Chapter 41
“Fuck.”
Cursing as he stood up, Hajin tapped Hahyun’s shoulder and tried to head to his room.
“Hajin-ssi, wait!”
I called out to him urgently. He slowly turned around and looked at me. His clear blue eyes, deep as water, were glistening as if filled with sadness.
He’s the one who lost his temper, so why is he making that face? It was truly absurd.
Intending to comfort him, I slowly approached. Blood was still dripping from his hand. The injury looked bad—horrific, even. If I’d let him go to his room like this, he would’ve clearly neglected it out of sheer stubbornness.
“We need to treat that. Where do you think you’re going? You’re not a child… you can’t take care of an injury like that yourself. I really can’t take my eyes off you.”
Hajin’s eyes curved into a smile at my words.
“Shit… now I see he wasn’t doing it because he was angry. He did it on purpose to get Juwon’s attention. If I’d known, I would’ve done it myself.”
I glared at Hahyun.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Do you think I’m going to say you did well? Just try it. You won’t get any treatment from me.”
“Why, that’s discrimination…”
Hahyun seemed to realize he’d crossed a line as his voice trailed off and he carefully watched my reaction. I almost softened again, but I held firm. Seeing blood was what I hated most in the world. Whether it was my own blood or someone else’s, I hated all of it.
“Acting pitiful won’t work. If anyone deliberately hurts themselves or self-harms, I’ll hate them forever, just so you know.”
Hahyun looked shocked and clung to my arm as if to say he would never do such a thing, while Hajin, true to his taciturn nature, said nothing.
I shook off Hahyun, took Hajin’s hand, and sat him back down on the sofa.
“Hahyun-ssi, bring the first aid kit if there is one. If not, go buy one.”
“We have one. I’ll get it.”
While Hahyun went to fetch the kit, I spoke to Hajin in a low voice.
“Why did you do this? Tell me honestly.”
Hajin looked directly at me. I wasn’t scared until I’d sat him down on the sofa, but when our eyes met, I felt a little afraid.
“Do you really want to know?”
Actually, I had a feeling it might be better not to know. My confidence immediately deflated.
“You didn’t do it on purpose, right?”
“Of course not. I was angry but didn’t want to be angry, so I was trying to hold it in. Just because I’m pissed doesn’t mean I can throw a cup at someone.”
What he did was better than throwing a cup at someone, as he said, but still, I never wanted to see blood again.
“Please don’t do this again. Just express your anger with words.”
“Why?”
I was about to honestly say I hated seeing blood, but feeling that Hajin needed comforting too, I changed my answer.
“Because it upsets me. If someone I depend on gets hurt because of me, who can I trust and rely on?”
“…I won’t.”
Hajin stroked my head with his uninjured hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Somehow, his apology made me feel even more apologetic.
“Hyung, here’s the first aid kit.”
Hahyun handed me the kit while panting. He’d clearly rushed back, not wanting to leave the two of us alone together even for a moment.
As I opened the kit and treated Hajin’s wound, all three of us stayed silent as if by unspoken agreement.
Although Hajin was the one physically wounded, I had an ominous feeling that today’s injury would leave scars in all three of our hearts.
***
After treating Hajin, I sent him to his room. Then I told Hahyun to go buy bean sprouts. The excuse was that bean sprout soup tastes best for breakfast, but really, I was using it as a tactic to separate them.
After cooking rice, transferring side dishes to plates, and simply frying some eggs, I was done.
However, for someone like me who’d always relied on instant food, preparing a meal was difficult from start to finish.
I made rice and created something that was either a fried egg or scrambled eggs—it was hard to tell which. A little while later, I roughly trimmed the bean sprouts Hahyun brought, put them in water, boiled them, and added salt. I wasn’t sure how it would taste, but I’d created something resembling bean sprout soup.
Since it’s breakfast, this should be enough, right?
The point wasn’t about the food but about stopping the brothers from fighting… Well, deliberately ignoring the state of the finished dishes, I said to Hahyun:
“Hahyun-ssi, please go call Hajin-ssi.”
“What if I go and he picks another fight? I’ll set out the spoons, so can you go instead?”
“You said you’d do anything for me, but you can’t even do this much?”
Hahyun stared at me with wide eyes. I deliberately let out a big sigh.
“Well, they say people change over time. Fine. I’ll go myself.”
As I turned around, Hahyun quickly grabbed my wrist.
“That’s not it.”
“What’s not it?”
“Anyway, it’s not like that, so I’ll go. Making me sound weird for no reason…”
Watching Hahyun walk out grumbling dejectedly made me laugh. Just then, Hajin walked into the kitchen.
