It wasn’t that he didn’t know anything and was asking. Yeongbeom had already finished assessing the situation to a certain degree.
He’d investigated who that man was who had driven off with Seongjo that day, what work he did, and even where he lived. What he’d wanted to ask Jinho was more specific information than that. Whether he was close enough to that man to know the people around Seongjo. Whether Seongjo was really seriously meeting him. Those kinds of things.
Thinking of Seongjo’s personality, he might have misjudged. His heart had been anxious and he’d forgotten, but now it felt more problematic that the people around him didn’t know rather than knowing well.
Strength entered tightly into the hand gripping the teacup. Meanwhile, Jinho, who had been sitting stroking his chin as if trying to recall something, finally opened his mouth.
“Ah, well… now that you mention it, I can’t say I have no idea at all. I just thought it was a rumor, but I guess there really was something to it?”
“What do you mean?”
Yeongbeom reacted sensitively toward Jinho who was saying there was something. He shrugged his shoulders and replied.
“Lee Seongjo, the guys have been making a fuss saying that kid’s been distracted by something lately? I don’t know what he’s gone crazy over, but apparently it seems like a person.”
“…What kind of person do they say it is?”
He tried to ask calmly, but couldn’t completely hide the irritation and impatience mixed in his words. At Yeongbeom’s persistent questioning of things difficult to answer, Jinho waved one hand dismissively as if annoyed.
“Hey, how would I know? Whether it’s a man or woman, young or older, how would I know? I don’t meet him that often, and most of what I know I heard secondhand. I don’t know exactly.”
Not very helpful words. When Yeongbeom sighed deeply with a “ha,” Jinho frowned. He didn’t seem offended, but looking at his grimaced smile, it was clear he found it absurd. He snapped at Yeongbeom accusingly.
“Aren’t you showing your dislike too obviously? You called me because I’m the only bastard you could call out anyway.”
That was true. In the first place, he couldn’t contact people who knew more detailed insider information, and even if he contacted them, they wouldn’t come out to this place or inform Yeongbeom of the situation for his sake.
When Yeongbeom obediently nodded, Jinho looked at him with even more absurd eyes. But he soon changed his expression and smiled unpleasantly again.
“But why are you asking about that? What does it matter to you who Lee Seongjo meets or doesn’t meet?”
Even without hearing more, he could tell the engine for sarcasm had started. Looking straight at Yeongbeom who was frowning and displeased, he continued.
“Ah, surely it’s not that, is it? Too precious to give to someone else, something like that?”
Yeongbeom didn’t answer and only glared at Jinho. The sound of chuckling followed.
Though he was filled with the desire to snap back “no” immediately, he barely held back. Even if he said no, Jinho would surely nitpick and sneer. …He himself wasn’t certain what other words he should use to express this feeling either.
Jinho continued speaking sluggishly while looking at Yeongbeom’s frowning face.
“No matter how much I hate him, I have some sense of discernment… What can you do, Yeongbeom. You doing this is fucking ugly.”
To think the day would come when he’d hear such words from this bastard. Yeongbeom snorted, filled with the sentiment of ‘I don’t want to hear that from you.’ Jinho shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head. It was purely a motion to provoke.
“Did you want him to still miss you and cry pathetically? After you backstabbed him like that? Why are you sitting there with such a pissed-off face…”
“…”
“He’s Lee Seongjo, Lee Seongjo. Was he meeting you out of desperation all this time? There are plenty of other people. It would be weird if he wasn’t dating, hey.”
“…That’s enough, isn’t it?”
Yeongbeom’s mouth finally opened. He’d barely suppressed the words to shut up that had risen to just below his chin. At Yeongbeom’s angry voice, Jinho shrugged his shoulders and closed his mouth for a moment.
However, that wasn’t the end. After a brief silence, Jinho soon gauged the atmosphere and slyly opened his mouth again.
“The way I see it, you’re not the type who can live pleasing a woman. You’re pointlessly fucking high-nosed. Yeongbeom, isn’t Oh Seyeong tiring?”
He’d been confident he could ignore whatever Jinho said about Seongjo this time. However, he couldn’t hide flinching momentarily at Oh Seyeong’s name that came out unexpectedly. Jinho continued as if he’d known it would be so.
“She was raised as a young lady from birth, how could she match your level? You probably think you’re bending over backwards to please her, but to her that’s probably just natural, right? But bending over backwards to please, well, how long can that last? Isn’t it about time you wanted to show some pride too?”
To those words… he couldn’t answer immediately. In fact, Yeongbeom had recently been feeling extreme doubt about his relationship with Seyeong.
Certainly, Seyeong had been the lover Yeongbeom wanted. At first, that is. He’d liked how Seyeong admired and thought highly of even very trivial things. To Seyeong, he was an incomparably intellectual and kind man.
However, the reason Seyeong had admired even trivial aspects was because the fields she knew well and the fields Yeongbeom knew well didn’t overlap.
In other words, separate from her viewing Yeongbeom favorably, the two people’s interests didn’t overlap at all.
In that case, the person who had to accommodate the other was Yeongbeom. In the end, even in the relationship with Seyeong, the one in a hurry to marry was Yeongbeom.
Of course, Seyeong, who was head over heels for Yeongbeom, had pushed for marriage by insisting despite her family’s concerns… But that didn’t mean Oh Seyeong was the one with something to lose. In the marriage market, she would have been fine even if it wasn’t Yeongbeom, but right now Yeongbeom had to have Seyeong.
And the fact that Yeongbeom’s appearance of doing his utmost to accommodate wouldn’t be anything special to Seyeong… was also an undeniable fact. It wasn’t because Seyeong was a bad person. There would have been stars’ worth of men who would have wanted to court her even by doing that.
Yeongbeom also knew that his current self was far from what he’d hoped for at first. Though he didn’t want to acknowledge it, his desire to know what state Seongjo was in now was probably not unrelated to that fact either.
Jinho, who had been watching Yeongbeom not answering, laughed again with a giggling sound.
“So why did you do it, Yeongbeom? Why kick Lee Seongjo away, kicking him…”
A small voice was added after that. ‘For someone like you.’
That small voice was probably the main point.
Yeongbeom was gritting his teeth hard enough to crush them, but did his utmost not to show it. Openly turning red and blue with anger would be the same as admitting everything he said was right.
As a result of his efforts, a voice that somehow sounded calm flowed from Yeongbeom’s mouth.
“Whether I can or can’t treat the person who’ll be my wife well, there’s no reason for me to be evaluated on that by you, is there?”
Jinho raised his eyebrows as if intrigued. Yeongbeom showed a smiling face with difficulty.
“If you saw me as some bastard who can’t even bend his pride, then you must have been seeing wrong all this time.”
Jinho looked at Yeongbeom with strange eyes and smiled back.
“Well, if that’s the case, that’s good then.”
“Thanks for answering today.”
To the greeting he barely added, Jinho replied, still smiling.
“Yeah, congratulations on your marriage? Live well. I’ll go when the wedding invitation comes out, so make sure to contact me~”
With those words, Jinho picked up the teacup that still had warmth remaining and downed it in one shot. Then he stood up from his seat right away. Saying he had to go back since he’d made time with difficulty. It was before all the food had even come out.
He didn’t feel it was a waste of the side dishes left forlornly on the table. His head was so blankly empty he couldn’t think of such things.
Yeongbeom, like Jinho had done, didn’t touch the food on the table. Instead, he called the server and ordered alcohol. He was in the mood to get drunk.
