeol? I heard she’s become so pretty.”
“Han-byeol? ……She was the girl in the corner who never said a word, right?”
“Look at this. The profile picture she posted publicly a while ago.”
“……! Damn, is this photoshopped!? Did she hide in a cave and shed her skin or something?”
“I heard she’s doing some kind of broadcasting.”
He knew how to bait a man easily. By triggering curiosity with outdated information, he pulled at Seong-ung’s impulsive emotions. In the end, Seong-ung decided to attend based on that one photo alone. Naturally, the next target was me.
“What about you, Seungwoo?”
“Ah, I……”
‘Sorry, I don’t have the time.’ …I tried to say that to refuse. If this had been last week, I could have said it with total confidence.
“…….”
Lately, my heart had been restless. I was still seeing Yeoeun, but the frequency had dropped just a little, and a subtle tension hung in the air every time we met. A stifling distance. Anyone who has been in a relationship knows this indescribable feeling. It’s like everything is normal, but there’s a nuance that feels like she’s acting out normalcy. The atmosphere would be high with a fun topic, only to sink into a desolate silence in an instant. I felt a slight sense of crisis. I looked back to see if I’d made a huge mistake, but there was no time for that, and nothing stood out. As I searched through my memories, I recalled a remark Yeoeun had made in passing.
‘I’ve never dated a man for more than three months♡’
……Gulp. So, I wondered if that was it. If I counted carefully, we were approaching two months of seeing each other, so I wondered if my turn had come. The moment of getting bored. The moment of being swapped out like a dead battery.
“Alright, then I’ll mark you down as attending, too, Seungwoo?”
“U-uh…?”
“I’ll pay the reunion fee in bulk, so you can just send it to me later.”
“Uh…………… uh-huh.”
And so, I ended up agreeing to attend. I didn’t know exactly when it was, but I felt like it wouldn’t matter much. Not in my current state.
Once the leisure of tearing apart a chicken with friends ended, I returned to my office life. As always, I was sitting in my chair long enough to risk hemorrhoids, tapping away at my keyboard, when I stepped out to grab a canned coffee from the lounge.
Buzz! Buzz!
My phone vibrated. I checked it, wondering who it was, and it was the person I wanted to see even more right now.
……Yeoeun’s father. Since that last time, I’d saved his name separately. He’d contacted me out of the blue, and wondering what it was about this time, I cleared my throat and answered after the third vibration.
“Hello?”
『Hey, benefactor! Clear your schedule for tomorrow!』
“……Excuse me?”
An abrupt and unreasonable proposal. I wondered what was going on, then thought for a moment. I remembered him saying he wanted to meet me seriously outside of the times he bought me meals.
“Yes, well… I have work tomorrow, though…”
『Just take a day off! What, you don’t have the room for that, or do you not want to use your vacation time for me?』
“That’s not it, but… where are we going?”
『As I mentioned before, don’t ask questions and just follow me. It’s a place where you can see a person’s true character just by spending a day there.』
“Uh…… Yes, sir.”
Once again, I couldn’t refuse the man’s headstrong proposal. Because of his strange charisma and my own restless heart, I was actually drawn to the idea. I decided to just let myself be swept along by this strange connection.
“Wow, the water is really clear.”
“……It really is.”
The dark blue SUV Jeep that Yeoeun had driven before. The place the man took me in that sturdy car was a quiet lake. To match the setting, his outfit was that of a perfect angler from the start. He was fully decked out in brand-name gear, the typical attire of a middle-aged man who pours money into his hobbies.
“Um… did you call me out here to go fishing?”
I had a hunch from the start, and the answer came back exactly as expected.
“That’s right. You can tell just by looking, can’t you?”
‘…No, I was asking why you called me out of the blue to go fishing.’
Out of politeness, I swallowed those thoughts. Meanwhile, he leisurely unpacked his fishing rod bag along with a folding chair from the trunk. I hurried to help him unpack, and once we finished the basic camping preparations, we sat on the folding chairs for a short break.
“Phew… You seem to have something on your mind.”
“Yes?”
“It’s obvious just by looking at that face full of worry. We’re alone, so why don’t you spill it? You must have something you want to say or some inner thoughts you want to get off your chest?”
“…….”
If I had a face that looked blank all day, it seemed easy to read even if we’d only met a few times. It was a matter of privacy, so it wasn't a topic I could easily rely on others for, but since he was Yeoeun’s father, he might be the most optimized person for my current worries. I took a long, deep breath and began to pour it out, bit by bit, like pulling a silk thread.
“Phew… well, it’s about Yeoeun.”
“Oh, you mentioned on the way here that you’re still seeing each other often, right?”
“Yes, as I said, we still meet quite often.”
“Hmm… you say you’re meeting, so why are you so hesitant? Is there a problem? Speak like a man and get it off your chest.”
“That is…”
I clenched and unclenched my fists on the chair. Unable to hold it in any longer, I shifted in my seat and confessed my frustration.
“It’s frustrating!” I shouted strongly. “Even after meeting Yeoeun as usual and having incredible sex, I feel frustrated!”
“…….”
“To describe it specifically, when we meet, I take her to a motel room, get on the bed, and she doesn’t let me go until dawn! The atmosphere up to that point is great, and we hug and kiss each other so much… but something… something is missing!”
“……Do you realize that’s a statement to make in front of a father who has a daughter?”
I knew it was rude. I knew it was rude, but my heart was so heavy that I spilled it all out.
“Ugh… I don’t know. I don’t know what this missing piece is. It might be my imagination, but it feels like Yeoeun’s attitude has changed quite a bit…”
“So, you’re saying she keeps meeting you, but specifically, what point is different?”
“No, that’s… well…”
It was a difficult area to express. In the end, it was all my feeling, so it wasn’t well-articulated in words—
Clack.
“That’s enough.”
“……Ah?”
“Stop making that face and take this first.”
What Mr. Young-cheol handed me from the side was a fishing rod. I didn’t know much about fishing, but it looked like an ordinary rod without a spinning reel. As he handed it to me, as if he’d brought one for me too, he also handed me a bait container full of earthworms.
“If you want to start fishing in earnest, you have to put the bait on first.”