From his hair that glinted and shimmered in the light to his pale cheeks, his eyes and the bridge of his nose—no matter how he looked at it, it was Gil Taeseo. Saehyeon secretly pinched the back of his hand hard. It was his own doing, but it hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes. Since it hurt, it didn’t seem to be a nightmare from collapsing on the way home from work due to overwork.
“Why are you here?”
This was truly unexpected. He did remember Gil Taeseo mentioning something about a phone call when they parted. But he’d thought that was just the usual threatening tone.
He’d also thought they’d absolutely never meet until he was the one groveling and reaching out first. He’d postponed that decision in his heart for quite a while. But now that the person in question had appeared out of nowhere before his eyes, Saehyeon couldn’t help but be flustered.
The subject, the situation, and himself facing it were all problems. It would be faster and easier to list what wasn’t a problem.
“All of this area is in front of my establishments. Is there a reason I shouldn’t be here?”
Saehyeon’s expression looked like he’d seen something that shouldn’t be here. The man tilted his head at an angle and fixed his gaze. His slowly flowing gaze scanned every corner of his body.
“I wondered if you really just didn’t photograph well.”
No matter how much better an Alpha’s physical abilities were than a Beta’s, there were limits. The night they reunited, the situation hadn’t been good either. The surroundings were dark and emotions ran high. He was angry, excited, and confused all at once.
So now, properly examining Lee Saehyeon for the first time, he was more of a mess than expected. It was incomparable to his appearance from a few years ago. His smallness was evident, unhidden no matter how large the clothes he wore. Gil Taeseo frowned as he looked at the hollow, pale cheeks.
“What?”
Not having heard the muttered words, Saehyeon asked back with a frown. But Gil Taeseo just shook his head dismissively.
“Never mind. Food.”
“Food? What food. What does it matter to you whether I eat or not.”
What food. It was absurd for him to suddenly appear and go on about food. It even felt like he was mocking him.
“Perfect.”
I wasn’t particularly interested in your opinion anyway.
Having said that, Gil Taeseo shifted his body slightly and jerked his chin toward the car. Only then did Saehyeon notice the car standing behind Gil Taeseo. The vehicle was familiar. The problem was its ridiculous parking location.
Seeing how it was blocking more than half of an already narrow street made him let out an incredulous laugh. It was just like its owner.
“No, why is the car here…”
There was even a man with a familiar face next to it. That man with a build like a door and a somewhat fierce appearance. Shin Seokwon, whose eyes met Saehyeon’s, bowed his head.
A car brazenly obstructing traffic and a fierce-looking man standing beside it. He didn’t know about other days, but he felt like he understood why there were no customers today at least.
Flustered, Saehyeon returned the greeting and blinked his eyes blankly. Then, as if suddenly coming to his senses, he corrected the point.
“Why should I eat with you?”
Saehyeon had always been the type to eat ‘food made by others.’ In his teens, that was too natural. After turning 20, it was mostly school cafeteria food or food bought near campus.
So eating with someone ‘unavoidably’ was familiar. It was natural that Gil Taeseo would be included in that ‘someone.’ They went to the same school and were even roommates.
“A reason… a reason.”
But not now.
“You think there isn’t one?”
It was disconcerting how strangely confident the other person was.
Saehyeon forcibly turned his sluggish brain. Every time his thoughts made a rotation, there was a sound like stones grinding. Then the subject he’d been thinking about earlier suddenly popped up. About the person Gil Taeseo had helped with, who he probably took care of.
“…Don’t tell me it’s about that sexual harasser?”
Did a large settlement come out? Gil Taeseo was the one who beat him to a pulp, but this side bore greater responsibility for one particular part. So, assuming he’d been castrated.
Gil Taeseo himself had a face that said what kind of nonsensical talk was that. He frowned slightly and opened his mouth reproachfully.
“Who’s that… Ah. That bastard.”
It was a contrasting appearance to Saehyeon, who’d been inwardly anxious about when a call from the police station might come. As if he’d already cleared such an existence from his mind long ago.
“I told you not to worry about it. So what about that bastard?”
“…Aren’t you saying to buy you a meal to repay the debt for solving it?”
“Ah… debt.”
Gil Taeseo raised one hand to cover his mouth. As if pondering something, he tapped his foot a few times. The glossy black shoe tip lightly kicked at the ground covered with cigarette butts and gum stains.
“Fine. If you want to think of it that way, let’s do that.”
Having stopped kicking, Gil Taeseo accepted those words and turned around. The car door that opened with a thunk was like a gaping maw.
Saehyeon thought for a moment and weighed the time and results. There was still plenty of time until the child woke up. Plus, wasn’t it just one meal? It wouldn’t take long, and it wouldn’t be too much trouble.
