Though he felt like eating and drinking all the soju here, Hyedam, afraid of making a slip of the tongue while drunk, stopped at an appropriate point and stood up from his seat.
“This house only has one bed in that room over there. Team Leader-nim can sleep there.”
“If I use that bed, what will you do, Hyedam-ssi?”
“This is my house, so can’t I sleep anywhere? I’ll get you some clothes to change into, so you can use that bathroom over there…”
“Clothes?”
“Why? Worried there won’t be any?”
Because the same situation was repeating, laughter seeped into Hyedam’s words. Then and now, all of Leo’s complicated emotions were contained in that short questioning word.
“They’re not my clothes, so you don’t need to worry about the size.”
“…”
The beer can in his hand was instantly crushed.
“A friend’s.”
“The friend you mentioned before?”
The rough coffee scent had disappeared, but Leo’s tone seemed to have thorns.
Is he jealous or what? While forcibly lowering his rising lips, Hyedam took out Junseok’s clothes from the closet and set them down beside him. Last time too, he’d looked him over with suspicious eyes, and this time he was doing the same thing. When he answered that it was a friend’s like before, his eyes narrowed.
“Did I ever talk about a friend… Ah, from when I drank before?”
It was the first day working with him in a way, but he recalled getting drunk with Junseok and passing out, then waking up at his house and rushing to work, and laughed slightly. He’d tried not to do anything that could be faulted in front of him, but whether it was the power of alcohol, he kept laughing for no reason and his firmly held resolve became lax.
“Friend…”
Because Leo, muttering the word “friend” while looking at the clothes, overlapped with his past appearance, Hyedam raised both hands and cupped his cheeks. He’d restrained himself and only drank two bottles, but the fact that Leo looked cute clearly meant the alcohol was kicking in.
Though his drinking habits weren’t particularly bad, it seemed best to break up this gathering before getting entangled with Leo and causing a bigger accident, so Hyedam gathered his clothes and headed to the small bathroom.
When Hyedam disappeared somewhere, Leo silently stared at the retort foods on the small table. He emptied the beer remaining in the beer can pathetically crushed in his hand in one go and opened a new beer can.
He looked toward where Hyedam had gone, then carefully looked around the house again.
His head had been throbbing from the moment he heard the grating sound from the rusty door. It wasn’t a pretty garden, and the space between the gate and house had a structure where you had to go around a bit because of a square wooden bench sitting there all alone.
The wall was lower than his height, and though it was an old house with nothing eye-catching, he couldn’t readily follow Hyedam. The light coming from the small house with its door open seemed to make his headache worse.
Though the low ceiling and furnishings were ready-made products, the household items that only felt small to him caught his eye. The various retort foods messily piled on the sink and the old microwave next to them—unfamiliar things felt only familiar.
Hyedam, who was always on guard and sharp, was softer than usual perhaps because it was his space, and seeing him even laugh with a small sound made one side of his chest feel heavy. The hidden dimples kept appearing and disappearing each time he spoke with rosier cheeks than usual.
Doing that while exuding a sweet bread scent is foul play. He might be a hidden omega like Komom. His parents had suffered so much because of that part too, and it seemed he was walking the same path.
Though he hadn’t drunk many cans, Leo, who had been concentrating on the bread scent felt thickly along with the sound of water, wondering if he was getting drunk, raised his hand and did a dry face wash.
A friend. They drink together, freely come and go to each other’s houses, and speak comfortably. To leave clothes at a countryside house like this… As his thoughts jumped to odd places, Leo sighed and straightened his body.
A wrinkle formed between Leo’s brows as he entered the bathroom after organizing what they’d eaten during the time Hyedam was washing. Why do I know this? Whether using the microwave, organizing what they’d just eaten, or now opening the bathroom door, he hadn’t hesitated or worried.
It was a bathroom he was entering for the first time, yet he knew where everything was.
He didn’t know what he was thinking while showering. Even when putting on clothes that fit his body though the arms and legs were a bit short, countless thoughts kept forming and disappearing in Leo’s head.
“See? Those clothes fit you, Team Leader-nim, right? Though the bed is narrow, there shouldn’t be a problem for sleeping alone.”
