“Is there a problem with the tie?”
This is when you need an eye shift. Hyedam, who quickly changed his gaze, grinned at him who was just hanging the tie with his shirt collar raised.
“Hyedam-ssi, I need help.”
“How can I help you?”
Without taking his eyes off Leo, who calmly said there was a problem in a really serious voice without any change in expression, Hyedam set down his coffee cup audibly.
“I think you need to come close and look directly.”
“Then, I’ll go out and wait.”
Though Leo’s words and Robert’s words overlapped, Hyedam accurately caught the words he needed and turned his body sharply to look at Robert.
The bread was prepared, the jam and butter to eat with it were ready, and he’d finished preparing the beverages. Robert, who added the words “It’s because of schedule adjustments” in a small voice with a benevolent smile, left the kitchen with a natural appearance like flowing water.
“Um… I…”
Only Hyedam’s hand, which he’d hastily extended wanting to catch the departing Robert, floated helplessly in the air. He urgently searched for a valid reason to hold him down, but his brain, which had turned white, was stopped without doing any work.
“Is looking at a tie that hard?”
This guy is going on about this ridiculous tie business to the end.
After watching Robert leave together with Leo and hearing the door close, Hyedam’s hand that had been stopped in the air changed to a fist.
The moment the guy who’d been telling him to come close approached his side beyond the island table with a grin, that hand moved according to instinct.
Smack.
“…”
“…”
After the sound made when Hyedam’s hand smacked Leo’s forehead, a strange current and silence settled between the two.
It absolutely wasn’t that he tried to smack him—his hand just moved on its own, and Leo just happened to be there. Why are you sticking your head into my moving hand to get smacked?
“Ah, fuck…”
He definitely cursed inwardly, but why did these words jump out too?
“You got caught.”
You’re laughing even after getting smacked? And what got caught?
With his thought circuit stopped, still holding one hand in the air and frozen like that, Hyedam looked at the two hands tying the tie more splendidly than himself in front of him.
He was right that he was talking nonsense knowing how to do it—in that regard, it was a situation where he could speak loudly, but anyway, he was now an ill-mannered employee who’d smacked his boss’s head.
“Can’t you just come when I call you?”
“…I’m sorry.”
Whatever Leo spouted, Hyedam offered an apology along with a sigh and touched his coffee cup. Let’s drink coffee. Whatever he says or does, I mustn’t get involved. I’m an intelligent person, I’ve received higher education, and I’m a pacifist. Though not quite a philanthropist, let’s think I have the capacity to generously understand and move past others’ mistakes.
Holding the mug full of warm coffee with both hands, Hyedam slowly breathed in. After fully savoring the coffee aroma filling his lungs, he exhaled very slowly. After feeling his confused mood settle down calmly, Hyedam tried to drink the coffee.
While he was enjoying the coffee aroma and composing his emotions while breathing deeply, Leo, who had been quiet, moved absurdly, and Hyedam’s emotions, which had barely achieved river-like peace, were overturned once again.
“What are you doing?”
“Not coffee, this.”
Leo, who took away the mug he’d been holding well with both hands with one hand, put another mug in his hand. Before even bothering to ask him what this was, Hyedam had already recognized what the beverage was by the aroma. Just because I smacked you once, now you’re going to petty control what I eat too?
“Team Leader, shall we talk for a bit?”
Hyedam, who gave up on drinking the beverage, set down the mug.
“I don’t want to.”
“What?”
“Our ugly is angry right now and trying to scold me. So I don’t want to.”
This crazy bastard. Really, I’ve been watching and watching. If you’re going to use informal speech, keep using informal speech. What is this weird speech pattern? That damn “ugly”…
“Leo Lewis. Sit. And shut that mouth and listen well.”
Whether he continued secretary work going forward or quit, he had to say what he needed to say before deciding between those two.
“That’s scary.”
The moment he saw Leo’s face grumbling yet obediently sitting in a chair and looking up at him, Hyedam bit down hard on his molars. He was always in the position of looking up at him. Even when sitting together, his sitting height was also larger, so to look at him, he always had to raise his head slightly or lift his eyes a bit.
