Tae Shinwoo came home earlier than expected. It seemed he’d left his family home right after just eating dinner.
“Did something happen?”
Normally he should be happy, but perhaps because his head was complicated, he couldn’t manage his expression. It was quite natural that Tae Shinwoo asked with a worried face less than 30 minutes after returning home.
“……Hey.”
Should he just pretend not to know? Wouldn’t not knowing be better?
For some unknown reason, he wanted to spare his words out of reluctance. It felt like stirring up something unnecessary.
“Yeah?”
But it was clearly something he’d ask about eventually. How many possibilities had he thought of before Tae Shinwoo returned? There was no way to resolve his curiosity as surely and quickly as asking the person himself.
“Look at this.”
There was nothing more to ponder. Seo Eunho pretended to be calm and held out his phone. Tae Shinwoo, who’d been concerned about Seo Eunho the whole time, immediately reacted and approached closer.
“……”
On the phone screen, a photo someone had sent was displayed. Tae Shinwoo frowned as soon as he saw it. Rather than surprised, he looked annoyed.
“What is this—”
“Who sent it?”
Before he could properly ask, Tae Shinwoo abruptly asked. Then without even giving time to answer, he just took the phone away.
“I don’t know.”
Since there was no particular reason to ask for the phone back, Seo Eunho just shook his head. If he knew who it was, he would have contacted them first himself. When, where, and how the photo was taken. What the situation was. He would have asked the person who sent the photo, not Tae Shinwoo.
“What is it?”
He’d contacted the woman first but couldn’t find an answer, and only suspicions piled up instead. The only way to know the reason for this meeting now was to ask Tae Shinwoo directly.
“She came looking for me.”
His mood was quite displeased, but Tae Shinwoo didn’t spare his words. Seo Eunho, who’d been staring at his crumpled brow, nodded.
“Came looking?”
“Yeah. She suddenly appeared asking for money.”
He couldn’t understand at all. Why would this woman go find Tae Shinwoo and ask him for money? Perhaps knowing it was an ambiguous statement, Tae Shinwoo laughed awkwardly and elaborated.
“Well, actually…… Ah, I didn’t want to talk about this.”
When Seo Eunho furrowed his brow at the half-hearted attitude, Tae Shinwoo pressed his brow firmly as if he’d been waiting. While rejecting that hand, Seo Eunho burst into a short laugh.
“I hear a lot of stories from here and there. Especially about people around you, I listen more carefully. Well, sometimes I look into things directly too…… kind of like that.”
What story was he trying to tell that his words were this long? Seo Eunho nodded roughly. It wasn’t unexpected, so he wasn’t surprised.
“That woman. She latched onto your father to scam him.”
This was the same. He already knew that woman had some scheme, and in fact, Seo Eunho had worried whether he’d be harmed because of it.
Rather, Tae Shinwoo talking about it while reading the room was more surprising. What the hell was this bastard’s image? Normally you should be flustered about this.
“You’re not surprised?”
The one surprised instead was Tae Shinwoo. Seo Eunho shook his head back and forth.
“Yeah. I’m not surprised.”
What he was curious about was why the woman and Tae Shinwoo had contact then. Seo Eunho didn’t rush and just waited quietly. The preamble was long but he’d explain on his own.
“You knew?”
“No, I just found out.”
Tae Shinwoo nodded. Only then did Seo Eunho laugh shortly.
“But I had a hunch.”
“Ah.”
“That you were digging into all the circumstances around me too.”
There was no guilt on the face that smiled awkwardly. He hadn’t expected any in the first place.
“So I asked people for a favor to keep things from getting big.”
It would have been an order, not a favor.
Seo Eunho didn’t bother to pick on that.
“But since things didn’t go as planned, she came looking for me. Since the problem was because of me, she asked for a kind of…… consolation money.”
His head throbbed. He could imagine too vividly how the woman would have spoken. Before he could press his throbbing head, Tae Shinwoo suddenly reached out and firmly pressed Seo Eunho’s temples.
Really, shouldn’t he set up a place for this bastard?
With a silly thought, ignoring his heart whose beating quickened for a moment, Seo Eunho quickly removed his hand. Did he really need to be this exceptionally talented at bewitching people?
“So she came looking.”
Tae Shinwoo withdrew his hand and said nonchalantly. Seo Eunho didn’t answer for now.
Actually, if you asked whether he believed it all, that wasn’t the case. There was a possibility Tae Shinwoo had sent someone. The guy was more than capable of that. But how did the woman know that the person who messed up her work was Tae Shinwoo?
No, before that, then what was it the woman had said? My department. A sense of kinship. Sugar daddy. That assertion to enjoy it thoroughly now bothered him.
The woman hadn’t been filled with anger. Rather, she seemed pleased. How could that be explained?
