Words of comfort slipped out without him realizing it. Everyone had their own troubles. A power game with family elders was something Chaehun couldn’t understand.
It was something he said without much meaning, but Seunggeon’s reaction was strange. His eyes widened, then he swallowed a sound and held back laughter. By Seunggeon’s standards, it was practically the same as bursting into loud laughter.
Chaehun wondered if this was funny.
“What’s so funny?”
“That life is hard.”
An irrelevant answer came back. But since Seunggeon didn’t seem like he would answer properly, Chaehun just let it pass.
“The phone keeps ringing. If you’re not going to answer it, flip it over. The screen keeps flashing and it’s distracting.”
Chaehun pointed with his fingertip at the phone that kept flashing with a specific person’s name. Then Seunggeon, still smiling, obediently flipped it over.
The comfortable meal continued again.
* * *
It took over an hour to finish the dessert, the final course. During that time, Seunggeon’s phone, which he hadn’t flipped over even once, had three missed calls. Seunggeon made an ominous prediction that this wouldn’t end so easily, and Chaehun comforted him once more, telling him to hang in there.
Next was the tailor shop as scheduled. Seunggeon insisted that fitting was essential to get a suit that fit his body. Chaehun thought the professional tailor would do a pretty good job, but he couldn’t beat Seunggeon.
During the ride in Seunggeon’s car, they had simple conversations led by Chaehun. In fact, Seunggeon wasn’t a very good conversation partner. He wasn’t someone who talked a lot, and he was also weak at small talk. However, he was a sincere listener. Because he listened well to stories, Chaehun selected recently trending topics to prevent awkward silences from flowing.
It was similar yet different from when he had a one-sided crush ten years ago. Still, because he had come to his own conclusion, his heart was light. He decided to enjoy the rapidly changing emotions like riding a roller coaster as the charm of a one-sided crush.
Of course, his bold decision was tested in the tailor shop’s fitting room.
After putting on and taking off the fitted shirt and suit, Chaehun felt puzzled by the second suit the tailor offered.
“What is this?”
“It’s a fitted suit.”
“I just took one off.”
“There are a total of five suits you need to try on today.”
“—?!”
With a kind explanation, the tailor pointed to the suits hanging on a hanger rack. On the rack, besides the suit Chaehun had just taken off, there were three more. The fabrics looked familiar. They were the ones he had agonized over until the very end last week. Realizing that all of those were his, Chaehun automatically had no choice but to look at Seunggeon.
Seunggeon had come into the fitting room together today as well, using advice as a reason.
“You did this, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Five suits. That’s too many.”
“It hasn’t even been a month since you said you’d accept everything I give you.”
Seunggeon, sitting comfortably in a green velvet chair, recited the magic phrase with a very calm face. Chaehun wondered if this was karma.
“And it’s not even a lot. That’s not enough to dress properly. There’s only one summer suit. You need to get fitted for one more summer suit here, and I’ve put in an order at Dele for winter suits and coats, so you can get fitted with me.”
Because of Seunggeon, who had planned everything from summer to winter suits, Chaehun didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Seunggeon had said himself that it was fun to dress him up. Though it didn’t show well, Seunggeon seemed excited as he explained this and that.
He knew that Seunggeon, the third-generation chaebol and CEO of Taehwa Group, was rich. Still, he was scared of how much more he would have to accept at this rate.
Chaehun couldn’t sew up his past self’s mouth. Instead, he tried to salvage the situation as much as possible.
“Let’s take back what I said about accepting everything.”
“Don’t back out over something like this. There’s still a lot left.”
“Hey, Choi Seunggeon.”
“You’re the one who should call me gently. It sounds like you want to fight.”
Having his own words returned to him intact, Seunggeon seemed like a sly fox to Chaehun. And probably the most expressionless sly fox in the world. As Seunggeon said, Chaehun couldn’t fight, so he caught his breath and smiled brightly.
“Seunggeon-ah. My thinking was naive. I’m scared of what you’ll give me.”
Calling Seunggeon’s name as gently as possible, Chaehun took a stab at it even though he knew it wouldn’t work. In fact, he had already lost the battle of wills. Chaehun was wearing only underwear with a robe hastily thrown over it while putting on and taking off suits.
