Around noon the next day, he called Chief Manager Min. As soon as Chief Manager Min, who had come to the newlywed house, saw Yu-shin’s injured hand, she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Ahhh! What should we do! Those are such precious hands! Go to the hospital right now!”
As expected, Chief Manager Min’s fuss was tremendous. Yu-shin waved his left hand lightly as if there was no problem.
“It’s fine. Why go to the hospital when it doesn’t even hurt?”
“Won’t it scar?”
“So what if it scars?”
Still, just in case, he earnestly asked her not to tell his parents. They were people who were extremely sensitive about Yu-shin’s health, so if the story accidentally reached them, there would definitely be trouble.
Chief Manager Min sat down on the sofa. In both hands, she had plenty of side dishes she’d brought from home. She looked at Yu-shin’s finger with a very displeased gaze.
“How did you get hurt?”
“Peeling melon.”
“Oh my… Why would the young master be handling knives?”
“Jun-wan ended up peeling it for me. He also treated this.”
Unable to endure Chief Manager Min’s scolding, Yu-shin confessed everything that had happened over the weekend.
Getting much worse at the movies, acting prickly at the restaurant, refusing the medicine Jun-wan bought and injuring his hand trying to eat fruit alone in the middle of the night.
Yu-shin quietly looked down at the band wrapped around the flesh below his palm. The band had been changed to a new one. Someone must have changed it while he was asleep.
“……”
He’s such a caring person while seeming indifferent. He doesn’t even take credit… People who don’t know how to brag about themselves always end up at a loss.
Looking back at the events, he felt newly self-loathing. How immature must I have looked? He couldn’t say a single word of sorry or thank you. Of course, even now that he realized that fact, they were words difficult to bring out easily.
Yu-shin sighed and clenched his hand. More than that, since Chief Manager Min was here, he needed to bring up an important topic.
“Ae-gyeong, about the housekeeper.”
“Yes.”
“Could you take that on?”
Color spread across Chief Manager Min’s face. Without a second’s hesitation, she answered that she would.
From the way she answered, she seemed ready to move in as a live-in helper. Yu-shin firmly told her to just help three hours a day on weekdays.
“Still, the house is in better condition than I thought. I expected it to be a disaster.”
“Park Jun-wan is extremely neat. He can’t leave things messy.”
Yu-shin replied, then bit his lip firmly. Come to think of it, Jun-wan took care of most things like cleaning and tidying. There wasn’t just one or two things to feel sorry about.
“…I think I went too far.”
“It’s fine as long as one of you is neat.”
Chief Manager Min naturally took Yu-shin’s side. Yu-shin shook his head. He picked up the phone he’d left beside him and pointlessly flipped through contacts. Since they didn’t usually communicate, Jun-wan’s name was stuck down at the bottom.
“I want to take care of him too somehow… but I need to have done this kind of thing before.”
Chief Manager Min looked at Yu-shin, lost in thought, with a pleased face. The young master who had been just like a child had matured considerably after getting married.
“You have to contact each other often to improve.”
“I can’t bring myself to.”
“He’s not a stranger, he’s family. What’s the big deal?”
“Mm…”
If not now, I’ll probably keep postponing contact. Yu-shin lay sprawled on the sofa and made the call. What’s the big deal about this? His heart trembled severely.
He’d made the call with great determination, but the other person didn’t answer, making his nervousness feel pointless. At the tedious connection tone, his body leaning on the sofa gradually changed to an even more lazy posture.
“He’s not answering?”
“He wouldn’t not answer on purpose, right?”
“Surely not.”
At this point, stubbornness arose. I have nothing but time. He’d keep calling until he answered.
When the meaningless attempt continued for the sixth time, a cold voice finally came through.
—This is Park Jun-wan.
Yu-shin, who had been casually shaking his crossed legs, almost dropped his phone for a moment. The tension he’d briefly released gripped his entire body again.
“…Uh, um.”
—Do you have something to say?
It was a voice cold enough to make even someone with something to say shut up. Yu-shin straightened his slouched back and firmly re-gripped his phone.
“Are you busy right now?”
