“Well, it’s not like I came because I wanted to. But I can put up with about this much.”
Eunseo stole a sideways glance at Han Jaeheon’s profile as he drove, then ducked his head low. The whole car was so full of Han Jaeheon’s pheromones and cologne that it was hard to breathe. The scents weren’t harsh or unpleasant — if anything, the opposite — but for Eunseo they were close to an unbearable violence.
“Feeling stifled?”
“…No.”
“If anything feels off, tell me.”
Eunseo fanned himself with his hand for no reason, opening the window and closing it again, over and over. He couldn’t tell why he was sensing the scent so sharply, and it scared him a little.
There had been a few times when alphas around Eunseo suddenly got aroused and went into rut, for reasons he couldn’t figure out. Eunseo had never gone through a heat himself, and no one had ever detected his pheromones either — but every time, he’d smelled their pheromones intensely. After barely forcing himself to endure it, he’d check, and it hadn’t even been close to their rut cycle.
“It’s still a little warm out, huh.”
“…Yeah.”
The front windows opened all the way, fully aired out the car, and closed again. Eunseo curled in on himself, uneasy at the small ember still smoldering low in his belly. By now the pheromone scent was almost
gone, but a trace of cologne still lingered at the tip of his nose.
It was a cool scent, faintly citrusy and fruity — a cologne that suited Han Jaeheon so well that Eunseo had always wondered what it was. But he could never ask. If he learned its name, that would be one more thing to remember him by, so Eunseo just breathed it in, nose twitching, a few times.
Even though they’d left early, traffic started backing up halfway down the expressway. Eunseo, who’d barely slept the night before, was terribly drowsy, but he couldn’t sleep next to the person driving, so he kept rubbing his heavy eyes, barely fending off sleep.
“You can sleep.”
“…No. Someone with common sense told me you absolutely must never do that.”
“Who says?”
Eunseo said it almost like sleep-talking, and Han Jaeheon snorted a laugh.
“Senior Jin Seunghu….”
“If the driver’s fine with it, it’s fine.”
“………”
“Whatever Jin Seunghu said.”
“You just called him ‘Jin Seunghu’….”
“He’s not here. So what.”
While the car was stopped for a moment, Han Jaeheon grabbed his trench coat from the back seat and dropped it right over Eunseo’s face.
“Just get some sleep. Don’t go making me feel guilty.”
Han Jaeheon… feeling guilty? It was more absurd than a tiger grazing on grass, but Eunseo just laughed it off. The body scent faintly soaked into the coat felt incongruously warm, and he felt all the tension drain out of his body. His eyes stung for some reason; he blinked a few times, then fell asleep as if dropping into an abyss.
***
Sunlight touched his eyelids and Eunseo’s eyes fluttered open, then he rolled onto his side and squeezed them shut again. A moment later he startled bolt upright, and only then realized where he was. Han Jaeheon’s car.
The car that had been on the expressway right up until he fell asleep was now parked in some shop’s lot, and the seat beside him was empty. Looking around, Eunseo’s eyes met Han Jaeheon’s — standing outside the car, on the phone.
He mouthed, “Sleep well?”
At the question asked with just his lips, Eunseo nodded blankly. Han Jaeheon’s face, glowing almost unrealistically in the autumn sunlight, made his ears burn for no reason. Han Jaeheon was two years younger than Eunseo, but he always acted like he was several years older. Eunseo caught the fond look at the corners of Han Jaeheon’s eyes, puffed out his cheeks in mild protest, then checked his watch and froze in horror. It was past eleven.
“Sleep well?”
The car door swung open and Han Jaeheon climbed in. Asked aloud this time, Eunseo hurriedly pushed off the big trench coat still covering him, ducking his head in apology.
“I’m sorry. How did I sleep so long….”
The last time he’d checked his watch it had been just past eight, so he’d slept nearly three hours straight. Leaving the driver to drive, snoring away in the passenger seat.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Well, the morning schedule’s shot, but it’s fine.”
“…”
“I was going to go to Nami Island in the morning, but that’s out now.”
“…I’m really sorry.”
As Eunseo kept apologizing to the it’s-fine Han Jaeheon, a big hand came toward him. It patted the top of his head a couple of times, then withdrew.
“We came all this way for the shield, so it can’t be helped.”
“………”
“Still, you woke up right in time for lunch. Let’s get dakgalbi.”
So it was a dakgalbi restaurant’s parking lot. At Han Jaeheon’s get-out look, Eunseo reluctantly climbed out of the car. When he handed over the trench coat he’d been hugging, Han Jaeheon tossed it onto the back seat and locked the doors.
“You must’ve been really tired.”
“Yeah, a little….”
“Ha, I should be grateful for this, right?”
“Huh?”
“You worked yourself ragged through yesterday to keep today free, right?”
That was true, but… he hadn’t wanted to make a show of it, so Eunseo felt a little embarrassed. He hadn’t expected one tired “yeah” to get that kind of leap.
“Whenever I come to Chuncheon I always get dakgalbi… do you like it, TA?”
Eunseo had no strong feelings about dakgalbi either way, so he nodded. If someone suggested it he’d eat it; if it was there he’d eat it — it wasn’t that he disliked it.
“My sister’s family loves it, so whenever we come here we eat it.”
“Ah, I see….”
Hadn’t he said he was a chaebol? With his limited imagination, all Eunseo could picture at “chaebol” were old TV dramas: a wide table with a clean tablecloth, expensive-looking porcelain piled with galbijjim and fish dishes — or candles lit, red wine poured halfway up the glass, cutting food elegantly on wide plates.
