First. Why did he treat me like a filthy sex fiend?
Because that’s really how it appeared in his view.
Working as a Guide and having to necessarily accompany contact guiding—at that, mucous membrane guiding—if the partner was a bastard who met anyone and shook his lower half around, it seemed natural to feel repulsed.
Second. Then why does he kiss me and press flesh against mine?
Because it’s work. Since he has to make a living for now, he does kiss and rub flesh, but since he advocates premarital chastity himself, he must have become even more strict and admonishing.
How unfair it must have felt to have to be physically intimate while even bending his beliefs for a bastard who rolled around carelessly.
‘What do I do, I’m so sorry.’
Yeo Dowoon felt needlessly guilty and gripped the steering wheel tightly. It was around the time when the self-loathing was gradually intensifying, as if he had trampled and invaded a sacred area he shouldn’t have set foot in, defiling it with his very existence.
“We passed the mart, Dowoon-ssi.”
Cha Haseong murmured gently toward such a Yeo Dowoon. Yeo Dowoon was noticeably startled as if his presumptuous imagination had been caught. Then Cha Haseong’s eyes immediately narrowed, focusing on Yeo Dowoon.
“…What were you just thinking about?”
He got caught in the wrong way. Cha Haseong asked oppressively as if already certain.
“What thought were you having that you couldn’t even recognize the destination and passed it?”
Wasn’t this truly a situation ripe for misunderstanding? Yeo Dowoon could roughly guess. Cha Haseong probably believed that he had been imagining all sorts of sexual contact in the car.
His eyes were too eerie to cover up with some nonsense excuse.
“Dowoon-ssi.”
“…”
“Should I give you a blowjob?”
Screeeech!
Yeo Dowoon stepped on the emergency brake, unifying his pounding heart with the car. It was fortunate there was a place to stop; he had almost really caused an accident.
He didn’t care if only he got hurt, but in the case of driving accidents, there was a possibility that other people would also be in danger, so he tended to be more careful than usual.
It would have been very unfortunate if his seven-year accident-free driving record had been cracked. Yeo Dowoon asked, pretending to be composed.
“Am I perhaps dreaming?”
Thump, thump. It felt like his heart would burst through his skin layer. Not because he was excited, but because he was anxious.
But as Cha Haseong just stared at him intently, the speculation that it might be reality gained powerful persuasiveness. Yeo Dowoon turned off the engine with a tense heart. He opened his mouth resolutely.
“There’s only one thing I want from Guide-nim.”
Since the opportunity had come, it seemed he should clearly address it.
“Please be the employer. Reading the mood, catering to preferences, and providing hospitality…”
“…”
“I’ll take charge of all of that.”
***
Yeo Dowoon was confident in relationships where he was led and used. It was natural since he wasn’t the type to assert petty pride to his lover, nor was he the personality to calculate and weigh this and that because he hated losing out.
‘You’ll do everything I ask?’
Even when his last girlfriend before Cha Haseong came into his life asked, he had answered amicably.
‘If I was going to do less, why would I even date you.’
‘Still… if you keep pouring it all out, you might feel it’s a waste.’
‘If you were someone I’d feel that way about, I wouldn’t have liked you in the first place. I like you. I’ll do everything you ask.’
That was Yeo Dowoon’s definition of romance.
He judged that if he was going to be stingy, there was no reason to date a lover. He wanted to please draw a line from those petty humans who act cheaply even toward the person they love yet want to show off only their superiority.
‘Is that romance? That’s being a sugar daddy. You’re going to get your money thoroughly extorted like that and regret it.’
He sometimes heard he was a sucker from them, but being a sucker was much better than being treated as the same level as those stupid bastards. Besides, what he had in abundance was money.
‘Extorted my ass, you moron. Only bastards who have nothing and are pathetic talk like that.’
Since that money wasn’t needed to beat down monsters, unlike the bank balance that grew day by day, there weren’t many satisfactory places to spend it.
If a loved one could spend in his place and have rewarding days, wouldn’t it be more desirable to give without hesitation?
“Even when dating, I’ve always lived as the subordinate party. So…, you don’t have to feel the pressure of having to give me something back.”
After Yeo Dowoon finished his speech about his view on romance and delivered his closing remarks after much deliberation, Cha Haseong asked in a quite serious tone.
“…Dowoon-ssi, you’re not dating me, right?”
Because just listening to Yeo Dowoon’s remarks, it seemed exactly like a situation where lovers just starting out were having a conversation to get to know each other. But the two people were merely in a relationship of Esper and Guide.
