Effort sometimes becomes futile effort. Hard work can betray you any amount, and just because you try doesn’t mean a good ending awaits.
Doha was keenly feeling the irrationality of life right now.
He glared at Sehyun while putting raw chicken into a large cauldron from who knows where. He got goosebumps at the slippery texture touching his hands.
Splash-.
“You’ll burn a hole in my face at this rate.”
After that, Doha brought and added the prepared garlic, jujubes, chestnuts, and ginseng.
“What the hell is your problem?”
The camera was rolling, but he still expressed his dissatisfaction. The unnecessary scenes would be edited out anyway.
Even the staff thought this was too much. Where in the world is there a celebrity who cooks starting from splitting firewood? Was hoping for a gas stove such a great luxury? Anyway, a huge crack began to form in Doha’s character.
“Is there a problem between us?”
Sehyun blinked with a clear face. Winking one eye, he gestured with his eyes at the green onions on the cutting board. Doha brought that too and put it in the pot.
The chicken began to cook in the bubbling boiling water. Doha’s character was also boiling.
“Hyung, feed me just one raw chestnut.”
There was a reason why Sehyun demanded Doha to do this, do that, feed him, without lifting a finger.
It was something that happened on the way back to the pension.
* * *
‘We need to get some fun footage, so they’re filming a scene of riding on the back of a tractor.’
Everyone got on the tractor to film a video of the members sitting on a tractor loaded with sacks, going putt-putt-putt. While going well, trouble occurred when the tractor caught on a large rock.
When the tractor jolted, Doha’s body at the very end twisted and fell off the tractor. Actually, there was no big problem up to here. It wasn’t that high, the speed was slow, and the ground below was soft soil.
However, a problem arose because of Sehyun’s action of stretching out his arm to help the falling Doha. He fell together and sprained his arm.
‘Owwww……’
The two rolled and fell, and while Doha landed lightly with a breakfall, Sehyun couldn’t. Thanks to that, Doha became a sinner. But why?
Thus, Sehyun had legitimately caught Doha with grounds to whine.
“Ah.”
When Sehyun opened his mouth wide, Doha clenched his fist. However, he soon obediently put the largest chestnut in that mouth.
The sound of the chestnut being crunched was heard cheerfully.
Choke on it while eating.
Honestly, he wasn’t ungrateful for Sehyun’s action of trying to help him. If he was going to do that, how nice would it have been if he had landed well too? The staff made a fuss, but Sehyun brushed it off as if it was nothing, saying it would be fine if he applied pain relief patches for a few days.
If so, at least pretend to be fine to me too. In front of Doha, Sehyun gathered every bit of exaggeration, real or not, and acted pitiful.
Doha, who had been glaring hard at Sehyun, checked the state of the baeksuk with hawk eyes.
“Where’s the whole peppercorn?”
Still, everything that should go in must go in.
The sight of Doha diligently gathering baeksuk ingredients was also captured on camera.
“Is it done?”
It seemed to have roughly taken shape. Doha wiped away the sweat on his forehead. His neck chafed because of the straw hat string placed over the back of his neck. When Doha kept touching his neck, Sehyun, who noticed Doha’s state, opened his mouth.
“We’ve added everything, so do you want to take a short break while it boils?”
“Sure.”
His legs were already trembling anyway. He wanted to go to the bathroom too, so it seemed good to rest for a bit.
“I’ll go to the bathroom and come back.”
Doha was finally freed from in front of the cauldron.
“Let’s take a short break!”
The staff also put down their cameras and could catch their breath for a moment. Doha headed inside the pension to take off his hat as well.
“Hyung, the bathroom is outside here.”
“What a pain.”
The pension was a remodeled old hanok, and the bathroom building was separate from the main building.
“Hyung, let’s go together.”
Doha, who was heading to the bathroom first, looked back at Sehyun running from behind and couldn’t hide his displeased expression.
Don’t tell me he’s going to ask me to pull down his pants zipper too.
It gave him goosebumps because it seemed like Lim Sehyun would do that and more.
* * *
When Sehyun put his arm over Doha’s shoulder with his left hand instead of his injured right hand, Doha broke out in a cold sweat trying to push him away. It was when they barely arrived at the building with the bathroom.
“I’m filming right now. I can’t answer the phone.”
