Hongdan bitterly swallowed the rest of his words. It was a truth he couldn’t bring himself to say, not so much because he hated whining at this point, but because he was embarrassed.
Of course, he didn’t think he was a great beauty like Yeon Seonha or had the kind of pretty-featured face befitting an omega. However, he thought he at least had a moderately clean impression—one without rough edges that wouldn’t divide opinions.
So if there had been even a trace of affection, it wouldn’t have been too difficult to call him pretty at least once, even as empty words.
A year ago, leaving the courthouse threshold, Hongdan thought that way.
And with each step he took, he vowed.
He would never again wish for affection that didn’t suit his station.
Perhaps his ending with Seonha had been decided from the moment he became greedy.
In any case, the more he looked back on his brief married life, the more he could only be amazed at his sucker-like mentality. He felt like he’d lived gathering up every bit of fuss he had and didn’t have to avoid being treated this way, but whenever he came to his senses, he was always in this situation. Especially when he was with Yeon Seonha.
“I can do that too.”
His thoughts were getting longer because he habitually mixed in self-deprecation. Jaeon lightly wrapped his arm around Hongdan’s shoulder and cut off that tiresome shackle with a joke.
“What do you mean ‘I can do that too’?”
“Like a prince. I can not look at faces too.”
“Ah. Well, there are people like that.”
He was grateful to Jaeon for pulling him out before he dug deeper into the pit, but chewing it over, it wasn’t purely comfort, so Hongdan scrunched up his face.
“What, man?”
“Just kidding, kidding.”
“Shut up and explain, bastard. What’s wrong with my face?”
“Ah, I said you’re pretty, pretty. I have high standards, so don’t worry.”
“Explain specifically how I’m pretty in under 500 characters, man.”
Right, such easy words.
Words that could come out lightly even from someone he’d known for less than a year, yet why had he never heard them even once from Yeon Seonha, who he’d stuck to for over ten years and pressed bellies with hundreds of times?
The more he chewed on it, the more certain Hongdan became.
Deciding to divorce Yeon Seonha was absolutely not the wrong choice.
It was the wisest choice among all the choices he’d made in his life, and there would never be a more intelligent decision than this in the future.
Perhaps he should have done it much earlier.
Right, much earlier…
“Honey!”
Before ‘hello (yeoboseyo)’ just became ‘honey (yeobo)’… wait.
Hon… what?
“Honeeey—!”
Hongdan rather hoped his ears were mistaken right now.
He earnestly, earnestly prayed that he’d experienced such extreme stress for two days in a row that he was finally starting to hear hallucinations.
He prayed to heaven, to earth, to the world’s four major gods, atoning for his past sins, that the bastard bouncing around with that huge body across the crosswalk, not knowing shame, wasn’t the bastard he was guessing.
Fuck, isn’t it too much to give me this trial already just because I said yesterday I wouldn’t believe in god!
It was the end of a hard day, the time to leave work when the sun was setting slowly. He’d eaten a poor lunch and his mouth was bored, but just then an after-work dinner proposal came from his colleagues, so he’d been secretly excited about meat.
Moreover, Hongdan’s company location was Gwanghwamun, famous for its foot traffic.
In other words, he wasn’t the only one around.
Hongdan now felt like he’d gone beyond the level of a monkey in a zoo to doing a strip show in broad daylight.
“…Hongdan, isn’t that person calling for you?”
“I think so. That person is looking this way and waving.”
“But wait. They look like someone…”
“Oh my! Isn’t that Reporter Choi’s ex-husb…”
“No! You’ve got the wrong person!”
Hongdan strongly denied it as if making a declaration and hurriedly stamped his feet.
He changed his mind. What he should have done earlier wasn’t divorce.
“Hongdan! My pretty honey! Honey’s here!”
Much earlier, he should have killed that bastard.
***
Just then the traffic light turned green. Hongdan literally flew across the crosswalk in a rush. Hongdan was certain this was probably the first time since his first relay race at eight years old that he’d run this fast and desperately in his life.
“This crazy… huff… huff… crazy… bas… huff, tard.”
He had a bellyful of curses he wanted to spit out, but his breath rose to his chin and he could barely spit out one word.
Indeed, time hadn’t just flowed—if he had to make this kind of full-speed sprint one more time, it felt like he’d end his life at the prime age of twenty-nine.
“What? Did you run here like this because you missed me?”
