Black History
Late that evening, James and Suji came into Colt’s room. By then, they figured he must have sobered up.
“You’re here?”
“Where’s Hojeong?”
“In bed.”
“……”
When James narrowed his eyes and glared at Colt, Colt exploded in outrage.
“I just put her to sleep!”
“The dog can’t stop pooping.”
“...What is that supposed to mean?”
It was a Korean-style roundabout jab that was hard to make sense of.
“Forget it. Suji’s going to wake Hojeong up. Suji, please.”
“Okay, oppa.”
Suji slipped past the two of them and hurried inside toward the bedroom.
“Hojeong, Hojeong. Wake up.”
“Mmm. When did I ever……”
Hojeong slowly sat up in bed, dragged awake by the hand shaking her shoulder.
“Why did you drink so much?”
“Huh? Ah... Su, Suji?”
Hojeong’s mind was starting to clear, but from a certain point on, her memory came only in scraps.
I got upset at what Colt said and drank...
The words she had thrown around while drinking, cursing Colt under her breath, came back to her. But what happened after that, she couldn’t remember.
“Did I mess up?”
“Probably a little?”
“...You know that answer is even scarier, right? Just tell me straight.”
“You just cried and clung to Colt for a while?”
“Aah!”
Even as Hojeong clutched her own hair in mortification, Suji faithfully repeated the things Hojeong had said.
“You told him not to hate himself...”
“Ughhh.”
“You said not to abandon you... and asked how you weren’t pretty and cute enough...”
“Cough. Choke. Damn it...”
Those were the words Hojeong had sobbed out while Colt carried her on his back.
“C-Colt isn’t here, right? He went somewhere else?”
“...Sorry, but this is Colt’s room.”
“...Ah.”
Hojeong looked as though the world had ended.
“You slept here for quite a while.”
“...Why did you leave me here!”
“Colt is the kind of person you can trust. Well... not as a lover, maybe?”
“Ah, I’m going crazy. Where is he right now? Did he go out?”
“Why? Should I call him?”
“No!!”
But Hojeong’s voice had risen too high, and Colt and James came in from outside.
“...At least you got her dressed properly.”
“I told you nothing happened! How many times do I have to say it? Nothing happened!”
As soon as Colt came in, Hojeong yanked the blanket over her head. She simply couldn’t bear to look him in the face.
“……”
But James interpreted Hojeong’s hiding in a completely different way.
“See that? See that... Colt is Colt for a reason.”
“I told you, that’s not it!”
“You were dead drunk. How could you do that? Even if you used to date, you’re not even lovers anymore...”
“How many times do I have to say it wasn’t that! And I’m taking responsibility!”
“Responsibility? What responsibility?”
“I’m going to take responsibility for Hojeong from now on!”
Slowly, Hojeong lowered the blanket she’d hidden under. Her eyes were wide as they fixed on Colt.
“So... there really is a child?”
“No! I mean Hojeong!”
Colt, who had been pointing at the bed, met Hojeong’s eyes as she stared at him in silence.
“...I mean I’m taking responsibility for you.”
“Co, Colt.”
“...I’m going to try. To be responsible and see someone properly.”
“...Colt.”
“So... give me another chance, Hojeong.”
“I... I……”
Just as Hojeong was about to open her mouth, James cut in.
“Hojeong, don’t trust him. He’s Colt.”
“Hey! You shut up!”
While the two of them bickered, Hojeong threw off the blanket and climbed out of bed, then stood in front of Colt.
“Hojeong......”
Her arm drew a wide arc through the air.
Smack!
After landing a satisfyingly crisp slap, Hojeong grabbed Colt’s collar with trembling fingers. There was so much force in her grip it looked as though she would never let go.
“D-don’t ever do that again...”
“……”
“Don’t ever leave me alone again.”
“……”
“Don’t ever... don’t ever let me... sob...”
“……”
Without a word, Colt pulled Hojeong into his arms. At that, Suji nudged James in the side and gave him a look.
