At Section Chief Kang’s words, Ilkyung snapped to attention. That S-rank Esper smiled and headed toward Director Ha. As soon as he sat in front of Director Ha, spicy cold noodles came out in front of Henry.
“That’ll be spicy.”
At Section Chief Kang’s words, Ilkyung stared blankly and realized he was now pouring mustard randomly into his water cold noodles.
“Huh?”
“Why are you putting in so much mustard? Like you have a grudge against mustard.”
Section Chief Kang said while taking away the mustard container. Section Chief Kang had long since lost interest in Director Ha and Henry. Unlike Ilkyung.
“What should I do?”
“What do you mean what? You have to eat it.”
“Ugh, nothing’s working out.”
Ilkyung clutched his head. That’s when it happened.
“Eat something else. And stop glaring at me. You’re going to bore a hole through me.”
At the hand taking away his water cold noodles, Ilkyung looked up in surprise. Director Ha was standing there at some point.
“Ah, Director-nim. Hello.”
At Section Chief Kang’s greeting, Director Ha bowed his head slightly to acknowledge the greeting, then turned his gaze to Ilkyung. As the surprised Ilkyung just stared, Ha Daehoon chuckled.
“I ordered again, so eat that. Don’t eat the mustard mess.”
By the time Ilkyung came to his senses, Director Ha had already returned to his seat.
* * *
On the golden weekend, Ilkyung, who arrived at the rest stop, bought walnut cakes, took one out to eat, and laughed in disbelief. How did it come to this?
“Is it good?”
Daehoon asked, handing over cold coffee. Ilkyung was about to take the coffee when he took out a walnut cake and held it out to Daehoon.
“Want one?”
“Ilkyung-ssi, eat a lot. Don’t you need to eat more?”
“You said we’re eating when we get there.”
“That’s right.”
Ilkyung took the coffee and headed to the car, and Daehoon walked alongside him.
Today he was dressed casually, different from usual. Of course, he’d seen him in training clothes at home, but Director Ha he’d seen outside was mostly in three-piece suits. Today he had his hair down and wore a short-sleeved shirt with slacks. When he got out of the car wearing even sunglasses, Ilkyung thought he saw a different person and stepped back. That rubbed Director Ha the wrong way and he got scolded a lot, but still, the way to the rest stop wasn’t bad.
Friday, Ilkyung, who was out of it because of the water cold noodles mustard incident, missed the timing to get angry and worked quietly all afternoon before leaving work. Then he came home and laid down his tired body when he got a message from Director Ha.
Let’s go on a breakup trip.
Seeing the text, Ilkyung bolted upright. Then he called Director Ha.
—Yes. This is Ha Daehoon.
“What are you talking about? A breakup trip?”
—Just as I said.
Until just before, he’d been lying down because he was so tired, but because of Director Ha, he was about to wake up completely. Ilkyung straightened his back and furrowed his brow.
“Why are we going on a breakup trip?”
—Because we’re breaking up now.
“What? Why are we suddenly breaking, ah!”
—Are you awake now?
Daehoon laughed lowly. When Ilkyung had no answer because he was looking around and checking his surroundings, Daehoon laughed lowly again.
—You’re not a teleportation Esper, and I didn’t install CCTV at Ilkyung-ssi’s house, so there’s no need to look around like that.
“…Did you really install something on me?”
—Hmm, well.
At that answer, Ilkyung jumped from his seat.
“Did you really plant something?”
—What are you talking about? It’s just….
“Just what?”
—As I said before, Woo Ilkyung-ssi is completely predictable.
Ilkyung frowned and pouted his lips.
—You just cursed with your eyes and pouted your lips, right?
“Ugh, this is annoying!”
—Okay. I’ll stop teasing. So you’ll go on the breakup trip, right? Still, we dated for a month, so we should at least go on a trip before breaking up.
At other times, Ilkyung would have chirped about why he would go on a trip with him, but thinking about it, there was nothing bad about it. Moreover, he’d been so busy that he couldn’t even remember when he last went on a proper trip. Ilkyung thought there was some obligation from hanging out together during this time, and he should finish things clearly at this opportunity.