But the perpetrator who made him do this pathetic thing was rather calm. His characteristically long and elegant eyes folded prettily, smiling broadly.
Hongdan was very seriously weighing it. Between the embarrassment gained by throwing a punch at that annoying face in this situation and the hassle he’d have to deal with for a while by swallowing this misunderstanding as is—which would really be more troublesome?
Soon reaching the judgment that he had neither the stamina to handle the former nor the mental strength to handle the latter, he just grabbed Seonha’s arm and pulled. He had to go inside somewhere before more people recognized him.
“Shut up and follow me. The bastard who snuck out of the house isn’t even covering his face, shit.”
“Ah! Right! I snuck out of the house.”
Oh my, even clapping. Only I’m always anxious, only me!
Seonha was doing cute antics that even a kindergartener wouldn’t do with his disgustingly huge physique. Hongdan furrowed his brow and rolled his eyes.
“Really sticking to the stupid concept, seriously.”
“Hehe… sorry, Hongdan. Next time I’ll come to meet you all bundled up in a hat too.”
“Where are you coming again? Don’t come, bastard.”
Hongdan, who’d been looking around while dragging Seonha, soon discovered a franchise snack bar with an aged sign. His steps toward his destination became even more urgent. Before entering, he didn’t forget to take off the coat he was wearing and wrap it around Seonha’s head like a criminal arrest scene. Hongdan stepped into the store, pushing Seonha in first.
“Hmm…”
Fortunately, there were no impious objects like TVs or radios inside. There were only two or three weary modern people eating alone after work. Hongdan didn’t hesitate any longer and pushed Seonha’s back to the innermost table.
Sure enough, as soon as he sat down, Seonha made a tearful sound.
“Hongdan… did I commit a crime?”
He seemed to be talking about the pile of cloth that suddenly blocked his view. Hongdan nodded without difficulty. Well, if recklessly running your dickhead around without finding a place to lie down is a crime, it’s a crime.
“Yeah, a really big crime. You became a heinous criminal in ten years. Didn’t you know?”
At the consistently blunt response, Seonha seemed unable to swallow his tears after all. From his deeply bowed head came the sound of timidly sniffling. Nevertheless, Hongdan didn’t give Seonha even a trace of attention and just quietly looked at the order sheet.
Befitting a snack bar in a neighborhood heavily populated with office workers, the menu was diverse enough to easily exceed twenty items. Judging by the condition of the sign at the entrance, it had probably been around for quite a while on this harsh Seoul soil. In other words, whatever he ordered, the taste would be somewhat guaranteed.
Hongdan, who had eaten a poor lunch, felt a bit hungry as he scanned the appetizing-looking menu. Because he had a secret gluttonous side, it was difficult to choose just one thing he wanted to eat most among the many options.
After agonizing, he decided to use the useless bastard in front of him. Unlike him with his rather small appetite, Seonha had quite a good appetite matching his bulk. If he coaxed him well, he might be able to taste three of the menu items he wanted.
Hongdan pulled down the coat covering Seonha’s head a bit and asked.
“Hey. Can’t we order three or four things and share? I want to eat too many things.”
“…If you untie this.”
Hongdan had wrapped the coat around him and was firmly tying Seonha’s chin with the sleeve part so it wouldn’t fall off. Then he paused his movements at the pitiful voice.
“…”
But that was definitely not to obediently untie the knot as Seonha wanted. He tied the sleeve tight again and made it into a pretty ribbon shape.
Oho.
Hongdan wasn’t skilled with his hands, but this ribbon at least seemed worth showing off to others.
He nodded as if satisfied and leaned back.
“Hey. Pretty, pretty.”
“No, I don’t need that kind of thing, just untie it…”
Hongdan was inwardly disappointed that the coat he wore out today wasn’t a particularly flashy color. If it had been red, it might have looked like a monster from a famous RPG game. He smacked his lips and enjoyed his work to his heart’s content.
“Hongdan, are you listening to me?”
Seonha’s gray eyes, now more clearly revealed because even his bangs were pushed back, were full of resentment and hurt. Hongdan continued to keep silent, then instead of untying what he’d tied, held out the order sheet he’d been looking at alone. It was a declaration of intent that no matter how much he whined, he would cleanly ignore him just like this.
“No. Your face is too famous.”
“I think going around like this draws more attention.”
Seonha stuck out his lower lip and grumbled. As expected, Hongdan’s response was just blunt.
