I didn't have Taejun's number saved into my new phone of course. But I'd always been good at remembering phone numbers. Last night I was too drunk to figure out my own phone, and had decided to text Seol-hee by typing in her phone number. Seol-hee and Taejun's numbers had the same first three numbers, and I guess I must have automatically finished it out with Taejun's.
[ im sorry ]
[ where r u? can we talk pls ]
That was what I had sent to 'Seol-hee' at 3:45 AM. I swallowed nervously as I read the return messages again.
[ Who is this? ]
I hadn't replied, because I was busy sleeping off last night's adventure. But Taejun must have figured out who it was without my reply, because he had texted again a few hours later.
[ I'm sorry as well.]
[ I want to talk too. Let's meet up. ]
"Must have been bad," commented Eunsoo. Both he and Ryusuke were watching my expression.
As I stared down into the screen, wondering what to do, it started to ring. Eunsoo sprang up to see if it was Seol-hee, but the caller ID didn't say her name, so he sat back down, disappointed.
"Not her," he said sadly.
"Who is it?" Ryu asked.
"It's Taejun-hyung," I said weakly. Both of their eyes went round like two owls.
"Pick it up," Ryu said. If he wasn't there and if he hadn't said that, I wouldn't have.
A moment before it went to voicemail, I did. I scrambled out of my chair, and out onto the balcony, abandoning my meal and my friends.
We were both silent on either end of the phone for a minute.
"Jaehyun-a… is that you?" Taejun said finally.
His voice sounded so earnest and desperate that I couldn't hang up or pretend it wasn't me.
"Yeah," I said. I was hit with a sense of deja vu to the first time I had called him from Busan. Even though it had technically only been four days since I had last seen him, the distance between us felt just as significant as it had been on that day, when we hadn't spoken in years.
I could hear Taejun letting out a shaky sigh from the other end. I didn't know what emotion it was. "I'm glad you reached out," he said finally. "But… is everything alright?"
"Yeah," I said again, half-assedly. It seemed wrong to admit to him now that I had texted him by accident.
"Thank god," he breathed. "I saw that the stream's holding a tournament. I thought you might have…" He didn't finish, but I could come up with a few ideas of things that might have spooked him.
"It's nothing like that… I just. I got a little drunk and texted you," I admitted. There was something about talking to Taejun that always made me feel like confessing the truth.
"Jae! You're underage," Taejun admonished. But then he changed his tone quickly. "Never mind, everyone does it. Jaehyun-a, I just… I want to talk face to face. Are you free today?"
When I had told him off on Saturday, I truly wanted nothing more to do with him then. But almost immediately, I had regretted it. It wasn't that easy to just cut off family. Or at least, someone who was so important to you in your life. "I'm free," I said.
"I'll clear my schedule. Let's meet up."
---------------
I could tell Ryu and Eunsoo were concerned about how the call went, and they were even more surprised to find out that I was going to go out and speak to Taejun. Taejun really hadn't wasted any time. Instead of asking us to meet for dinner, he had requested we meet at a local cafe in half an hour. Maybe he was afraid I'd change my mind and flake on him.
Eunsoo had shoved a change of clothes at me before I left.
"He may be your brother, but he's still your narc brother. And your clothes smell like, well…"
Like marijiuana. Which was very much illegal in South Korea. It was a good thing I had friends. I would have never thought of it.
Even though I had arrived at the cafe earlier, clearly Taejun was even more anxious than me, because he had arrived even earlier. I was relieved to see he was without that long black coat that gave him such an oppressive silhouette. The moment I walked in the door, he got up.
Before I could greet him, he had pulled me into a tight hug, like I was still a kid. "Hyung-!" I choked out in surprise.
I felt him tremble a little. "You have no idea how happy I am that you still call me that," Taejun said shakily. Finally he let me go and ushered me over to his table.
Taejun had chosen a good spot to talk. The cafe was large enough so that each table had a pretty good bubble of privacy, and there were enough people in it so that there was a mild hum of background conversations that kept all but the most purposeful of eavesdroppers from hearing private conversations.
"Do you want something to drink?" Taejun already had one, so I didn't feel the need to buy another for the 'table fee'. I shook my head.
"I'm sorry," I blurted out, though I had been holding it back for a while. "I didn't mean…" I had meant it at the time, so I changed direction. "I shouldn't have said what I did."
My sudden apology seemed to surprise Taejun. He didn't say anything at first, so I just started jumping over my words in a panic. "I shouldn't have that you don't have any right to be in my life, that's not true. I was just so angry, and I wanted to say something to hurt you to make you go away-"
"You were right though." He interrupted. "I left first. And… I left you behind." Taejun seemed to be struggling to speak, as though he had to forcibly pull every word out of himself. "It was… It always will be… the greatest mistake of my life. And then what I did afterwards… that was even less forgivable. It was idiotic of me to… to try to cut my family out of my life."
