The feeling of being both disappointed and sad yet a bit excited was unfamiliar. Ganghyuk waited so Ian could sort out his emotions. The feeling of leaving a space he’d lived in for his entire life from when he was very young until becoming an adult must surely be complicated.
“Everyone hurry up!”
“Move quickly! Be careful not to damage anything!”
The moving center employees raised their voices as they passed in front of Ian and Ganghyuk. The truck was large, but the items filling it weren’t that many.
Most of the furniture had been disposed of, and they had only packed the things they absolutely had to take.
The supervisor managing the site, seeing the amount of items was less than expected, unnecessarily showed off giving this and that instruction to the employees.
The reason was the quite large sum of money Ganghyuk had paid. Moreover, he had separately received money for agreeing to dispose of the remaining furniture and appliances, and the condition of the items was very good.
At the thought of being able to earn extra money, he maintained a solemn expression but occasionally grinned.
“Let’s go now.”
Ian lightly shook the hand clasped with Ganghyuk’s. Sucheol, who had been leaning against the car, showed his delight when he made eye contact with Ian.
He wiggled his caterpillar-like eyebrows and sent some kind of subtle look, but Ian couldn’t understand what it meant. Instead, he smiled and greeted him.
“Sucheol hyung, it’s been a while.”
Quite a lot of time had passed since the day of the second kidnapping. In that time, Ian had gotten much better by diligently going to the hospital for counseling treatment.
He still stiffened when he saw unfamiliar men or smelled alpha pheromones, but he had become quite comfortable with Sucheol and Jaehyun.
Perhaps because the two knew Ian had now completely become Ganghyuk’s person, they approached much more friendly than before.
“Sucheol hyung?”
It was when they were about to happily talk to each other. A low voice split between the two.
When Ian raised his head, he saw Ganghyuk with a slightly furrowed brow. Ganghyuk looked back and forth between Ian and Sucheol and continued as if he didn’t understand.
“Why are you calling Sucheol ‘hyung’?”
“What?”
Ian was flustered as this was the first time seeing Ganghyuk with such an expression.
“Uh……”
When he hesitated, not knowing how to answer, Ganghyuk’s gaze turned to Sucheol. Sucheol, who suddenly received a cold glare, jumped in place.
“I didn’t make him do it! Ian called me hyung on his own!”
He must have felt so wronged that his voice rang out loudly around them, making the workers carrying luggage glance at the three of them.
“That’s right, I just called him hyung. We’ve become pretty close now.”
“There are lots of other expressions. For example, ajeossi.”
At the word ajeossi, Sucheol’s face reddened. He was only thirty-five. To small children’s eyes he would naturally look like an ajeossi, but since Ian was twenty years old, it felt somewhat unfair to be called ajeossi.
But even if he was frustrated, he had to endure it. Because strength entered Ganghyuk’s languidly relaxed eyes.
What a ridiculous sight. He knew Ganghyuk cherished Ian like gold and jade, but to bring up the issue of how he was addressed.
If it weren’t for the hyung-nim he was loyal enough to sacrifice his life for, he would argue at the top of his lungs.
“Ajeossi is kind of strange…… Then should I call you ajeossi too, Executive Director?”
Ian also couldn’t understand the situation, so he asked back with an innocent expression as if he knew nothing. Then Ganghyuk’s lips twisted subtly.
“No, call me hyung. Call the other guys ajeossi.”
Wow. This is really infuriating.
Sucheol made an expression as if he’d chewed bitter herbs.
To him, Ganghyuk was a perfect person. He never dreamed that such a person would be jealous of his most faithful subordinate for the reason of getting close with his young lover.
Ian, whose eyes had widened, laughed out loud. Then he clung to Ganghyuk’s arm and opened his mouth, folding his eyes charmingly.
“Okay, Ganghyuk hyung.”
Ganghyuk bent his head and lightly kissed Ian’s lips. Then he opened the car door, put Ian in the back seat, and sat next to him.
