Yoon Seowoo’s shop, Blue Giraffe, was located a little ways off from the bustling tourist-heavy main street. The atmosphere was quietly charming, but there weren’t any particular landmarks nearby — the kind of place you wouldn’t need to seek out if you’d come to the city purely for sightseeing. He guessed that Seowoo probably hadn’t had much startup capital when he opened the shop.
And yet, traces of customers filled every corner of the place. The thick guestbook, packed with messages, had pages worn soft at the edges, and one entire wall was covered with Polaroid photos visitors had taken as mementos of their trips.
Even by Lee Hyeon’s eye as a painter, the shop was too good to be tucked away in a corner like this. The overall cohesion of color and atmosphere was strikingly beautiful and refined. The way objects were layered in stacks or left with breathing room — it was clear that none of it came from mere personal taste, but had been deliberately designed with the visitor’s experience in mind.
He’d never witnessed Seowoo at work firsthand. But the craftsmanship of the handmade props he designed himself, right down to the overall branding — none of it fell short of large-scale shops built by dozens of people. Nothing’s faded, he thought. Not a single thing from the sensibility I felt back when Seowoo handled the exhibition planning.
That was exactly why customers made their way here for this shop alone. No historical landmarks. A route that required deliberately going out of your way. The fact that the shop was sustaining itself — that Seowoo was earning enough to live comfortably — was something you could sense just from the atmosphere. Everywhere you looked, it wasn’t luck. It was Seowoo’s skill, woven into every inch of the place.
Lee Hyeon moved with an indifferent gaze between the display shelves, and then he spotted a small notice. A neatly hand-lettered sign with information about gift delivery by post. His eyes lingered on the clean, tidy handwriting for a long moment.
Does Seowoo know — that it was while Chief Han was investigating his past that they found this place? When they’d done an image search on the toy the baby had left behind, it turned out to be Blue Giraffe’s mascot character, which had been gaining quite a bit of word-of-mouth attention on social media. Following that trail, they’d found traces of a company reaching out to him. It had seemed to be an attempt to build an official website, establish branding, and launch online sales. He didn’t know why Seowoo had turned it down, but looking at it now, he thought it was a good thing.
Distinctive, mysterious, yet warm — that image was the identity of this shop. There was nothing to be gained from unnecessary fame. Just thinking about the flood of people who would dissect the shop owner’s handsome face and his pheromones made his head hurt. Imagining the attention that would pour onto Seowoo left him in a distinctly unpleasant mood.
As he finished surveying the shop, Lee Hyeon’s gaze finally settled on Min Sangoh — Seowoo’s business partner and yet another “uncle” to Yoon Dano.
Uncle No. 1, Ji Donghyeok, the guesthouse owner who had known Seowoo since the gallery days and was a college classmate. Uncle No. 2, the doctor, director of the neighborhood clinic that had been a part of their lives since the baby was born. And Uncle No. 3, Min Sangoh, the café-side business partner and the baby’s father’s partner.
Just like the doctor — the one Dano had flung himself at without hesitation even mid-sob — Min Sangoh, too, seemed to hold an enormous presence in the baby’s world. The moment Dano crossed the shop threshold holding his father’s hand, he bolted straight to Sangoh and launched himself into his arms, then charmed an ice cream out of him through sheer cuteness. Min Sangoh, with practiced ease, held a hand under Dano’s chin as he ate, and without a second thought, wiped the sticky drool from the corners of his mouth with his thumb. Every move was as natural as a real father’s.
Seowoo, too, seemed completely without guard — he stood close at Sangoh’s side and readily took the drink Sangoh handed him and drank it without hesitation. Even though the man was clearly an alpha.
Lee Hyeon watched the scene unfold, keeping his expression perfectly blank the whole time. His eyelids dropped once, very slowly, then rose again.
“I heard you like tea.”
When Lee Hyeon took his seat, Min Sangoh came over with a fragrant cup of tea.
“Thank you.”
He offered only the acknowledgment and didn’t touch the cup. Noticing this, Seowoo cut in casually.
“Sangoh, the online shop he runs is really well known for its teas. This is one of their bestsellers. The scent is absolutely lovely.”
The subtle nudge to take a sip made Lee Hyeon’s eyebrow twitch faintly.
“Online sales must be the main business then.”
“Ah, yes. The main income is selling herbal teas and fruit syrups online. This place is more of a showroom, in a way.”
“So you wouldn’t feel the pressure even if there were no customers.”
The words slipped out bluntly — a bit rude — but Lee Hyeon had no intention of walking them back. He hadn’t liked Min Sangoh’s shop from the start.
“Well, yeah…… to be honest, the office keeps me pretty swamped, so this is more like my escape from all that. Everyone teases me about being a figurehead owner. Hahaha!”
Ha. Lee Hyeon was rendered speechless by the easy, jovial deflection. If that was the case, then there was even less reason to be running a joint business in a tucked-away place like this, wasn’t there?
