Then Chahyun just blinked his eyes wide while bringing his drink to his mouth without answering. His expression said he didn’t understand what Yiyoung was talking about. Annoyed by that hateful face, Yiyoung frowned.
“I told you not to suddenly come without contacting me.”
“I just came to drink. Or do you mean I should have made a reservation?”
“Are you going to be petty? You’re really saying you didn’t come to see me?”
Chahyun rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and played dumb. Then Yiyoung held out one palm toward Chahyun and grumbled.
“If you’re going to keep staying, return one of my things too.”
“Why should I? I just happened to find this bar and Bae Yiyoung-ssi happened to be working here.”
Yiyoung glared fiercely at Chahyun and dropped his arm with a thud. Since there was no way to forcibly take back his things from him, he had no choice but to swallow his resentment. At best, snapping coldly was all Yiyoung could do.
“Do as you please.”
Yiyoung just had to treat Chahyun only as a customer of the bar. Since only two hours remained until closing at 10 PM, he just had to endure for a moment.
As time passed and it became nine thirty, only Chahyun remained as a customer in the bar.
Yiyoung, who had deliberately moved busily and finished tidying up the shop early, had nothing left to do. Chahyun, as if waiting for that moment, persistently kept ordering. Because of that, Yiyoung had no choice but to stay planted inside the bar counter and deal with Chahyun.
After emptying his fourth glass, Chahyun unusually ordered a cocktail. Yiyoung shook a silver shaker with the ingredients for Kahlúa milk with a stiff face. While the drink was being prepared, Chahyun started making small talk while sipping ice water.
“Where did President Yang Hyeyoung go?”
“She went home early. She had signs of a cold.”
That’s why Yiyoung had to close up today. Chahyun snorted and lightly badmouthed his cousin’s business practices.
“Does the salary come out properly doing business like this?”
Then he continued questioning as if really curious.
“How’s the composition work? Is there any piece among your work that I might know? If you have to work at a whiskey bar, the income probably isn’t good. You have debt too.”
“It’s not Chahyun-ssi’s concern.”
It seemed Chahyun had investigated Yiyoung’s family history and upbringing but hadn’t looked into his work.
In any case, composition income was gradually improving. The debt would be cleared up at some point. At the very least, it wasn’t a desperate situation where he needed help from a man he’d dated before.
Yiyoung unconsciously frowned and pondered.
‘Should I quit working here?’
It would be troublesome if Chahyun kept coming like this.
Starting this month, composition income had far surpassed the salary received from the whiskey bar. But there was no guarantee it would always be like that, and rather than always immersing himself only in work alone at home, combining it with bar work was more efficient in many ways.
More than anything else, there was the advantage that at the whiskey bar Hyeyoung operated purely to see the stages of musicians she liked, he could frequently encounter performances that were hard to see even with money. Yiyoung sighed anxiously.
‘But I can’t tell him not to come to his own cousin’s shop because of me either.’
Yiyoung poured the finished Kahlúa milk into a glass and served it. Then Chahyun pointed his fingertip to the base of the glass and pushed it as is toward Yiyoung. Chahyun said with a cheerfully smiling face.
“I ordered it for Bae Yiyoung-ssi to drink. I thought you’d somehow like it.”
Yiyoung slightly frowned at Chahyun’s words and tilted his head.
‘Why would he think that? I don’t like sweet things.’
In fact, Yiyoung was often misunderstood as particularly liking sweet food. Occasionally, elderly neighborhood people whose eyes seemed dim would ask Yiyoung which middle school he attended and quite often press chocolate or candy into his hands. Yiyoung was that tiny.
Anyway, Yiyoung was an unwavering whiskey straight type. He didn’t particularly like that either, but if buying alcohol, he should share Macallan 18 Year or something, yet Chahyun wasted money on strange things. Seeing that he didn’t know his tastes at all, as expected, the Chahyun before his eyes was not Yiyoung’s lover.
Just as he was thinking such idle complaints, Chahyun asked an odd question.