Jun-wan on the other end of the phone let out a weak sigh. At the same time, loud noise filled the surroundings.
—Yes, I’m swamped, so just tell me what you need.
He’d just been going to ask how he was doing. Would this even count as business?
Even in this situation, the call time kept getting longer. He was holding onto a busy person and just wasting meaningless time. Jun-wan sighed once more, and Yu-shin moistened his increasingly dry mouth with his tongue.
“I was wondering… if you’d be late today.”
—I probably won’t be able to come home for a while.
“Ah… I see. Yes, understood. Good luck.”
Yu-shin hurriedly hung up. Call time: 3 minutes. Of that, 2 minutes were silence—an unproductive call.
“Wow… He’s so cold.”
Chief Manager Min, who had been stuck close beside him, eavesdropped on the call and exclaimed.
“What’s cold about it? He can be like that when he’s busy.”
“Isn’t he originally like this? Isn’t his usual tone like this too?”
“…No. He’s not like that.”
Yu-shin shot a glance while keeping his phone buried against his chest. Ae-gyeong doesn’t know anything. If he was really busy, he wouldn’t have answered at all. Besides, didn’t he wait for him to speak?
Where else would you find such a gentleman? Yu-shin took Park Jun-wan’s side inwardly. He kicked the sofa while resolutely ignoring Chief Manager Min’s peculiar gaze.
“Isn’t the soup bland?”
“It’s fine, it’s delicious.”
Chief Manager Min prepared lunch. The beef bone broth simmered for two days warmed Yu-shin’s stomach warmly.
Crunching on cucumber pickles seasoned only with salt and vinegar, Yu-shin fidgeted with his phone. That earlier call that had ended so dryly kept bothering him.
Did he eat lunch? How busy is he that he can’t even come home? If he was busy enough to be that frantic, it was highly likely he was skipping meals.
Yu-shin put down his spoon and properly grabbed his phone. He carefully pressed into a message the story he hadn’t been able to finish in the earlier call.
Park Jun-wan, starting today Chief Manager Min Ae-gyeong will stop by the house. She’ll only come briefly in the afternoon on weekdays, so you won’t run into her at home, Jun-wan.
The house will be clean and the laundry won’t get ruined anymore.
Did you eat lunch? Even if you’re busy, I hope you’re eating well.
The weather is really nice today. You’re busy, but I hope you get some fresh air and clear your head sometimes.
If you have time, let me know when you’ll be back.
Good luck.
Meanwhile, Jun-wan stared at the long text message for a long time.
Objectively speaking, it was nothing special. But strangely, it was a message overlaid with Yu-shin’s voice.
“What, is that Wife?”
Choi Seon-jong took an interest in the text. He tilted his head, trying to peek at someone else’s phone. It’s not like it wears out from looking, but Jun-wan hid his phone.
“It’s private.”
“Such newlyweds. I’m envious, so envious. I can’t even remember when I last got a text like that. Ah… Should I date someone too?”
“Seeing you talk nonsense, hyung, you must have it easy?”
Jun-wan muttered with a humorless face. Choi Seon-jong’s face, which had been teasing, also became gloomy. Easy? A hellfire pit is about to unfold ahead.
Early Sunday morning, a fire broke out in the research center’s computer room. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but a power short occurred and some of the data contained in the LIMS server was lost.
Fortunately, backup storage was operated separately. The problem was that it wasn’t real-time saving, so recent data hadn’t been reflected yet.
Currently, a national research project was underway at the lab. To restore the data within the set deadline means we have to bust our asses starting now.
Jun-wan had been awake for 32 hours. Already fatigued and mentally pressured, he was sharper than usual.
“There’s no time to chat leisurely. Don’t you know this is an emergency?”
Jun-wan took out a lab coat from the cabinet and put it on. When he turned around, the postdocs and graduate students related to this project were all looking only at Jun-wan with pale faces.
“Don’t anyone think about going home.”
The ghost threw out a chilling notification.
***
Jun-wan, who had entered emergency duty, had been staying at the research lab for several days. The only one guarding the large house was Yu-shin alone. Chief Manager Min came every day at least, but even that was only for a few hours. When evening came, Yu-shin became completely alone.