After briefly inserting Han Jaeheon into that scene, Eunseo shook his head hard to shake off the imagining
it. Judging someone to their face however he pleased was a rotten thing to do.
“What were you thinking about?”
“…Huh?”
“Your face just now was too funny.”
“Just….”
“Just?”
“I was just wondering what a chaebol eats….”
“A chaebol? Ah….”
Dodging Han Jaeheon’s meaningful gaze, Eunseo sat down in front of the table with the big round griddle and busily arranged his spoon, chopsticks, and water cup. But silence soon filled the table.
“Sounds like you heard that somewhere too.”
“Well… you’re pretty famous.”
“Yeah, well… it’s no secret.”
Han Jaeheon smiled and ordered two servings of dakgalbi, while Eunseo still had his head down. Tap, tap — Han Jaeheon drummed his fingertips on the table right in front of Eunseo.
“I just eat the same stuff as everyone. I boil ramyeon, order pizza, and on my birthday I have miyeokguk.”
“…So you don’t eat galbijjim every day or anything?”
“Galbijjim….”
At Eunseo’s curiosity-filled question, Han Jaeheon burst out laughing. He only stopped laughing once the dakgalbi, mixed bright red, was set on the big griddle.
“Nobody around me likes galbijjim, so I don’t eat it much.”
“…I see.”
Feeling like he’d asked something pointless, Eunseo kept biting his lip and letting go. Getting worked up like this, he might slip up. Watch my mouth — he zipped an invisible zipper shut and resolved it inwardly.
“Nothing else you’re curious about?”
“…No.”
“Why not. I think this is almost the first time you’ve asked me anything, TA.”
“………”
“Ah — not counting when you asked me if I understood the Schrödinger equation.”
As if he understands it even now — Eunseo briefly smiled, remembering himself a few months ago repeating the explanation like a parrot. It came out less from amusement than from sheer absurdity, but a laugh from Shin Eunseo was a rare thing.
A hand swooped in and took off his glasses. Startled as everything went blurry, Eunseo blinked, and Han Jaeheon waved his hand playfully in front of his eyes.
“What are you doing.”
“Just for a sec.”
He didn’t like the combination of adverbs one bit — just, a sec. His eyesight was really so bad that
“take off his glasses and he’s blind” wasn’t an exaggeration for Eunseo, and as he groped across the table, Han Jaeheon grabbed the back of his hand tight.
“There’s hot stuff here, be careful.”
“No, I mean, if you’d just give me my glasses….”
“They’d fog up.”
“Why would they fog up. We’re not even eating ramyeon….”
Eunseo yanked his hand out of Han Jaeheon’s. The feel of that big, hot palm lingered on his thin skin and made his whole body tingle. Goosebumps rising all down his back, he squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered, and Han Jaeheon put the glasses back on him.
“You look really different with your glasses on and off.”
For a second it stung. But there wasn’t much laughter on Han Jaeheon’s face, so Eunseo decided to let it go without poking at him. Han Jaeheon was dangerous when he laughed — but more dangerous when he didn’t.
Watching Han Jaeheon stir the dakgalbi all clumsy and slapdash, frustration welled up in him. To Eunseo, who’d worked every part-time job there was as an undergrad, Han Jaeheon’s hands looked clumsy enough to flip the griddle over at any moment.
“Give me those tongs.”
“I’m doing it.”
“Don’t be stubborn, hand them over.”
No sooner said than a few pieces of cabbage flew over the griddle onto the table. Eunseo
didn’t miss the moment Han Jaeheon’s hand froze. He snatched the tongs and stir-fried the dakgalbi with practiced hands. He’d worked part-time at a soft-tofu shop once, so he still had the knack for this much.
The spicy smell woke his appetite a little. Only then did Eunseo remember this was his first real meal since last night’s slapdash sandwich. He piled the crisply stir-fried dakgalbi onto Han Jaeheon’s plate, picked out a few sweet potatoes wedged in the corners and added those too. After filling his own plate about halfway, Eunseo set the tongs down.
“Enjoy your meal.”
It came out like a server’s greeting to a local. Hiding his embarrassment, Eunseo put a faintly spicy piece of chicken in his mouth. The sweet, salty, spicy seasoning filled his mouth.
“You like sweet potatoes, huh, TA.”
“Uh… yeah.”
How did he know? Truth was, Eunseo liked the soft sweet potatoes in the dakgalbi even more than the meat. Well-seasoned root vegetables just suited his taste.
“You gave me all the sweet potatoes.”
On top of the mountain of dakgalbi, he’d gone out of his way to pick out even more sweet potatoes. Looking at the plate Han Jaeheon hadn’t even touched yet, Eunseo’s face went red all over again.
“I figured you wouldn’t give something you hate to someone else.”
It was his true feeling slipping out before he knew it. Wanting to give what he liked to someone he liked —
so he could have it.
“Thanks for the food.”
Instead of teasing Eunseo like usual, Han Jaeheon moved his chopsticks slowly. Eunseo, who’d been tormenting nothing but his own lips for a while, put meat in his mouth and chewed hard. Let’s pretend it never happened. If you want to pretend it never happened, the least you can do is stop shaking me up. Confirming that the leash he’d put on himself was still firmly in place, Eunseo slipped his hand under his glasses for no reason and rubbed his eyes a few times.
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