“Okay. I’ll go.”
—Alright then, I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.
And so the two set off on a trip. Since it was a 2-day, 1-night trip, Daehoon said they should go somewhere not too far.
“But do you travel often, Director-nim?”
Ilkyung asked while picking up a walnut cake to eat.
“I’m busy now, but when I have time, I travel fairly often.”
Looking at Daehoon driving while wearing sunglasses, Ilkyung slurped up his iced coffee. Maybe because he ate a lot of walnut cakes, he was thirsty.
“You look young with your hair down. But Director-nim, exactly how old are you?”
“Woo Ilkyung-ssi really just came out to the matchmaking meeting as is.”
Ilkyung frowned. The purpose was to break off the engagement, so he went out without checking anything. He didn’t even look at photos and didn’t even search on the common portal sites. And he still doesn’t know the age.
“Director also doesn’t know about me.”
“Why don’t I? Twenty-seven years old.”
Ilkyung’s eyes went round with the straw still in his mouth.
“Huh? How did you know?”
“It’s stranger that Woo Ilkyung-ssi doesn’t know. The villa should have almost everything prepared—meat, charcoal, and such. Is it okay to eat lunch at the villa?”
Even as Ilkyung nodded, he couldn’t take his gaze off Daehoon.
“So how old are you? I should at least know my lover’s age!”
It was the first interest Woo Ilkyung had shown in his lover, one day before their breakup.
* * *
Woo Ilkyung devoured the walnut cookies like filming a mukbang and drank his coffee, then at some point became quiet. As expected, he’d fallen asleep. Watching Woo Ilkyung like that, Daehoon shook his head from side to side.
“Well, it’s fine as long as he ate something before sleeping.”
Daehoon knew that Woo Ilkyung had been searching frantically for him all Friday morning with fire in his eyes. Daehoon also knew that Section Chief Kang was the information source in the Field Support Team. When he heard that Woo Ilkyung was frantically searching around, he thought Section Chief Kang must have found out when Henry decided to return to Korea. Additionally, thinking that Woo Ilkyung must have found out that Daehoon had lied and demanded masturbation from him, he deliberately avoided him, but he hadn’t expected Woo Ilkyung to show up at the cold noodle restaurant.
Henry had always liked Korean food. Since England’s food wasn’t particularly delicious, Henry had asked Daehoon to take him to Korean restaurants throughout his time in England, but Daehoon wasn’t very keen on it. Because it really wasn’t tasty. When Henry came to Korea, the first thing he requested was a tour of good restaurants.
Daehoon could have been annoyed, but since he was grateful that Henry came to Korea in the first place, he decided to act like he was granting his wishes a few times. After that, he planned to set Henry up with someone else. A big gay guy who properly smelled like a male.
Henry was a top. And he wanted to penetrate guys bigger than himself. At first, Henry wanted to get on top of Daehoon, but even if heaven and earth split apart, that couldn’t happen. The two had met and become friends at a bar. Henry was gay and Daehoon was bi, but the two could absolutely never have sex together. Because their positions didn’t match.
After knowing that fact, they became more comfortable instead. So the two became quite close. Because they were an Esper and Guide, misunderstandings often occurred even in England, but there was another reason the two could only be friends. Despite both being S-rank, their matching rate was terribly bad. What’s with 37%? Even mortal enemies wouldn’t have such a matching rate.
Anyway, unable to refuse Henry’s request who came from far away, he went to the cold noodle restaurant, where he saw Woo Ilkyung making mustard broth. Daehoon was dumbfounded seeing Woo Ilkyung go crazy again and space out. He couldn’t understand why he kept spacing out and losing his mind moment by moment like that.
Especially since he seemed to keep living in a daze lately, so instead of just having one meal on the last day as originally planned, he changed it to suggest going on a trip. If it were the usual Woo Ilkyung, he should be squawking about why he has to go on a trip with Director, raising his voice saying Director tricked him into masturbating in front of someone else, but somehow Woo Ilkyung was quiet. And he unexpectedly accepted the farewell trip.
