Seeing the cheerful reply with no fewer than six exclamation marks made him feel considerably more at ease.
They exchanged brief introductions and chatted about basic details about each other.
The other person was someone with a secondary gender — an alpha — and surprisingly, a junior in the same department.
If someone with a secondary gender had enrolled, the whole department would’ve been buzzing with rumors — the fact that he hadn’t heard anything made Doyun quietly stunned.
When was the last time I even saw my juniors? he thought to himself.
You can just call me hyung lol. Using really formal speech is a bit much for me.
But you are my senior ㅠㅠ
It’s fine, speak comfortably. You can drop the formal speech too, as long as you’re okay with it.
Really? Then I’ll call you hyung and drop the formal speech little by little. Is that okay?
Yeah, hyung works lol
He didn’t really know many juniors and didn’t have a close younger friend, so being called “hyung” gave him an unexpectedly good feeling.
While they were exchanging messages, the other person’s profile photo — which had been Times Square in New York — changed to a shot of someone reading a book at a café.
Wondering if it might be someone he recognized, Doyun zoomed in.
The face — clean-cut and handsome — was unfamiliar.
With such a large department, it was impossible to know every junior’s face, but it was genuinely surprising that he had no memory at all of someone who looked this sharp.
Then again, seeing Eunho’s face almost every day had raised the bar — it had become rare for Doyun to feel genuinely impressed by someone’s looks unless they were really something. Even looking at celebrities on TV or in movies barely stirred a reaction these days.
A clean, appealing appearance was a typical physical trait of alphas, but Eunho’s looks went beyond appealing — they were closer to the realm of the extraordinary.
Why didn’t Sa Eunho ever become an entertainer?
Thinking that, Doyun opened his photo gallery.
The first photo that came up was one of Eunho and Suhyeok with furrowed brows, apparently in the middle of some heated argument.
Doyun had been about to zoom in to get a better look at Eunho’s face when he shut the phone screen off entirely.
Eunho’s expression in the photo — brow furrowed, lips slightly parted — looked far too much like the lewd image from the dream.
***
The friends gathered at Suhyeok’s place again today.
This time, it wasn’t to drink — Suhyeok had called them over to take sweet potatoes off his hands.
Stacked at Suhyeok’s entrance were whole boxes of sweet potatoes.
Suhyeok’s retired parents had apparently taken up farming as a “hobby” — but the sheer volume of produce they sent every year was no hobby-level amount.
“This year’s sweet potatoes are actually good. I guess you get better at farming with practice? Last year I felt bad giving them to you guys.”
Suhyeok set down the roasted sweet potatoes on the living room table and settled onto the floor in front of the sofa.
Minjun was sitting at one end of the sofa, playing a game on his phone.
Doyun lay with his head at the other end, stretched his legs out, and propped his feet up on Minjun’s thighs.
If it had been Eunho, he would’ve been happily kneading Doyun’s legs, saying something about giving him a massage through his pants — but Minjun told him to get his chicken feet out of the way and gave the tops of his feet a sharp smack.
He smacked them a few times, but Doyun kept slyly dodging, so Minjun ended up slapping his own thigh.
“No, I actually enjoyed last year’s sweet potatoes too. Mixed them with corn syrup and made candied sweet potatoes — those came out decent.”
“Oh, candied sweet potatoes sound amazing. We tried making them at the school bar event and the corn syrup stuck to the pan and burned everything.”
Last year’s sweet potatoes from Suhyeok’s parents had barely any sweetness to them.
They looked perfectly fine on the outside — the color was even lovely — but biting into them raised the question of whether these were really sweet potatoes at all.
Still, they couldn’t bring themselves to throw away something someone had worked hard to grow, so they’d made a mountain of candied sweet potatoes and eaten through them.
“I’ll ask my mom to make some for you too.”
“Oh, that would be amazing, thank you.”
Minjun briefly looked up from his game screen and dipped his head in thanks toward Doyun.
The same hand that had been slapping Doyun’s feet gave them a few strokes, and then Minjun resumed his game.
“Minjun, just because you live alone doesn’t mean you should be eating carelessly — boil some of these sweet potatoes and eat them properly.”
Suhyeok also lived alone, but their situations were a little different.
Suhyeok had parents who occasionally came up to check in, tidy up the place, and lecture him.
Minjun’s mother, on the other hand, had passed away from a chronic illness when he was in high school, and his father had moved on to a new life without missing a beat. Since then, Minjun had been on his own.
The concern underneath Suhyeok’s words about eating well was unmistakable.
Knowing that Minjun didn’t like being pitied, Doyun steered the conversation elsewhere.
“Did you know I’m actually really good at roasting sweet potatoes? Last winter I wasn’t working the convenience store — I might as well have been running a roasted sweet potato stall.”
In the past the store only had a steamed bun machine, but over the last few years his parents had added a fryer, a sweet potato roaster, and all kinds of other equipment.