“Am I a child? Sending someone to fetch me…”
“If you’re here, go to the dining room. Why come in here?”
“It’s the historic moment of Yoon Juwon cooking for the first time. I should document it with a photo.”
“That’s right!”
Hahyun agreed instantly, seemingly forgetting he’d fought with Hajin to the point of drawing blood.
‘Seriously, you two only get along at times like this. If you’re going to be like this, why’d you have to draw blood earlier?’
I was staring at them in disbelief when Hajin pointed his phone at me.
“Ah, don’t take pictures.”
I quickly turned my head and covered my face. That’s when Hahyun spoke up.
“Um… but something’s missing.”
“What? It’d be perfect if he just lowered his hands from his face. Go make Juwon lower his hands.”
“No, it’s because he’s not wearing an apron.”
“An apron? He’d look even prettier with an apron.”
The brothers, who only got along at times like this, agreed on yet another strange thing. I lowered my hands from my face, intending to stop them. But Hahyun already had an apron in his hands.
“I don’t want to wear that.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve already finished cooking, so why wear an apron now?”
“What’s your reason for not wanting to wear it?”
Hahyun asked with a genuinely puzzled expression. He looked like he’d keep questioning until he got an answer, but I didn’t have a good excuse. Hajin spoke with amusement in his voice.
“Maybe he’s afraid he’ll look too feminine? But isn’t that kind of a sexist thought? All the chefs I know are men. Personally, I find men who cook extremely sexy.”
Ha… If only he would stop talking, he wouldn’t be so infuriating. I couldn’t admit that it was exactly because of that “sexy” thing that I didn’t want to wear it. Then they’d just paint me as the weird one again.
Hahyun walked over and backed up Hajin’s words.
“That’s right. You’ll look really sexy in an apron.”
As he said this, he forcibly slipped the apron over my head. With the urge to cry, I put on the apron and stood there awkwardly posing.
Inwardly rationalizing ‘This is for domestic peace. I need to endure it—I can’t see blood again,’ I tried to smile by lifting the corners of my mouth.
Click, click. Hajin moved his phone around, snapping photos frantically.
“Stop taking pictures.”
“Okay.”
Hajin’s mouth was stretched into a grin from ear to ear. Seeing him with a bandage wrapped around his hand, smiling like a kid, was ridiculous. After checking the photos, Hajin proudly showed them to Hahyun.
“How is it?”
“Fucking sexy… You’re sending those to me, right?”
“Well…”
“What? I came up with the idea, so you’d better send them to me.”
It looked like round two was about to start. I slammed the utensil container I was holding onto the sink.
“If you’re going to fight again, forget the meal. And obviously, the photos are getting confiscated.”
I knew I had no real authority since both the food and the photos belonged to them, but now wasn’t the time to argue about that.
Hajin immediately changed his tune.
“Who said we’re fighting? We’re not fighting.”
“That’s right. We were just discussing.”
Hajin quickly hid his phone behind his back. Seeing him act like a child when he normally behaved like such an adult, I started to grow suspicious.
Isn’t this all calculated behavior? I don’t know why, but Hajin’s sudden change in attitude must have a purpose. What could his hidden intention be?
“Hyung, what are you doing? The food’s going to get cold at this rate.”
Hahyun’s words snapped me out of my thoughts. To hide the fact that I’d been staring at Hajin, I placed the food on a tray and handed it to Hahyun.
“Could you take this to the dining room?”
Finally, breakfast with the food I’d made began.
***
“Ugh…”
“Haah…”
The brothers’ reactions after tasting the soup were pretty concerning. Is it that bad? It was my first time making it, but it should still taste like bean sprout soup, so why those reactions?
Their expressions were so odd that I decided to taste the soup myself. A fishy, bitter taste spread throughout my mouth—it was quite different from the bean sprout soup I’d imagined.
Why is it like this? All I added was bean sprouts and salt…
“Hyung, the bean sprout soup is a bit blan…”
Hahyun seemed to have more to say but held back, which made me want to laugh.
Our Hahyun is an angel. If he can taste this and only say it’s bland, he’s definitely an angel.
I pretended not to notice and played innocent.
“Should I add more salt then?”
“I think it’s delicious just like this.”
At Hajin’s words, both Hahyun and I simultaneously looked at him as if to ask whether he was serious. Meeting our gazes, Hajin flinched for a moment, then picked up the entire bowl and downed it in one go.
I asked seriously:
“Hajin-ssi, are you feeling okay?”
