By Zephyria 
Cha Jeong-won scanned the inside of the restaurant and walked towards Haon.
The collar of his shirt and the lines of his cardigan were sharp. His bangs, which fell naturally as if he hadn’t specifically styled them, made his facial features stand out even more distinctly.
Amidst the subtle scents permeating the shop, another fragrance slipped in.
It was that pheromone he had smelled in the elevator. The Cha Jeong-won before his eyes was not an illusion.
“How did you get here?”
Haon asked Cha Jeong-won.
His mind was noisy, but outwardly, he tried to act as calm as possible.
Cha Jeong-won approached the side of the table, pulled an envelope from his inner pocket, and held it out.
“This.”
“This is… what is it?”
Taking it reflexively and checking, he saw a hotel logo printed on the envelope.
“It’s a transferable hotel stay voucher.”
At Cha Jeong-won’s blunt answer, Haon’s earlobes grew hot.
Then, he suddenly realized the hotel wasn’t far from here.
“Did you… perhaps change this on purpose to give it to me? You knew I was here?”
“Take it.”
Cha Jeong-won said with a face devoid of any particular emotion. Haon looked at him with a peculiar gaze.
‘This is really ending up in my hands.’
An indescribable emotion churned deep in his chest.
He felt happy yet embarrassed, and even a sense of self-reproach.
“There’s no reason for me to accept this.”
“……”
“Of course, if you give it, I’ll gratefully accept it. But since this feeling is somehow heavy, could you say something, anything, to lighten it a bit?”
“Carry it heavily. I’m leaving.”
Cha Jeong-won turned his body lightly.
Right, he wasn’t the type to be considerate enough for that.
“Sunbae-nim.”
Before Cha Jeong-won could get any farther, Haon hurriedly called out to him.
“Want to eat together?”
Cha Jeong-won stopped his steps.
And instead of answering Haon’s words, he swept his gaze around the restaurant.
“You don’t eat tteokbokki?”
Haon quickly added.
“Originally, I was going to eat with Kim Hyun-gyu and Seo-jun, the three of us, but right now those two…”
“Not really.”
At the words that fell sharply like a knife cut, Haon pouted his lips.
Well, he wasn’t the type to readily sit down and say ‘sure’ if asked to eat.
Still, giving him a sweet room stay voucher… it was an uncharacteristic action for his usual self.
“They said they couldn’t come, so it’s just you and me left.”
Haon smiled and continued the words he hadn’t managed to say. It was closer to his facial muscles moving awkwardly than a real smile.
He even subtly included Cha Jeong-won as part of the group.
‘What else can I do?’
Haon needed someone to share the instant tteokbokki with right now, huddled together.
He wasn’t usually the type who couldn’t eat alone, but instant tteokbokki couldn’t be eaten alone.
The only person in sight was Cha Jeong-won, and since he’d even received a stay voucher anyway, he thought it was okay to buy him a meal once.
“You know instant tteokbokki, right? The thing where you just throw in this and that, boil it bubbling, and eat it. It’s super hot, super chewy, and super delicious. If you just eat tteokbokki here, it’s a pity, right? You should eat other things with it too.”
Despite Haon’s smoothly flowing words, Cha Jeong-won’s silence grew longer.
A wordless refusal.
Cha Jeong-won turned towards the door. He looked like he would leave the shop at any moment.
Haon hurriedly got up from his seat.
“Ramen!”
“……”
“…Want to eat an extra noodle serving and then go?”
＊ ＊ ＊
A stillness settled between Cha Jeong-won and Haon.
Just like at the pub yesterday, there was no sign of this awkwardness fading. As proof, his own body refused to lean back against the chair, sitting stiffly upright.
Haon searched for a place to rest his gaze, alternating between looking out the window and at the table.
“Do you like tteokbokki?”
In the end, Haon spoke to Cha Jeong-won first.
“Not really.”
So he doesn’t like it.
“Still, thank you for sitting down. I was touched.”
At Haon’s reply, the corner of Cha Jeong-won’s eye twitched slightly.
“I’ve never seriously eaten it to like or dislike it. So there’s no reason for you to be touched, right?”
He pointed it out precisely when he could have just let it go.
As Haon silently watched, Cha Jeong-won shook his head slightly.
“If you have something to say, say it quickly.”
“Well…”
He did have something to say, but when he tried to bring it up, it felt awkward and a fake cough escaped.
“Your house was really big.”
Cha Jeong-won frowned faintly. His expression seemed completely unable to anticipate what Haon was trying to say. Yet, he slightly turned his head as if in caution.
“Wouldn’t such a huge house feel really cold if you live alone? When you go home at night, all the lights are off, and even if some unknown object came in, it might be hard to find. For example, an unknown box…”
The word ‘box’ slipped out of his mouth.
Still, he didn’t ask outright.
Cha Jeong-won paused for a moment, then mentioned just one thing.
“I never said I live alone.”
Ah, shoot.
“Uh… Since there was only one pair of shoes then, I thought you lived alone. If not, I’m sorry.”
