Chapter 19

Even though Sungmin told me not to feel special, it was hard not to when I woke up in her bed the next morning. Seol-hee was still asleep. Even in sleep she still had an effortless youthful beauty as she laid there tangled in the sheets with her hair splayed across the pillow.

We hadn’t ended up going back to the hangout after our drive. After our first roadside… stop… I had offered to drive Seolhee back to her place. Once there, she had pulled me out of the car and up into her apartment.

I traced a finger along her slender neck and down over her collarbone while admiring her pale, perfect skin. I laid a gentle kiss on the peak of her shoulder. She made a little sound but neither of my touches seemed to rouse her otherwise.

I got up slowly out of the bed and decided I’d take another shower while she woke up. We’d taken one last night but… I definitely wanted another after the rest of the night’s activities.

Even after I had finished and emerged from the bathroom smelling like women’s shampoo, Seol-hee was still asleep. I sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned over her. “Seol-hee,” I called. “Do you want to wake up?”

She stirred and tried to open her eyes. “What time is it?” Seol-hee mumbled miserably. I felt my heart flutter with affection for sleepy Seol-hee. There was something endearingly sweet about how she was struggling to wake up.

“It’s 8:30.” I moved a strand of hair out of her face.

“8:30?!” she groaned. “Why are you awake?” She snuggled down into the sheets some more.

The confident Jae of last night had disappeared. I felt awkward and unsure of what to do next. I was accustomed to waking early every day, even though the last few days I’d been sleeping quite late. Seol-hee had kept us up into the early morning hours, but I felt wakeful despite the short sleep. Seol-hee probably needed a little more sleep. I had no idea when Seol-hee would wake up, and whether I should just stick around until then.

“Um. Do you want me to make breakfast so you can sleep a little more?” I asked tentatively.

“No,” she said, muffled under the covers. “Just go away.”

I didn’t know if she wanted me to go away from her room as she slept, or just straight up leave her apartment, so I just sat there in quiet indecision. Fortunately a minute or two later, Seol-hee peeked out of the covers.

“Wait, Jae, come here,” she murmured. I eagerly leaned in.

Her long, dark lashes fluttered delicately as she slightly opened her eyes. She slung an arm around my neck, and used that to sit up slightly so that she could give me a quick and soft kiss. It was light and sweet, contrasting the intense, sometimes messy kisses we had shared last night.

I had thought she was waking up, but Seol-hee immediately slid off of me limply. “Ok, you can go home now,” she muttered as she pulled her covers around her again.

Despite the order, I was still baffled at her abrupt dismissal. I continued to sit there dumbly, and just looked around her room. It was pretty femininely decorated with Tiffany blue and white furniture. There were some framed minimalist prints and printed photos on the wall, but what interested me was a little grouping of idol postcards pasted up by the bedhead. I wasn’t really familiar with idol groups, but it was interesting to me that Seol-hee was. I wonder how many of them she’d met.

“Are you still here? Just gooo!” From under the sheets, Seol-hee pushed against me like she was trying to push me off the bed. That was a pretty clear message. I got up and left.

I was still feeling odd at just leaving after having spent the night together. I nervously wondered if I had done the wrong thing in just disappearing before Seol-hee was awake as I drove back to the Blue Tiger’s hangout to park my car there for the day. I had never had a relationship before, and didn’t know if this was standard procedure or not. It certainly didn’t feel right.

I ascended the stairs to the hangout and discovered to my surprise that Choi Eunsoo and Sato Ryusuke were slumped unconsciously on the couch. From the bottles on the coffee table I deduced that they must be sleeping off last night’s drinks. Despite the camaraderie we had somewhat built last night, I definitely felt like I was intruding again as they slept peacefully.

I awkwardly set about cleaning up all the bottles. Eunsoo and Ryusuke slept right through the loud clanks of the glass bottles crashing together into the plastic trash bag. There was an absurd amount of bottles. I had to get a second bag. Sungmin, Sunhee and Hoojin had probably helped these two with the amount, but even then, it was a lot. They must have entirely cleared out the fridge, and probably some more.

