By Zephyria 
Saying my hair smells nice. Saying I won. How am I supposed to react when you say things like that with such a nonchalant face and then disappear first?
‘Calm down, heart.’
I’m going crazy because of this heart that keeps racing.
I can’t keep getting shaken like this, once, twice.
When I came out into the hallway, only Lee So-yul was walking ahead.
Where did Cha Jeong-won go?
Haon reflexively looked around. It was a large space, but he felt like he could figure out where Cha Jeong-won was. That man’s presence was overwhelming.
“Senior.”
There was no answer. Haon was about to follow Lee So-yul but stopped.
Lee So-yul was meeting and talking with other people. Haon looked around again.
Cha Jeong-won wasn’t visible, but his pheromones remained, very faintly.
I can just follow that.
As Haon followed the hallway further inside, a small space connected to the exhibition hall appeared.
Since nothing had been placed there yet, the lighting was minimal, and only protective mats were laid sporadically on the floor.
The walls were clean. It felt cool, like a blank canvas where nothing had been done yet.
Cha Jeong-won was standing right in the middle of it.
Haon stopped walking and looked at his back.
The person who had poured his breath over my shoulder was standing alone in an empty space, looking at the wall. Strangely, that seemed even more unsettling.
Cha Jeong-won looked more dangerous when he was alone than when he was among people.
“So you were here.”
Haon approached and asked. Cha Jeong-won only turned his head very slightly before looking back at the wall. His eyes seemed to be looking beyond the wall, not at it.
“This place is empty.”
“Why is that?”
As Haon took one more step closer, Cha Jeong-won let out a low exhale. It was different from the breath in the elevator just now. That was a breath exhaled to hold on, and this was a breath exhaled to calculate.
“I was thinking about how to fill this space.”
Cha Jeong-won’s gaze swept alternately over the wall and the floor.
It was the eye of someone gauging the flow of movement in this space and where people would stop.
Seeing that look, Haon felt the fluttering from earlier instantly settle. He’s always so indifferent when he shakes people up.
“It’s the space given to me. Just this one corner here.”
Cha Jeong-won spoke briefly. That brief moment felt more real.
Haon looked up at the wall once. It was a more difficult space precisely because there was nothing. It seemed like a spot where whatever was placed would be completely exposed.
“Senior, you must be incredibly busy.”
Haon said honestly.
“Even focusing on just your graduation project would be barely enough, and now you have to do this too.”
Only then did Cha Jeong-won properly look at Haon.
His expression was still impassive, but his eyes softened ever so slightly.
“I am busy.”
Cha Jeong-won admitted as he spoke.
“But…….”
He paused for a beat. In that pause, Haon made another pointless expectation.
“But what?”
Cha Jeong-won looked down at the very top of Haon’s head for a very brief moment before turning his gaze back to the wall.
“I can do it all.”
“Oh, of course.”
It’s Cha Jeong-won.
Even if there was something more difficult than this, it seemed like that man would do it very well.
Following Cha Jeong-won’s lead, he looked back at the wall, when something suddenly occurred to him.
“Since it’s a retrospective exhibition, wouldn’t it be good to have something related to your maternal grandfather?”
Wondering what Haon was trying to say, Cha Jeong-won closed his mouth.
“No, I mean the pattern that was in the hallway at your house, senior.”
Didn’t he say it was a pattern made based on Lee Do-hyun’s work?
“Couldn’t you do it here too? That… as a box.”
The shape of the box he saw then was also quite impressive. Cha Jeong-won said nothing.
It wasn’t that he was ignoring Haon’s words. It was the opposite.
He was lost in deep thought over his words.
＊ ＊ ＊
From the elevator until he came out into the hallway, Lee So-yul’s expression showed no change. He was calm, as if the minor incident had never happened at all.
After exchanging a few words with the on-site staff as if nothing had happened, he slowly moved his feet. He needed a place to be alone.
Entering the luggage storage area filled only with steel cabinets, Lee So-yul immediately closed the door. Then he let out a long exhale.
Unconsciously, he bit his thumbnail. The hard tip of the nail caught on his teeth. It was a habit that emerged when he was angry.
The elevator stopping was no coincidence.
Lee So-yul thought a very short time would be enough. Just the lights flickering and stopping briefly. Such an experience wasn’t that common anyway.
But the result was a failure.
“Yoon Haon…….”
Just before the elevator doors closed, Yoon Haon had nonchalantly slipped between Lee So-yul and Cha Jeong-won.
Lee So-yul clenched his teeth tightly once, then released them. The moment he revealed his anger, it was over.
