It was too early to say a staff member had come in, since no one had pressed the call bell. Which meant it was probably someone seated in the room, or the security guard — though the latter seemed unlikely. The room was rowdy, yes, but not to the degree that a security guard would show up on their own initiative.
Probably another guest.
Having reached that conclusion, Yuhyeon dropped his gaze again. If he dug his heels in because he felt wronged, the man’s voice would only get louder. Calling the security guard was meant to be a last resort. The moment a guard got involved, it would draw attention — and word would reach the owner’s ears. No employer liked a staff member who caused trouble without the sense to handle things properly.
He was in the middle of slowly parting his firmly pressed lips, intending to just apologize and put an end to it, when a low voice came from directly behind him. The displeasure in it was unmistakable.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing.”
A shadow fell over Yuhyeon from behind. There had been no sound beyond the door opening, so it took him a beat longer than it should have to realize someone was standing at his back. That alpha scent threaded through someone’s natural body odor. Without even turning around, Yuhyeon recognized in an instant who it was.
“…Owner?”
Bewilderment crept into Yuhyeon’s eyes as his voice rose at the end. When he spun around in a hurry, there stood Chae Seongjun, his expression deeply displeased. Seongjun tilted his chin at a slight angle and pushed Yuhyeon behind him. In one instant, Yuhyeon’s entire field of vision was blocked by a broad back. He blinked, trying to piece together what was happening.
The air froze over in an instant. Yuhyeon dragged the tip of his tongue across his drying lips and watched the situation carefully. It was fortunate that someone had come to his aid, but of all people, it had to be Seongjun. This was as good as letting the owner see him in a dispute with a customer, which made it awkward in its own right.
“You’re the owner here?”
The man slid his eyes sideways and ran them up and down Seongjun. With Seongjun — who was the polar opposite of slight Yuhyeon — stepping in, he couldn’t manage the same bluster as before. On top of that, Seongjun possessed a raw, unfiltered energy that bore down on a person’s spirit without needing to resort to pheromones at all. Watching the man whimper and shrink back was both a little amusing and deeply satisfying.
“What if I am?”
The brevity of Seongjun’s reply, delivered as though he were addressing something beneath notice, made Yuhyeon shrink despite himself. At the same time, the worry that had been painted across Yuhyeon’s face began to ease slightly. A clash between staff and customer was, from an owner’s perspective, never an attractive sight to begin with. He was in no position to complain even if Seongjun scolded him — and yet here Seongjun was, standing on the side of the employee.
When the man showed no sign of responding to what Seongjun had said, Seongjun let out a short breath between his teeth. Then he looked down at the man’s speechless face with open contempt and raised an eyebrow.
“But — when exactly did we get close enough for you to drop the formalities with me?”
There was a lethal edge to the question, and the man’s eyes darted frantically from side to side. He seemed to be hunting for a way out of the situation. A customer being threatened by an owner was unusual enough that his reaction was, to some degree, understandable. The brazen, domineering attitude he’d shown toward the employee he’d clearly viewed as weaker than him was gone without a trace. Chae Seongjun twisted the corner of his mouth.
On his way out after wrapping up the meeting, a stream of shouting had slipped through an incompletely shut door and lodged itself in his ears. He’d been about to dismiss it and keep walking, but the voice that followed had snagged him by the ankle. Inside the noisy room stood Seo Yuhyeon. What made Seongjun’s eyes go wide was the man’s hand slipping into Yuhyeon’s waistband. And the man hadn’t stopped there — he’d gone on to shove Yuhyeon in the chest, a Yuhyeon who was less than half his size.
It was a completely shameless reversal from the very man who had committed the harassment. Seongjun knew that a place like a bar would occasionally attract people who pulled this kind of stunt, but this was the first time he’d witnessed it firsthand. His schedule had been packed lately, and he’d handed management authority over to the floor manager he’d left in charge of day-to-day operations — and “disaster” was a fitting word for what that had produced.
Where on earth were the guards — the staff he had deployed specifically to protect his employees were nowhere to be seen. The anger that wouldn’t stay down sent a vein climbing up his jawline. Just as Yuhyeon had been shoved, Seongjun pressed his index finger steadily into the troublemaker’s forehead. With every bit of pressure his finger applied, the man’s head tipped helplessly back.
“You think this is some cheap pleasure den?”
Even with contempt loaded into every gesture and word, the man showed none of the bravado he’d displayed toward Yuhyeon. The big voice that had been blaring at full volume was nowhere to be found — his demeanor had turned pliant and cooperative.
“…Well, I never!”
The man had seemed content to stay quiet, but his pride must have finally stung enough — he let out a huffed breath. Yet he did nothing beyond a sniff of disdain, and no further complaints followed. He returned to his seat and began gathering his things with his companions. Clearly deciding this was a fight he couldn’t win, he was cutting his losses. Muttering that the mood had been ruined was nothing but an excuse. The drunk who hadn’t said a single word in front of Seongjun clicked his tongue and kept his eyes trained firmly on the floor as he went.
“Handle things like this… and you’ll lose all your customers.”