“I hope not.”
In other words, the relationship of employer and employee. So the employer and employee positions were self-evident.
Yeo Dowoon answered half-heartedly.
“I wasn’t suggesting we date.”
“You did borrow the concept of dating to speak though.”
“I did that because there were similarities. To explain it easily.”
“If that was the case, I should work harder. It hit me intuitively, but I didn’t empathize emotionally.”
He didn’t know how to take the words that it hit him but he didn’t empathize. So Yeo Dowoon gave up on understanding and turned the car’s engine back on.
“Yes. I’ll work harder.”
When standing at a crossroads where he couldn’t seem to find the answer, it was a clever trick and the best policy to offer a bland answer with a low probability of being wrong. Sure enough, Cha Haseong quickly calmed down.
While turning the steering wheel to make a U-turn after going straight just a bit more, Yeo Dowoon glanced at him and ended up smiling helplessly along.
It was because a stable smile hung on Cha Haseong’s lips as he looked beyond the car window. His light brown hair, swept by the fragrant gentle breeze, swayed softly like a scene from a movie.
“Is there a menu you want to eat for dinner?”
Cha Haseong, noticing Yeo Dowoon’s eyes fixed on him, said while rolling down the window all the way.
“If there is, I’ll make that for you.”
***
“Fucking hell, is this right? You left me behind and only went drinking with that sinister bastard? Huh?”
Since when did Cha Haseong become a sinister bastard? Even at Yoon Minoh’s voice tinged with hurt feelings, Yeo Dowoon just moved luggage like a worker ant.
A bundle of luggage so tremendous you’d believe they had swept up an entire mart in one go was placed with a thud on the marble floor filled with curved marbling.
“You look the most sinister here.”
When he responded briefly, Yoon Minoh tried to strip off his clothes, saying a hole had just been drilled in his chest. It was an incomprehensible logic that he had to visually confirm this so he wouldn’t puncture someone’s heart again.
“…Excuse me. Dowoon sunbae-nim.”
But when Yeo Dowoon responded with flawless ignoring, he fidgeted and pulled down the upper garment he had lifted halfway. Then he stealthily approached and watched the unpacking scene.
It’s not like he was going to be a peddler, yet he brought so much.
“You checked the expiration dates properly before buying, right?”
Yoon Minoh asked dubiously while also crouching down. Yeo Dowoon’s reaction was detached.
“Don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know?”
“Because I’m the porter. The chef is Guide-nim.”
Yeo Dowoon pointed at Cha Haseong’s back as he prepared cooking utensils in the kitchen. He had merely gathered things as he put them in the cart at the mart and packed the bundle as given.
Yoon Minoh made an annoyed face and whispered.
“But, hyung. That bastard really looks sinister. Don’t you feel it?”
“What?”
“You know those unique glassy dead fish eyes of bastards with ulterior motives. That bastard’s eyes are like that.”
Yeo Dowoon shook his head sternly. He spoke in a stiff tone as if scolding an immature person.
“Go to your room and look in the mirror. The dead fish eyes are there.”
“…I’m really going to bawl my eyes out from hurt feelings. If you collected my tears, you could make a box of juice.”
“Go cry then. Go.”
Right now there was no time to sit and receive Yoon Minoh’s whining. The priority was to select cooking ingredients and bring them to Cha Haseong.
Kind-hearted Cha Haseong seemed to be thinking of volunteering for the cook’s role during the week-long vacation where four adult men would be tangled together, so if he also had a conscience, he should help with his efforts.
Chirureuk, the sound of lighting a fire came from the kitchen.
Yeo Dowoon hurriedly took out the beef brisket and bean sprouts and stood up. It seemed like there was something else needed besides these, but he couldn’t properly remember what it was.
“You just need to bring green onions and onions. When I looked earlier, things like minced garlic or oyster sauce were on the sink shelf.”
Then, Yoon Minoh, who had rolled his eyes thoroughly and looked inside the bag, spat out.
“You’re trying to make stir-fried beef brisket with bean sprouts, right?”
“…Right, but how did you know?”
“If I can’t recognize it when you’re carrying beef brisket and bean sprouts, wouldn’t there be a problem with my brain?”
Yeo Dowoon, who had suddenly become a person with a brain problem, just shrugged his shoulders without answering. On the way back home, until he heard the menu name in the car, he had just thought they were going to grill meat.
He had wondered why they bought so many bean sprouts, but he had only just learned by looking at the product sticker while rummaging through the bag that a vegetable called sukju existed in the world. Why do they look so similar though.