I didn’t want to wander around on the streets where either Taejoon’s narcs or Jungho’s goons could find me, but neither did I want to just sit here and watch these guys sleep. Now that I had some money again, I could buy some stuff. I left to go get some food.

I was pleased to discover a seolleongtang hole-in-the-wall nearby. The best case scenario was that they would be awake and gone by the time I had returned, but I still bought enough for Eunsoo and Ryusuke. They were sure to be hungover, and seolleongtang was a favorite hangover cure. If they were gone… well, the fridge definitely had room to store food now.

They hadn’t moved an inch in the time that I had been gone. I set the takeaway containers on the freshly cleared coffee table. Even though I didn’t usually eat breakfast, for some reason I was absolutely starving.

The smell of seolleongtang didn’t rouse them either. I finished my portion and just looked at them dumbly, not knowing what to do now. It was well past 11AM now. I remembered my favorite Taejun waking strategy. I turned the TV on.

“Ryusuke, turn it off,” Eunsoo groaned. Got one.

“I didn’t turn it on,” Ryusuke groaned back. Got two.

Ryusuke continued to determinedly lay face down despite the TV’s noise, but Eunsoo was a little less tolerant. He sat up stiffly and grumbled himself awake. “Who the hell–”

“Morning,” I said.

Eunsoo blinked blearily at me until he recognized me through his half sleepy eyes. “Oh, hey Jaehyun.” Ryusuke, still face down, raised a hand weakly at me. Eunsoo stood and stretched out his back with a grumpy groan, then stumbled off to the bathroom.

He was back a few minutes later, somewhat more awake now. “Hey, you cleaned up,” he noticed.

“Yeah. And I got seolleongtang. It’s on the table if you want it.” The mention of food got Ryusuke’s attention. He raised his head finally.

Eunsoo grinned. “You’re a goddamn legend.” He sat down and eagerly helped himself to a container. He cracked it open and inhaled its fragrance with an exaggerated sniff. The aroma gave Ryusuke the last push he needed to get off the couch as well.

“It might be a bit cold now,” I said. “Want me to heat it up?”

Eunsoo and Ryusuke had already started. I guess not. I watched the TV (it was playing some old movie) while they ate.

“You guys don’t work on Mondays?” I asked.

“Nope,” said Eunsoo.

“I technically work from home,” Ryusuke said. And yet he was neither working, nor was he at home.

“What do you do?” I asked.

“Freelance programming,” Ryusuke said. “When I can be assed.”

“And why don’t you work?” I asked Eunsoo.

“I sold an app I made. I’m set for life,” Eunsoo grinned smugly. “Ryu here wishes he could do the same.”

“No I don’t,” Ryusuke grumped. “I’m already set for life.”

“When your dad dies maybe. Until then it's the daily grind for you.”

“You guys are both programmers?” I said with a bit of astonishment. They didn’t really fit my idea of programmers, who were small and nerdy. Well, Ryusuke was kind of small.

“Uh huh.”

“Are Sungmin and Hoojin programmers too?”

Eunsoo guffawed. “Do they look like programmers to you?” To be honest, they looked just like Eunsoo and Ryusuke to me. There must be some sort of secret identifier that I couldn’t see.

“Then what do they do?” I asked curiously.

Ryusuke and Eunsoo exchanged a look.

“Ask them yourself,” Ryusuke said, finally.

I didn’t understand why they didn’t just tell me if they knew. But I didn’t push the issue. Now that I knew they were both computer guys, I had one burning question I had to ask.

“Do you guys understand crypto?”

They both burst into laughter. I watched them in mild annoyment. Eunsoo rubbed his eyes. “Ryu and I used to work together on my AMM. Yeah. We understand crypto.”

“Ok well, I don’t. Explain it to me?”

Despite their animated explanation, they continued to hurl term after term that I had to ask them to backtrack to explain. They did so happily, but that just produced even more terms, until I was just completely lost in it all. Ryusuke was beaming so happily at me, proud of his tutelage. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I hadn’t come out of the lesson any closer to understanding how it worked as a currency at all, just that it did. But I was intrigued by one thing that Eunsoo had said.

It could be completely anonymous.

I could apparently move and transfer cryptocurrency online freely without revealing who I was. Even though the transfer of crypto was trackable, the user transferring it could remain anonymous. If I transferred it through several addresses, I could further scatter my anonymous trail.

