Then his shoulder touched Chahyun’s forearm. He felt the solid forearm stiffen with a start. When Yiyoung bent his waist to focus on the photo, his shoulder lightly brushed Chahyun’s arm, and he could see strength entering the large hand gripping the phone.
Before he could be conscious of it, Yiyoung frowned and let out an exclamation.
“Ugh.”
Looking at the presentation, it was clearly high-class cuisine, but it was too disgusting. With a revolted expression, Yiyoung straightened his bent waist. As their close bodies separated, Chahyun moistened his lower lip with his tongue and put his phone in his pocket. Before long, Chahyun asked with a mischievous expression:
“Should we eat this next time? It’s tastier than it looks.”
For a moment, Yiyoung imagined himself being forced by Chahyun to choke down disgusting food. Yiyoung looked up sharply at Chahyun and shouted:
“No!”
Chahyun was more than capable of getting revenge by tormenting him with food. While Yiyoung stiffened his expression worriedly, he thought again:
‘But there won’t be a next time.’
While he was sulking like that, Chahyun suddenly burst into roaring laughter. At the loud sound that echoed through the market alley, Yiyoung quickened his steps with his face reddening for no reason.
When they left the market, Chahyun pointed in the direction of Yiyoung’s house.
“Should we walk? To digest too.”
A large shopping bag hung on Chahyun’s wrist. Yiyoung stared intently at the shopping bag that probably contained the things to return to him and nodded.
From the traditional market to Yiyoung’s house was easily a 30-minute walk.
On the way home too, Chahyun kept talking to prevent the conversation from breaking off, just as he had done throughout dinner. Yiyoung listened to and answered Chahyun’s words while occasionally thinking other thoughts.
‘He’s cheerful.’
Originally, Chahyun was, separately from being affectionate, someone with few facial expressions and who was taciturn. However, after losing his memory, for some reason his words never stopped. The only thing better than before was that he looked happy having said everything he wanted to say.
‘The problem is every time he opens his mouth, I want to hit him.’
Apart from that, overall he was unexpectedly quite entertaining with his words.
Though he didn’t want to admit it, he was subtly humorous, so while eating chicken feet, Yiyoung encountered several crises where he almost burst out laughing. He had no idea why such a person who liked talking and was good at it had started a vow of silence.
While briefly lost in other thoughts, they arrived home.
Yiyoung was a bit surprised to see the green iron gate of his detached house. He didn’t know when they’d passed the road that definitely should take 30 minutes to walk. With a bewildered gaze, Yiyoung looked back at the narrow alley behind him.
Come to think of it, there was something else strange. The alley, which was always dim because many streetlights had burned-out bulbs or insufficient brightness, was unusually bright. The neighborhood he’d lived in for so long looked unfamiliar.
‘They’ve been doing streetlight construction for the past few days, so it’s gotten much brighter.’
According to what he’d heard from his neighbor, recently someone had crashed hard into a utility pole while driving at night, so corrective city measures had been taken.
According to a neighbor who witnessed the scene, it was an incredibly expensive car. The neighbor complained that when neighborhood residents filed complaints nothing budged, but as soon as a rich person had an accident, it was fixed immediately.
Then suddenly the muttering Chahyun had done on the day he waited for Yiyoung came to mind.
‘Anyway, why is it still so dark here? Do I really need to crash into a utility pole for them to get their act together?’
Yiyoung stared intently at Chahyun and thought:
‘It was you.’
No wonder his car had changed. That day Chahyun had complained the neighborhood was dark, and sure enough, he’d caused an accident. He wasn’t someone who couldn’t use a driver, so he didn’t know why he insisted on driving when he wasn’t even good at it.
Worried about what would happen if he got hurt again, Yiyoung looked at Chahyun with concerned eyes. But soon thinking it was presumptuous meddling, he shook his head vigorously to shake off the idle thoughts.
Yiyoung held out his palm toward Chahyun and pointed at the shopping bag he was holding with his chin.
“Give it back now.”
Chahyun removed the shopping bag’s handle from his wrist slowly enough to feel like teasing.
“Here.”
Yiyoung somewhat hastily snatched the shopping bag. The shopping bag he received like that was ominously light. With wide-open eyes, Yiyoung opened the shopping bag wide to check the contents.