The drunk grumbled as he passed Seongjun with his party. And yet he scurried out of the room as though afraid a response might actually come — which was rather comical. He had sensed that Seongjun was holding his temper at the edge of its limit, and had run.
Still pulling that act all the way out the door.
The customer was the one who had done wrong, and Chae Seongjun, as the owner, had simply put a stop to it. And yet to turn away from his own fault and grumble on his way out — the shamelessness of it was extraordinary. If the owner had thrown a punch at the man, that might at least have given him something to actually sue over. Even once the shameless pair had left, Yuhyeon’s mood didn’t improve.
With the customers gone, the room settled into a hovering silence. The atmosphere grew increasingly uncomfortable. Yuhyeon stood behind Seongjun with his hands clasped, still as a statue, wondering if he too ought to just excuse himself and leave.
He was just parting his lips to say he’d be heading back when Seongjun moved. Yuhyeon found himself suddenly meeting the man’s eyes and promptly dropped his head down.
…Am I about to get an earful?
Seongjun still looked tired, and pressed his fingers to his forehead as though his head ached. He rubbed at the crease between his brows with his fingertips, released a quiet sigh, and seemed to be composing himself.
He had been on the employee’s side in front of the drunk — but now that the target was gone, that could change. Above all else, the fact remained that Yuhyeon had failed to handle the situation properly. He braced himself and waited, having resolved to take it on the chin even if Seongjun directed his anger at him — but the conversation didn’t unfold the way he’d feared.
“Are you all right?”
At the gentle question, Yuhyeon, who had been keeping his gaze at his feet, lifted his head. Seongjun continued.
“The reason I gave the staff walkie-talkies was to prevent exactly this kind of situation. Why didn’t you call the security guard?”
His face looked rough and worn with exhaustion, but his tone was calm and relatively soft. Gone was any trace of the irritation he’d barely been keeping swallowed down in front of the drunk.
“…I didn’t think it had reached the level where calling the security guard was necessary.”
There was no specific manual dictating when to call the guard, which made it hard to reach for the walkie-talkie quickly. And since the other party hadn’t been in his right mind, it had been difficult to judge what the appropriate level of response even was. Having never actually called the guard before made it all the harder.
“Didn’t reach the level of calling the security guard.”
Seongjun’s brow furrowed for a brief moment. He seemed genuinely baffled by Yuhyeon’s apparent lack of alarm, even considering how close the situation had come to something far worse.
“Someone puts their hand inside your waistband, and you call that acceptable?”
The atmosphere shifted in an instant into something that felt like a reprimand, and Yuhyeon went as silent as a locked door. He hadn’t expected Seongjun to have seen that far. It was true, of course, that the contact without his consent had been unpleasant — but what had actually gone into his waistband had only been part of a finger. If it had been a full hand, as Seongjun’s words implied, Yuhyeon wouldn’t have let the matter end the way it had, either.
“He didn’t put his hand inside my waistband…. He was putting a tip in the waistband.”
“…What.”
The hand at his forehead slowly came away, and the brow it had been covering came back into view.
“A finger did go in, but….”
The more he talked, the more he felt the situation growing stranger. Yuhyeon let the end of the sentence trail off and ultimately chose to close his mouth.
“So does that mean anyone is allowed to touch Seo Yuhyeon’s body? As long as it’s to give a tip?”
Seongjun stepped toward him with obvious dissatisfaction and wrapped a hand around Yuhyeon’s waist. He applied pressure, and the slender frame was pulled in without any resistance. Caught off guard and thrown off balance, Yuhyeon ended up awkwardly half-folded against the man’s chest.
“So if I were to give Seo Yuhyeon a tip right now, you’d forgive what I just did.”
Anyone else would not have let a customer who had laid hands on them without permission simply walk away. Snapping back at them or calling the security guard to have them removed on the spot would have been the natural response. And yet here was Yuhyeon, splitting hairs over a finger — which left Seongjun fighting back an exasperated frustration that was building from somewhere deep.
Why is he making that face?
Yuhyeon found it hard to open his mouth easily. The Seongjun looking down at him wore an expression that was difficult to name. It wasn’t only concern — there was something more layered beneath it, something complex enough that the sudden move the owner had just made was almost driven from his mind.
“I’m sorry. From now on, I’ll make sure to call someone.”
Whatever the case, Seongjun’s intent was clear enough. Yuhyeon peeled himself from where he’d been tilted against the man, curved his lips into an awkward smile, and said something to draw the situation to a close. As he did, he quietly reached for the check and slipped it out, trying not to make it obvious. As his grip tightened around it, the slip of paper crumpled without resistance.
Once it became clear that Seongjun wasn’t going to lay any blame on him, the tension unraveled — and the unpleasantness the drunk had left behind came crawling up his body in its wake. Yuhyeon pressed down the nausea rising in his stomach and tried to answer in an even, unbothered tone, as though nothing had happened. Whether he’d managed it, he wasn’t sure. Seongjun’s gaze kept following him, unrelenting. It felt as though those eyes were looking straight through him, and Yuhyeon clenched his jaw.
