Scratch.
Scratch scratch—.
At the faint sound coming from beyond the door, Hyowoo slowly opened his eyes.
He reached out and picked up his phone from the nightstand.
The screen displayed the number ‘7:30 PM’. He’d thought he’d just close his eyes for a moment, but an hour had already passed.
Hyowoo got up and approached the door where the sound was coming from.
When he opened the door slightly, a patchy gray furball slipped right into the room.
“Hey there, Mr. Saewoo. Did you have a good visit to the hospital?”
The identity of the furball was his pet cat, Saewoo.
Saewoo, who had lost his mother and was wandering the streets alone, became family two years ago. At the time of rescue, he was small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, but with the family’s love and care, he had now grown into a plump cat weighing over 9kg.
He lifted Saewoo, who was rubbing his head against his legs in greeting, and held him in his arms.
“Wow… if you get any fatter, hyung won’t be able to hold you anymore. Even now my back is killing me.”
Did he understand the talk about weight? Saewoo made a weird sound, revealing his discomfort.
“More importantly, when did you get here?”
Today was Saewoo’s regular checkup day. The appointment time happened to overlap with his father’s clinic hours, so he’d taken Saewoo along on his way to work. Then he should have returned to match the end of work hours, but there were still 30 minutes left until his father got off work.
‘Did he come early because of Saewoo?’
Still holding Saewoo, Hyowoo let out a long yawn and headed to the living room.
As he entered the living room, he spotted someone sitting on the sofa diligently flipping through TV channels. A familiar back. But it wasn’t his father.
“You’re here?”
When he called out bluntly, the person turned his head. An identical face, as if looking at himself in a mirror, looked this way.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
The one who replied just as bluntly was his identical twin brother Gyeonwoo, who resembled him not just in face but in voice as well. Unlike himself who had entered university two years late, his younger brother had already graduated from university and was attending law school.
“You were sleeping soundly without a care in the world even when Mom and I came, and you’re only waking up now?”
Until high school, the two were so identical in appearance that they couldn’t be distinguished, but now their builds had changed considerably and their atmospheres had shifted, making them completely different people.
“Anyone would think you went to do hard labor instead of meeting a friend. You were completely knocked out.”
It sounded like he was picking a fight if you listened briefly, but his face was full of playfulness. Compared to himself who was expressionless all the time, watching his younger brother’s face, which was expressive and smiled often, was not just fascinating but amusing.
“Where’s Dad?”
“How could he be here already? He said he’d be a bit late today.”
“Then who brought Saewoo?”
“I did. He contacted me saying it looked like he wouldn’t be able to get off work by the time the animal hospital closed.”
Their mother, who had been preparing dinner in the kitchen, came out to the living room hearing her two sons’ conversation.
“Hyowoo, you’re awake?”
“Yes. Ah, did you have a good time?”
“You don’t usually take naps at this hour. Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
“No. I was just a bit sleepy.”
“When did you get home?”
“Around 5:30.”
Saying it was unusual for him to come home after playing out so late, their mother smiled kindly.
“What did you do with your friends? Was it fun?”
“Yes? Ah… yes, it was fun…”
Gyeonwoo, who had been carefully watching Hyowoo evade answers until then, jumped up from the sofa.
“Mom, I have something to talk about with ‘hyung,’ so we’ll be in the room for a bit.”
Gyeonwoo rarely called Hyowoo ‘hyung’. When the guy who said “what kind of hyung are you for being born just 20 minutes earlier” called him this, it meant he had some scheme.
“Hyung-nim, shall we go into the room and have a serious conversation?”
He reflexively took a step back from his younger brother approaching with a grin.
“What kind of big story do you have that we need to go to the room? Just say it here.”
“Really? Should we do it here? Do you know what’s number 1 on the real-time search rankings today? By the way, number 2 is Lee Seohee, and number 3 is Seoul W Hotel?”
At the unexpected bombshell statement, his heart sank with a thud.
“Number 1 search term? What does that mean?”
“Ah, it’s nothing! Mom, we’ll be in the room!”
He smiled awkwardly at their mother who was tilting her head, then grabbed his younger brother’s arm and dragged him into the room.
“What do you mean number 1 real-time search term?”
He locked the door and urgently asked, but Gyeonwoo just sat on the bed scratching Saewoo’s chin, showing no sign of answering.
“Why are you saying weird things? Mom was startled…”
“Ji Hyowoo, don’t you have something to tell me?”
It was a voice with all the playfulness from before completely gone. Caught off guard by the sudden jab, Hyowoo hesitated for a moment.
“What… what should I tell you?”
When he avoided both answering and eye contact, Gyeonwoo shoved his phone right in front of Hyowoo’s face.
“This is you, right?”
