“Have you been well?”
Lee Hyeon’s greeting was perfectly natural, as though they had arranged to meet here in advance. When Seowoo couldn’t manage a single response and simply stood frozen, he knocked on the front gate again — knock, knock.
“Are you not going to open this gate?”
“How did you find out about this place?”
His voice was thick with wariness. Lee Hyeon’s expression — only the corners of his mouth lifted — could not by any means be called gentle. At the hour when shadows grew long, the tall man dressed in an all-black suit was downright frightening.
“You’re backing away again.”
At those words, Seowoo stopped dead in his tracks and, without thinking, glanced toward the annex. Almost at the same moment, the door swung open and Donghyeok poked his head out, peering over in their direction.
“That guy must be the ‘spouse,’ right?”
“No?”
The answer flew out reflexively, and Seowoo immediately thought, oh no — but it was already too late. They say you need a talent for lying. Lee Hyeon’s smile deepened, and he raised his right hand. It had been what felt like more than a month, yet he was still wearing the compression bandage that kept his wrist immobilized.
“It took me four hours to drive out here. Are you going to keep me standing outside? I didn’t come to collect the medical bill, so there’s no need to be on edge.”
“……”
Out of nowhere, Seowoo thought of the children’s animated show he had watched with Dano. He wondered if this was how the mother rabbit felt — standing her ground before the black wolf that had appeared at the entrance to their burrow.
He hadn’t been making things up, it seemed — Chief Han, who was always at his side, was nowhere to be seen. Did that mean he had driven all the way down here himself, with that injured hand? But why? What on earth for.
“Seowoo.”
“Fine, I understand. Let’s step outside and talk.”
The moment he pulled the gate open, Lee Hyeon’s leg crossed the threshold first. Pushed back by the force of him pressing forward, Seowoo stumbled and landed hard on the ground. He looked up, dumbfounded — but Lee Hyeon was smiling with perfect composure, hand already extended toward him.
“Seems like I interrupted dinner. There’s quite a smell of grilling meat.”
“……”
Seowoo got to his feet without taking the offered hand. Behind Lee Hyeon, the front gate quietly slid shut — a click as it locked automatically. Seowoo couldn’t believe he had stepped inside their home in the blink of an eye.
It was Donghyeok who broke the frozen atmosphere then. Unable to follow outside and leave Dano behind, Donghyeok kept hold of the annex door and called out from where he stood.
“It’s been a while! Come on in and eat with us!”
Lee Hyeon looked at Seowoo with an expression that said, who is that kid?
“He’s a friend I worked with. You would’ve seen him coming and going from the gallery for a year… His name is Ji Donghyeok. You don’t remember him?”
“I’ll consider him an acquaintance from now on.”
Seowoo looked faintly exasperated and moved to block him as he tried to take a step forward. It felt absurd — he didn’t even remember the person, yet he was perfectly ready to accept a dinner invitation.
“Why are you blocking me? He’s offering food.”
“……The table isn’t to your taste.”
“You know what my taste is?”
I do. All too well……
They had worked together for just over a year, but Seowoo knew a fair amount about Lee Hyeon. Not only his work, as beautiful as his flawless appearance, but also his pheromone aversion, his particular temperament, his dazzling family background.
And the tastes that suited all of that.
Leaving the hesitating Seowoo behind, Lee Hyeon strode toward the house.
Seowoo followed and shot Donghyeok a fierce glare, but it carried no weight whatsoever. In the end, Lee Hyeon was let inside the house. But the moment Seowoo resigned himself to it, another problem caught his eye. He frantically pushed past Lee Hyeon, rushed inside, scooped up the scattered mess on the floor, flung it all into the bedroom, slammed the door shut, and hid it away.
He turned back, face burning red, to find Lee Hyeon calmly looking around the interior of the house. Because of his height, the ceiling seemed unusually low only where he stood. He was truly, profoundly out of place — in this location, at this hour.
“Heh-yo.”
Lee Hyeon spotted Dano toddling toward him and slowly raised an eyebrow.
Dano, who had been dancing with Donghyeok when the unexpected guest arrived, was now even banging on a toy drum in his own way of offering a welcome. He was still at the age where adults other than his father, his daycare teachers, and familiar uncles made him shy. And yet, for some reason, this time a burst of unexpected courage had him approaching first.
Waddling forward with awkward little steps, Dano came to stand before Lee Hyeon and craned his head back as far as it would go to look up at his face. He bowed his head in greeting, and the little topknot tied like an apple stem bounced with the movement.
“……Oh. Hey there, little one.”
Watching the two of them exchange looks, Seowoo felt his mouth go bone dry. Donghyeok caught his eye and gave him a look. Lee Hyeon’s expression hasn’t changed much, so stop tensing up and just eat.
