Hyeonho stood in front of the vending machine outside the station, wanting some cold air to clear his head, deliberating over what to get. The wind was cold, but he wanted to pour something cool and refreshing down his throat. The old vending machine never changed its selection. He moved his index finger left and right, wavering for a long while, then pressed the button for a juice with an apple drawn on it. It dropped down with a clunk.
Hyeonho took the apple juice and sat on the bench in front of the station. It had been a long day. He sat there in a daze, rotating his neck side to side, when Huiwon walked out through the station exit.
Without quite realizing it, Hyeonho shot to his feet and walked in Huiwon’s direction.
“Hey.”
“…….”
Hyeonho called out to him. It wasn’t even a quiet voice — but Huiwon didn’t respond, only quickened his pace and tried to get out of the station grounds fast.
Hyeonho jogged lightly after him and caught his arm. And only after grabbing it did he realize. What was I even going to say…… The drug test results weren’t even back yet — it wasn’t like he could tell him he’d worked hard.
He fumbled for the right words, and Huiwon, who had been glaring sharply at the hand holding him, snapped his eyes up.
“What now?”
“……Uh…… um…… you want this?”
Even Hyeonho himself knew it was a ridiculous thing to say. But he genuinely had no idea what to bring up.
He’d grabbed him because he was worried, but there was nothing he could easily say to someone connected to an ongoing investigation. Stopping him like this in the first place had already been wrong.
Huiwon looked down at the apple juice can and let out a short, incredulous laugh.
In that instant, the image of the charity volunteers from his childhood surfaced — the way they’d pressed a box of Choco Pies into his arms like alms — and he swatted the hand away. The apple juice can dropped limply from Hyeonho’s grasp and rolled away across the ground.
Huiwon watched the can roll off into the distance, then whipped his face back around and stared Kang Hyeonho down with everything he had.
“I…… went there for cake. The actual thing. Not to eat men.”
His eyes were fierce, but his voice trembled with humiliation.
Kang Hyeonho lingered around the area near Tesoro. Through the full-length glass windows, he could see Do Huiwon. Even in the middle of the rush, he seemed to be smiling as he explained something about a cake to a customer. Hyeonho had hesitated more times than he could count, but he drew in a deep breath and pushed open the café door.
Just as Huiwon had practically shouted that day — his drug test had come back negative. Hyeonho had stood there for a long time after confirming the results.
The voice that had sounded like it was holding back tears. Those two eyes pressing down hard on shame, wrongful accusation, and rage.
“I went there for cake. The actual thing. Not to eat men.”
The wet, trembling voice lingered in his ears. The small retreating figure making its way out of the station was as vivid as if he’d seen it yesterday. The words hadn’t been his to begin with, but he wanted to apologize to Huiwon for having had to hear something so degrading. Yet he couldn’t figure out how to open his mouth and say it.
For days now, Hyeonho had been circling the area — and before it got any later, he finally stepped inside the café.
“……Ah…… one iced Americano, please.”
Huiwon glanced up at Hyeonho from behind the counter, then dropped his gaze back down to the register. No particular reaction.
Hyeonho looked at him and parted his lips slightly, then decided to order the coffee first. Through the moment of handing over his card and the payment going through, Huiwon said nothing at all.
“……Hey.”
“…….”
Hyeonho had gotten his receipt and card back and was working up the effort to speak when Huiwon looked up. His expression was blank, as though waiting for an additional order — but somehow that blankness made everything in Hyeonho’s head even more tangled.
“……So,”
The words wouldn’t come. They weren’t friends, they hadn’t had any prior relationship to speak of, and launching straight into a casual hey, sorry about that didn’t feel right either — but dragging out a long, detailed explanation and apology in the middle of Huiwon’s workplace seemed like it would only be a disruption.
I should’ve at least figured out what to say before coming in.
Hyeonho was chewing on his lower lip and trying to find the right words when —
“Why are you being formal with me today?”
Huiwon spoke first. One corner of his mouth lifted slightly — there was a clear bite to it.
“……Ah……. Sorry?”
