Is It Really His Birthday?
"Bihyuk. Do you, by any chance, remember An-gae?"
It had been a very long time since I'd told Noh Bihyuk about An-gae.
I half wondered if he might have forgotten.
"Yep. Your childhood friend, right?"
The answer came back instantly, the moment the words left my mouth.
"The kid you met before entering the orphanage—the one who wished you happy birthday at the awards ceremony a while back?"
"……"
He remembered way too well.
Before I could even say anything, Noh Bihyuk grumbled.
"Man, honestly, I was a little hurt you didn't mention me in your acceptance speech yesterday. Of course, I get it, considering what happened the day before. That's why I didn't say anything."
"You're saying it right now."
"Oh, shut up. What did you tell me before? That when I debut, you'd wish me happy birthday too."
The complaint was so absurd I could only stare.
"Your birthday was two months before that…."
"Still."
Still what, you idiot.
I smacked his pouting lips.
"Ow!"
"That's because I wanted it to hurt."
Noh Bihyuk grumbled, but he must have figured I'd hit him again, because he covered his mouth with his hand.
'This is not the mood I imagined.'
Where had things gone wrong?
I was holding my aching head when he asked, "So why are you bringing him up? You said you two weren't in contact. Don't tell me he reached out?"
"Well, about that."
"Don't tell me he asked to borrow money? You haven't already lent it, have you? If you did, you're really—no, wait, give me his number. I'll call him myself."
"Let me talk, please."
For some reason, Noh Bihyuk had gotten completely worked up, so I hurriedly grabbed his shoulders.
Then I got straight to the point.
"Bihyuk. An-gae isn't a person."
"Huh?"
"He's supposedly a youkai—though I don't know if he's the kind we'd recognize. Anyway, he's not human like us. When I fall asleep, I can see him."
"……Huh?"
He looked like he'd been struck by something.
I recited the words I'd prepared for him.
Everything from the day I first met An-gae—the misfortune factors, the black stone, the fact that I could disrupt the misfortune factors through acting.
I rattled it all off without pausing for breath, then took a short, deep breath.
"Did you understand that?"
"Huh? Uh, um…."
Noh Bihyuk looked, to anyone watching, like a man who understood absolutely nothing.
I swallowed a sigh as I watched his dazed face.
'He'll need time to think.'
I should give him space to process what he'd just heard. For now, I should stay quiet and—
"Bihyuk, I know this sounds insane."
The anxious words burst out of me before I could stop them.
'How am I supposed to sit still through this?'
Just imagining him treating me like a madman made my breath come faster.
"I really didn't want to tell you, because I hated the thought of you thinking I'd lost my mind. If it were up to me, I'd have taken it to my grave."
But I told him that I'd needed An-gae's help to find where Han Haram had been taken, and that I'd had no choice but to reveal An-gae's existence to Jinbae and Junghyun.
"I'm going to explain everything properly to them tonight. I called you first because I wanted to tell you before that. I promised, remember? That you'd be the first to know if I could ever talk about it."
"Ah, uh. Back then…. right, I did…."
Noh Bihyuk nodded, still looking dazed.
Then came a suffocating silence.
"……"
"……"
Maybe I was too tense.
A ringing hum started up at the edge of my ears. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in the roof of my mouth.
'What if it just bursts right out of my chest?'
I imagined catching the escaped heart and stuffing it back into my mouth.
No need to panic. Just put it back where it belongs.
I was right in the middle of picturing my hand clutching that slick, sticky heart, soaked in red blood—
"Lee Yeonjae."
Noh Bihyuk finally spoke.
I lifted my blank face, and there were his thick eyebrows. He was wearing a remarkably composed expression.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"There's something I don't get, if what you're saying is true."
"Yeah. What is it?"
I swallowed hard.
He asked, perfectly calm:
"Is his birthday his real birthday?"
"……What?"
Birthday?
For a moment, the tension drained right out of my clenched fists.
"You said he's not human, he's a youkai. He doesn't even know how he came into being. So how did you figure out his birthday?"
"He said he wanted it to be the day we first met…. But does that matter?"
"Of course it matters."
Oh, it does, does it?
Now it was my turn to be dumbfounded.
Noh Bihyuk pressed on, still dead serious.