“I do live alone.”
Haon’s pupils shook. Are you messing with me now?
“Look outside.”
“Yes.”
They didn’t match. Cha Jeong-won and he absolutely didn’t match.
Having nothing more to say and feeling awkward, the tteokbokki finally arrived.
The pot was placed in the middle of the table. The stainless steel pot clattered on the gas burner.
Rice cakes, fish cakes, and vegetables were submerged in red sauce. When the heat was turned on, it started bubbling and boiling from the edges.
Haon stirred it gently with a ladle to prevent the rice cakes from sticking.
“But, you know.”
Ahem, he fake-coughed once and gauged Cha Jeong-won’s reaction.
“Is that pheromone something you release on purpose?”
One of his eyebrows rose. His expression seemed to indicate he didn’t understand Haon’s words at all.
“No, I have pheromones too, but yours are particularly… It’s not that it’s weird to use it like perfume, I was just curious.”
It wasn’t the first or second time he’d smelled his pheromones.
It was the same in the elevator, and even now, a cool scent lingered over the tteokbokki smell, seeping into his nostrils with every breath.
The air inside the shop was hot, but a cold sensation kept swirling at the tip of his nose.
It was a strangely addictive combination.
“I’ve never used it like perfume.”
That was all his answer.
He considered asking, ‘If it’s not perfume, why does the smell keep coming out?’ but stopped.
Pheromones were, after all, a matter of personal freedom.
Just like people who wear shirts all year round, Cha Jeong-won probably did as he pleased.
“It’s done. Eat up.”
He served various items onto Cha Jeong-won’s plate and filled his own.
Picking up and eating one rice cake, hot steam burst in his mouth.
“Ooh, hot… It’s delicious.”
Even though his tongue felt like it might burn, he couldn’t stop his chopsticks. The spicy and chewy taste was exactly as he remembered. Haon blew on it and ate.
Eating distractedly, he inadvertently looked forward.
Cha Jeong-won was eating the extra ramen noodles. Not a single sound came out even as he slurped the noodles.
He was eating neatly, but with no change in expression, it was impossible to tell if it was delicious.
“Um… Have some quail eggs too, and some fish cake too.”
Unable to bear it, Haon pointed to the rice cakes and fish cakes in Cha Jeong-won’s bowl. He thought if even one of these suited Cha Jeong-won’s taste, his expression might soften a bit.
However, Cha Jeong-won’s reaction defied Haon’s expectations.
Cha Jeong-won stopped his chopsticks while looking at him.
“Why?”
“I have something to say.”
“Suddenly?”
What could he have to say in the middle of eating tteokbokki…
Cha Jeong-won even put down his chopsticks and seriously set the mood.
So why, in the middle of eating tteokbokki…
“I came to apologize.”
Haon, also leaving his chopsticks hovering in the air, stared before belatedly lowering his hand.
The atmosphere seemed so serious he couldn’t bring himself to eat anything more.
“I misunderstood.”
“……”
“……”
Haon, who had been waiting thinking something would follow, barely suppressed the urge to thump his frustrated chest.
“You seem quite good at speaking when needed, so why stop now? So what did you misunderstand?”
Cha Jeong-won made a face that looked like he really didn’t want to speak, but ultimately answered.
“That you’re an Omega.”
“I am an Omega, though.”
His lips pressed tightly shut. Maybe he should have just listened quietly.
“Ah, did you perhaps think I was putting on an act with some ulterior motive?”
Cha Jeong-won frowned.
“Did I say it was an act?”
“No, but when I combined all the things you’ve said so far, that was the only conclusion I could reach.”
Otherwise, he’d have to recite a long story, and this was better than that. The meaning roughly aligned.
“Yeah, right. You’re just an Omega, but I misunderstood you as an Omega putting on an act. You kept showing up pretending it was a coincidence, which was suspicious, but if it really was a coincidence, then you’d be right.”
He finally drew a long answer from him.
Haon glanced at the stay voucher still placed on the table, not yet put away. Somehow, the picture of what this situation was about seemed to be forming.
“Did you give this because you were sorry?”
“…Similar.”
“Now I get it.”
With a somewhat relieved expression, Haon picked up his chopsticks again.
And while poking at each ingredient on his plate, he pieced together the situation like a puzzle.
“You felt sorry for saying mean things to me all this time, so you tried to give me the stay voucher. And either Hyun-gyu or Seo-jun must have told you I was here.”
Cha Jeong-won didn’t deny any of it.
“So that’s what it was.”
When I asked him earlier to lighten my heavy heart a bit, he cut it off sharply, but when it comes to apologizing, he does it on his own timing. Thinking that was just like him, a pointless laugh escaped.
“I really have no ulterior motives towards you, sunbae-nim. So you don’t need to be so wary of me like that.”
Cha Jeong-won tapped a rice cake with his chopstick.
“Then, can I ask you one more thing?”
“No.”
“If your house is that big, why did you sleep in the same room as me?”
Somehow, the initiative had shifted to the other side.