The moment he saw the screen, his already pale face became even more deathly white.
“Right now on SNS real-time trends and Korean portal site search rankings number 1, ‘Lee Seohee dating scandal’.”
What his younger brother showed him was a photo of Lee Seohee wrapping a scarf around Hyowoo at the hotel entrance.
Fortunately, Lee Seohee’s face was clearly captured, but he himself was only captured from behind.
However, the problem was the facial ‘expression’ in the photo. Seeing him looking at the other person lovingly while wrapping the scarf around them, it was impossible for a dating scandal not to erupt.
“Wow… Lee Seohee dating? I didn’t know… that Lee Seohee was dating…”
“What nonsense. This is you.”
“On… on what grounds do you think this person is me…?”
It would simply end if he firmly said it wasn’t him, but due to his personality that couldn’t lie, he just trailed off unnecessarily. And the person in the world who knew this personality best was his soulmate twin brother Gyeonwoo. The more Hyowoo avoided eye contact, the more strongly he continued his interrogation.
“Noona sent this. The same design as yours and mine, different colors.”
“It’s… common, this kind of scarf…”
“Oh my, hyung-nim. This isn’t common. Don’t you remember Noona had it custom-made at a handmade shop? She said you can’t find this unique pattern domestically.”
Only then did he recall Noona’s words bragging that it was an item of which only two existed in the world.
“And, do you think I can’t recognize my twin’s back of the head?”
Sensing that he could no longer hide from his perceptive younger brother, Hyowoo finally resigned himself to everything and declared surrender.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad. Don’t tell Noona either…”
“Those two probably won’t get caught since they don’t use the internet much anyway, but if Noona sees this photo, she’ll contact you right away, won’t she?”
True. Noona, whose observational skills were second to none, couldn’t possibly fail to recognize her younger brother’s back and the scarf she gifted. Moreover, the person captured together with him was Noona’s favorite player of her favorite sport. Thinking that an even more persistent second round remained, he already felt drained.
“How did you end up taking a photo like this with Lee Seohee?”
Unlike Hyowoo who sat in the desk chair and let out a deep sigh as if the ground would cave in, Gyeonwoo had an intrigued expression.
“I went on a blind date today, and the other person was Lee Seohee…”
“Jackpot. No, how did you end up on a blind date with such an incredible person?”
“Taeseo arranged it…”
Although he’d never met her, Gyeonwoo at least knew the name of his hyung’s current best friend.
“How does she know Lee Seohee?”
“He’s Taeseo’s cousin oppa…”
Before he could finish speaking, Gyeonwoo searched for information about Lee Seohee’s family on his phone.
“S Group chairman’s only daughter’s name is Lee Taeseo. You didn’t even know your best friend was a chaebol family daughter?”
“How would I know if she didn’t tell me? I’m not interested in that kind of thing…”
“You said you’d apply to C Accounting Firm when you pass the CPA exam. Korean conglomerates like L Group and S Group are all their clients.”
At the nagging to pay attention to worldly affairs instead of just studying for exams, he unconsciously rubbed his cheek. It wasn’t even something to keep secret, but he felt sorry for seeming like he tried to hide the fact that he went on a blind date.
“Actually, I was more shocked at you being around an Alpha without any problem than at you taking a photo with Lee Seohee.”
Hyowoo looked at his younger brother in surprise for a moment. Then he saw a serious face that had erased the interested expression from just before.
“…Were you okay?”
Gyeonwoo’s “Were you okay?” and Taeseo’s “Were you okay?”
The same question, but the meanings were completely different.
Noticing the serious atmosphere, Hyowoo deliberately smiled brightly.
“Yeah, I was okay.”
“Really?”
Gyeonwoo frowned as if he couldn’t believe it. When the guy who smiled often made that kind of expression occasionally, it was eerie to the point of being scary to face. And knowing well that the only reason that good-natured younger brother would get serious was himself, heavy guilt washed over him too.
“I really was okay. Believe me, you know I can’t lie.”
Even at the words not to worry, Gyeonwoo was still serious.
“Even if your best friend arranged it, refuse if you don’t want to. If there’s something where you have to meet an Alpha, go out with me.”
“Hey, what crazy bastard brings his younger brother to a blind date?”
“Anyway, refuse if you don’t want to!”
He threw out a joke to try to change the atmosphere, but Gyeonwoo’s reaction was still grim. In the end, he put aside the joking and obediently nodded, saying he understood.
“…So, how was it?”
Only then did Gyeonwoo finally soften his expression and ask.
“What?”
“It was a blind date. Then you must have some feeling about whether it was good or not great.”
Hyowoo was at a loss for words for a moment. He’d repeated countless times the question of why that person would like him, but he’d never actually thought about how he himself felt about him.
