My voice asking as I roughly sat on a dining chair still had a metallic sound from not being fully awake.
“You’re up? You can sleep more. You were dry heaving in your sleep last night.”
Saying “I was shocked thinking you’d vomit on the bed,” Seo Heejin trembled his shoulders lightly, whether laughing or not. The clothes Seo Heejin was wearing while smiling prettily were also a gray t-shirt. Even his suits were all achromatic with no pattern. Are even his casual clothes all black, white, and gray?
He was dreary in strange places.
Looking at him, Seo Heejin seemed to care even less about last night than I did. Right. We just made one drunken mistake. My worry that Seo Heejin wouldn’t act like himself was needless concern.
More than that, hearing Seo Heejin’s gentle voice from morning made my already churning stomach churn more. As I pressed my ringing temples with my hands, Seo Heejin came right up in front of me with big strides.
Huh. What’s all this? Maybe because I saw him to the point of being sick of it last night. Even though Seo Heejin’s lower body was close by, his cock didn’t particularly come to mind. They say if you’re continuously exposed to a specific situation, you build immunity—it seemed God finally took pity on me suffering from being consumed by lust.
As payment for touching Seo Heejin’s cock all night, He must have clearly cured my shitty cock-sickness as if washing it away.
Perhaps finding me strange for being dazed, Seo Heejin waved his white hand back and forth in front of my eyes.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“I made bean sprout soup. I’ll serve it.”
Bean sprout soup?
“You’re a guy living alone and you have bean sprouts at home?”
My fridge only has kimchi and eggs.
“No way. I went out this morning and bought some.”
“…So diligent.”
As a voice saying “I’m sick of it” came out of my throat, Seo Heejin grinned and gave an eye-smile.
Geez, that startled me. Why are you smiling like crazy? What’s so special about Seo Heejin smiling that my heart tumbled noisily?
I’d been fine while talking until now. Did I develop cardiovascular disease from drinking too much? While I pressed my chest area with my hand, Seo Heejin laid out all kinds of side dishes in front of me, starting with bean sprout soup. Even my mom doesn’t prepare this much for breakfast.
“This is a meal for someone living alone?”
Aren’t a guy living alone’s main meals supposed to be ramen and convenience store lunch boxes, with side dishes being kimchi and fried eggs, and spam on special days? I couldn’t help but have a moment of reflection, wondering if I was the only one living roughly.
“Mom always brings and leaves side dishes, but since I live alone, they just pile up without being eaten. I’m trying to clear them out since hyung is here.”
Ah—. I nodded greatly because I understood that feeling well enough. Every time I come back from my parents’ house, I carry back side dishes in both hands too, but those side dishes get eaten for a few days then just sit in the fridge and eventually secretly become food waste without mom knowing.
With a feeling of sympathy, I looked at the side dishes Seo Heejin laid out. But I really feel sick.
While holding a spoon and carefully watching Seo Heejin, our eyes met exactly. As soon as our eyes met, his pretty eyes narrowed and an eye-smile came back. I’d been trying to ignore it since last night, but Seo Heejin was clearly giving eye-smiles with some purpose now.
I don’t know exactly what that purpose is, but maybe he’s trying to make me get used to eye-smiles. Then will he do that every time our eyes meet until I like eye-smiles?
I felt a bit sorry. What I hate isn’t all eye-smiles in the world, but the eye-smiles that Seo Heejin with his pretty face gives.
Since it didn’t seem like something I should say to a guy who even prepared a meal for me, I shut my mouth and moved my spoon.
The bean sprout soup served as a side menu at the lunch box restaurant near the company always had about five bean sprout stems in it. However, the bean sprout soup Seo Heejin brought out, as if boasting it was homemade, had more bean sprout stems than the broth that came up on the spoon.
Even so, the first spoonful should taste the broth first.
The moment the hot, clear broth steaming with heat, scooped through the bean sprouts that somehow followed up, slurped down my throat, I couldn’t help but let out a sound.
“Keu—”
Those few drops of light and refreshing yet spicy broth with chili peppers passed my tongue and went down my throat to soothe my churning stomach.
“Hey.”
No matter how stingy I was with Seo Heejin, I had to praise at least this. When I raised my head with my brows thoroughly furrowed, Seo Heejin was making an extremely pleased expression. What kind of expression is that, as if knowing what I’m going to say?