A familiar voice was heard. It was similar to the voice he heard on the dorm stairs last night.
‘Haram……’
How did he end up in this state here too?
Sometimes in the world, incidents occur where family becomes the perpetrator. In the entertainment industry, it’s also not a rare thing. Because when you earn money from a young age, family involvement often occurs.
Haram also debuted in his teens, so naturally there was family interference. That he couldn’t cut that tie and was dragged around was probably due to his personality.
“What do you mean you’re coming to find me? Why are you really doing this?”
The closer they got to the building, the louder the call content was heard. Haram was making a call leaning his body against the shadowed building wall, unaware that people were approaching.
It was when he tried to quietly enter the building so Haram wouldn’t be embarrassed. Sehyun, who had his arm over Doha’s shoulder, walked forward step by step. Doha ended up moving together with Sehyun.
“That’s not something I can decide on my own…… Oh.”
Haram, who had been concentrating on the call, discovered Sehyun and Doha who had approached closely before he knew it. Bewilderment flashed in his eyes.
“I’ll call you back later.”
Haram hurriedly hung up the phone and jumped up.
“Going to the bathroom? Hurry and go.”
He tried to leave, putting his phone in his pocket. But Lim Sehyun grabbed his arm.
“Kang Haram.”
“Huh?”
Haram, slightly startled, looked up at Sehyun.
“Are you okay?”
Haram, who felt a serious atmosphere different from the usual Sehyun, looked at Doha. But Doha only shrugged his shoulders.
“Ah. It’s nothing much.”
“For something like that, you’ve been distracted somewhere else since yesterday. Spacing out during filming the whole time.”
“Ah…… Sorry.”
At Sehyun’s words, Haram quietly lowered his eyes. Why is Lim Sehyun saying this when he clearly knows Haram’s circumstances?
“Really nothing’s wrong?”
He asked again.
“Yeah, I’ll concentrate so I won’t be a burden. Don’t worry.”
Haram smiled awkwardly. At that, Doha felt somehow pitiful. Haram seemed to not want to easily reveal his story to the members.
It had been at least over 6 years since they had known the members from Haram’s trainee days. That was the time spent with Doha who joined the latest, so the relationship with Sehyun who had been together from the beginning would be deeper.
They were two people who had spent most of the time when memories clearly existed together, excluding childhood that flew away while growing up.
Could that really be called just a simple colleague or partner relationship?
“I’ll go in first. See you later.”
Haram hurriedly left. Because it was clear he didn’t want to talk anymore, Sehyun also didn’t hold him back.
Sehyun’s gaze watching Haram’s retreating back looked somehow complicated.
What was Sehyun thinking? In the novel, it seemed like Sehyun pushed forward and solved the incident stubbornly, but seeing him next to him in reality, he seemed to have more anguish than expected.
After all, print and reality couldn’t help but be different. Sehyun, who had been looking at Haram for a while, soon opened his mouth.
“He’s driving me crazy.”
He seemed somewhat angry. As expected, an aggressive regressor. It seems like he’s being careful, trying to be considerate, but how long will it really last?
Sehyun pulled Doha’s shoulder and headed toward the entrance of the building with the bathroom.
“Hyung, you didn’t already pee yourself, right?”
A playful tone returned.
“……”
How can this guy not last even 1 minute being serious?
* * *
The members sitting around the wooden bench in the yard admired the baeksuk that Doha made. The baeksuk exuding a white appearance was clearly well-cooked no matter who looked at it.
“Wow. Amazing. Sehyun.”
“It really looks like something you’d sell? Didn’t you just get this packaged from somewhere?”
Haram’s tension returned energetically as if asking when that happened. Haram and Yunbeom swallowed their saliva and picked up their spoons.
“Everyone dig in to your heart’s content.”
At the sight of Sehyun acting so proud by himself when the hard work was all done by him, Doha was dumbfounded. This bastard, what the hell?
“Doha hyung. I’ll eat well.”
Eden sensibly expressed thanks to Doha, but Doha was already offended.
“Sehyun is the main chef. Doha is the assistant. Originally, even in restaurants, even if someone else makes it, the main chef gets praised, right?”
What are you saying?
Yunbeom deliberately teased Doha, and Sehyun chimed in agreeing that was right.