That was a wound that had never healed right, on both of us. But having done the same when I had my chance, I knew why he had done it. That knowledge didn't make it hurt any less, but at least I understood him now.
"I know how you felt now," Taejun continued. "I was so angry and hurt when you disappeared."
Now we had both tried to live without the other. But it wasn't anywhere close to equal. I'd only managed seven days. He had disappeared for seven years. Whatever hurt Taejun had felt I had suffered for so much longer.
But Taejun seemed to be aware of that. "The only reason I could find you was because I had the resources to do so. If I didn't…"
As much as I was enjoying my current life, I wasn't sure if I could have gone no contact for years like he had.
I cut that bitter thought off as soon as it rose up. I was supposed to be working towards reconciliation.
"I'm sorry," Taejun said again. "I don't know if you can ever completely forgive me, but I hope you can someday."
As much as I wanted to, that day still wasn't today. But my heart was soothed considerably by the apology and the new understanding we had reached. "I… want to," I admitted.
Eunsoo's cheekiness must have been rubbing off on me, because I added, "But you still owe me an apology for something else."
Taejun looked at me in alarm. I pointed to my arm.
He choked out a laugh that sounded a bit like a sob. "I'm sorry I threatened to cuff you," he said. "And that I tried to drag you off by force."
"What about half twisting my arm off?!"
"That too." Taejun eyed it. "How is it? It's not still sore, is it? It shouldn't be, but-"
"Nah. It's not."
He continued anyway. "It was wrong of me to use that much force on you. When I found out that you were at the street racing meet, I was in a frenzy. I was so sure you were about to fall in with a gang, or start some illegal stuff. All I could think about was getting you out of there as fast as possible, even if I had to haul you out of there."
"Hyung! It's not that bad. We mostly just go there to talk about cars. And most of them don't race. They're not even gangsters, just young people."
"Yeah. I see that now. I've been following that guy's stream. It is mostly talk. It's a bit crazy how many people watch that."
I couldn't even begin to explain the levels of obsession car fanatics went to. LC's stream was probably the best and biggest of its kind in Korea.
"But if you don't have a car, what are you doing there? Are you a mechanic for a team?"
The hope in Taejun's eyes was a bit hilarious. Maybe I should have lied and said I was.
Don't tell any more lies to your brother, a voice in my head urged.
"Um… actually I do have a car," I said sheepishly.
"What? How?" Taejun looked at me suspiciously.
"I … won it? … in a race?" I said each word tentatively, watching Taejun. As expected, I could see a hundred kilograms of stress landing on him with every word.
"But you didn't have a car to race with?!"
"I uh… borrowed one…" I ended up explaining how I had won my Nissan Z using Ryusuke's Tsunami in a drag race. I talked about the Tigers, and how I had become good friends with them all after that experience. I carefully tailored the story to not include Do Hoon and the stolen Mitsubishi Eclipse's involvement. By the time I had finished, Taejun had collapsed back into his chair like I had shot him with a gun.
"I can't believe a total stranger let you drive his Hamada Tsunami R Series. Isn't that car like several million USD?"
"Uh… not several… but his dad is the East Asia branch manager for Hamada Motors?"
Taejun looked at me in disbelief, clearly not understanding why that made it ok. To be honest, it really wasn't a good reason. Ryu was a little bit too trusting.
"Jae. I'm really worried about you racing." I knew how much effort it must be taking Taejun to not just fly into a fury and drag me off to Beijing right then and there. (Though, I wonder if the car scene in Beijing was good? It's almost three times as big as Seoul!)
"But the way you talk about it…" He seemed thoughtful. "You're very passionate about it."
"I love driving. It's the only thing that's ever made me feel like…" It was hard to explain. It felt right being behind the wheel. My whole life I had always felt awkward and out of place, except there. It felt more than passion. But to call it my life's purpose also seemed too dramatic.
"Alright. Then you'll have no objection if I send you to Monaco. You can become a Formula 1 driver."
"Taejun!"
"Nongdam-iya. I don't know anyone in Monaco. Or France. And racing cars is dangerous whether it's here or there. Personally I think I'd rather have you close by, in case you get into trouble." Taejun seemed to be considering things.
That seemed very uncharacteristic of Taejun. Maybe he was treading carefully so as not to scare me off. Either way, I took the bait. "So you're ok with it?!"
"Obviously no. But if I try to stop you, you might just end up running away again."
That was definitely true. But knowing Taejun he was probably already scheming a way to wean me off my current interest.
"But if you ever get into any trouble, or god forbid, an accident, you call me first. I'll take care of things," Taejun said. Even if it was just said as a peace offering, I seized it with delight.
