The content they had to film at the cafe was doing a survey about each other that the production team had prepared while drinking beverages. In the meantime, ordinary conversations that weren’t particularly important continued.
“Learning about each other’s food preferences?”
After opening the envelope and reading everything written on the card, Evan moved one eyebrow and returned the card to the production team.
“Preferences? Food preferences?”
Siwoo pointed at Evan and himself with his index finger as he confirmed the card’s contents. After spending the afternoon at the cafe, the place they were at now was a restaurant located on a high floor with a view of the Han River and Seoul’s beautiful night scenery at a glance.
“Yes.”
“I wondered why they only let us drink beverages earlier and didn’t let us eat dessert.”
Evan shook his head as he spoke, and Siwoo shrugged his shoulders. He had said he’d order mango bingsu, but the beverages he actually brought back were one glass of lemonade and one iced Americano.
And although it wasn’t exactly intentional, Evan drank the iced Americano and Siwoo drank the lemonade.
“Ah! So that’s why you only brought beverages.”
Siwoo nodded as he opened the luxurious menu placed in front of him. If they had eaten desserts back then, they wouldn’t be able to eat dinner like this. Siwoo’s eyes widened as he looked through the menu carefully. How much is this exactly?
He had expected the prices to be somewhat high, but at prices that exceeded his expectations, his gaze naturally turned toward the production team.
“You told us to check each other’s preferences, so we just order whatever we want to eat, right?”
Before Siwoo could say how they could possibly eat something this expensive, Evan spoke up.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what we’re going to order? Can we order things like caviar and stuff? Foie gras and things like that?”
Siwoo asked, recalling the expensive items he had just seen on the menu.
“Yes. Order whatever you want to eat.”
“You won’t say anything about it later.”
Evan, who had been flipping through the menu half-heartedly, started focusing on it.
“First, steak, cream of mushroom soup. What would be good for salad. Or maybe a course would be better?”
Siwoo checked the menu again while muttering to himself. Honestly, he didn’t know what to eat. If there hadn’t been descriptions written below the food names that were hard to read, he wouldn’t have known what was what. Spending hundreds of thousands of won on one meal wasn’t Siwoo’s style.
“A course is fine too, but how about we order various delicious things and taste them? Caviar salad, foie gras, things like that. T-bone steak would be good too.”
As Siwoo was looking for the foods Evan was listing off, he lightly kicked his foot under the table. Are you really planning to spend hundreds just to film eating one dinner? T-bone steak was large in portion to begin with.
“We can have wine too, right? If we’re going with T-bone, red wine would be good. Coco, champagne?”
Despite having just given a signal under the table telling him not to do that, Evan’s menu selection continued without paying any attention. Moreover, Siwoo’s mouth fell open when he found the wine he had recited.
Main dishes could be cheaper than wine. That could happen. But we’re filming right now.
Evan Lewis. I know you’re the son of a huge conglomerate family, but why are we doing this while filming something like ‘Wishing to Get Close’?
“I’ll just have sirloin steak.”
Siwoo mentioned what he thought was the most reasonably priced option among these.
“Then we’ll add one sirloin steak too.”
Why is it increasing? The director, who should definitely be flustered, remained calm even while listening to the menu Evan was reciting.
“But can we eat all of this?”
The order went in before Siwoo could do anything about it. Since it was late summer when the sun set late, a deep sunset was just now casting through the window.
“They told us to find preferences, so we’ll just have to taste everything and speak honestly.”
“We already know our preferences roughly.”
Wasn’t food preference supposed to be finding things like gopchang with soju, chicken with beer, pork belly with somaek? Pork cutlet kimbap versus shrimp kimbap, cola versus cider, mul-naengmyeon versus bi-naengmyeon, kalguksu versus sujebi. Things like that.
“Then you two, please fill this out as well while the food is being prepared.”
The production team held out paper and pens to both of them again. And when Siwoo received it, he couldn’t help but laugh softly. What he had just been thinking about was written on it.
Jjajangmyeon vs. jjamppong, grilled dumplings vs. boiled dumplings, pour-in vs. dip-in.
From food preferences to questions for the ages, there was truly a wide variety.
“What is this. Jjajangmyeon vs. jjamppong? I like jjamjjamyeon though……”
He answered honestly. When there’s a very reasonable and correct choice like jjamjjamyeon, why would you deliberately agonize between jjajang and jjamppong?
“Then…… please write that next to it.”
“Pour-in vs. dip-in. I only put half the tangsuyuk in the sauce bowl, you know? I don’t put the other half in so I can eat it crispy by dipping it in soy sauce, should I write that too?”