"Then what exactly is your relationship with him? Are you friends?"
"Um…. I guess?"
"What do you mean, 'I guess'? You told me I was your best friend."
The question of who I was closer to—An-gae or him—left me blank for a moment. When I didn't answer, those thick eyebrows twitched.
"Why aren't you answering? Are you stalling for time?"
"No, Bihyuk. You're asking *that*? You believe all of this?"
"Was it a lie?"
"No, it's not that…."
"Then answer the question. Who's your best friend? If someone asks, what are you going to say?"
I floundered like a man who could only say 'no' for a very long time.
'No, wait.'
Wasn't *he* the weird one here?
Who was being strange right now—him, or me?
I was thoroughly confused.
"If you keep dodging the question, I—"
"I'm not dodging, so calm down. I told you before. My best friend is you. That was after I met An-gae, too."
"Ahem."
At my words, Noh Bihyuk put on a satisfied expression.
Even after that, he kept asking pointless questions.
"Is he a girl or a boy?"
"He's neither. An-gae is… just An-gae."
"But you said he talks to you in human form. Does he have a fixed appearance?"
"It changes every time. He shows up however he feels like."
When I told him that back when I was just getting to know him, An-gae had appeared as *him* day and night and it had been exhausting, Noh Bihyuk burst out laughing.
"Haha! Seriously?"
"Yeah. It felt like being stared at by you for twenty-four hours straight."
"Aw, I like that kid. Can't I meet him?"
"Hmm… probably not."
"Tch, what a shame."
Noh Bihyuk's tone was so light.
Which made it all the stranger.
'Is this okay?'
Was this how it was supposed to go?
The conversation was far more comfortable and cozy than I'd expected. At some point, I realized my body had gone slack without my noticing.
"……Bihyuk, do you really believe me? Isn't this weird?"
"It's weird. But you've always been weird, so it's fine."
This little punk.
I shot him a sideways glare, and heard him snickering.
"Look, it's not like you're the type to pull this kind of prank. And you said it's not a lie. Whether it's actually true or just something you imagined—I'll probably never know for the rest of my life."
"Yeah. That's what scares me."
That you might think I'm insane.
When I admitted it honestly, he laughed.
"Hey, well, I'm no doctor. That, uh, what's it called—there's that illness where you hear voices, see things that aren't there. Even talk to yourself."
"Schizophrenia?"
"Yeah, that. I did worry it might be something like that, but it's not like you *don't* go to the hospital…. The doctors will sort that part out, I figure."
He shook his head, saying he was hopeless when it came to medicine himself.
His reaction was so breezy that the tension drained out of me too.
"You said this was the first time you'd told anyone?"
"Yeah."
Noh Bihyuk studied me quietly, then raised his hand.
"Then you must have been terrified, telling me."
"……"
"You must have been suffocating all this time. Not being able to tell a soul. I'd have been scared out of my mind—weren't you scared?"
The finger poking at my cheek carried none of his usual mischief—only tenderness.
It felt unfamiliar.
Noh Bihyuk seemed awkward with it too, poking a few times before stopping.
"……It was scary."
I ignored my stinging eyes and wrinkled my nose for no reason.
"I really thought I'd finally gone crazy."
"Yep. I can totally picture how shocked you must have been. Ah, now it makes sense. *That's* why you were such a hedgehog about everything."
"That damn hedgehog thing. Aren't you sick of it?"
I chided him for running the joke into the ground, but honestly, I was grateful.
I'd braced myself to be told I needed a psychiatric ward.
We chattered on for a long while after that.
Long enough that I lost all track of time.
"Ah, your manager hyung texted. He says come down."
"Already?"
I hadn't realized two hours could pass that quickly. Pressing down the reluctance, I got up from the bed.
Noh Bihyuk pulled the cap he'd left on the desk down hard over his head, then hesitated a moment.
"Lee Yeonjae."
"Yeah."
"You don't have to be so nervous."
"……"
The sudden words left me speechless.
"You know how they are. Even if they can't believe what you're telling them, it won't be because they don't trust *you*. Everyone has different values—that's all it is."
"Yeah. I know."
"And I'll be by your side whenever I can."
