"Come on in,” Maru said as he opened the door.

Daemyung stiffly walked inside. It was because of the things he had heard before they arrived.

He rolled his eyes and looked at the pair of slippers in front of the porch. There were two pairs. The two cushions placed on the sofa also entered his eyes.

“What are you doing, standing still like that?”

“You’re living together for real?” Daemyung asked as he took his shoes off.

He had heard about this before, that couples would live together in the same house. He never thought a close friend of his would be doing that though.

“You can live together for fake then?” Maru responded as though it was nothing much. Haneul, who followed them in, smiled and went into what was presumably the main bedroom.

He looked at the living room where there was a big TV.

The whole house was clean. It felt like a well-decorated model house. Even the wallpaper and the curtains were of matching colors.

“This is good.”

“What is?”

“The house. It’s nicely designed.”

“We put in a lot of effort.”

“Haneul must’ve worked hard.”

“She didn’t do it. This was all me.”

“You?”

Daemyung looked at Maru. This friend he had made in high school was definitely not the type of person to organize his house like this. He had the average sense of dirtiness of South Korean men.

He had once visited...