To cut to the chase, Hongdan managed to avoid becoming an internet meme. However, he couldn’t completely escape the Team Leader’s hawk-like gaze. The only silver lining was that when he sat down at his desk, it was barely past 9:01. Thanks to this, he could console himself that it was the diligent Team Leader who was being overly particular, and that he himself fell within the bounds of a normal modern person.
After somehow enduring three more hours like that, lunchtime finally arrived.
Hongdan usually made a point of using the company cafeteria to help drain the company’s capital, but today of all days, he had rushed faster than anyone else to a nearby bone hangover soup restaurant.
With each spoonful of hot broth he swallowed, it felt like a thousand years of stress was melting away. However, his appearance must have been unusually ravenous, because even Jaeon, who was always friendly toward Hongdan, put down his spoon and curled his upper lip in a wave-like motion.
“Wow… Hyung. Did you not eat dinner yesterday?”
“I did.”
Though I threw it all up today.
Hongdan was an adult who knew to swallow down words that would kill one’s appetite. Instead, he put a large piece of dried radish greens in his mouth to soothe his ticklish tongue.
“Do you want to eat mine too?”
Jaeon asked, pushing his own earthenware pot toward Hongdan. Only then did Hongdan raise his head from the hangover soup and look at the other man.
“What, did watching me eat kill your appetite?”
“Ah, it’s not like that at all. I’m just happy seeing you eat so heartily. You picking at your food with a depressed expression kills my appetite way more.”
“So I must have ruined your meal the day before yesterday… Sorry, man.”
“That’s even less the reason I said it. Just eat mine too. Hyung, you need to gain some weight.”
He persistently scooped some of his own meat and gave it to him. Seeing the earthenware pot being refilled without even a chance to refuse, Hongdan felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
‘You’re too skinny! You really need to eat properly. It’s like you’re about to collapse…’
“Jaeon-ah, am I so disgustingly skinny? Why is everyone so desperate to feed me?”
It was because he recalled the guy who, even after watching him retch right in front of him just this morning, had still insisted he should at least eat breakfast. Imagining that persistent voice gave Hongdan goosebumps for a moment, and he shrugged his shoulders once to shake it off. Then Jaeon tilted his head.
“Why? Who else is worrying about hyung’s meals?”
“Uh…”
Worrying… or maybe just animal husbandry.
It was an obsession that even Hongdan hadn’t been able to properly define over the past ten years, so an answer didn’t come easily.
In fact, it was the same not just now but during their school days too. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that after meeting Hongdan, Seonha’s hobby had been increasing Choi Hongdan’s weight class.
Seonha couldn’t stand to see Hongdan’s mouth empty, and whenever there was a chance, he would stuff in snacks like sweet bread or cookies. During school meals, even when Hongdan screamed that “my stomach has been working so much overtime that it went on strike long ago,” Seonha would only let him leave his seat after making him eat all of his side dishes too.
After they started living together, that nurturing instinct reached its peak to the point where he even planned out weekly meal schedules. Thanks to that, his weight, which had never exceeded 70kg in his entire life, had already surpassed 73kg during their newlywed days.
As he carefully retraced his memories, Seonha’s face also bloomed up in his mind—the way he would make airplane takeoff sounds and hold out a spoon to him like feeding a little child. Recalling that noisy fuss, Hongdan let out a small laugh without realizing it.
“Well, there is one bastard who’s been eternally desperate to shove something in my mouth.”
It was a lightly thrown remark like a slight breeze, but Jaeon seemed to take it quite seriously. He even put on a deliberately serious expression and lowered his voice.
“Then that person must like hyung.”
“No. He doesn’t like me.”
In contrast, Hongdan spoke firmly without even thinking about it.
Like me, my ass. It’s not some kind of perverted fetish—there’s no way someone would treat a person they like like trash.
Though the denial had popped out first, Hongdan came to the same answer in his heart as well.
Steam was still rising vigorously from the red broth in the earthenware pot. To moisten his esophagus, which seemed to have dried up just from having a brief conversation, Hongdan lifted his spoon. But a voice even more confident than before stopped him.
“No. He definitely likes you.”
In the end, it meant he had to put his meal on hold for now and participate in an untimely debate.
To think that a topic worthy of passionate discussion, enough to sacrifice precious lunchtime, was merely about “whether Yeon Seonha likes Choi Hongdan.” Though the cynical thought came first that there probably wasn’t a more useless argument than this, he decided to go along with it obediently, considering it repayment for sharing that precious meat.