“If I say ‘throw it away if you don’t like it,’ you’ll get angry, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then how about a building you can’t throw away?”
“Don’t joke around.”
“I’m not joking.”
“You… really.”
Though there wasn’t much change in expression, the feeling of enjoyment poured out from Seunggeon’s body. Even while getting angry, that somehow looked cute, so his fighting spirit hit rock bottom and he even became happy along with him.
You’re bad. Why are you making my heart flutter?
This was the problem with falling for someone first. Having received 2 billion won, a generous heart welled up again, thinking what were these clothes anyway?
“Why did you stop talking mid-sentence?”
Seunggeon caught on and pressed the point. This time too, he seemed to be in good spirits, so it didn’t seem like he was picking a fight. Chaehun thought he had rose-colored glasses on.
“I was about to curse at you but held back.”
“What curse?”
“To make it a bit gentler for proper and clean language use, I’d say you’re stubborn.”
“Mm, it’s true I’m stubborn. Stop standing there and check first. I’m telling you it’ll look good on you.”
After briefly contemplating, Seunggeon admitted to being stubborn while gesturing for him to try on the suit. Only then did Chaehun see the tailor standing quietly with the second suit. Even after watching the very childish bickering, he was a true professional, only wearing a business smile without saying anything about the two having a good relationship.
Properly caught by Seunggeon, Chaehun couldn’t argue further and put on the suits the tailor handed him one by one.
In the meantime, Seunggeon answered a phone call. This time he didn’t go outside.
“At a tailor shop. I came for a fitting of the suit I ordered last week. ……Grandfather? Now? ……I thought so. ……I’ll drop Chaehun off and go. ……Yes, please do that.”
It wasn’t a long call, but Chaehun figured out that the other person was Shim Jeongmin and that Seunggeon was going to meet his grandfather. Seunggeon’s maternal grandfather was the chairman of Taehwa Group. He hadn’t appeared publicly since collapsing last year, but he seemed to have heard somewhere that he had improved a lot.
The fact that he suddenly summoned Seunggeon on Saturday meant it was that important. Still, since he said he’d drop him off first, it probably wasn’t that urgent.
Chaehun made various guesses but didn’t accidentally ask what was going on. He pretended not to know and was taking off the last suit and changing clothes when Seunggeon spoke first.
“Sorry, but I can’t go to the art museum. It’s Grandfather’s summons.”
“Okay.”
“My great-uncle must have tattled.”
“Geez. Your great-uncle is petty. Is his hobby making things difficult for you?”
Chaehun couldn’t know what it meant for Seunggeon to be called by his grandfather, the chairman of Taehwa Group. Still, it wasn’t difficult to notice that Seunggeon wasn’t very willing.
At times like this, he had to unconditionally take Seunggeon’s side.
“You’re having a hard time. But don’t get too angry. Stress is the root of all diseases. Just……”
“Just?”
“Think ‘this too shall pass.'”
Chaehun gave plenty of ordinary and common words of comfort and encouragement. Then Seunggeon made an expression as if dumbfounded for a moment before laughing.
“You didn’t say that to be funny, did you?”
“Hang in there. It seems like you’re going to get scolded by Grandfather.”
“No matter how old I get, he’ll nag me. Still, it gave me strength.”
It was a sound similar to what Chaehun had once said to Seunggeon. No matter how old you got, you couldn’t avoid the nagging of adults.
At the words that it gave him strength, Chaehun smiled brightly.
* * *
It was a moment when the conversation had briefly stopped while moving to Seunggeon’s house. Chaehun, wondering what to talk about again, stared blankly ahead. The streets on Saturday afternoon were overflowing with vehicles. The streets full of colorful buses lined up at bus stops and cars busily coming and going were the same as usual, yet somehow gave off a weekend feeling.
“Traffic is backed up.”
Seunggeon muttered as if to himself. Chaehun glanced at Seunggeon once and then looked ahead again. As Seunggeon said, traffic was backed up from the next intersection.
While looking at the ordinary scenery, Chaehun suddenly found himself questioning why he liked Seunggeon. It was a silly thought. Still, he wanted to interrogate his heart, which didn’t go according to his will, asking what the reason was.