Saying that, he scratched the back of his neck, grumbling that it just had to be group practice today, so he couldn't get out of it.
"Hey, if it gets too hard partway through, call me. I can just say I'm going to the bathroom."
"Got it. Your manager hyung's going to be calling you any second. Go."
"I mean it, so don't suffer alone—call me."
"I said I got it."
I pushed him toward the door and opened it.
"Yeonjae!"
The moment I did, Han Haram, who'd been sitting on the sofa, came running straight over.
"I waited nicely! I even did my homework with Jinbae hyung!"
"Good job."
As I patted Han Haram's head, Noh Bihyuk, who was putting on his shoes at the entryway, looked exasperated.
"Hey, little Lee Yeonjae. Can't you see your hyung leaving? Where's my goodbye?"
"……Bye, hyung."
Han Haram answered with a sulky face.
When Noh Bihyuk and I had gone into the room earlier, Han Haram had thrown a fit, demanding to know who that hyung thought he was, hogging Yeonjae for two whole hours.
Noh Bihyuk, asking if he was jealous, had spent ages teasing the kid at the door.
And it looked like the grudge was still simmering.
"Can't hear you? Gotta speak up."
"Bihyuk, just go. Your manager hyung's waiting."
I shot a look at the snickering Noh Bihyuk.
"Ugh, you spoil this brat rotten. I can't stand it, I'm leaving. Jinbae hyung, I'm off!"
Noh Bihyuk flung the front door open.
Just before it closed, he hurriedly waved his phone at me.
'Call me!'
He mouthed the words, and the door shut.
I stared at the closed door for a moment.
"Yeonjae, that hyung is weird. Are you two really close?"
Han Haram grumbled, his face full of complaint.
I couldn't hold back the laugh that escaped me.
"Yeah. We're really close."
"Ugh… well, I guess I can't help it then."
"Haha!"
Han Haram's dejected little sigh finally set the laughter loose.
I added one more thing, a smile spreading across my face.
That he was my best friend.
* * *
Night fell before I knew it.
After putting Han Haram to sleep in my bed, I came out to the living room.
Junghyun had just finished his schedule and arrived, so the three of us sat together on the sofa—me, Jinbae, and him.
"I first met An-gae when I was in fifth grade."
Talking to the two of them was far easier than talking to Noh Bihyuk had been.
After all, An-gae was the reason we'd managed to find the address where Han Haram had been held.
I knew that from their standpoint, this wasn't something they could simply dismiss as nonsense.
"I even searched through books wondering if I had some kind of condition, but I've never experienced hallucinations or heard voices in daily life."
I laid out the words I'd prepared, one by one.
That most of my hyperventilation episodes had been tied to things involving An-gae, which was exactly what had made them so hard to explain.
That ever since I'd kept my promise to a certain being not to ask any more questions, there hadn't been a single day I couldn't see An-gae.
With that, silence settled over us.
"Please, ask me anything. I'll answer everything."
They were older than me and Noh Bihyuk.
Which meant they'd seen more, learned more, over the years.
Even so, I steeled myself to answer as smoothly and completely as I could, so that even they would be fully convinced.
But what came back wasn't a word, or a question—it was an action.
"……What are you doing?"
"What does it look like? I'm telling you to sit on my lap."
Junghyun patted his own thigh again.
"No, I know *that*. I mean, why would you do that to *me*…."
What am I, Han Haram?
The sheer absurdity I couldn't hide bled into my voice.
Junghyun, undeterred, repeated the gesture.
"Come here already. I want to hold you."
I hesitated, then moved to sit beside him.
I did not, of course, sit on his lap.
'Like my knees wouldn't shatter.'
He must not have seriously expected me to sit on his lap either, because he simply reached out and pulled me into an embrace.
"Yeonjae. Thank you for telling me."
"Thank you, sunbaenim."
A large, familiar hand settled onto my back, held in Junghyun's arms.
I stared blankly into the distance, and only after a long while did I let myself relax.
'……How strange.'
Everything surrounding me now had become familiar.
The living room lamp with its single bulb lit, the cologne Junghyun always wore, the soft yet firm sofa, even Jinbae's hand, always warm.
'How strange.'
And yet it could all feel this unfamiliar.
That was why it felt odd—and why it felt wondrous.