“I’m telling you no, man. He’s my friend, not yours. Yeon… no, he’s not the kind of bastard capable of such normal thinking.”
“Even if he’s the world’s most tyrannical piece of trash, hyung. Constantly wanting to put things in someone’s mouth, feeling like the world is ending if they go hungry—that’s called love.”
What a lover of the century we have here.
Does this innocent alpha even realize that he just confessed to Hongdan again without even noticing it himself? Hongdan let out a small laugh at that innocence and raised his chin leisurely, as if victory in this debate was his.
“Then it’s even more not that. He didn’t particularly care if I went hungry. He only acted like that when I was with him.”
“He must have cared. If it seemed like he didn’t, he probably just didn’t know. Like if hyung didn’t tell him or something.”
Is that so.
No, but even so, he couldn’t have said those things to an omega who was carrying his own child. Hongdan shook his head from side to side while answering his own question. Then he glared at Jaeon, who had somehow become that bastard’s advocate.
“You sound like his lawyer or something?”
“Hearing the story does make me want to defend him a bit.”
“Well, if you want to like someone other than me now, I’ll even introduce you, but for reference, he’s also an alpha. Can you get hormone injections?”
“Ah, seriously! Do I look like I’m doing this because I like that person?! It’s just comradeship born from liking an equally frustrating person.”
It’s so absurd I can’t even laugh. Jaeon was now acting almost like he and Seonha were sworn brothers who went to the sauna together every week.
Hongdan chewed over whether the story about Seonha he had told contained any pathetic affection he had forgotten to scrape away. But no matter how much he recalled, he couldn’t find even a trace of such worn-out feelings even if he washed his eyes and looked.
Then what exactly did he see to form this Bluetooth friendship with that bastard? Is this the charm of the alpha male who’s said to command the world? Hongdan himself still doesn’t quite understand, but seeing how Seonha met with so many people, well, it’s probably not a completely absurd assumption.
While having a heated conversation with Jaeon, quite some time must have passed, as the people in similar attire filling the restaurant with them began tidying up their seats one by one.
Thinking about what impact losing this trivial debate would have on his life, Hongdan picked up his utensils that he had briefly set down. Since Jaeon had given him some with such care, he had to at least empty this earthenware pot before leaving the restaurant.
“Fine. Let’s settle it with me being blind and you being right. So can I finish eating now?”
“There’s no way I’d stop you. I like you too, hyung.”
Ah, that youthful audacity.
Hongdan brushed off Jaeon’s confession, which now came out almost like a habit, with an eye-smile and focused only on his spoon work. It had cooled to a perfect eating temperature, just right for hurriedly wolfing down. Soon Jaeon also started tasting the hangover soup he had only been watching, and for a while, only the sound of earthenware pots and metal spoons clinking could be heard.
Finally, Hongdan stuffed the last piece of meat into his mouth. Though it hadn’t been a leisurely meal, he fumbled in his pocket to pay for both of them as the duty of both the elder and the loser. That’s when Jaeon, who had seemed to be quietly filling his stomach, suddenly raised his head.
“But, hyung.”
“Hm?”
“Are you still in contact with that person?”
“That person?”
When Hongdan tilted his head at the vague reference, Jaeon added an explanation in an indifferent tone.
“The person who worries about hyung’s meals.”
“…Ah.”
Even after realizing the subject was Yeon Seonha, Hongdan couldn’t answer easily. No, perhaps it was a more difficult question precisely because it was Seonha.
To deny it would prick his conscience since they were living together, literally rubbing shoulders. But then again, to affirm it didn’t seem like the question was simply asking if they exchanged greetings. Hongdan scratched at his hand in his coat pocket as he pondered an appropriate answer.
Just then, as if someone had been spying on him from somewhere, his phone buzzed—zzzing—with perfect timing.
He had a good idea who the sender was. So while Hongdan guessed it wouldn’t be urgent content, he wanted to avoid the immediate response first, so he took out his phone.
There were a total of 3 text messages in the top bar.
[YSH] Hongdan-ah, are you coming home early today?
[YSH] Is there anything you want for dinner? If you don’t want me to make it, I’ll buy something
[YSH] Don’t skip lunch just because your stomach hurts, at least have some soup, please!!!
As expected.
It was those three consonants that didn’t miss expectations. At the same time, Hongdan realized what answer he needed to give.
“Um… yeah.”
He nodded simply enough to make his previous pondering seem pointless.
“I told you, he’s a friend.”
Even in the moment of acknowledging that fact, he didn’t feel much displeasure.
