“Haeyoung-ah, let’s go eat dinner.”
“Okay. Should I contact noona too? She should be done with her lecture by now.”
“…….”
Seonwoo, who had been waiting for him in front of the lecture hall, closed his mouth as he watched Haeyoung immediately pull out his phone at his question. Since this had been happening repeatedly for several days, Haeyoung’s gesture of taking out his phone from his pocket was extremely natural.
Seonwoo’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at Haeyoung fidgeting to contact Hajin. His crooked gaze thoroughly scanned Haeyoung’s clear face from top to bottom.
“No, let’s just eat together today, just the two of us.”
“Huh?”
Haeyoung’s head snapped up in surprise at the words from Seonwoo, who he’d naturally expected would say it was fine. The moment their eyes met, Seonwoo closed his eyes and gave a painted-on smile.
Though his smiling face was as gentle as usual, Haeyoung felt an inexplicable sense of dissonance in that perfect smile. Blinking and wracking his brain, he eventually let out a low groan. Come to think of it, constantly inviting Hajin to their plans might have bothered him.
‘Did it seem like I only liked Hajin noona? I only did it because it felt weird being alone with hyung….’
However, he couldn’t explain his feelings as they were. Haeyoung acknowledged his thoughtlessness and quickly nodded.
“Okay.”
Feeling unnecessarily sorry, he grabbed the end of Seonwoo hyung’s shirt sleeve. The hyung’s smile deepened, noticing that it was an awkward apology substituting for saying he was sorry.
It looked like he was going to say something embarrassing again, like calling him cute or whatever. Before Seonwoo could confuse him with his unnecessarily pretty face, Haeyoung pulled him along.
When asked what he wanted to eat, Haeyoung immediately shouted for meat. He had just wanted meat at that moment, but the place Seonwoo hyung brought him to was unnecessarily atmospheric again.
Perhaps because the wall on the side where the tables were placed was entirely glass, the sunset scenery poured in through the window. The tables were widely spaced, and with the gentle new age piano melody flowing from overhead, the conversations from other tables couldn’t be heard well.
‘This is the kind of atmosphere you’d come to on a date with a lover….’
Feeling unnecessarily awkward, he was too embarrassed to look straight at Seonwoo sitting across from him. Unable to help it, Haeyoung subtly avoided Seonwoo’s gaze until the food came out.
Haeyoung, who had been awkwardly smiling and fidgeting, returned to normal after the food arrived. Distracted by the steak placed in front of him and busily moving his knife, he soon raised his head and grinned.
“Hyung! Look at this. I cut it perfectly evenly. Even the chef would fall for this.”
Haeyoung proudly showed off the steak cut into neat square shapes. Watching him, Seonwoo readily nodded.
“You’re right, you cut it well.”
There was laughter seeping into the slowly flowing voice.
There it was again. That ticklish voice that unnecessarily made his heart flutter. The pleasant smile hanging on Haeyoung’s lips became awkward again.
Haeyoung also often told other people he loved them, and went around playing mischievous pranks. Since everyone knew it was a joke, they received it pleasantly.
Seonwoo was probably also spouting these unnecessarily fluttering words as an extension of such jokes. Therefore, Yoon Haeyoung didn’t want to misunderstand his goodwill on his own. In the first place, if it had been someone other than Cha Seonwoo playing these kinds of jokes, it probably wouldn’t have been this troublesome.
‘Still, if the person receiving this was a woman, she’d definitely misunderstand.’
Haeyoung let out a deep sigh, soothing his troubled heart. Then he stood up holding his plate and switched it with Seonwoo’s plate, which wasn’t even half cut.
Sitting down, he gripped the knife and began cutting what had been Seonwoo’s steak while grumbling.
“Hyung. If you keep doing this, I might misunderstand.”
“…I wish you would misunderstand.”
Cha Seonwoo spoke quietly while looking down at the plate Haeyoung had placed in front of him. His gaze lingered on the plate as if viewing a work of art too precious to touch. However, he soon raised his head with a puzzled expression at the silent lack of response from across the table.
And he found Haeyoung staring at him with round eyes.
“Wow, you’re really going to cause trouble, seriously.”
Haeyoung, who seemed momentarily speechless with his mouth opening and closing, belatedly spat out his words. His face plainly showed his exasperation.
Watching such a Haeyoung, a meaningless laugh leaked from Cha Seonwoo’s mouth once again.
“What are you going to do if I fall for you, hyung? If you do this and then don’t take responsibility, a lawsuit will fly to your house.”
Where’s your house, hyung. Watching Haeyoung furrow his brow threateningly, Seonwoo finally buried his face in his hands as if he couldn’t stand it anymore. Haeyoung stared blankly at him, who laughed whenever he said anything.
After laughing for a while, Seonwoo lifted his face, still bearing traces of laughter.
“I’ll take responsibility.”
The voice that flowed from his mouth was excessively sweet. Sweet enough that Haeyoung, who had been making a displeased face, flinched and reflexively clenched his fist.
“So fall for me, Haeyoung-ah.”
Though the gentle voice was definitely soft, it embedded itself roughly in Haeyoung’s ear. Haeyoung momentarily forgot what to say back and rolled his eyes.
The words hyung uttered in this voice made people feel strangely unsettled. So he had to take some responsibility for the subtle emotions he was feeling. He thought that was reasonable, but instead of voicing that thought, Haeyoung spoke in a somewhat subdued voice.
“When you talk like that, hyung, nobody thinks it’s a joke.”
And the answer that immediately followed made Haeyoung choke up.
“It’s not a joke though….”
“Ah, come on…!”
