“Uuung… Kim Minwoo is just a name I came up with….”
“……You’re saying Kim Minwoo is really Won Dogyeong? That his real name is Won Dogyeong?”
For a moment she got close to the truth, but then her brain must have decided that couldn’t be possible, because her question veered off point again.
“That’s also right… He’s just the Won Dogyeong you know….”
Myeong Haemin asked back with an uncertain expression.
“The Won Dogyeong I know? The actor Won Dogyeong?”
“Yeah….”
Haemin, who had been tilting her head with her arms crossed looking like she wasn’t sure if this was real, suddenly shouted “Ah!” as if something had occurred to her.
“The one living with an omega…!”
“…That’s me.”
She rolled her eyes around with a complicated expression, as if mentally reviewing everything she’d heard so far. I just sat there quietly watching her reaction.
It was only after quite some time had passed that Myeong Haemin opened her mouth, saying “I thought so.”
“I did think it was too nice a place for someone fresh out of college to live. No matter how much money your family has, to rent that place on a monthly basis….”
It seemed she’d been finding it unusual all along. And rightly so—the house we’re currently living in had a location and square footage that even fairly wealthy parents wouldn’t easily provide. As Haemin said, living there on monthly rent wasn’t typical either.
“No wonder… you couldn’t show me photos.”
“I can show you now though. Want to see?”
I scrolled through my gallery and flipped through photos taken with Won Dogyeong. The ones from when we went to Sokcho, and photos we’d taken here and there before. We didn’t really take selfies together, so there weren’t any really recent photos.
Haemin kept making strange exclamations like “Ooh… ooh…” as she stared intently at the screen.
“It’s real… Even seeing it I still can’t quite believe it… But it really is real….”
“You’ll believe it when you see him in person.”
Even if you don’t believe it now, when he’s right in front of you, you’ll have to believe it whether you want to or not.
Myeong Haemin, who had been continuing to go “Oooh” in a daze, suddenly turned to look at me and asked.
“But is it okay for you to tell me this? What if I go around blabbing about it?”
“An article’s going out soon anyway. Just hold on a little longer.”
I took a sip of the rooibos tea I was holding. At first it felt really awkward and I craved coffee, but once I got used to it, it’s pretty tasty in its own way.
“I wanted to let you know before the article comes out….”
“Wow, I’m so touched that you’re looking handsome to me.”
Haemin teased in an exaggerated tone. I waved my hands frantically, going through all sorts of expressions.
“Never make jokes like that in front of Won Dogyeong.”
“Why? Is he jealous?”
“Yeah.”
Myeong Haemin burst out laughing, but I was serious. If you say something like that in front of him, he might really tell me not to meet you.
She said she could come next weekend, so we set it for then. For me and Won Dogyeong, our schedule was just hanging out at home together as usual, so there wasn’t really anything particular to plan.
When I let him know via messenger, Won Dogyeong got all fired up saying he’d prepare a nine-dish feast.
A burning rabbit emoticon and a puppy shaking a wok emoticon arrived one after another. The puppy looked similar, as if it was from the same emoticon series as the rabbit.
For someone who looks like he wouldn’t really like this kind of thing, seeing him consistently buy them every time a new series comes out is kind of cute. Next time he asked me to go with him to an emoticon popup event, and I said okay to that too.
It was annoyingly cute how he showed me the palm-sized dolls he wanted to buy, one of each type.
Is he seriously trying to be cute?
And seriously, what’s wrong with me?
Anyway, somehow, my head got messed up.
“He says to make sure to ask what you want to eat.”
“I eat anything well though. You can just order delivery or whatever.”
Myeong Haemin really does eat anything well. Won Dogyeong would probably dislike delivery, so I should just ask him to make something I want to eat.
As always, I fought off drowsiness while killing time in the afternoon, and as soon as it was time to leave work, I quickly gathered my things and scurried down to the first floor.
After leaving the building, I turned into the side alley and looked around for Won Dogyeong. He said he’d park the car at a nearby parking lot, but I thought right in front of the company might make him self-conscious, so I asked if he could come to this side instead.
When I found him standing alone on the street looking at his phone and stuck my face close, his eyes widened as he smiled.
“Done?”
His finger joints lightly brushed under my chin. I froze for a moment in surprise.
Am I a dog…?
…I didn’t dislike it. The gentle touch made the area behind my ears tingle a little. If I really were a dog, my ears might be flapping around right now.
“Let’s go.”
Won Dogyeong intertwined his hand with mine and started walking.
“Did Daun hyung get off work?”
“Yeah. He says he’ll be there soon.”
Hyung said he had something to give me, so we decided to have dinner together, the three of us, while we were at it. Since hyung’s company is also nearby, we decided to just meet at the restaurant.
The restaurant Yeo Daun had reserved had a quite antique-looking entrance. Won Dogyeong’s eyes sparkled as he scanned the interior of the place.
“I’ve been wanting to come here.”
