Booze Over Happy Hour
“Booze over happy hour, any day!”
“Whew. Finally done.”
Somehow I had cleared every last assignment. After sending the files off to the professor’s email, I leaned back against the chair and stretched long and hard. Sitting for so long had left me stiff and sore all over. And just for the record, it absolutely was not because I was getting old.
“Looks like I’ve got a little free time. Might as well check on that.”
Still reclined in the chair, I fiddled with my phone and pulled up the graphs. This was the side hustle I’d been running while attending university, and it was turning out pretty lucrative. At first I’d treated it as pure experience and played in the shallow end. Then I’d started researching companies and social trends in earnest, and the whole thing had gotten serious. Before I knew it the profits had ballooned, and the capital I was moving around had grown to a scale that made the early days look like pocket change. I’d started it as a side gig, and yet—ironically—it now paid almost as much as a proper part-time job.
“Whatever. Good is good, right?”
I was covering rent and tuition both. Did I really need to say more? Grinning at the screen—more red than blue—I stood up and headed for the living room. When I had this much free time, wasting it by owing favors to the people at Jikbakguri was pointless. Far better to spend those hours enjoying something else; it left less room for self-loathing.
“Nothing left to do, so I might as well pour myself a drink and take it easy.”
Humming under my breath, I walked over to the display cabinets in the living room and let my eyes wander over their contents, sinking into appreciation. The corners of my mouth climbed until they nearly reached my ears.
“Heh heh heh… my precious little darlings!”
There were two cabinets in total. The left held plastic models; the right held liquor. Building and collecting were my only real hobbies, so I’d set each cabinet aside for its own purpose. Admiring the gunpla I’d assembled with my own hands, then casting a slow glance over the bottles I’d hunted down all over the place and sampling them one by one—this place was a utopia made just for me, no exaggeration required.
“Whiskey? Soju? Wine? Vodka? Or maybe rum while I watch a pirate-king movie…?”
I gazed at the assortment of bottles and gave serious thought to how I might prove I wasn’t a complete social misfit. Not that anyone was around to judge me anyway. The people who called themselves my parents had died while I was still in high school. As for the so-called brothers, we didn’t even keep in touch. Even if the parents were still alive it wouldn’t have mattered; they’d never treated me like a son, more like I didn’t exist at all. The eldest and the youngest had been mortal enemies since childhood, so there was nothing more to say on that front either.
“Anyone looking in would think I was some kind of unfilial monster.”
My life had been filthy, ugly, and thoroughly wretched. They’d worked me like a slave worse than any adopted kid, and whenever anything went wrong it was always my fault. When their moods turned especially foul they simply locked me in my room without food.
“They were meticulous bastards, I’ll give them that.”
They never left a mark—never once resorted to physical violence. Instead they crushed my mind and spirit until I believed every single thing was my own fault. Pure evil. Looking back now, I sometimes wondered why I hadn’t just caved their skulls in with a rock.
“Still, they did me one useful favor.”
I’d planned to leave the house the moment I graduated high school, but the accident took them earlier than expected and got me out even sooner. I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t attend the funeral when I was older, yet I broke that promise and showed up on the first day only. After all, by leaving me on the family register they’d let me claim a share of the insurance money; a brief show of gratitude seemed like the least I owed them. So I attended that single day, took my cut without hesitation, and walked out of that filthy fucking house for good. After that I scraped by in a cheap one-room apartment, juggling part-time work and university prep, until the effort finally paid off. These days I did whatever I wanted and actually enjoyed living.
“First glass will be champagne, and for snacks… keep it clean with sashimi. It’ll taste incredible later with soju or makgeolli too.”
Sticking to just one thing was such a drag. It wasn’t like I was going to polish off the whole bottle of champagne, so savoring each taste one by one was where it was at. No need for deep deliberation—the menu was set. Before I could change my mind I fired off the order on the delivery app. It would take a while to arrive, so I leisurely scrolled through movies to pick something to watch.
Ding-dong— ding-dong—
“?”
The sudden chime of the doorbell made me pause mid-channel-flip. I hadn’t ordered any packages, and the food I’d just placed couldn’t possibly be here already. Wondering if it was a gas inspection, I got up from the sofa and checked the intercom screen. My brow furrowed on its own.
“What the hell is that.”
The intercom screen showed one man and one woman. Faces I could never forget even if I wanted to. The human who hadn’t contacted me once since the funeral. The eldest son of our family—my own blood older brother.