Now that he was looking with suspicion, it seemed like there was something beyond simple friendliness in Min Sangoh’s eyes.
“Still, it’s nice being able to help Seowoo out whenever something comes up like this. I heard Dano cried a lot yesterday? Hearing about it made me so sad too.”
“Dano cwy, Uncoh sad?”
“Yeah, Uncle was crying too. Like, waaah.”
“Here! Dano hug!”
The baby spread both arms wide and graciously allowed himself to be held. Lee Hyeon watched as Min Sangoh lifted Dano from the chair and pulled him snugly into his arms — and the moment his gaze landed on Seowoo, he abruptly stood up and walked out. Because he found he couldn’t keep watching as the usual blankness on Seowoo’s face melted away into a natural, easy smile.
After Lee Hyeon pushed through the shop door and left, Seowoo felt the same undercurrent of discomfort.
“Sangoh, sorry — can I step out and talk to him for a moment? Could you watch Dano for me?”
“Of course. Go get ’em!”
“Dano, Daddy’s just going to the bathroom real quick — you have to wait nicely, okay?”
“Okayyy~!”
“Dano, come on, let’s cheer Daddy on together!”
“Chee on! Chee on!”
Whether Donghyeok had said something to him, or whether Seowoo had taken one look at Lee Hyeon’s face and immediately understood the situation — either way, Seowoo stepped out of the shop carrying encouragement that he couldn’t feel purely happy about.
Not far from the shop, on the roadside, Lee Hyeon was leaning at an angle against his parked sedan. His injured hand was shoved in his pocket, and in his left hand, he was clutching a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
“Do you smoke?”
Seowoo approached and tilted his head, unconsciously leaning in to catch his scent. The cigarette pack in Lee Hyeon’s hand looked so unfamiliar that the reaction had come out naturally. But there was no smell of cigarettes — only a faint, lingering scent of iris drifted through the air.
“I thought you’d already headed back to your accommodations.”
Lee Hyeon had been quietly watching what Seowoo was doing. Then, without warning, he raised his hand and pulled Seowoo toward him. The movement was completely unexpected — Seowoo’s feet tangled and he ended up burying his nose in Lee Hyeon’s chest.
But Lee Hyeon didn’t stop there. He pulled Seowoo into a firm embrace. With only a thin shirt between them as Seowoo’s cheek was pressed against him, the warmth of his body heat and the sound of his heartbeat came through clearly and completely. When Seowoo startled and tried to pull back, Lee Hyeon refused to let go and instead turned them both half a step around.
“There’s a car coming.”
“I — I was startled. Thank you.”
For Lee Hyeon, sensing Seowoo’s pheromones was something he never got used to, no matter how many times he experienced it. The sweet scent that came from Seowoo drew his attention with absurd ease. Even though this wasn’t the first or second time he’d encountered an omega’s scent, it stole his senses the way an alpha encountering an omega for the very first time would be.
At the same time, Seowoo was going through something similar. Was it because he spent his first heat cycle with him? It was as though Lee Hyeon’s scent had taken on shape and color and carved itself somewhere inside his body. The deep, heavy scent swept through him like a single wave, striking something somewhere within him — and goosebumps rose across his entire body.
The two of them, tangled together, stepped up onto the sidewalk in unison and took one step back from each other at the same time, with no clear sense of who moved first. But only Seowoo was the one rubbing the back of his neck, at a loss for what to do with himself.
“You generally seem to lack caution.”
The words felt like they carried a barb somewhere inside them. Seowoo tightened the corner of his eyes briefly, then caught sight of Lee Hyeon’s hand still wrapped in the compression bandage, and gave an awkward little laugh.
“I came out to say something to you.”
Without waiting for Lee Hyeon’s response to his curious look, Seowoo pressed on.
“About what happened yesterday…… there’s something I want to address. I figured if I didn’t bring it up now, there might be the same kind of mess again.”
“Yesterday? Are you talking about the kiss?”
The blunt word made Seowoo’s words catch completely in his throat. Lee Hyeon had rather fair skin, and unlike Seowoo, the color of his face almost never changed. It often made him look cold — and with that same expression, he’d just dropped the word kiss without a second thought.
Well, I suppose if you live looking like that, something like a kiss is a common enough experience that it barely registers. Which meant getting used to that habit of speaking — just casually tossing things out like that — was on Seowoo’s end to manage.
“I — I passed out! It was passing out!”
“Same thing, either way.”
“It’s not. They’re clearly different.”
“Fair enough, I suppose neither one was great. Hmm. Right. One of them must have been an unpleasant experience.”
“Yes! Exactly! Ah, well — it wasn’t unpleasant. No, that’s not what I meant either……”
He was the one who’d drawn the sword, and yet somehow he felt like the hilt had been taken from him. Seowoo bit down on his lip. Then, composing himself, he raised his eyes and looked directly at Lee Hyeon with a serious expression.
“I have a favor to ask you, Lee Hyeon.”