"Heol! So there is an advantage to having a narc brother after all!"
"Narc brother?! I don't just do drug related investigations," Taejun complained. I thought it better not to tell him that that was what all my friends called him. "In fact, I hardly do that. But that guy I arrested at the meet. You didn't know him, did you?"
"I didn't know he was a drug dealer," I said. It was pretty much the truth.
Taejun didn't like that answer much. "Meets like the one you're going to are a hot spot for drug related activities. You see anyone doing something like that, you stay far away from them."
"I will," I said. Unfortunately I ended up having to lie after all. Sungmin apparently sold drugs, but he was also our team leader. But as long as I never saw him doing it, I could claim plausible deniability, probably. I even managed to convince myself that even though I had done some recently that because I wasn't the one buying it, I was still in the clear.
"Jae. I'm serious. Drug related crimes are serious offenses. Even I might not be able to get you out of something like that. I'm already being extremely, and I mean extremely, tolerant for allowing you to continue being with your team. I trust you'll make smart decisions and do your best to stay safe on the road. But all of that is off if you ever have anything to do with drugs."
"I won't," I protested.
"Promise me," he growled. Clearly I had poked the beast a little too much.
"I promise," I said, feeling well reprimanded. "But LC's pretty anal about keeping drugs out of the meet anyways. He doesn't like having jjapsae around."
"Who?"
"The streamer who organizes everything."
"Man Minam?"
I burst into laughter. No wonder he went by LC, even off stream. What a dumb name. Even Taejun chuckled a bit. "He doesn't really fit the name, does he."
"I didn't know his real name. We call each other by nicknames. Everyone calls him Le Creuset."
"Ohhh… Because he's the pot."
I stared at him flabbergasted.
How did Taejun know?
I still didn't get it?!
---------------
Before we parted ways, Taejun had given me two more conditions.
"I know you don't have a driver's license. So that's another thing I want you to get as soon as possible. And. I want you to get a day job. I don't want you to think that you can make a living just off racing in the streets. Don't race every weekend if you don't have to."
I had promised to do the first two things, but still planned on trying to race every weekend. I hadn't told him about moving the debt to my name. I was pretty sure that would have blown all his fuses and we'd have to start from ground zero again. But even so, I had been planning to get a day job already. My friends might be used to it, but having worked every day of my life for years, I felt very restless doing nothing all day. I felt like I'd had a long enough vacation from work.
"Are you sure you don't want to move back in?" Taejun had asked.
It was probably a good idea considering I was basically just squatting at the Blue Tiger's hangout, but for some reason, I felt strongly against the idea. Maybe I felt apprehensive that we'd go back to fighting. Or maybe I was afraid that being so close to Taejun constantly would make it harder to keep the few secrets I was now hiding from him.
"Back to the couch you don't even own? No thanks!" I had tried to play it off jokingly.
"Alright," he had said sadly. "But come over and get your stuff sometime."
It was a bit expensive taking my extremely limited transient wardrobe to the laundromat every few days, so I agreed. It's not like he would shut the door on me and lock me in like a prisoner.
We had talked for a long time in the cafe. It felt good to be able to have a normal talk with Taejun again, even if I had to omit some things that were sure to alarm him. It was rare that I did most of the talking, but I had today, telling him about my adventures with the Tigers.
Despite the dominance of my monologues, Taejun had also talked a little about what he was doing. He told me that he had paid the hospital fees (which I knew, but I wasn't about to tell him about the escapades of my drug fueled frenzied night). Then Taejun told me something surprising. He had apparently wired a significant sum to our parents to help them out while our father recovered from his injuries. It was extremely unlike him, but it was sobering to realise that he had still thought of them when I had completely put them aside. I had taken on the debt, sure, but I hadn't considered their daily needs after that.
The responsibility of paying the debt had hung so heavy over me that it overshadowed every other use of money that we supposedly had needed.
Even now the majority of my earnings would be going into paying it. I really never had any idea of what else money could be used for.
At any rate, Taejun told me he had unfrozen my bank account. Despite that, I was going to put it all into my crypto wallet as soon as possible. It was a bit of a relief to get access to those funds back. I needed every won I had to pay that debt as soon as possible.
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Han Jungho had been extremely pleased to see me that week. Of course, Taejun had taken out the six million (and extra) intended for the hospital bills out of my account. The rest, which was my own money, I had moved to my crypto wallet. I ended up taking out most of it anyway for my weekly check-in, but it would have aroused Taejun's suspicion if I took it out in cash from my bank account (that narc was definitely still keeping tabs on it).
"Fifteen million," he crowed happily when the counter had finally finished flicking through the significant amount of bills. "Where in the world are you getting all this money, Baek Jaehyun-a?"
I didn't owe that gangster any answers.
Han Jungho didn't care. "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it."