Let’s go.
Yeah.
The two of them quietly slipped away, leaving the room to the pair as their conversation continued. Colt’s words came first, all on his own.
“...I’m sorry.”
“……”
“For leaving you behind... for going off on my own......”
“……”
“I’m sorry. For taking you lightly......”
“……”
“I’m sorry. For not coming to you first......”
“...Hic.”
Colt supported the back of Hojeong’s head and lowered his own. The tear-streaked face of Hojeong, just like before, drew close to Colt’s.
* * *
After leaving Colt’s room, Suji got on the elevator and said, “Hojeong did her best not to show it, but she was having a really hard time. I’m glad Colt changed his mind.”
“...I don’t know whether this is a good thing or not.”
“You don’t trust Colt, oppa?”
“No. I won’t deny that Colt is someone I trust more than anyone else.”
“Then?”
“As a person, he’s very dependable. But when it comes to women... sigh. I’m worried about the future.”
James himself had been the one to suggest a change in Colt’s life, but experience had taught him that people did not change easily. Even if Colt wanted to settle down for now, there was no guarantee his eyes wouldn’t wander the moment another pretty, well-built woman appeared.
“Sometimes you really do worry too much, oppa.”
“Hmm?”
“Hojeong is an adult, and Colt especially is an adult who’s way older than you. Why are you worrying about the future for the two of them? They’ll work it out themselves. I don’t worry that much, and I’m Hojeong’s friend.”
“Heh. Maybe I am a bit old-fashioned?”
“Exactly! That’s it. Sometimes you sound like some ancient grandpa.”
Without realizing it, James had been steeped in the ideas and manner of the teacher everyone hailed as a great sage. That was likely because he had studied the master’s spellbook almost every day without missing one.
“Hohoho. Young and lovely miss, what was that? I’m a little hard of hearing.”
“Stop acting like an old man!”
“Heh heh. Let’s get off.”
The two of them arrived at the bar where Colt and Hojeong had been earlier.
“Do you have a Macallan 30-year?”
Thanks to the years they’d spent living alongside Colt, their taste in liquor had even become similar.
“...We’ve had a lot of people asking for that tonight. We don’t have that vintage, but we do have a bottle of Macallan No. 6 ready for you. It’s the last one we have.”
“Not bad. Make the glasses Glencairn, please.”
This is similar too.
They filled their glasses, clinked them lightly, and toasted the day to their reunion.
“To our meeting again.”
“And to the future we’ll share.”
Clink.
They decided to eat something simple, enjoy the nice atmosphere, and then head their separate ways.
“You said you’ve been staying at home since you arrived, right?”
Suji had to go back home to where she lived with her parents.
“Yeah. I’m thinking of finding a place near the university I’ll be returning to, but it’s not easy.”
“Is there a shortage of rentals in Seoul?”
“There are plenty of studio apartments and regular apartments. It’s just hard to find something that fits my budget.”
To James, money wasn’t the issue.
“Then should I find a place for me to stay in Korea first?”
“Huh? James oppa’s place?”
“A proper detached house near a university district. I think buying would be better than renting.”
“...Do you even know how much a detached house costs in Seoul?”
“Expensive?”
“Probably far beyond what you’re imagining.”
“If it’s a decent two-story house with a modest yard......”
“Wow. It has to have a yard too? And two stories?”
That might be ordinary in the United States, but in Seoul, the capital of Korea, those conditions were unrealistic.
“The yard can be a little small. Korea doesn’t have much land, so I can understand that.”
“...How much are you thinking of spending?”
“Would six hundred thousand dollars be enough?”
Even Colt’s house in Las Vegas had cost about that much.
“Not even close.”
“...Then a million?”
“You could spend more.”
“...Two million?”
“Pfft. You’re underestimating Seoul property prices way too much.”
“...Damn. Then you mean three million dollars?”
