Jinhyeok, who had quickly shed his embarrassment, looked at Taeon with a gaze full of interest and asked.
“You’re the only bankrupt person around me, so I’m curious, Taeon.”
At these words, Sunjeong had no choice but to slightly furrow his brow. Jinhyeok had expertise in scratching people bit by bit to get under their skin like this. And Sunjeong couldn’t let Taeon be scratched by Jinhyeok.
When Sunjeong, who had been quiet, was about to open his mouth, Taeon’s voice rang out first.
“Have you ever had debt?”
Taeon’s refreshing voice asking Jinhyeok, who couldn’t possibly have any.
In that moment, Sunjeong smiled pleasantly. Jinhyeok was far from capable of suppressing Taeon’s spirit anyway. By a long shot.
“If you’re bankrupt, you have to admit you’re bankrupt and pay it back step by step.”
“You can just file for rehabilitation!”
At Taeon’s words, Yoonwoo cheerfully chimed in.
Yoonwoo, who always felt economic disparity among the chaebol young masters, clearly felt a secret intimacy toward Taeon, with whom he could obviously communicate better.
Perhaps because of that, Taeon spoke to Yoonwoo in a slightly softer voice, lowly.
“I can’t just pay back as much as I can.”
“Then?”
“I have to pay it all back completely.”
Instead of Yoonwoo, who quietly agreed with the literal meaning of the words, Jinhyeok opened his mouth.
“What if the creditor is, like, a wicked creditor? Like a loan shark who charges really high interest rates.”
At these words, Taeon said nothing. He wore a thoughtful expression, but Sunjeong knew that he was actually just pretending. For Jinhyeok and Yoonwoo’s sake.
“I have to follow it.”
“Hmm…”
Jinhyeok, nodding his head at Taeon’s words, wore a subtle smile.
Before Jinhyeok’s gaze could turn to Sunjeong, Sunjeong got up from the table first.
“Let’s light the candles on the cake now.”
“Ah, that Sentence cake! It looks so delicious!”
Jinhyeok seemed to want to hear more of the debtor’s story about being completely bankrupt in the love business, but Sunjeong wasn’t particularly more interested.
He could hear such words directly from Taeon later.
From Taeon’s voice talking about his debt, Sunjeong finally gained confidence that someday Taeon would tell him many things in that calm voice.
A faint smile hung on Sunjeong’s lips as he realized this fact.
He cleared the table a bit and placed the cake on top of the cake box.
In front of the strawberry cream cake that looked appetizing and was pretty enough that one couldn’t help but immediately point a camera at it, Yoonwoo, who was the main character of the day in his own way, kept showing a beaming smile.
“I love the cake so much. Taeon, thank you.”
After seeming awkward a few times, Yoonwoo, who now called him “Taeon” so well, received a still slightly awkward nod from Taeon.
“Yoonwoo, happy birthday.”
At Sunjeong’s words, Yoonwoo smiled once more.
Pretty, kind, not very perceptive, and terribly bad at cooking, but Yoonwoo—he could see why his friend found him so lovable.
“Make a wish. You must have decided on a wish to make.”
“I haven’t decided on my wish yet!”
Since Jinhyeok and Yoonwoo were leaving tomorrow, Sunjeong thought the wish would naturally be just one thing, so he was slightly puzzled.
He turned off the fluorescent light and lit the candles with the numbers 2 and 3.
None other than the birthday boy Yoonwoo started singing his own birthday song the loudest. And only after closing his eyes for a long time and clasping his hands in prayer did he blow out the candles with his breath.
“What wish did you make?”
Since it apparently wasn’t the obvious wish, Sunjeong asked curiously, and Yoonwoo smiled brightly and said,
“Please make everyone here happy. Our family members who aren’t here, Hyeok’s family too, no, just, please make everyone in this world happy.”
At the silly wish, Sunjeong chuckled. Even Taeon let out a small laugh.
But everyone knew Yoonwoo’s wish was sincere.
That was why everyone here hoped Yoonwoo’s birthday wish would come true.
***
The problem was the alcohol. Because he’d been drinking champagne whenever his throat was parched due to the conversations they’d shared at the table earlier, he quickly got tipsy.
Seeing Sunjeong’s face flush bright red, Taeon said he’d go alone, but Sunjeong insisted he couldn’t do that. He was a guest who had come a long way in his own right, and more than anything, he didn’t want to send Taeon off alone after he’d put words like bankruptcy in his mouth.
Perhaps Taeon might also feel the emotions Sunjeong felt when looking at Jinhyeok and Yoonwoo.
A somewhat lonely heart. A heart that wants to love too.
“Yoon Taeon, give me a piggyback ride!”
