Ding. The brass bell on the shop door rang. Seowoo stayed still, pretending not to hear it, and a lemonade packed full of crushed ice was thrust in front of him. The one who had followed him out was Min Sangoh.
Seowoo accepted it without protest, and Sangoh, as if he’d been waiting for exactly that, poked a straw into it. Then he slid both hands into his apron pockets and spoke in his usual even tone.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the ground.”
“Ha ha……”
Sangoh studied Seowoo’s awkward smile carefully, then continued in a quiet voice.
“Can I ask what you’re planning to do from here?”
Seowoo drew a long sip of lemonade. It was so cold that the back of his skull rang and his eyes throbbed. He understood immediately what Sangoh’s question was getting at, but a clean answer didn’t come right out.
“……Honestly, I don’t know.”
“What about other alpha pheromones. Have you ever considered it?”
“It probably won’t work.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked up to find Sangoh’s smiling face close by. He was the kind of person who smiled as gently as the teas his shop sold. Faced with a question he’d never once been asked before, Seowoo could only blink. He couldn’t quite figure out what Sangoh was getting at.
“You’ve been struggling for a long time, and you never even tried pheromone treatment from another alpha — so I wondered if maybe you had an aversion to alphas altogether.”
“That’s not it.”
Seowoo denied it immediately.
He had been humiliated because of his designation in the process of losing Suryeon, and he’d spent one accidental night tangled up in an uncontrolled heat cycle. Even so, no hatred toward his own designation or toward alphas had taken root in him.
If anything, Seowoo realized with a jolt, it was probably because that night with Hyeon hadn’t been bad — no, it had been very, very good.
“It’s not the situation you’re worried about. Donghyeok’s just misreading things.”
“……”
“You don’t need to worry about it, Sangoh. I’m sorry, as always.”
Seowoo bowed his head politely as he said it. The worry itself aside, he was also concerned they might misread things and accidentally say something to Hyeon. Seowoo knew well that both Donghyeok and Sangoh genuinely cared about him.
He was deliberately softening his expression and explaining himself when, through the front glass of the shop, Donghyeok came into view doing an impression of a gorilla. Arms swinging, thumbs pointed down, pulling an exaggerated pose — he was genuinely, impressively ugly like that. Seowoo burst out laughing, and Sangoh, turning to look, laughed along with him.
Just then, as if it had been waiting for the moment, his phone buzzed.
Seowoo immediately pulled his phone out of his apron pocket — and froze. Without thinking, he looked up toward the third floor of the studio building, and there was Hyeon, standing at the window.
When did he……get back?
He was looking this way too. The distance was far, but it felt like the first time their eyes had met in a while. Since Seowoo didn’t pick up right away, Sangoh followed his gaze and looked up as well. A brief silence passed.
“I — I’m going to take this call.”
Seowoo gave a quick bow, and Sangoh said nothing, only folding his eyes in a small smile. Then he looked up at Hyeon once more before heading back inside the shop.
Feeling oddly unsettled for no good reason, Seowoo hit accept and moved to the side of the building — out of Hyeon’s line of sight.
“Yes, hello?”
There was no answer, and just as Seowoo pulled the phone away to check if the call had dropped, a low voice came through from the other end.
— Why did you go over there.
“Sorry?”
— You were standing just fine where you were.
How long had he been watching?
“Just felt like it.”
The other end went quiet for a moment. Only the faintest sound of steady breathing came through.
— There are parts of you that are hard to read, Seowoo.
Seowoo dropped his gaze to the base of the wall. The shadows of sunlit leaves swayed gently.
“I don’t think you’re one to talk.”
— Is that so?
“……Yes.”
His voice after nearly a week. Something stirred inside him. He couldn’t seem to get used to it at all, and after such a long gap, even his defenses had worn all the way down. As he stood there tense, something unexpected came through.
— Have you eaten?
It was such an ordinary question that it caught him off guard instead. Seowoo missed the timing to respond and fumbled slightly.
“Yes, yes.”
— I haven’t.
“……”
He was speechless again.
Seowoo stood there with the phone pressed to his ear and couldn’t say a word. Then, all at once, the answer came to him.
“……Oh — oh! Should we get food?”
— Sure.
The prompt, affirmative reply told Seowoo he’d picked the right answer.
“What should we do? Should I grab something and come up? If you tell me what you’d like——”
— I’ll come down.