“At minimum, it’d be around that much.”
“……”
“If it’s a truly good luxury detached house, ten million dollars isn’t even strange. There are plenty of apartments that get close to ten million, too.”
Seoul had no shortage of apartments worth over ten billion won. Naturally, detached houses there were priced at levels ordinary people couldn’t even imagine.
“With that kind of money, I could buy several houses in the U.S.!”
“The U.S. and Seoul are different. It’s probably closer to New York real estate.”
“……”
Thanks to Suji’s information, James finally understood in full why she had said it was difficult to find a place.
“Wow. That really won’t be easy.”
“Right. No matter how much money you have, getting a house in Seoul......”
But when James said it wouldn’t be easy, he’d been talking about Suji’s side of the housing issue.
“So if I set aside about twenty million dollars, that should be enough, right?”
“……”
I can just put a few gold coins up at a Sotheby’s auction.
He couldn’t easily use the money he’d gotten from robbing the casino, so he planned to sell the inheritance his teacher had left him and buy a house with that.
“If I buy a house, Suji, you can move in there and live with me. There’d be no need for you to find a separate place, and it’d be better, wouldn’t it?”
“...O-oppa. You really have twenty million dollars?”
By the recent exchange rate, that was a fortune well over twenty billion won.
To spend twenty million dollars on a house means...
Reasonable thought followed: he couldn’t possibly be planning to spend all his assets on a house overseas.
His actual assets are more than twenty million dollars...
“Money isn’t the issue. I just thought it’d be better than wasting it on hotel bills.”
“...Who buys a house overseas to save on hotel costs?”
“Me?”
“No matter how rich you are...”
Wait... is this wasting money?
Suji was coming to realize that her lover was a man far beyond common sense. And because of that, she could never think of him buying a house as wasteful.
“……”
If oppa buys a house in Korea, that means...
Suji sometimes forgot that James was American. His fluent Korean made that easy. But James was a foreigner with American citizenship, someone who was always ready to leave for the States whenever he wanted.
It means he plans to stay in Korea longer.
Separate from finding his biological parents, if he stayed in Korea for a long time, then the two of them might be able to look toward a future together. That was what Suji wanted more than anything.
“Why are you thinking so hard?”
“Ah, no. I just thought it was a really, really good idea.”
If he has a house, of course he’ll settle in.
“Really? Then starting tomorrow, we should get ready to look for one.”
“...Yeah. Let’s do that.”
While the two of them were talking, Colt and Hojeong appeared, glued together side by side.
“We meet again here.”
James looked back and forth between Colt’s face and Hojeong’s before asking, “Why are you already down here? I thought it would take a while.”
“What would take a while......”
Colt understood what James was implying and shouted in outrage.
“I told you before, nothing happened. Jim-jim.”
“Oh. So you’ve moved on to platonic love now? Kol-kol?”
“Th-that’s not it either!”
“Heh. Sit down already. And it’s nice to see you too, Hojeong. Finally saying hello?”
“...James. It’s been a while.”
Hojeong couldn’t meet James’s eyes, partly because she had made a drunken fool of herself and partly because of what had just happened.
“I always thought the two of you looked good together. Congratulations.”
“...Thank you, James.”
“Hmph. Earlier you told me not to trust you?”
“That still applies, you know? Kol-kol?”
“What?”
“...Be good from now on. I’ll be watching over you for Hojeong’s sake.”
“……”
Instead of Colt, who looked at James with a sour expression, Hojeong answered brightly.
“Please do, James.”
They had agreed to meet Colt again, but even when Hojeong had been seeing him in the U.S., his eyes had always been roaming over the women around him from time to time. Back then she had brushed it off, thinking they were just casually seeing each other. But now that she knew how deep her own feelings ran, it was something she had to watch closely.
“Of course.”
“W-what kind of watching over are you even talking about......”
“I’ll keep a very close eye on him!”
James simply wanted to help.
I’ve got something to do now.
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