“But then how do I use the crypto?” I asked. This imaginary money thing was getting more and more interesting by the minute.

“You can use an exchange firm to hold your digital wallet,” Eunsoo said. “They can issue you a cryptocurrency debit card that you can use anywhere. They handle the conversion of crypto to cash behind the scenes so you don’t have to.”

That was brilliant news. I could have all my money safely online, untraceable to me. I doubted Taejun had any authority to touch the blockchain. “Could you help me set up with everything?”

Ryusuke jumped at the task.

“I sent your Huobi info to LC. He still needs to pay you for last night’s pot,” said Ryusuke. “Oh sheesh, he moves quick. He’s sent it already.”

With the handy UI of the exchange firm, I could see that the crypto Le Creseut had sent was roughly equal to 2.5 million won. The pot yesterday must have been a lot smaller than the first. But I had a whole new car out of it, so ultimately last night had still been more worthwhile.

“I don’t know how you live without a phone, but you need to get a computer at least to manage all this,” Eunsoo commented.

“Can you be tracked with a computer?” I asked.

Eunsoo and Ryusuke exchanged glances again. “Are you actually hiding from the feds?” Eunsoo asked with a chuckle.

“Yeah, you can be tracked. But there’s ways to get around it.” Ryusuke actually answered the question.

“If I get a computer, could you guys teach me how to do that?” I asked.

“Does calling malloc return a pointer of type void?” asked Eunsoo.

“What the hell does that even mean,” I groaned in exasperation.

“Yes,” Eunsoo grinned gleefully.

“Are you trying to antagonize me?” I fumed.

“Do vectors– aigu, fuck!”

Ryusuke went with me to an electronic mall to help me pick out a basic laptop while Eunsoo elected to stay at the hangout to play video games. As we waited for the shop to finish out the receipt, Ryusuke nudged me and pointed to an old-looking phone on display.

“Want a burner phone while you’re here?” he grinned, probably intending it as a joke.

“What’s a burner phone?” I asked. “Is it untraceable?”

“Somewhat. The SIM has to communicate with cell towers, so it’ll know your general area. But as long as the phone doesn’t have GPS, you can’t be pinpointed,” he explained. “Why are you so obsessed with being untrackable?”

I ignored his question and instead asked the salesperson to help me get set up with a phone.

Ryusuke just looked on dumbfoundedly. “I’m starting to think you might be a serial killer,” he said.

I watched Ryusuke help me set up my computer. Eunsoo continued to play games on the TV. I glanced over occasionally. Was this really what he did all day? I couldn’t believe he was in his mid twenties and already retired. I should have learned how to program.

“Hey,” Eunsoo said suddenly. I wondered if he had noticed me looking on jealously. “Did you get it with Seol-hee last night?”

I felt my face flood with heat. Eunsoo craned his neck to look at me, then smirked. “Sungmin was right. Anytime you’re quiet the answer is usually yes.”

“You’d think she learned her lesson after Hoojin,” Ryusuke remarked, still typing away.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Casually screwing teammates she doesn’t intend to get with,” Eunsoo answered. “She did it to Hoojin, and now he’s down bad.”

Even though there had been warning signs that she was a player, and that Sungmin had somewhat warned me, it still hurt to hear that she didn’t intend to be serious with me. It was hard to reconcile that with my heart, which had hoped futilely that she’d be different with me. I’m pretty sure she knew she had been my first, after all.

“Do you like her?” Ryusuke asked. Both he and Eunsoo looked at me. They read my face instantly.

“Shiiiit,” Eunsoo whistled.

I tipped my gaze to the floor, feeling upset and embarrassed at the same time. “Does she do this a lot?”

“All the time,” confirmed Ryusuke. “I think you should try to do your best to get over her.”

“Did she try it with you guys as well?” Even though this entire conversation was sending me into a pit of despair, I just had to know it all.

“I passed,” Ryusuke said.

“I don’t swing that way,” Eunsoo grinned. I was too glum to even be surprised.

“What about Sungmin?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” chortled Eunsoo. “In fact, she’s in love with Sungmin.”