“Sorry?”
No answer from Hyeon, and when Seowoo pulled the phone from his cheek, the screen showed the call had ended.
“……He’s coming down. Right now?”
Just like that? His flustered face stared back at him from the darkened screen.
Seowoo reflexively pulled off his work apron first. As he turned toward the shop, his reflection in the glass looked absolutely bedraggled. He had no business laughing at Donghyeok for being ugly.
He went back inside rubbing his cheeks, and Donghyeok raised both eyebrows pointedly. Sangoh had clearly already tipped him off.
“Dano, want to go out with your uncle?”
“Woody?”
“Let’s go to the mart. The mart. Leave your dad to work.”
“Dad not coming?”
“That’s right, just a date with your uncle.”
“Dad at one o’clock?”
“This clever thing! How’d you figure that out?”
He kept Dano from turning to look at Seowoo and thoroughly distracted him. Then he gave Seowoo a subtle thumbs up. Go on, it’s fine. His expression was playful, but more than anyone, Donghyeok was the one who wanted Seowoo’s treatment to go well. Seowoo mouthed a thank you, then stepped back out of the shop.
***
Hyeon was standing alone at the entrance of the studio building. It seemed less like he was waiting for Seowoo and more like he was mindful of Dano inside Blue Giraffe. Watching him be conscious of a three-year-old’s feelings, Seowoo felt a small pang.
Maybe it was because it had been nearly a week. Meeting his gaze felt even more awkward than before.
“Is there a place you go to often?”
“Uh……honestly, I don’t eat out much so I don’t really know anywhere. Should I ask Donghyeok?”
“Get in.”
Hyeon shook his head and pointed to the parked cars. Of the two, the sleek black one was blinking its hazard lights. Without waiting for Seowoo, he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine right away.
“Do you eat fish?”
“Oh, I already ate though.”
“Eat anyway. I don’t want to eat alone.”
“……Okay.”
Seowoo had pulled up the local map and started searching, then quietly put his phone away. Hyeon seemed to have somewhere in mind already — Seowoo had no idea why he’d bothered asking in the first place.
“If there’s something else you want, say so.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll just eat whatever you want.”
“Alright then.”
Hyeon pulled out without even turning on the navigation. Seowoo glanced back at the receding Blue Giraffe, then faced forward again.
“We’ll be back soon.”
“Hm? Okay.”
“You were worried about the baby waiting.”
“Oh — yeah. But it’s fine. Donghyeok and Sangoh are both there. I just looked back on reflex. It’s kind of a habit by now……”
“Ah.”
That lukewarm response was the end of the conversation. The car moved in the opposite direction from the touristy downtown area. For the ten or so minutes they drove, Seowoo breathed in the faint trace of Hyeon’s scent that filled the car.
It was certain. There was no way another alpha’s pheromones would work. His body, which had been gradually improving over the past month of being around Hyeon in one way or another, didn’t lie. Even now, he could feel his muscles going slack without any resistance.
“Did your trip go well?”
But he couldn’t simply depend on someone who disappeared without a word and came back just as unannounced. Along with the wariness came a creeping anxiety.
“Yes.”
Hyeon answered while turning the wheel. Seowoo could feel the brief sidelong glance land on his cheek.
“Were you doing alright, Seowoo?”
“Mm……yeah. More or less.”
“I heard you were busy.”
“Yeah, well……”
Mid-answer, Seowoo turned to look at Hyeon.
“How did you know?”
“Chief Han mentioned it.”
“Oh.”
He must have seen me working before he left. Seowoo didn’t remember it, but things had been so hectic that it made sense. He nodded once, and the conversation died again. In the quiet, the car arrived in front of a restaurant.
Seowoo stepped out slowly, taking in the well-appointed exterior of the restaurant. Hyeon got out after him, came around the front of the hood, and walked up to Seowoo, resting one hand lightly on his shoulder.
“Let’s go in. Chief Han made a reservation — apparently it’s a well-known place around here.”
“Okay.”
A well-known place. Now that he mentioned it, Seowoo felt like he’d heard the name somewhere. The parking lot was enormous, there was a garden lined with pine trees, and the building itself — with seating on two floors — was polished and grand. Even the queue barriers wrapping around the parking lot from the entrance seemed unusual. The only strange thing, if there was one, was that there wasn’t a single customer in sight.