He understood what Donghyeok was thinking. Donghyeok didn’t truly know the fear buried deep in Seowoo, or the trauma — so he was pushing the simplest solution forward. Even so, that didn’t mean it was endearing to watch him act up without being asked. Seowoo glared at him with a curse loaded in his eyes, and Donghyeok beamed so wide his cheekbones practically popped out.
“Appa. Hold me, put me up high.”
“Oh — yeah, yeah. Right, Dano needs to eat too. Come on, let’s sit down. You sit down too.”
Dano raised both arms and bounced on his heels. Seowoo lifted Dano up and settled him into the tall high chair, then pulled out the seat right beside it. He offered the seat with reluctance, and Lee Hyeon took the one across from them.
Donghyeok brought out the grilled pork belly and vegetables and set them on the table. The meat dish was some nameless design with the pattern nearly worn off, and the vegetables were still dripping water. Things that normally wouldn’t catch his eye suddenly made Seowoo feel oddly embarrassed — all because Lee Hyeon, sitting at that table, was so terribly out of place.
Seowoo swapped out Lee Hyeon’s mismatched chopsticks for a proper pair and quietly averted his gaze. Like a man who had decided to look only at Dano, he busied himself gathering the children’s utensils. He cut up the meat into small pieces and put them on Dano’s tray, watched him eat three or four bites, and only then glanced over toward Lee Hyeon — only to meet his gaze directly, since Lee Hyeon happened to be looking right at him.
“……It’s nothing much, but please help yourself.”
I’ll burn a hole right through you with that stare.
He found him strange all over again. What on earth did he come here for? He had given him his contact information out of obligation — the man had been injured catching him after all — but he had honestly felt a quiet relief when no call came. There had been a part of him hoping that a connection once severed would stay severed, and he had also been slightly terrified that a staggering hospital bill might show up someday.
But it was clear that coming here to collect money was absolutely not the reason he had come. The cost of the time and effort it took to make the trip down here himself would plainly far exceed whatever he might be owed.
From watching him briefly, Seowoo could also confirm with certainty that Lee Hyeon had no interest in Dano. Despite the resemblance, he showed not even a single thread of curious attention toward the baby — as though he couldn’t sense it at all.
Most people were enormously interested in Dano. Having raised Dano for three years, one thing Seowoo had come to understand was that people generally gave their attention readily to something as harmless as a baby — greeting them easily, receiving their greetings warmly, smiling back freely. Not only the people who ended up sharing a meal with them, but even strangers passing by on the street tended to pay far more attention to Dano than to him.
And yet Lee Hyeon was watching only Seowoo, in a way that was almost baffling. It was a relief, in one sense — and yet somehow vaguely unsettling too, which was maddening. Seowoo turned over grains of rice with his chopsticks and opened his mouth, feigning indifference.
“Lee Hyeon.”
“Yes.”
“You must have come because you have something to say to me, so if you’re not here to eat, just go ahead and say what you came for.”
The slightly cold tone made Donghyeok look up. Even Dano, who knew nothing, stopped his spoon and looked over at Lee Hyeon. Lee Hyeon, with every gaze in the room fixed on him, set down the chopsticks he hadn’t even used — neatly, side by side.
“You need to eat, even if I don’t. Go ahead and eat. We can talk after.”
At those words, the one who began eating with furious speed was none other than Donghyeok. Stuffing meat into his mouth until his cheeks bulged, he mumbled before he had even finished chewing.
“I’ll finish fast and get out of your way. You eat fast too, Dano — let’s go out with uncle.”
“Where are you taking him out at this hour?”
“Since we’re heading out anyway, I’ll stop by Sangoh’s place and tell him to close up the shop too. You talk freely with Lee Hyeon.”
“……Hey.”
Look at him playing the hero. Donghyeok even had the nerve to wink, and Seowoo was at a loss for words. Reading the tension crackling between the two of them, Lee Hyeon added:
“There’s no rush. Take your time. It’s not like today’s the only chance. Since it’s come up — I was hoping to stay for a few days. Is there a room available?”
“There’s a nice hotel nearby. I’ll take you there myself.”
“I don’t want a hotel. I like it here — it’s clean and comfortable. Nice smell too.”
As though he had read every bit of the discomfort Seowoo was trying to hide, Lee Hyeon looked up and glanced around the living room.
“I’m sorry, but it’s semi-peak season, so there are no vacancies.”
“Funny you should say that — a room just opened up today!”
The two answers burst out at almost exactly the same moment. Seowoo felt like he might lose his mind, but he couldn’t take back the words Donghyeok had so carelessly thrown out.
