“*Cough*, *hack*. Y-yes?”
Only Jeong Minha, who had started this whole thing for no reason, kept choking at random times.
Around that time, Jeong Minha was in the midst of conducting some kind of test. He would attempt light physical contact with Seo Sihan and observe his reactions.
First, he tried holding hands, and there was a reason for it. The time when the atmosphere between him and Seo Sihan was strangest had been when they first held hands at the café. Recalling how their hands touched inside the glove made him clear his throat unnecessarily.
The injury check was an excuse—what if he had touched him with truly impure intentions? So this time, Jeong Minha approached and sat down next to Seo Sihan first, as a test.
On holidays, Seo Sihan mostly watched TV on the sofa. Unlike Jeong Minha who watched anything and everything, it was almost always the same thing. He just watched animal documentaries and such.
That big guy watches stuff like that? Jeong Minha was incredulous at first, but as he glanced at it while passing by, it was surprisingly interesting, so now he often watched together.
And so currently, the TV was showing a scene of a squirrel running around gathering food. That’s when Jeong Minha grasped Seo Sihan’s hand.
“……?”
Then he held Seo Sihan’s right hand with both hands and pressed down on it firmly.
Seo Sihan was flustered for a moment, then smiled slightly and went back to watching TV. He didn’t particularly put strength in his hand, just left it still for Jeong Minha to touch.
Dumbfounded, Jeong Minha suddenly posed a quiz.
“……What am I doing?”
Seo Sihan was watching TV, then looked back at Jeong Minha and answered.
“Imitating a squirrel?”
“What?”
Jeong Minha was left speechless and put down the hand as is. When he asked what kind of nonsense that was, Seo Sihan pointed at the TV as if wronged in his own way.
“You’re doing exactly the same thing right now? Weren’t you imitating that?”
“Why would I imitate a squirrel?”
“You imitate dramas well too.”
“Those are humans.”
“Mm, but….”
Suddenly Seo Sihan approached right up to Jeong Minha’s nose. Jeong Minha was so startled in the moment that he held his breath.
Eyes, from the nose down to the lips, his gaze slowly descended. Following Seo Sihan’s gaze downward, Jeong Minha couldn’t tell if his heart had stopped or was beating fast.
Could this hyung really be….!
“…Honestly, Minha, you really do look like a squirrel.”
“……What?”
Soon Seo Sihan returned to his spot and began earnestly explaining the correlation between Jeong Minha and squirrels. The tension released, Jeong Minha sprawled on the sofa thinking, let’s see how far you’ll go, and listened.
And Seo Sihan had maxed-out presentation skills. Befitting a director of a large corporation, he handled work well, but his presentation skills were also outstanding. Listening to him explain seriously and logically with a persuasive voice, Jeong Minha almost realized the secret of his birth for a moment before snapping back to his senses.
“Ah, really…! I get it, so you can stop talking! I’m going to bed now!”
And so the hand-holding failed absurdly.
Besides that, he tried various things like staying close continuously, quickly hugging and running away, sleeping together, but Seo Sihan’s attitude was always the same. Whatever he did, he didn’t particularly care. Conversely, only Jeong Minha would approach first then feel embarrassed and quickly stop.
Seo Sihan rarely initiated physical contact first. Rather, Jeong Minha alone felt reality hit him—what am I doing to someone exhausted from company work?
After a week of testing following his friend’s suggestion to report it every time he went to school, the following Monday morning, Jeong Minha hit his friend’s back hard.
“Ahhh! Has this crazy bastard lost his mind?! Why are you suddenly hitting me!”
“Do you know what I’ve been doing for a week because of you? I’m so embarrassed I can’t even look at hyung’s face now.”
“What did you do?”
“You’ll get hurt if you know.”
“What bullshit.”
The friend who got hit out of nowhere and was pissed kicked Jeong Minha’s leg, but even after being hit, Jeong Minha seemed to take no damage. While the friend spewed curses beside him, Jeong Minha reached one conclusion.
‘Someone with money overflowing but nowhere to spend it, who wants to enjoy a successful fan’s life keeping their bias by their side.’
Surprisingly, it was a perfect summary of Seo Sihan.
And Jeong Minha always scored high on the N ratio whenever he took the MBTI test.
In other words, he had really imagined all kinds of things about Seo Sihan during that time.
“……”
“What, why are you suddenly stopping while walking.”
“……”
“Fine. You keep on with your deep contemplation. I’m going ahead.”
Even while his friend abandoned Jeong Minha and climbed the school hill first, Jeong Minha remained frozen.
