Chapter 20: Hiding in Plain Sight
4: These Aren’t My Clothes
Bright sunlight pours in this morning.
Sparrows sing on the tree outside, and my bed is so warm and cozy…
“Morning. Get up.”
“Ugh, five more minutes.”
A familiar friend’s voice shakes me awake. That friend’s name is Kim Junseo.
… Junseo?
“Junseo?!”
“What?”
“No, uh, nothing.”
I bolt upright, scanning the room. The closet looks like it’s about to burst but is still locked. The clothes I hid elsewhere don’t seem to have been found.
“Phew… Junseo, when’d you get here?”
“Just now.”
Junseo picks up trash from the floor and tosses it in the bin. Beyond him, more garbage is scattered—stuff I forgot to clean while hiding clothes.
“Clean up properly. This place is a pigsty.”
“Technically, it’s an angel sty, right? I’m an angel… Ow!”
“Do some cleaning.”
Junseo’s flick stings my forehead. I rub it soothingly.
Ever since he started refilling my candy basket, Junseo saw the state of my place and began nagging me every morning.
Get out of bed, clean the house… But even if I don’t, he does it for me. So convenient, hehe.
Junseo heads to the empty candy basket in the corner, pulling candies from his pocket to fill it. I hope he slips an extra one in, but he’s precise—exactly five.
Bummer.
“You brushing your teeth properly?”
“What do you take me for? I brush morning, noon, and night.”
“Sure, sure.”
Junseo heads to the sink and calls out.
“You didn’t do the dishes either. Wash them on time. You’ll get bugs, and it smells.”
He nags but starts washing them himself. Honestly, maybe I don’t need to do chores. Junseo does it all.
I’m getting lazier, and it’s totally his fault. Kids get spoiled when you do everything for them. Same with me.
…
Clink clink.
Junseo finishes the dishes, shakes his hands dry, and heads to the fridge. I bet he’ll say the same thing as last time.
Something about expired food in the fridge?
“Anything expired in the fridge?”
Yup.
I giggle at his predictability.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
He rummages through the fridge and pulls something out.
“This tofu’s about to expire. Better use it soon.”
It’s tofu I bought and forgot about, buried in the back. How’d he find it?
“You haven’t just been eating ramen, right?”
“Nope. I had soy sauce egg rice yesterday.”
“Good. Don’t skip breakfast by lazing around. Eat properly, got it?”
“Yessir, yessir.”
“And the laundry… ugh, don’t let it pile up like that. Wash it on time.”
He points at the mountain of laundry in the basket. Why do I hear Mom’s nagging? Am I hallucinating?
“You haven’t eaten breakfast yet, right? Let’s see… I could make kimchi jjigae. Want some?”
“Ooh, kimchi jjigae sounds great.”
Junseo even cooks for me. How easy is this? I lounge in bed, basking in sunlight, while he handles food and cleaning.
As I savor the blanket’s coziness, Junseo grabs a pot from the cabinet…
The cabinet?
“Wait!”
“What?”
“Uh, um…”
I hid clothes in there yesterday. They’re deep inside, so they shouldn’t be obvious, but what if he sees them?
“If it’s nothing, I’m opening it.”
“Uh, yeah…”
I can’t think of an excuse, so I sit there, hoping he doesn’t notice.
Creak…
The cabinet opens. Junseo peers inside, pauses…
Did he see?
Did he not?
My heart races. All my attention’s on him. He stares into the cabinet.
Creak, thud.
He pulls out a pot without a word. No sign he saw the clothes.
He didn’t see, right? Really?
He starts filling the pot with water for kimchi jjigae. Doesn’t look like he noticed… probably.
Phew. Thank goodness.
He seemed to stare a bit long, but maybe he was just looking for the pot. If he didn’t see, it’s fine. Yup.
…
Bubbling.
The pot simmers, the delicious aroma of kimchi jjigae filling the air. He cubes the tofu and chops green onions that appeared from somewhere.
We had green onions? I eat ramen so much I didn’t know. Junseo knows my fridge better than I do.
He’s weirdly good at cooking. I want to ask for pork, but sadly, there’s none. Even I know that much about my fridge.
Watching his back as he cooks, I think whoever marries Junseo will have it easy.
A guy who cooks well is popular.
Sunlight streams through the window, melting my body. My mood floats. I burrow into the blankets like a caterpillar.
Perfect.
…
…
…
“Get up!”
“Eek!”
A dull pain hits my head. I wipe drool from my mouth and see the kimchi jjigae already on the table.
“You fell asleep already? It didn’t even take that long.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was zoning out.”
“With drool?”
“….”
I wasn’t sleeping, I swear. The sunlight felt so good I zoned out, not slept. But he won’t buy it, so I shut up and head to the table.
My head hurts from the flick. I rub it.
Sitting at the table, I look down at the vibrant red kimchi jjigae. Its rich, spicy aroma wafts up.
Did he really make this from what was in my fridge? Add some meat, and it could pass for restaurant food.
I scoop a spoonful and slurp.
“Delish!”
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth. Swallow first.”
“Hehe.”
More nagging. Is Mom secretly feeding him lines through an earpiece? I stare at his ear.
Stare—
“What’re you looking at?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
I turn back to the jjigae, scooping a square of tofu onto my rice. The white rice slowly turns red. I take a big bite with the tofu.
Nom nom.
“Delish!”
“Swallow before talking.”
“You going to the PC café today?”
“Yup. Nothing else to do.”
“Cool. I’ll let the others know.”
“Okay.”
Junseo finishes the dishes and gets ready to leave. Even at the door, he keeps nagging.
“Take out the trash on time, don’t skip the dishes.”
“Yup.”
“Brush your teeth, don’t eat too many sweets.”
“Yup yup.”
“Clean the house, and get up properly in the morning.”
“Yup yup yup.”
Wait a sec.
“I do get up in the morning.”
“You just roll around in bed for hours. That’s not getting up.”
“It’s the sunlight—it’s too nice, I can’t help it. It’s irresist— Ow!”
“Stop with the ‘irresistible’ excuse. You said you can control instincts.”
He hit the same spot. It hurts twice as much!
Am I going to turn into an idiot from all these flicks? I glare at him, but he just chuckles.
“Anyway, I’m heading out.”
“See ya.”
Click.*
The door shuts, and the once-noisy apartment goes quiet.
Phew.
He didn’t see the clothes! Thank goodness!
“Hehe.”
I should move the cabinet clothes somewhere else. That was too close.
I toddle to the cabinet and open it. Too short to reach the clothes in the back, I drag a chair over and climb up.
“Here they… huh?”
The clothes in the corner look different from how I left them. Like someone touched them…
…
They weren’t found, right?