Dark blue. He hastily opened the door at the afterimage that suddenly came to mind.
As he expected, the cover of the small single bed was dark blue, and the curtain by the window next to the bed was blue checkered.
Ha.
Standing at the doorway, Leo held his forehead.
We’ve never met? Really never?
His heart pounded from the moment he first saw him. Though unintentional, his gaze always chased Hyedam. He was stirred from the moment he smelled the bread scent, and the moment he met those eyes that widened looking at him, he was certain.
He saw his flushed face on sleeping Hyedam’s face. Hyedam, who only said necessary words and maintained silence to difficult or uncomfortable questions, was quite talkative. The emotions soaked into the bread scent that changed moment by moment were amusing, so he sometimes asked questions that troubled him more.
The warm, peaceful bread scent as if just out of the oven became prickly the moment he looked at him, and was infused with anxiety, irritation, and even anger. Unlike his businesslike appearance maintaining maximum courtesy, he could see him trying to escape somehow, so he deliberately pressured him.
He tied him to his side with conditions that made no sense to anyone.
He approached Hyedam, who flinched the moment he appeared while organizing the blankets and tried to run away somewhere again.
“Alone?”
“Yes, I can sleep in the next room. And I just talked with Robert-ssi, and he’ll come pick us up here sometime tomorrow morning. The insurance company also found the car parked on the shoulder and is towing it, so you don’t need to worry about the accident.”
“So you’re saying sleep. A. Lone?”
He wanted to know what Hyedam was hiding from him. Why his emotions fluctuated so intensely moment by moment, what he was trying to hide until the end. And he wanted to know whether the sex scenes unfolding complicatedly and messily in his head right now were his fantasies or things they’d actually done. His lost memories seemed related to Hyedam.
“Then. I’ll sleep alone. Should we sleep together?”
“What if I can’t sleep alone?”
“What nonsense…”
As he took one more step closer to him scoffing, Hyedam stepped back exactly that much. His pheromones, which were usually well-managed, always ran wild on their own when with Hyedam. Sometimes he left them as is, but since he had no intention of pressuring him with pheromones, he’d been trying to control them.
“Because I don’t want to sleep alone.”
The moment he released the pheromones he’d been suppressing until now, Hyedam’s expression changed. Strength entered his plump lips and his cute dimples revealed themselves. His round eye corners rose sharply and strength entered his eyebrows too.
“Can I take Team Leader-nim’s words however I want right now?”
The tone that had been soft just moments ago had returned to stiff again.
“If you take it in the direction I intend…”
Leo’s words as he took one more step closer while gauging the distance to the wall behind Hyedam were eaten by Hyedam’s lips.
Hyedam, who had eaten Leo’s words, felt there was no big reaction even to his surprise action and hesitantly pulled away.
He’d wandered the road getting hit by the eye-wind, and entered the house with his frozen body. He’d simply filled his stomach and had a drink, and stopped drinking at an appropriate point to avoid making mistakes.
When he entered the small bathroom and stood under warm water, countless complicated thoughts came to mind. His throat burned at the coffee scent he felt from Leo. He’d drunk his favorite alcohol, so why was he craving coffee instead of alcohol?
Hyedam’s eyes, who had pulled together his body melting languidly and come out after getting dressed, hastily swept through the house. Though roughly cleaned up, Leo wasn’t at the low dining table where traces of them eating food at the same table remained intact.
The moment he realized he wasn’t in the same place, like that day when he suddenly disappeared, his heart sank. Only after hearing the coffee scent still filling the house and the sound of water from the bathroom did Hyedam’s stiffened shoulders relax.
Though he’d tried to clean up, after clearing the remaining traces, Hyedam entered his room and stared intently at the bed.
This room was the same then and now. He hadn’t tried to change it particularly, nor had he tried to preserve it.
Time had passed, and both he and Hyedam had changed, yet only this house seemed to remain as it was then. He turned around at the presence, and the moment he saw him shaking his wet hair wearing Junseok’s clothes, his throat choked up.
Still, he’d tried to act calm, but whether sincere or a mischievous prank, he looked like Ondal as he approached saying things with enough room for misunderstanding. So he kissed him.