Caught off guard, Hyeonho blinked rapidly a couple of times before echoing back a question, and Huiwon exhaled a short, sharp breath like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Why are you being formal, I said. You can drop it like you did before. Going on about tying me to a chair, doing things to my urethra.”
“……Ah…….”
“……Your coffee will be right up.”
Huiwon turned away, leaving Hyeonho standing there dumbfounded.
Hyeonho watched Huiwon’s back as he pulled the coffee with practiced ease and tried to sort through his thoughts, but there was too much floating around in his head for any of it to settle. He’d been thinking of it simply as a slip of the tongue from a fellow detective — but looking back, he himself had also backed Huiwon into a corner, laying out the forced catheterization in cold, blunt terms.
In his own mind at the time, he’d done it thinking it would be better for Huiwon to stop wasting energy fighting with Detective Seo over nothing and just cooperate quickly to get the whole thing over with — but the result was that the words Hyeonho had rattled off in a casual, informal tone to a frightened Huiwon in an unfamiliar situation must have landed as nothing short of a threat.
“Your iced Americano.”
While Hyeonho stood there in a muddle of complicated thoughts, Huiwon remained wholly focused on his work. Without sparing Hyeonho a single glance, he set the quickly pulled iced Americano on the counter.
“Than——”
Hyeonho had been about to reflexively say thank you but stopped himself mid-word and shut his mouth, remembering Huiwon mocking him for being formal.
He gripped the takeout cup with the iced Americano tight in his hand. His whole palm went cold, but he didn’t even think to slip on the cup sleeve, and walked out of the café just like that. His mind was more unsettled leaving than it had been walking in.
“What a joke.”
Huiwon muttered the insult at Hyeonho’s retreating back as he exited the café.
The truth was, he’d known Hyeonho had been lurking around for the past few days. Hard to miss, with that big frame of his hovering in front of the café. That said, he had no particular desire to acknowledge it.
And today — Hyeonho had come in like he’d worked himself up to it, clearly wanting to say something to him. Huiwon couldn’t make any sense of it.
The case had been wrapped up, and it could have just passed as if it never happened. Hyeonho and he hadn’t known each other before any of this, and there was even less reason to get to know each other going forward. The other detective who had actually hurled insults at Huiwon’s face probably wasn’t sparing him a second thought.
Hyeonho had always had a tendency to go overboard. He was, after all, someone who’d tried to strike up a conversation by praising a cake he’d never tasted. It was probably less that he genuinely wanted to apologize to Huiwon, and more that his image as a good person had taken a dent and he was trying to patch it up.
Huiwon had arrived at a conclusion about this Hyeonho: someone with a savior complex.
That same evening. Right at closing time, Kang Hyeonho stepped into Tesoro again. His expression was dead serious, as before.
“I…… came to apologize…….”
Delivered with an equally hopeless line to match.
“For what?”
Huiwon set down the mug he’d been putting away and shifted his gaze to Hyeonho.
“Uh…… for speaking informally. And for…… saying some harsh things.”
He said it, then stood there fidgeting, checking Huiwon’s reaction in a way that didn’t suit his frame at all. Huiwon looked him over from head to toe, then picked the mug back up and went back to putting things away.
“I’m closing up right now.”
“Ah……. Sorry for bothering you when you’re bus——”
Huiwon had looked away to resume tidying, and Hyeonho actually dipped his head in a bow.
“If you have more to say, wait outside until I’m done closing.”
“Ah, yes!”
Hyeonho nodded right away and answered with surprising cheer. Seeming to take it as an opportunity to talk, he even pushed the café door open with energy as he headed out. Huiwon watched his back and shook his head slowly. He could’ve waited inside just as easily — it’s a shame he couldn’t read what I actually meant by telling him to wait outside.
Huiwon started on the closing tasks. The sales tally, the inventory, the cleaning — all the wrap-up work, he did it slowly, slowly, dragging his feet through every bit of it.
Spring had arrived in name, but the cold snap that came with it was still going strong before the real warmth settled in — and in weather like this, there was no way Kang Hyeonho in just a thin jacket would hold out long.
Tap —