The moment he looked down at him like that, he felt a strange feeling. Why does it feel like the yellow dog that arbitrarily pulled radishes from the radish field and was called to sit in front of grandmother is here? Even though he hadn’t shrunk his large frame, that confident and shameless appearance from just now was nowhere to be found.
“Why exactly are you doing this?”
“Because I like you.”
Hyedam, who pulled himself together and brought out the coldest, most objective and stiff tone possible, was at a loss for words at the bright answer that came back even before his words finished.
“Do I look like I’m joking right now?”
“It’s not a joke though…”
Let’s have a proper conversation. Please. You bastard. At Leo’s words that came out readily like prepared answers, Hyedam put his hand on his waist.
“Then all these actions right now are because Team Leader…”
“Leo.”
“…Leo. You’re saying you’re doing this because you like me?”
“Yes.”
Ah… fucking really. I think I know the reason why grandmothers can’t scold puppies severely for long. At the smile that melted his armed heart, Hyedam bit down hard on his molars again, then burst out shouting.
“Why!”
“Why do you need a reason for liking someone?”
“That’s why, why me! Younger than me, prettier, kinder, more capable, an omega from a family similar to yours, with both parents alive, hey! There are lots of people like that! Looking at the party last time, there were plenty of those people, so why me!”
Petty and childish words leaked out in a stream from Hyedam’s mouth. Things like the parts of himself who’d lived confidently and happily without an inferiority complex that seemed shabby and trivial the moment he stood beside him.
“…”
The abundant emotions slowly disappeared from Leo’s face, which had just made a pitiful expression, then made a grinning bright smile, then carefully gauged his reaction. Hyedam, who completely watched him change from being full of life, affectionate, and seeming like he’d accept whatever he said, to a cold plaster statue appearance that was even hard to talk to, just bit his lips tightly.
He’d been looking down because he was sitting until just now, but as he stood up, Hyedam’s head moved following him, and soon he had to look up at him as always. The knife handle he thought he’d been holding just now was in his hands.
“You were thinking like that?”
When Leo, who lightly loosened his neck by tilting it sideways, took one step closer, Hyedam staggered and stepped back.
“It wasn’t that you disliked me?”
Having barely created distance, but since Leo approached more, Hyedam, who was sneaking back while checking behind him, ended up trapped between him and the sink.
“I was… talking right now.”
Half a step. If he approached just a little more, it became a distance close enough for their bodies to completely touch. Recognizing that, Hyedam slightly extended both hands in front of him and released the lips he’d been biting.
“I’m younger than you, have more money, a better family, and both parents are alive—was that the problem? Others do crazy things recklessly because of those conditions, but our ugly was trying to run away because of just that.”
Along with the suffocating strong coffee scent, when Leo, who braced the sink with his hand, bent his upper body, his chest touched Hyedam’s hands.
In a situation where he’d inadvertently placed his hands on Leo’s chest and didn’t know what to do, when he approached more, Hyedam had to lean his waist backward. When his lips got closer, Hyedam turned his head sideways to avoid his face.
“Want to run away?”
At his moist breath touching his ear and low whisper, goosebumps rose all over his body.
“If you want to run away, you can go. Our ugly wants to do it, so how could I not understand just that… So what exactly did you want to say to me? I’ll listen to everything except telling our ugly not to like me.”
When did he put him on a precarious tightrope—at Leo’s actions of whispering affectionately with a soft and warm atmosphere like sweet cotton candy and lightly kissing his cheek, Hyedam’s eyes rose. When he turned his head sharply to refute, what Hyedam faced was Leo’s lips.
“Don’t kiss me as you please!”
Though words he didn’t mean popped out, Leo lightly knocked down his proposal with the word ‘rejected.’
“Don’t hug me as you please either.”
“…Is it okay if I get permission for both?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“Don’t come close suddenly like this, respect my personal space. Also, now that I know your definite feelings, give me time to think too… Hey!”
Looking confidently at Leo’s eyes for only a moment, then turning his head again and rambling on while only looking at the clean sink, Hyedam shouted in surprise at Leo’s action of suddenly grabbing his waist and sitting him on the sink.
“So our ugly likes me too.”
…Ah, why is that how you understand my words? Hyedam, who became eye level with Leo, looked at him blankly. In front of the unique ability to hear and misinterpret strangely whatever he said, all combat power disappeared.
