“Over here.”

Maru waved at his friend who just came inside and was looking around. Park Daemyung came over, walking through the smoke in the air.

“Is this place popular? There’s a lot of people here.”

Having not seen him for a long time, Daemyung’s face had become quite burnt. The heat this year was quite bad, and Maru could tell just how hard Daemyung’s work must have been.

“Let’s order something for now. You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?”

They ordered two portions of pig skin, one bottle of soju, some rice, and some doenjang-guk.

“Please give us the rice and the soup first,” Maru said to the waiter who received the order. The waiter curtly replied yes.

“You took the train up here?”

“Yeah. The train is a lot more comfortable than taking a bus. But were the seats in the KTX^[1] always so narrow?”

“It’s definitely narrower than the older trains. You should drink some water. You look like you’re hot.”

Daemyung picked up the cup and gulped down the water. The way his shoulders jerked as he drank made him look like a bear.

“Easy, you might cough.”

Daemyung smiled awkwardly when Maru said those words without much thinking. Thanks to his innocent-looking smile and his large size, he was pretty popular throughout school as well. This Park Daemyung was pretty different from the one in his...