Roasted sweet potatoes sold well as a meal substitute any time of year, but in winter the demand was something else entirely.
All through last winter, Doyun had been roasting sweet potatoes, hauling boxes of sweet potatoes, unpacking boxes of sweet potatoes, and roasting sweet potatoes again.
“Oh, I should’ve waited for you to come and do it then.”
Suhyeok peeled a sweet potato and handed one each to Doyun and Minjun.
Steeling himself for disappointment, Doyun took a bite — and to his genuine surprise, this year’s sweet potatoes were actually delicious.
Minjun must have thought the same thing, because he suddenly started tapping on Doyun’s leg and said excitedly:
“Doyun, hey — should we buy a drum barrel and sell roasted sweet potatoes in winter? How much do they go for these days? The raw material cost with this stuff would be basically nothing.”
“Why would I? Roasting them inside a warm convenience store is already annoying enough. Would you seriously stand on the street doing it?”
Doyun made a face of genuine irritation.
Frying, sweet potatoes, steamed buns — he was sick of all of it.
Regardless, Minjun started searching online for startup costs for a sweet potato business.
Turning to look at Suhyeok, he was quietly eating his sweet potato while exchanging messages with his girlfriend — a chat window full of cat emoticons being cutesy filled the screen.
Doyun shifted his gaze to his own quiet phone, and just at that moment a message came in.
Hyung, what are you up to? I was just randomly curious… Is it okay if I ask things like this?
The message was from the junior in his department who had gotten his number.
Looking at Minjun and Suhyeok, both of them were grinning at their screens, clearly texting their girlfriends.
Yeah lol what… I’m at a friend’s place rn lol. You know Minjun? He’s in our department, he’s here too.
Yes yes, I know him! Oh, then you must be hanging out with friends ㅜㅜ Sorry for reaching out out of nowhere.
The junior seemed genuinely polite by nature — apologizing over something that wasn’t even a big deal.
The emoticon of a little figure bowing at the waist was cute, and Doyun smiled slightly.
Nah it’s fine lolll. The others are all just on their phones so I was bored lol
The moment Doyun sent the message, a reply came right back.
If you’re ever bored, feel free to call me over anytime ^^
Between the fact that this person had been the one to reach out first saying they wanted to get close, and now sending messages like this — they seemed genuinely warm and easy to get along with.
When the conversation lagged, they’d wait a little and then naturally start it up again.
Making plans to meet for lunch tomorrow had all happened just as naturally.
“Suhyeok, are there more sweet potatoes?”
“No, I didn’t make that many. Should I roast more?”
“Nah, don’t bother. Takes too long. My mouth just feels a bit restless.”
At Minjun’s question, Suhyeok stood up like he was about to go roast sweet potatoes that very instant.
Minjun stopped him and pushed him back down onto the floor.
Doyun, in the middle of exchanging messages with his junior, caught the two of them talking and pointed the tip of his foot at his bag.
“I have chocolate in there — want some? Front pocket of my bag.”
“Oh nice, thanks.”
Several days had passed since he’d gotten the gift and stashed the chocolate in his bag, but he’d had no opportunity to eat it.
Minjun dug through the front pocket of Doyun’s bag, pulled out the chocolate, turned it over to examine it, then narrowed his eyes and grumbled.
“Oh, chocolate. Did Sa Eunho secretly give this only to you again? Stingy bastard.”
Whenever Eunho came back from visiting family abroad, or from somewhere his maternal grandfather had taken him, he always made sure to bring gifts for his friends. Usually it was alcohol or chocolate — but sometimes he’d give Doyun something separate, like a small figurine. The best, most expensive things were always Doyun’s share.
Minjun was ribbing Doyun on purpose to tease him, but neither he nor Suhyeok had ever actually felt slighted by Eunho.
“Eunho didn’t give it to me. I was studying at the library and a junior I know gave it to me.”
Doyun shook his head and told the truth, but Minjun scoffed — “Since when do you have a junior you know?”
Doyun didn’t bother replying. Instead he raised his foot and brought it close to Minjun’s face.
“Ugh, get your pork feet out of here” — Minjun swatted at Doyun’s foot.
Last time it was chicken feet, now pork trotters.
Doyun was undeterred and kept trying to push his foot into Minjun’s face.
Throughout all the goofing around, messages kept coming in.
Minjun eventually surrendered, but the scuffling had drained Doyun’s energy.
It seemed to have the same effect on Minjun.
Minjun broke off a piece of Doyun’s chocolate and bit into it.
The chocolate was extremely sweet — he shuddered dramatically and flopped back against the sofa.
“Hey, this guy’s into someone. He’s texting with a smile on his face.”
Doyun was lying on the sofa, reading through the stacked-up messages and replying.
Minjun, watching him, gave Doyun’s thigh a loud smack!
Doyun immediately sat up and yelled, “You want to die?”