After a moment of debate I decided to open the door. Whether he made a racket and bothered the neighbors if I refused wasn’t my problem. The only reason I let him in at all was the delivery I’d just ordered; I had no choice but to answer.
“Assorted sashimi on a weekday? Living the good life, huh.”
“…….”
The so-called older brother who had barged straight into my house was already sitting on the sofa, devouring the sashimi that had just been delivered.
Talking a lot for someone freeloading.
I hadn’t even said he could eat it. He’d just torn open the chopsticks and started smacking his lips on his own. I wouldn’t claim to be a particularly good person, but the human sitting in front of me was worse than I was.
“My life is my business, so stay out of it. Stop stuffing your face and tell me why, after five years of not knowing if you were dead or alive, you’ve suddenly shown up here.”
“…Tsk. Is that any way to talk to your older brother? A brother can visit his younger brother’s place, you know.”
There was a limit to bullshit. Since when had we been close enough for him to start playing the older brother now? We hadn’t spoken a word while living under the same roof, and we certainly hadn’t for the five years since.
“By the way, how did you even find my address?”
“Asked Hyunsu.”
“Hyunsu? That little shit of a youngest brother?”
“Yeah. Hey, calling your younger brother a ‘little shit’ is a bit much, don’t you think?”
“None of your business.”
Kim Hyunsu, the youngest of the family—like some bratty colt. He was better than the eldest, but in my eyes they were cut from the same cloth.
I never should have let him stay that night.
Right before enlisting he’d whined endlessly about fighting with his girlfriend. I’d still had a shred of last-minute sentiment, so I’d let him crash here. That had clearly come back to bite me.
I told him over and over not to say anything.
That bastard had gone and spilled it after all…. Still, it had only been one meeting out of leftover pity before he shipped out, so maybe it didn’t matter. Besides, I’d been living in this place for nearly five years; I was planning to move somewhere else around next year anyway.
“Oh, and if you moved, you should’ve told your older brother first, huh? This is kind of hurtful.”
“What are you even saying…? Why the hell would I tell you?”
Only a madman would go out of his way to inform someone he’d already cut off almost completely.
That aside…
Who was the woman next to him? Girlfriend? Or…
“Anyway, who’s the person next to you?”
He’d been so focused on eating he’d apparently forgotten. He let out an “Ah” and set down his chopsticks.
“Ah, this is my wife.”
“Ah.”
So he’d somehow managed to get married with that personality. The woman in question hadn’t even greeted me when she came in; she was still staring holes into her phone screen, poking at it without a word.
Birds of a feather, truly.
She’d lost all sense of common decency, just like him. Pretty on the outside, but the type I had zero interest in dealing with, so I simply looked away.
“That aside. You’ve been dodging the question this whole time—how about you finally tell me why you came here? I doubt you showed up just to introduce your wife to someone who didn’t even know you were married.”
“Ahem, ahem. Well, you see…”
And so I heard the reason for their visit. For a second I thought I must have misheard, so I asked again.
“……You want to do what here?”
“Until we can arrange a place of our own, we’d like to stay here.”
“What kind of bullshit is that? Why the hell would you suddenly live in my house?”
“…‘You’? The way you’re talking to your older brother—”
Haa. My mood had already been sour from having to look at that face since daytime. And now he kept harping on the “older brother” crap…?
“Some worthless bastard who doesn’t even act like an older brother keeps calling himself one. Want me to beat you senseless like I did the little shit of a youngest…?”
“…….”
He flinched; clearly he’d heard something from the youngest. Ever since graduating high school I’d kept up my training without fail. Body, mind, and spirit were all incomparably healthier than the old me. When that youngest brat had barged in whining right before enlistment, I’d debated what to do with him. On the day he shipped out I went to the training center, beat him black and blue, and even shaved his head clean. The instructors and the parents of the other recruits standing around weren’t about to just watch, of course. But once they heard my story they simply told me to take it easy and didn’t interfere any further. I hadn’t trained all those years just for something so petty. I’d done it to vent even a fraction of the grudge I’d carried from living like a dog in that house for eighteen years. And it had felt damn good.
As for Kim Taeho…
Doesn’t even seem to take care of his basic health. Probably just sits at a desk all day pounding a keyboard.
Whether the flesh on his fingers wasted away or he developed some syndrome wasn’t my concern…. What mattered right now was something else entirely.
“Haa……. Fine. Putting everything else aside—explain why you want to stay here.”
Kim Taeho, who had been watching my expression carefully, let out a heavy sigh and carefully opened his mouth.