“Hyung likes going to places like this too.”
It was a shabu-shabu place near the company that I occasionally heard was delicious from colleagues. When I mentioned Yeo Daun’s name, the staff guided us to a room in the back.
We sat side by side, leaving hyung’s seat across from us empty, and flipped through the menu.
“Beef shabu-shabu… Oh, they have Korean beef too.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Honestly, I have an undiscerning palate, so if the type is the same, it all tastes pretty similar to me.
“Hmm, let’s get the Korean beef.”
“I want to add mushrooms. Oh, water parsley too.”
“Can you eat water parsley?”
Won Dogyeong tilted his head, then searched on a portal site and quickly read through the articles. After repeating that a few times, he turned to look at me and went “Hmm,” pausing.
“Do you want to eat it?”
“Yeah.”
“Eat just a little bit, then.”
Alright. When I bobbed my head up and down, he lightly patted my head. The way he kept touching me like I was a little kid made me feel strange.
How should I put it, it was like… the nuance of skinship that couples would normally do.
You know, like, good job, good job. You’re cute, you’re cute. That kind of feeling came through in the contact.
When I narrowed my eyes and stared at him, Won Dogyeong raised his eyebrows with a puzzled look.
Is he doing it without realizing…?
I don’t know. Lately I haven’t been able to get a sense of what Won Dogyeong is thinking when he treats me like this.
Slide—
“Oh, you’re here?”
Just then, hyung came in holding a small fan to his face, blowing air on himself with a tired expression, and sat down. Being sensitive to heat runs in our family.
Yeo Daun was blankly getting hit by the breeze, then looked at my face and narrowed his brow.
“Looks like there was a lot of good food?”
That was the first thing that came out before even greeting me. I’ve never seen anyone be so rude about saying someone got fat.
I did gain a little weight. It’d be weird if I didn’t gain weight eating like that. Actually, considering I ate six donuts every day, I hadn’t gained that much.
Did I gain enough for him to notice right away?
I secretly pinched the flesh at my side. It didn’t seem like that much.
“Says the guy who looks broke these days? You’re skin and bones.”
Feeling rebellious for no reason, I scoffed back.
People in our family always lose their appetite when summer comes and get really skinny. For hyung too, like every year, this is probably the thinnest time of the year.
At the sharp exchange of greetings, Won Dogyeong trembled beside us, trying to hold back his laughter.
“Talking back to your hyung like that…. I should have caught you like catching a mouse when you were little.”
“You’re talking like you raised me.”
“What are you saying, it’s true. After Mom, I have the next biggest stake in raising you.”
If you really thought about it, it wasn’t wrong.
Our family genealogy was divided into the Mom faction and the Noona faction, and Yeo Daun was in the Mom faction while Dad was in the Noona faction.
To define the Noona faction in one phrase, it was all over the place. If you left them alone, they’d keep going off somewhere, they were somewhat unreliable, and sometimes they required a lot of attention—that kind of feeling.
The reason it’s called the Noona faction instead of the Dad faction is obviously because Noona is much more representative of it. The epitome of being all over the place—Yeo Areum.
If there was a difference between Dad and Noona, it was that Dad at least tried to work hard at things in his own way and followed instructions without complaint. The unfortunate commonality was that in the end, neither was very helpful.
Mom and hyung would assign them various tasks, then end up dissatisfied and take over to do it themselves—that was the daily routine.
I’m neither of those—I’m just the Yeo Jeongwon faction. Really, truly.
“Did you order?”
“Not yet. We had to wait for you to order.”
“Mushrooms and water parsley are okay?”
“Yeah.”
At Won Dogyeong’s mediation, hyung nodded his head half-heartedly as if to say do whatever you want.
“What did you bring to give me?”
Hyung picked up two paper bags he’d put down on the side seat and passed them across the table. I opened the bigger one first. Won Dogyeong seemed curious too, as he stuck his head out and peeked inside the bag. There were tin cases neatly stacked inside.
“What’s this?”
“Some famous cookies or something. I got them from someone who went on a trip, but I don’t really eat sweets. Don’t you like this kind of thing?”
Unexpectedly, hyung’s gaze was directed not at me but at Won Dogyeong.
“Huh…? Y-yeah, um, cookies… sweets…? I like them…?”
Won Dogyeong not only stammered in confusion but even flinched a little when making eye contact. I was also flustered, so I just looked back and forth between their faces.
What kind of situation is this?
The other bag clearly looked like some kind of alcohol, champagne or wine based on its long shape.
I can’t drink alcohol right now though? Don’t tell me he brought this for Won Dogyeong too?
“That’s sparkling wine, and it has a sweet taste so I thought you’d like it. Try it, it’s good.”
Leaving us bewildered, hyung calmly took a sip of water.
I stared blankly at Yeo Daun, dumbfounded.
“Why are you being like this…?”
“Like what.”
“Why are you suddenly taking care of Won Dogyeong?”