Haeyoung, thinking he should say something, raised his head but paused when he saw Seonwoo’s face. Because Seonwoo’s face looked even more forlorn than his own.
Long eyelashes hanging down due to his tilted head. Between them, his black eyes were watching Haeyoung, already brimming with moisture.
“Why won’t you believe me.”
A low voice leaked out like a soliloquy. As if deeply hurt that he didn’t believe him, Seonwoo asked in a quiet voice with an utterly dejected face.
“Is it because I’m a man? Or do you not like older guys? What do I have to do for you to like me?”
“Huh?”
“You called me pretty. But I’m not your type?”
At the uncontrollably pouring questions, Haeyoung’s mind went blank. Trying to organize his jumbled thoughts, Haeyoung let out an empty laugh.
Not his type? He must have said he was pretty at least a hundred times, so there was no way he wasn’t his type. Yoon Haeyoung felt a bit absurd. Everyone knew Seonwoo hyung was pretty, so that question was unfair.
“Hyung, wait, that’s…. Ah, shit. Do you like me, hyung?”
Haeyoung, flustered and stuttering, covered his mouth with his hand as he asked. The answer came back so quickly it made the question he’d asked after much hesitation seem pointless.
“I like you.”
The answer was short, and the emotion was clear.
Without even the slightest uncertainty.
“I like you, Haeyoung-ah.”
A firmly pressed voice reached Haeyoung as if to engrave it in him. The sensation of something dropping from inside his ribcage was vividly clear, almost eerily so.
Haeyoung couldn’t tell whether what had fallen at his feet was his own heart or the heavy emotion Seonwoo was conveying. He merely surrendered himself completely to the gaze looking at him with a dazed expression.
“I really like you. From the beginning. From the first time I saw you.”
“…….”
“I’m sorry.”
What for? Haeyoung’s eyes widened at the sudden apology following the confession.
Was he sorry for confessing? Or for liking him? It was flustering, but whether it was the former or the latter didn’t matter. Rather, Haeyoung was even feeling an inexplicable clarity, like a tooth that had been aching for days had finally been pulled.
Seeing Seonwoo’s expression gradually hardening due to the lengthening silence, Haeyoung spoke urgently.
“What are you sorry for? I was wondering if I was drinking kimchi soup all by myself. Ah, I worried for nothing!”
At the voice he heard, Cha Seonwoo looked at Haeyoung with the face of someone who had heard something completely unexpected.
“I kind of thought so, you know? Always buying me meals, buying me coffee, showing me movies, taking me home. Constantly calling me cu…te at all hours.”
Yoon Haeyoung spoke somewhat grumblingly, perhaps feeling awkward.
“Honestly, I’m not a kid, I’m a guy this big, but you kept calling me cute so it felt weird. I wondered why you liked me so much. But it was just, just that you liked me.”
As he spoke, he quickly organized his thoughts. As he talked, he worried a bit that his self-love might be a little excessive.
However, when he carefully rolled his eyes to look at Seonwoo, his expression was unperturbed. He kept his mouth shut without any rebuttal. Seeing his face that said it was obvious, it seemed his thoughts weren’t wrong.
“…You really do like me, hyung.”
Only after speaking it out loud did it finally feel real.
The certainty conveyed by the other person makes you confront your own heart. The heart you wanted to pretend not to know about and deliberately covered up.
For some reason, heat rushed to his face. Even without looking, he could tell he had flushed red from his face to the tips of his ears. Ah, damn it.
Haeyoung stuttered as if buffering, then buried his face close to the plate. On the plate, the meat he’d been cutting was growing cold.
“Let’s eat first and talk about this again….”
Haeyoung whispered with a groan, and Seonwoo silently nodded. Like that, the two quickly finished what would be their first and last meal in silence.
It goes without saying, but Yoon Haeyoung had not a single reason to reject Cha Seonwoo. Though at the time, he didn’t think that the relationship that started so clumsily would last five years.
Anyway, dating Seonwoo was much better than he’d vaguely imagined. The longer they spent time together, far from getting tired of him, he grew to like him more and more, to a troublesome degree.
Ah, after they started dating, there was something he told him—he probably didn’t remember, but he said he had seen him on the first day of the semester. According to Seonwoo, Yoon Haeyoung, who had been extremely nervous about being late on the first day, didn’t remember the situation he was talking about exactly. But listening to his words, he vaguely seemed to remember wandering around campus and grabbing just anyone to ask where the business school building was.
Hyung said he was startled by the hand that suddenly grabbed him, then reflexively answered when asked directions with a face that looked like it might cry. Then he watched him thank him and immediately run off, regretting not asking his name.
So when he met him again, he was really happy. Because it was the first time he’d felt joy at seeing someone, he could immediately recognize his own feelings.
‘Haeyoung-ah. Yoon Haeyoung. You don’t know how much I like you.’
The voice Seonwoo had given him before leaving the house revived in Haeyoung’s ears as he walked toward school. Yoon Haeyoung, who had scoffed at his words, shot back that hyung didn’t know how much he liked him either, and Cha Seonwoo laughed with a face that said he couldn’t live like this and kissed him repeatedly.
Then he almost ended up late for his morning class and had barely pushed him away to leave. While hurrying toward school, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket.
Vaguely thinking it was Seonwoo, Haeyoung let out an empty laugh. How long had it been since he left that he was already calling. Smiling and shaking his head for no reason, he pulled his phone out of his pocket.
[Dad]
However, the name that appeared on the screen wasn’t Cha Seonwoo. At the unexpected call, Yoon Haeyoung stopped in his tracks.