Yiyoung sharply raised his head toward Chahyun and raised his voice.
“Just one mug?”
No wonder the shopping bag looked deflated!
Seeing the shopping bag that didn’t hang heavily, he’d anticipated that it wouldn’t contain all the items that needed to be returned. However, excluding various consumables, it was a size that could contain everything, so he’d let his guard down. Who would have thought this large shopping bag would contain just one lonely mug?
Even after pulling such a shameless scam, Chahyun had an utterly brazen expression. Yiyoung frowned all over his face and argued:
“Are you making fun of me right now? You said you’d give it back if we had dinner together!”
“I never said I’d give everything back at once, did I?”
Yiyoung clenched both fists trembling.
Really, if he could just hit him once, he’d have no other wishes.
He wondered if there was another person in the world this shameless and spiteful. Yiyoung barely found words that weren’t curses and barked at Chahyun:
“Does Chahyun-ssi know he’s incredibly mean?”
“Bae Yiyoung-ssi, people are all originally mean. There are just those who can show it and those who can’t.”
With a very dignified gesture, when Chahyun said ‘those who can show it,’ he pointed to himself, and when he said ‘those who can’t,’ he pointed to Yiyoung. At that spiteful attitude, Yiyoung’s anger flared and veins bulged on the side of his forehead.
“What on earth is the reason for going this far to meet me?”
Though he asked that, the reason was obvious. Chahyun was playing tricks on Yiyoung. The fact he’d been uncertain about before became certain as of now.
No matter how he looked at it, Chahyun wasn’t someone who had romantic feelings for Yiyoung.
He was just fascinated and amused because they were such different types. Chahyun was mistaking that for romantic affection and insisting on dating Yiyoung. Probably even if Chahyun became friends with Yiyoung instead of lovers, he wouldn’t feel the difference.
Actually wanting to sleep with him once would be closer to romantic feelings than this. At least in terms of being sexually attracted. And Yiyoung didn’t need a friend like Moon Chahyun.
‘If he’s bored, he should play with his own friends, why is he messing around with me?’
Obviously because it was easy to torment him. Yiyoung felt like he’d become something like Chahyun’s errand boy.
Yiyoung glared fiercely with anger. Chahyun met Yiyoung’s eyes with a gaze that was calm yet slightly interested. Then he answered plainly:
“Because you’re pretty.”
At the completely unexpected answer, Yiyoung frowned while still glaring at Chahyun.
He didn’t understand. It was just a few hours ago that Chahyun had poured out a bucketful of complaints about Yiyoung’s appearance. Moreover, even before, while Chahyun had often praised Yiyoung’s character or work, he hadn’t mentioned his appearance.
So Yiyoung had thought Chahyun didn’t feel much attraction to his looks. Of course, since Chahyun had expressed interest from the day he saw Yiyoung, it was possible to misunderstand that way.
‘Wasn’t he captivated by the sight of me singing at the whisky bar?’
And Yiyoung had been attracted to Chahyun’s handsome face and tall physique, but more than anything else, to his expressions. Chahyun with a face soaked in love seemed to radiate light from his entire body.
In contrast, the Chahyun before his eyes clicked his tongue as if quite unwilling, seeing Yiyoung’s dumbfounded expression.
“I didn’t want to tell you because Bae Yiyoung-ssi tends to be cocky relying on your looks. But since you asked, I had no choice but to answer honestly. Since it was probably a fact you knew well anyway, I won’t think I made a mistake.”
Even while saying this, Chahyun had an expression of deeply regretting what he’d just said. Chahyun glanced at Yiyoung with distrustful eyes and repeatedly advised:
“I hope Bae Yiyoung-ssi doesn’t become even more arrogant from my words. Acting high and mighty based on just being pretty makes you look stupid.”
Having been confused but then snapping back to his senses, Yiyoung frowned again.
‘I act high and mighty? When he doesn’t have even a speck of humility?’
Moreover, what? I look stupid?
At this point, Yiyoung thought Chahyun was beyond arrogant to being a real bastard. He had to acknowledge a man who thought the universe revolved around him to this extent. Amazing, really.
‘So he really acts like this even to someone he feels attracted to?’