“Yes, hyung.”
Seo Heejin, waiting for praise, sparkled his eyes. My twisted nature activated and I briefly debated whether not to praise him. But the bean sprout soup Seo Heejin made really pleased me for the first time in a long while.
“You made it well.”
It felt like treating my parents’ dog, so laughter leaked out without me realizing. Just because I praised him with one word, Seo Heejin’s shoulders bounced up and down.
I shouldn’t feel this way, but I thought Seo Heejin was a tiny bit cute.
Seo Heejin looked at me with an expression like he had something to say as I buried my face eating rice freshly cooked enough to be chewy, heartily mixed in bean sprout soup. I would have ignored it normally, but we were sitting facing each other alone in the house eating. And since Seo Heejin was the one who prepared this delicious meal, I had no choice but to ask “what?”
“Hyung, what are you doing today?”
What am I doing?
“I’m going to rest at home?”
Isn’t it normal to do nothing and lie on the bed sleeping and waking on the day after drinking too much when it’s a holiday?
“Then rest at my house.”
Hmm, to say it more precisely, isn’t it normal to do nothing and lie on ‘my own’ bed sleeping and waking on the day after drinking too much when it’s a holiday?
“I don’t want to?”
I already rubbed bodies with Seo Heejin all night on his bed, so how could I comfortably lie there? When I flatly refused, Seo Heejin stuck out his lips in a pout.
Did the people he’s been meeting until now all fall over when he did cute actions with his pretty face? Thanks to my somewhat settled stomach, while thoroughly chewing stir-fried anchovies, I thought it was really a waste of Seo Heejin’s cock. It would have shone more if not for that face.
Smacking my lips in regret, Seo Heejin gave me a slight eye-smile. Why did my heart pound at that eye-smile earlier? I probably wasn’t in my right mind because I wasn’t fully awake.
Thinking going to the hospital for this much would be overdoing it, I just finished eating while leaving Seo Heejin alone grinning to himself.
* * *
Even though I said I’d take a taxi home on my own, Seo Heejin followed to the end and put me in his car.
That was more like dragging me like luggage and loading me in the car, then securely fastening me with the seatbelt so the luggage wouldn’t fall, rather than giving me a ride. Sitting in the passenger seat like cargo loaded on a truck, I just endlessly looked out the window while going to my house.
Calculating the useless gain of ‘at least I saved on taxi fare.’
Seo Heejin’s timing in asking exactly where my house was happened to be almost at my house. Though a bit uncomfortable, when I had no choice but to tell him the exact location, Seo Heejin turned the steering wheel while even humming without using the navigation.
I had nothing to be happy about, but why was he so excited? We who spent the same time and sat in the same space seemed really very different.
Seo Heejin, who dropped me off in front of my house, stared intently with a face wanting something.
“What?”
“Don’t people usually say to come in for a bit when you come to their house?”
That’s something people say when they’re reluctant to part. Rather than being reluctant to part with Seo Heejin, I was so happy I could raise both arms in welcome.
“So, what.”
At my blunt voice answering, Seo Heejin stayed still then shook his head. “No, hyung.” With a dejected voice.
“Go.”
I waved my hand moderately to see him off, but Seo Heejin never started the car until I went inside the villa. Looking at Seo Heejin’s car reflected in the automatic door glass, the words that this bastard is really persistent came out naturally.
Returning home and opening the shopping bag Seo Heejin handed me, the suit I’d roughly thrown off yesterday was neatly folded inside. When did he even sleep? Even the dress shirt that should naturally be wrinkled was stiff without a single wrinkle.
“Disgusting, so disgusting.”
Clicking my tongue at the caring attention so like Seo Heejin, I roughly placed the shopping bag I hated the sight of on the chair. Ha. If he gives it to me like this, I have to wash and return the borrowed clothes cleanly too.
Seo Heejin was really an annoying bastard.
* * *
The time I’d spent all weekend worrying about how to face Seo Heejin was wasted as when Monday came, my relationship with Seo Heejin returned to before. Not particularly close, but at least we talked to each other in the group chat and didn’t avoid each other.
Song Ki and Hyungtae only made carefree sounds about finally being able to breathe while going to work. If I’d known that me and Seo Heejin being awkward was a method to assassinate these two guys, I absolutely wouldn’t have followed Seo Heejin on Friday.