“Do you also do street performances? Holding an acoustic guitar or something.”
“I don’t.”
Actually, he’d done it quite a bit before, but Yiyoung didn’t want to explain at length so he answered briefly. Anyway, since he had no intention of performing in the future whether on the street or on stage, it wasn’t a lie.
Chahyun asked with a somewhat dissatisfied expression.
“Why not?”
Why is he making such a displeased expression when I said I don’t perform?
While briefly puzzled, a text message happened to come from the very person who’d created Yiyoung’s stage fright. It was Ki Taeseong.
[Trash:
Where are you?]
9:45 PM
Yiyoung replied “Working” and put down his phone face down. Whether Ki Taeseong was pissed off, text notification vibrations rang out consecutively. Chahyun glared fiercely at the phone rattling on the bar table.
“Who is it?”
He didn’t want to talk about or even think about Ki Taeseong if possible. So Yiyoung changed the subject with a lie that could make Chahyun upset.
“Someone I used to date.”
Sure enough, Chahyun’s eyes suddenly widened.
“You saved your ex-lover as Trash?”
He must have seen Ki Taeseong’s contact name in that moment. He’d probably faint if he knew the contact for the person who was actually an ex-lover was saved as ‘Elementary Schooler.’
Though satisfied at successfully annoying Chahyun for once, Yiyoung deliberately put force in his face to avoid smiling. At Yiyoung’s indifferent face, Chahyun gradually became more serious and minutely raised his voice.
“Why meet trash?”
Ah, the point he was upset about wasn’t that Yiyoung badmouthed his ex-lover as trash. Rather, he seemed displeased by the very fact that Yiyoung had met someone of quite poor quality. It was a bit unexpected.
Of course, Ki Taeseong was someone who could never be in a romantic relationship with Yiyoung. But if asked whether Yiyoung’s previous lovers weren’t ‘trash,’ he couldn’t assert that either. Yiyoung recalled the faces of the people he’d met so far one by one.
‘That’s right. Why did I only meet such belligerent people?’
His mom said she’d only met bad men when she was young. Since she regretted it, Yiyoung had always tried to like gentle and kind people, but for some reason, the ones who became lovers were all similar types to Ki Taeseong. Though there were no thugs like Ki Taeseong among them, they all had fiery tempers without exception.
Yiyoung, who’d pondered that reason anew, added.
“Maybe I was attracted to people with strong personalities because I hated being timid.”
Because of that, romance was always difficult and hard for Yiyoung. Since there were quite a few cases where verbal fights led to physical struggles or rough sex, he’d cried his eyes out and gotten dejected very often. Nevertheless, whenever a new person appeared, he’d come to expect with the same heart as the first time each time.
After failing that much, romance should be sick and tired, but Yiyoung still wanted love.
Even Yiyoung couldn’t know at all what that was. But if his mother’s words that love wasn’t confusing were true, he’d know as soon as he met the other person. Until recently, he’d hoped it would be Chahyun.
“That’s why I was really happy when dating Chahyun-ssi. Because you were the only good person among those I’d met.”
Regrettably, his true nature seemed to be a top-notch venomous person though.
In that respect, Yiyoung’s taste was really consistent too. Out of all those people, he’d chosen Moon Chahyun of all people and hoped this time would be love. Now even the thought that love itself was an illusion came to mind.
While Yiyoung was immersed in thought, silence fell.
“……”
Come to think of it, the atmosphere of the whiskey bar was unusually peaceful.
It was thanks to Chahyun being unusually quiet when he should have already interrupted and needled him at least a dozen times while saying this much. Yiyoung suddenly found Chahyun’s silence curious and raised his gaze. Chahyun was staring intently at Yiyoung with a hardened face. It was an expression Yiyoung knew well.
‘He must have nothing to say since I said I only met strange people.’
Whenever he unconsciously talked about his family history or upbringing, the people sitting across from him usually made this expression. Most of them lost their words, unable to grasp whether they should offer consolation or encouragement.