Sucheol remained frozen like a statue until Ganghyuk rolled down the window and gave instructions. When a person experiences something too absurd, they become dumbfounded.
“What are you doing?”
“Yes, yes, I’m going, I’m going!”
When the urging came, Sucheol let out a deep sigh and trudged to the driver’s seat. His sides felt cold today.
The day before yesterday, when Jaehyun suddenly said that serving the Executive Director and Ian by their side was getting increasingly difficult, he wondered what nonsense that was, but this was exactly what he meant. Jaehyun had clearly experienced something similar to himself.
“Where should I go?”
He sat in the driver’s seat and turned his body halfway. The moving items were almost all loaded and finishing work was underway.
He had placed a separate subordinate over there. Jaehyun was scheduled to come out to meet them at the house they were moving to. Since it was a place with tight security and a master key was absolutely necessary, but it couldn’t be entrusted to just anyone, Ganghyuk had lent it to Jaehyun for today.
“Is there anywhere you want to go?”
Instead of answering Sucheol’s question, Ganghyuk asked Ian. Ian’s eyes rolled as he fell into thought.
He could count on his fingers the times he’d gone anywhere in his life. Since his grandfather worked at the restaurant from dawn to night, he had a strong feeling that he should help too, so unless he was going to school or the hospital, he stuck by his grandfather’s side.
There were no separate holidays either, so even during vacation time, the grandfather and grandson had no leisure to go play somewhere far away. Since he had no friends either, he’d never played with kids his age, so his mind went blank for a moment.
He was even moving for the first time. What do other people do on moving day? All Ian had done was, after the moving date was set, sort items that could be thrown away and items that absolutely had to be packed.
Ganghyuk had said that if he wanted, they could move all the items and furniture in the house, but although they held memories, many things were old with decades of time on them, so he thought it was right to organize them at this opportunity.
However, he had carefully packed the books and items his grandfather had cherished in boxes starting several days ago.
Then he suddenly remembered that you should eat jjajangmyeon on moving day.
“I want to eat jjajangmyeon.”
“Jjajangmyeon, huh.”
“Jjajangmyeon is good.”
Sucheol nodded in agreement. He too would sit on the floor of the not-yet-organized house on moving days and order jjajangmyeon to mix and eat.
“Why are you excited?”
At the voice that followed like a chorus, Ganghyuk looked at Sucheol and chuckled. Then a loud gurgling sound echoed through the car.
Ian reflexively rubbed his stomach with his hand, then saw Sucheol’s ears turning red and realized the sound came from him.
“Hyung-nim, my belly skin is about to stick to my back right now. I’m starving to death.”
It was already past 1 PM. Since movers had come at dawn and started loading their luggage, quite a bit of time had passed.
Both Ganghyuk and Ian had woken up early and only ate breakfast simply while watching the movers carefully pack items into boxes.
“Go to Unyongheon.”
“That place is delicious. Alright, I’ll rush right over!”
Sucheol, who answered vigorously, pressed the navigation search bar and searched for Unyongheon. It wasn’t a time when traffic was heavy, so it showed they’d arrive in 20 minutes.
The car rolled smoothly. Ian pressed his face close to the window and looked at the soup restaurant building gradually growing distant.
‘Should I have asked them to take down the sign?’
Seeing the store sign with paint peeling here and there, numerous thoughts came to mind. Somehow it felt like Grandfather was still standing in front of the store.
Even knowing that couldn’t be, the lingering attachments still stood there waving at Ian.
“Come here.”
Ganghyuk, who had been watching only Ian’s round head from behind, wrapped his arms around Ian’s waist and pulled him close. Ian naturally rested his chin on Ganghyuk’s shoulder and looked up at him.
“Do you miss it a lot?”
A tender question settled down. Not knowing what to say, Ian just blinked for a moment. Soft lips touched his brow bone, conveying comfort.
Grandfather was no longer by his side, but the love he’d given him was still alive and breathing in his heart.
Thanks to Grandfather, he met Ganghyuk too. He also got to live a few more months in the house Sangmin had sold without consultation.