Facing Gil Taeseo was certainly not an easy thing. Honestly, it was an enormous burden. But if he could end that incident with just one meal, it would also be getting off very cheaply.
He’d learned something from last time. That Gil Taeseo had ulterior motives toward him or sexual desire and would pounce on him was an excessive delusion. The same went for thinking he’d get beaten. If he was going to hit him, if he was going to pounce, he would have done more than enough last time.
‘Can’t be helped.’
Would this be the feeling of a rabbit willingly entering a tiger’s den? Saehyeon gulped and moved his feet hesitantly.
But there was something Saehyeon had overlooked. That hardships never come alone. This time too, it came rolling in brazenly with friends and eighth cousins strung along like sausages.
“…Why are you sitting next to me?”
The first was the situation of sitting close together in the back seat. He’d quickly climbed into the back seat thinking Gil Taeseo would get in the driver’s seat. He didn’t know he’d end up sitting side by side like this.
And so the man he’d awkwardly exchanged greetings with earlier took his place in the empty driver’s seat.
“Then should I drunk drive or something?”
‘Drunk driving?’
Saehyeon unconsciously moved his nose. When he smelled, along with the scent of perfume, there seemed to be a faint smell of alcohol.
Having discerned whether it was a lie or not, Saehyeon turned his body back and shut his mouth tight, embarrassed by his blatant sniffing. His stubbornness could be felt in his upright posture. As if he wouldn’t look to the side or speak until they arrived.
Gil Taeseo just rested his arm on the car window, propped his chin, and looked at that profile.
After they’d been driving for quite a while, just when he was getting anxious about being dragged to a strange place, the car stopped and where they got out, Saehyeon faced the second hardship.
“Director Gil. I received word earlier that you’d be coming.”
Even the entrance was unusual. A mature woman standing in front of an entrance decorated with wood and tiles naturally began to guide them. Behind her followed the nonchalant Gil Taeseo and the hesitant Saehyeon. Beyond the entrance was a long corridor. Beside it was a serene garden with soft lighting.
In the garden was also a large pond, and beneath the water surface he glimpsed, colorful patterns flashed by. The mouth of a carp that looked enormous at a glance occasionally broke the surface.
After walking a bit more and arriving at a room inside, there was already a neatly placed menu and teacups. The woman who poured tea from a warm, steaming, blue-tinted ceramic teapot smiled and said,
“We got some good sea bream in today. How about that?”
Saehyeon emptied his teacup once with trembling hands. The empty teacup was immediately filled again with warm, steaming tea.
‘They say those who have things are excessive. They’d squeeze juice from a flea’s liver!’
His mouth went dry at the restaurant atmosphere that obviously would result in an enormous bill. He’d thought it would be a 24-hour restaurant at best given the late early morning hour. He didn’t know he’d be dragged straight to such a high-class restaurant.
Saehyeon only glared at Gil Taeseo’s mouth, which would call out an enormously priced menu. At the end of his gaze, the light pink-tinged lips parted slightly.
“You.”
“What?”
“Sea bream, how is it?”
Saehyeon gritted his teeth, having almost asked what the cheapest thing was, sea bream or whatever.
“…Do what you want.”
“Then that.”
“Yes. Please wait a moment. Is there anything you can’t eat?”
Saehyeon’s eyes, calculating his bank balance, spun round and round. The words exchanged between Gil Taeseo and the woman felt like background noise.
Gil Taeseo, who’d been looking across, lifted his teacup. Above the large hand covering his mouth, his eyes curved slightly.
The food came out quickly. Many dishes that required a lot of work filled a large wooden table neatly. He thought he’d vaguely heard at the end a request to bring everything out at once, and that seemed to be why.
‘…Fuck. My money like blood.’
“What are you doing not eating?”
He was going to eat. There was no way he wouldn’t. He was just dizzy for a moment from the hallucination of prices appearing hologram-like over all the plates. Still, if he had to pay the same money anyway, it was obviously advantageous to eat a lot.
‘I have to eat more than that bastard.’
But Saehyeon couldn’t readily start eating and ground his teeth while gripping his spoon tightly. This was definitely a fight he couldn’t help but lose. That’s because 28-year-old Lee Saehyeon’s body had a digestive system that was a mess too.
“Are you performing an ancestral rite over the food?”
“Ah, I’m eating. I’m eating.”
With only the single conviction that he couldn’t lose, Saehyeon scooped up a large spoonful of porridge and shoved it into his mouth. Sitting across from him, Gil Taeseo was watching that sight without blinking once.
If Shin Seokwon, who’d driven here, had seen it, he would have said it was the eyes of a hunter looking to fatten up prey before devouring it. It was a gaze where dark ulterior motives could be seen.