Still, thanks to the alcohol, he could be much more energetic than before. Taeon, who had been looking at Sunjeong before his eyes holding fresh tangerine ice cream and banana milk in both hands bought from a convenience store, spoke in an indifferent voice.
“Eat the ice cream first, and the milk later. I’ll put it in my pocket.”
“You really don’t need to eat anything?”
“Yeah, I ate everything earlier. I’m full.”
As expected, Taeon gave Sunjeong a piggyback ride very easily. When Taeon gave him piggyback rides, the feeling of Sunjeong’s limited field of vision opening up wide was really nice.
The cold night air also just felt refreshing.
“Yoon Taeon.”
When he bit into the ice cream, his mouth became so cold that his head hurt. Taeon quietly waited for Sunjeong’s next words after calling his name and only making the sound of crunching ice.
“Why don’t you file for rehabilitation?”
While Taeon fell into deep silence looking for an answer to the question that followed, Sunjeong buried his face in Taeon’s shoulder.
Maybe burying my face like this and deeply inhaling Taeon’s pheromones is the best thing I can do while drunk.
Feeling good from the pheromones felt along with his body scent, Sunjeong smiled even more brightly and cheerfully.
“You have to file for rehabilitation to go through the process and pay off all the debt.”
At the answer that still didn’t come, Sunjeong just hummed while lying as if clinging to Taeon. Actually, he didn’t need an answer or anything. At least right now, words didn’t mean anything. Because the warmth felt from skin touching skin was most important.
“Yoon Taeon.”
After being carried for a while, Sunjeong, who had discovered something, opened his mouth in a rough voice.
“This isn’t the direction to the subway station, is it? This is the direction to our house.”
“Yeah, we’re going to your apartment right now.”
“I said I’d see you off.”
“Who’s seeing who off when you’re this drunk right now?”
He could have immediately begged him to turn his steps back to the subway station right now, but he didn’t particularly want to do that.
He wasn’t really that drunk, and more than anything, it had now become a pleasant walk, so he didn’t want to object either.
“Will you be okay living alone from now on?”
“I’m always alone anyway.”
Along with these words, Sunjeong smiled bashfully.
It was quite an intentional remark. It was because he remembered that when Sunjeong said this when he hadn’t been close with Taeon for very long yet, Taeon had looked deeply into Sunjeong.
He wasn’t really alone. He just spent a lot of time standing alone because of his family-oriented but busy parents and siblings with whom he got along well but had a large age gap.
The dizziness he felt when, the day after confiding this grievance to Taeon, he realized that Taeon commuted to school from the facility. To Sunjeong, who felt awkward and even apologized, Taeon said in a calm voice,
“A person can be alone even with someone beside them. It can’t be helped.”
After Sunjeong came to like Taeon, Sunjeong wasn’t alone even when he was alone. He was always abundant because of his feelings of liking Taeon.
Even if there were days when he cried out loud because of Taeon.
Had he ever told Taeon this fact?
“Go Sunjeong.”
Taeon quietly called the name of Sunjeong, who had been sulking for no reason and then became lost in thought.
This time, after calling Sunjeong’s name first, Taeon was again silent for quite a while.
It’s almost the apartment entrance. He should say something before then.
Thinking this, Sunjeong still waited for Taeon’s silence with a calm heart. It seemed better now than when they were a little younger, when they’d filled the space not with silence but with words that scratched each other.
Even after this time passed, it seemed like words better than silence would permeate between the two.
“That omega I was with back then…”
“……”
Sunjeong tensed up for a moment in case it was a confession he didn’t really want to receive. Taeon’s voice was too serious.
“He’s my teacher.”
Teacher, what does that mean?
“Teacher?”
“Yeah, my private tutor.”
“What kind of tutoring?”
Taeon was interested in various academies. Sunjeong also knew that he saved separately because of academy fees. However, that academy was one that taught skills like welding or wallpapering.
Based on prejudice, that slender and pretty omega didn’t particularly seem like he could teach such work to others.
Even leaving prejudice aside, there was no way he’d study such things at a cafe.
This time too, Taeon was silent, but Sunjeong knew that the current silence wasn’t just a quiet silence.
It was because, thanks to being carried as if embraced by Taeon, every time Taeon tried to open his mouth to say something, his chest rose slightly. Then it would soon go down as if hesitating about something.
“Studying.”
“What studying?”
Sunjeong really couldn’t get a grasp on it. Asking again with the feeling of playing twenty questions, this time Taeon spoke slowly without gaps.
“English. I can’t do English, you know.”
“English? Suddenly? Are you going to work overseas? Maybe a working holiday?”
It felt like he was sobering up completely. He actually did sober up a bit.