“……It’s your preference.”
There was a slight time gap after Siwoo’s question, but the director left him with the words to write down whatever he was comfortable with.
“Evanie.”
“Hm?”
“Should I write that you order mul-naengmyeon and I order bi-naengmyeon so we can share? When eating alone is the problem, but when eating with others, these things aren’t problems at all.”
The moment Evan saw Siwoo’s face asking really seriously while placing the paper on the table and tapping his lips with the tip of the pen, he burst out laughing loudly.
This unit filming was a work by Chan and himself. Chan was the one who suggested it first.
They wanted to satisfy the fans’ needs and show the two of them getting along well.
It was also a commonly handled topic. But it would be a lie to say his personal feelings weren’t involved. He created this absurd questionnaire about getting to know each other because he was curious about what Siwoo thought of him.
And he added this restaurant to the course because he wanted to eat the T-bone steak and wine that were famous here together. And then he made another questionnaire because he wanted to know Siwoo’s food preferences for certain.
Because it was no different from the countless questionnaires that any idol commonly does, Siwoo wasn’t suspicious at all.
In fact, Evan had never honestly answered questionnaires like this even once. He couldn’t even remember what he had checked anyway. He just roughly checked whatever he saw at the time.
But seeing Siwoo earnestly answering all the questions with sincerity, his conscience, which didn’t seem to have much left, pricked a little.
“That would work.”
Facing Siwoo, who was waiting for his answer while maintaining eye contact and blinking, made his heart pound again.
He’s my person, my omega, my…… everything. He wanted to shout this. He wanted to keep him somewhere no one could see and look at him alone.
Give him only the good things in the world, let him see only good things, only good things…….
“Right?”
As if satisfied with his answer, he soon nodded slightly and concentrated on the questionnaire, and the smile on Evan’s lips as he watched him didn’t fade.
* * *
It’s one mountain after another.
After eating his fill from unfamiliar foods like foie gras and caviar salad to T-bone steak, the next place Siwoo arrived at was a store in the middle of a luxury brand street.
The filming time had gotten longer because they had to do close-up filming and taste each dish as the food came out.
It seemed they had rented the time after business hours for filming.
So. Why are we looking at accessories here right now? Siwoo raised his hand to press his forehead. ‘Wishing to Get Close,’ they said.
There are so many ways for friends to get close, aren’t there? They could play basketball together, play games, read comic books, or talk over a drink, and most awkward relationships would become fairly close.
But why are we drinking beverages at a trendy cafe these days, elegantly cutting with knives while pairing wine at a high-class restaurant. And the next course is a luxury brand store?
“Which one do you think would be good?”
Looking at the earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and rings lined up abundantly before his eyes made him feel dizzy.
“No. Why do we need to do something like this?”
“They told us to do friendship items.”
He couldn’t understand what Evan was thinking as he examined various things with quite a serious expression.
Yechan and Chan, who were famous for being the closest in the team while also bickering, had filmed something similar to this as a unit too.
When he watched videos capturing their activities haphazardly, he remembered seeing something similar to this. But did they have a course like this too? Sometimes when memories of the past and present mixed up in a complicated way, there were times when he couldn’t definitively determine either.
Just like now, it seemed like they had also exchanged expensive accessories, but also seemed like they hadn’t.
“Something like T-shirts?”
“Should we do rings? Friendship rings?”
You’re sitting there talking about friendship rings. Are you and I in a relationship where we’d wear friendship rings? Aren’t you looking for couple rings disguised as friendship rings?
Unable to honestly express the feelings inside, Siwoo stuck out his lower lip. At Evan’s one word, the other accessories moved away and rings gathered neatly to the front.
They are pretty. What have I been doing all this time without even trying couple rings or anything?
“How about earrings?”
“Our earring preferences……”
Seeing Evan speaking with his arms crossed, Siwoo stuck out the tip of his tongue slightly and bit it lightly. Unlike himself, who was wearing dangly earrings even now, Evan was wearing a simple, form-fitting style.
During filming, they wore various things that the stylists brought, but if it were up to Evan’s preference, it was unconditionally simple.
“Bracelets?”
Siwoo raised his left hand and shook it lightly. The multiple layered bracelets reflected the glamorous store’s light. Then Evan silently showed his left wrist.
Seeing the heavy watch positioned there, he had nothing to say.
“……Anklets?”
“Let’s go with a clearly visible ring.”
Siwoo, who had been saying various things thinking anything but rings would work, tucked the tip of his tongue that he had been sticking out back in at Evan’s firm words. He couldn’t think of any more reasons to object.