“Then you’re just a crazy bastard, not Yeon Seonha who got back together with Choi Hongdan. Hurry up and look at this menu. I’m hungry.”
Seonha, who had been pouting as if to grumble a bit more, turned his eyes to the order sheet at Hongdan’s words about being hungry. Then, after bowing his head and examining the menu for a while, he casually asked.
“What did you want to eat?”
Hongdan, who had been sitting still and secretly stealing glances at the mukbang at the next table, started pointing at this and that with an excited face, as if he’d been waiting for that question.
“Me, first this! This tteok ramen and cheese pork cutlet. And… oh, this. Aged kimchi tuna kimbap. Ah, but you don’t eat aged kimchi…”
The white finger that had been excitedly traversing the order sheet stopped at one spot. It was because there was something Seonha hated among the foods he’d noticed. Hongdan hurriedly rolled his eyes to choose something else. But in that instant.
“Let’s eat that.”
“Huh?”
Seonha cut off Hongdan’s words and picked up the pen that had been stuck with the order sheet. Hongdan froze in place, flustered by the other’s completely unexpected reaction.
Seonha wrapped his hand around the one stopped on the order sheet and interlocked their fingers once, then with his right hand drew a line on the order sheet. His attitude was calm compared to throwing away a taste he’d cherished for over ten years.
Hongdan was confused about which he should be more surprised by—Seonha saying he’d eat aged kimchi, or Seonha whose voice had mysteriously become lower like before. So he just blinked. In the meantime, Seonha, who had already chosen all the menu items, got up.
“Tteok ramen, cheese pork cutlet, aged kimchi tuna kimbap. Right? I’ll go order. Stay sitting.”
“Uh…”
What is this?
Hongdan narrowed his brow at an inexplicable sense of dissonance.
Did his memory just come back for a moment?
No, but then that traitorous young master wouldn’t say he’d eat kimchi. Come to think of it, there’s no way he’d take the initiative to do something first like that either.
It was profoundly unfamiliar to be exactly as he’d known, and as unfamiliar as it was strange.
Hongdan turned his head to look at the counter. At that moment, he realized how useless his sense of dissonance had been.
“Owner, I’d like to order…”
Right. It’s not the Yeon Seonha who would walk around looking that ridiculous.
The person seriously placing an order looking like some little match girl couldn’t be the Seonha he knew. If he were really eighteen or twenty-nine-year-old Yeon Seonha, his coat would have already met a different fate, torn to shreds along with him. Hongdan erased his idle thoughts with an empty laugh.
“Why?”
Whether that laughter remained until the bastard returned to his seat, Seonha tilted his head and asked why. Instead of explaining, Hongdan just shook his head. Then he gestured with his chin toward the water purifier. For now, if eighteen-year-old Seonha was voluntarily trying to act like a sucker, he planned to gladly take advantage of it.
I lived like a sucker for 3 years, so just about 3 months.
Thinking of it as compensation for his past married life, his mood wasn’t too bad.
“It’s nothing. Go get some water.”
“Ah, okay. You don’t need anything else?”
“Nah, not really.”
Seonha had to get up again to do the errand Hongdan ordered as soon as he sat down. Yet there wasn’t a single complaint. Rather, he quickly appeared with two glasses of water and three or four side dishes.
If ten years had flown away, surely his manners and etiquette should have evaporated that much too. It seemed Yeon Seonha was originally born with morals but had been living while whittling them away.
Eighteen-year-old Yeon Seonha had the basic concept of being human installed far more excellently than the ten-years-older Yeon Seonha. No, the eighteen-year-old Yeon Seonha in his memory didn’t behave like such a docile lamb, so was it just the blessing of the dump truck?
Whatever it was, Hongdan’s thoughts converged on one thing.
This bastard is quite…
“Not bad.”
“Hm?”
Might not be bad.
Although in terms of annoyance, the young bastard was ten times worse, at least he felt certain he wouldn’t give him the same wounds.
“Hongdan, are you in a good mood today? You’re smiling a lot.”
Because that innocent face couldn’t be fake.
Hongdan slightly raised the corners of his lips.
“Yeah, I feel good right now. I wish it could be like this every day.”
***
However, exactly 30 minutes later.
“Hm? Ah, just two hours. No, one hour! Ah, 30 minutes—”
Shiiiit…
“I don’t want to just go home like this—!”
Hongdan had to regret showing that opening to the bone.