“……So you gave her money?”
After a long thought, Seo Eunho asked. He didn’t know what to ask, but he felt like he should know the result.
“……”
Tae Shinwoo was silent. Instead, he just smiled slyly and approached closer. It was a silent affirmation.
“How much did you give?”
Whether he crumpled his face or not, Tae Shinwoo who’d quickly approached suddenly embraced Seo Eunho’s waist and buried his face in his shoulder. Since it wasn’t a frequent occurrence, Seo Eunho’s body rapidly stiffened.
“Hey.”
“Right to remain silent.”
Whether or not. Tae Shinwoo seemed intent on ending the conversation as he pleased. Whatever the amount, it wasn’t that important. In the basement of Tae Shinwoo’s house, cash was probably rotting away. Enough to think that way, the guy seemed to have absolutely no financial constraints.
So even if he pretended not to know about that, there were still things left to resolve. The woman’s words were still spinning around in his head.
“Not much time left……”
“Hm?”
Especially those words—the assertion that there wasn’t much time left anyway made his head dizzy. At Seo Eunho’s words that were close to a monologue, Tae Shinwoo who met his eyes looked upright. As if he hadn’t conveyed a single lie to him.
Was it just a problem with the woman’s perspective? They say you only see what you want to see. Since she was a person who’d latch onto his father to commit fraud, and shameless enough to extort money even from Tae Shinwoo who was superficially a high school student, hadn’t she seen him similarly?
From the woman’s perspective, it was plausible that the time he could live comfortably like this didn’t seem long. Well, since such relationships generally ended shortly.
“……Never mind. You got money extorted nicely.”
Seo Eunho, who’d been lost in thought for a while, just shook his head. He didn’t know. It seemed fine to just tell him the woman said such things, but he didn’t want to say it. There was an unexplainable discomfort.
“I didn’t give much.”
Though it wasn’t praise, Tae Shinwoo suddenly became triumphant. Seo Eunho responded with a hollow laugh.
“You definitely gave some though.”
The “oops” expression didn’t suit the guy at all. Seo Eunho laughed then soon sighed. Looking carefully, it seemed things always happened when Tae Shinwoo wasn’t nearby. Of course it would be a leap, but whenever the guy wasn’t around, unsettling things always happened. Statistically speaking.
Well, that didn’t mean he’d tell him to stick right next to him though…….
“So. If you know everything, you must know what my father’s doing too?”
“Curious?”
When one question was resolved, his father who’d been beautifully scammed came to mind. The deposit would naturally have been completely cleaned out, and where was he doing what?
He’s a stranger now. Whatever he lives like doesn’t matter. Even though he tried to move on thinking that way, it was true that he was bothered by it, so Seo Eunho nodded right away.
It seemed like he wanted to confirm just how much of a mess it was.
“He’s probably living exactly like before, right? Gambling and all.”
It sounded like speculation but was undoubtedly solid information. Tae Shinwoo was the kind of guy who knew everything and more.
“You’re really…… a crazy bastard.”
Seo Eunho grinned crookedly and firmly pushed Tae Shinwoo’s face away. Despite being cursed at out of nowhere, there wasn’t the slightest distortion on Tae Shinwoo’s face.
“Yeah, I know.”
Was it because he had no will to deny it?
Well. A high school student had just confessed to having people watch the surroundings continuously, so it would be strange to insist he was normal. Seo Eunho clicked his tongue and shook his head. As if waiting, Tae Shinwoo opened his mouth.
“Seo Eunho, you’re the same for being okay with this though?”
Seo Eunho didn’t deny it, but didn’t affirm it either. He wasn’t sure whether he didn’t care if someone was watching him, or if it was just okay because it was Tae Shinwoo.
“If we’re done talking, should we eat now?”
Perhaps not particularly expecting an answer, Tae Shinwoo quickly changed the subject.
“Didn’t you already eat?”
“I did but I’m hungry. Want pizza?”
It wasn’t like that at first, but at some point Tae Shinwoo had been nagging to only eat healthy things, so his menu selection was unexpected.
“Why pizza?”
“I want to eat something unhealthy.”
When he asked, a somehow petulant-toned answer came back. He hadn’t eaten while the guy was gone, and since he liked pizza too, he thought there was no need to refuse.
“Okay, then.”
At Seo Eunho’s answer, Tae Shinwoo quickly spread out a delivery restaurant booklet. Seo Eunho stared at Tae Shinwoo. Above the frustratingly neatly worn clothes, his forehead where the bruise had now disappeared was visible.
……There’s no reason to lie anyway.
Seo Eunho suppressed the urge to look at the photo again and settled on the sofa. Right, rather, the one who couldn’t be trusted was the woman’s side. The target to feel uneasy about was definitely not Tae Shinwoo.