Jeong Minha, an excellent athlete, naturally had a low heart rate. However, recently it had been getting strangely fast.
Jeong Minha raised his right hand and placed it over his heart.
Thump, thump. His heartbeat pounded crazily.
‘Th-this is just because I’m embarrassed. What other reason could there be?’
Trying hard to erase the imaginations that kept drifting in another direction, he climbed the hill.
Jeong Minha returned to his own version of peaceful daily life, repeating the routine of going between school, home, and training. He no longer unnecessarily approached Seo Sihan more than needed.
And at the end of March, when the cherry blossoms began to bloom.
Jeong Minha, whose feelings had somewhat calmed, readily accepted Seo Sihan’s proposal to go to the cherry blossom festival.
However, in the end, that evening, an incident occurred.
“……”
Jeong Minha could no longer deny his own feelings.
* * *
The weather was so clear it was hard to believe it had been cloudy for the past few days.
Saturday afternoon, Seo Sihan and Jeong Minha were walking under the cherry blossom path. They had come to the cherry blossom festival that would run until tomorrow.
“Hyung, aren’t you hot?”
“I’m fine…. Isn’t Minha cold?”
Seo Sihan was wearing a gray trench coat, while Jeong Minha had brought a navy jersey but complained it was hot and just walked around wearing only a black short-sleeve shirt. With people who felt cold and heat in complete opposite ways gathered together, just looking at their clothes gave no sense of what season it was.
Still, though not yet in full bloom, looking at the cherry blossoms swaying in the wind under the clear sky, they were pretty.
“I like cherry blossoms.”
“Really? Why?”
Actually, Seo Sihan didn’t even know there was a cherry blossom festival this time. Originally, until he started living with Jeong Minha, he only rested at home on holidays.
However, after cohabiting with Jeong Minha, wanting to buy him what he wanted, he took him around here and there on holidays and realized something. Once they just went out together, Jeong Minha would find and play well at karaoke or arcades on his own.
Seo Sihan, whose main purpose had been shopping, changed his mind. From now on, he should go out to play on holidays as much as possible. But Seo Sihan’s daily life was a routine that only repeated the company-home route, so he didn’t really know where would be good to go play.
In the end, he casually asked his secretary at the company. What do kids these days do for fun?
At Seo Sihan’s question, the secretary pondered for a moment. Was this the timing to say the director was also plenty young?
But looking at Seo Sihan’s personality, it seemed he was just asking seriously, so he gave up. So the secretary also gave the right answer like a chatbot. There’s a cherry blossom festival next week. Hearing that, Seo Sihan immediately made plans.
Seo Sihan wasn’t particularly interested in cherry blossoms, but it seemed good for going out to play on a holiday, so he suggested to Jeong Minha they go. But when Jeong Minha said he liked cherry blossoms, Seo Sihan inwardly gave thanks to the secretary.
And he got curious why he liked them and asked. Does Minha like flowers? He asked with eyes sparkling at the new information, but Jeong Minha just said nonchalantly,
“When I look at cherry blossoms… doesn’t it somehow remind you of popcorn?”
“……?”
“It really looks similar, right? You know, there’s even that snack and song lyrics about it.”
“Mm…. Now that you mention it, I guess it does seem that way….”
“Right? Ah… now that we’re talking about it, I really want to eat popcorn. Actually, every time they bloom I get this thought, so I’d go to the convenience store and buy some to eat. It was delicious. That’s why I like them.”
“……”
Then doesn’t that mean he likes popcorn, not cherry blossoms? Seo Sihan found Jeong Minha’s stream of consciousness funny and cute, so he didn’t bother adding anything. He just said he understood and only watched as Jeong Minha stopped by a convenience store to buy popcorn.
Afterward, the two sat on a nearby bench. Jeong Minha ate popcorn while looking at the lake in front, then asked as if remembering.
“Do you want some too, hyung?”
“Yeah, just a little.”
He was going to just pour out half for him, but Seo Sihan opened his mouth small as if one piece was enough. Jeong Minha was about to hand it over with the wrapper when he hesitated.
Looking at his face waiting quietly, just blinking, saying “Ah,” his mind became confused. What is he trying to do right now? Is he flirting?
Seo Sihan had no particular thoughts, but Jeong Minha was different. After all, even among friends, they’d never fed each other. But being flustered in this situation seemed stranger, so he barely suppressed his trembling hand and brought it to Seo Sihan’s mouth.
However, the popcorn was too small, and the hand he tried to pull back immediately ended up touching his lips.