The moment he revealed his emotions, it would be like showing a gap to Cha Jeong-won.
“What should I do about this kid.”
Lee So-yul muttered lowly.
Soon, his eyes narrowed. It was an expression as if a good idea had come to mind.
As much as he disliked it, he had no choice but to admit it. Even if he confronted Yoon Haon head-on, he would lose.
Right now, Cha Jeong-won was closer to Yoon Haon than to himself.
Lee So-yul turned on his tablet. Flipping through the schedule, he scanned the checklist.
His finger stopped as he passed one page. The corner of Lee So-yul’s mouth, who was examining the on-site inspection items, rose ever so slightly.
“I can just do it again.”
He turned off the screen and slowly came out into the hallway. His steps had also become calm again.
Lee So-yul was picturing the next scene.
This time, he had no intention of ending it with a quiet incident like the elevator mishap.
＊ ＊ ＊
“How mean. It’s just an empty wall, can’t we look at it together?”
Haon pouted his lips exaggeratedly.
He wanted to stay together, but Cha Jeong-won pushed Haon’s back away.
It wasn’t that he literally pushed with his palm, nor did he firmly tell him to go.
He just lightly grabbed Haon’s shoulder, turned him around, and then looked at the wall alone.
It meant he wanted to be alone. So, he couldn’t stubbornly insist on staying.
As Haon came down to the first floor, Cha Seo-jun ran up and stood before him.
“Hyung, why did you come alone?”
Haon shrugged his shoulders unnecessarily and spoke curtly.
“He said he wanted to be alone.”
At those words, Cha Seo-jun’s eyes widened, then soon curved softly.
“Then stay with me.”
He smiled briefly at Cha Seo-jun, who had already attached himself, but soon Haon thought of Cha Jeong-won being alone.
“What is it…….”
He had a bad feeling.
It’s not like he’s always with Cha Jeong-won. But strangely, his mood sank.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Haon shook his head.
“Did you look around everything?”
“Yeah. If you’ve seen everything too, hyung, shall we rest for a bit? Or we could have a talk.”
“We’re not here to play, how can we rest?”
Haon looked around, and Cha Seo-jun’s gaze followed.
“Jeong-won hyung has been with you until now.”
“That was because we had business to attend to.”
“You’re not even working together, you had business?”
Cha Seo-jun blurted out his thoughts. Then he took a step closer to Haon.
“Hyung. By any chance, does Jeong-won hyung like you?”
At the sudden question, Haon immediately swallowed his breath.
He should have spat out ‘No,’ ‘That can’t be,’ but the words swirling in his mouth ultimately didn’t come out.
Cha Seo-jun didn’t miss that brief gap and stared intently at Haon.
“If not, then why does Jeong-won hyung keep looking for you like that?”
“There are reasons why he looks for me.”
Haon said it was nothing.
Cha Seo-jun took one step closer, eliminating any chance for Haon to escape.
“He doesn’t really like you, right?”
His voice, asking to gain certainty, held a certain earnestness. As if he already had a specific answer he wanted to hear from Haon.
Haon reflexively rubbed his neck once. Strangely, his throat was dry. The air hadn’t been dry since earlier, but his breath felt clogged as if filled with sand.
He couldn’t even explain to himself why this topic made him so uncomfortable.
Whether it was because he felt guilty, because it was sudden, or both. The only sure thing was that he had nothing more to say to Cha Seo-jun about it.
“Seo-jun-ah.”
Haon called out as if swallowing a sigh.
“This doesn’t seem like a topic for you and me to discuss.”
Thanks to Cha Seo-jun’s question, his own heart was greatly shaken. But that didn’t mean it was a topic to conclude here.
“Do you think I’m not qualified to ask?”
That was when it happened.
Thud.
A sound of heavy things colliding came from somewhere.
Short screams of people and hurried footsteps rushed in all at once.
In an instant, the surroundings became chaotic.
“What’s going on?”
Cha Seo-jun raised his head and looked at the ceiling. Haon didn’t hear those words. His gaze was directed not at the ceiling, but in the direction the sound came from.
‘Don’t tell me…….’
His mouth went completely dry. It was the first time a foreboding feeling had embedded itself so clearly in his body.
Cha Jeong-won was always like this. Accidents happened at moments when nothing was going on, and coincidences that others would simply pass by caught him with strangely precise timing. As if the world wished for Cha Jeong-won’s misfortune.
His heart fell to the floor first.
Haon momentarily forgot how to inhale. No matter how much he tried to breathe in, it felt like no air was coming in, and it was agonizing.
“Hyung!”
At Cha Seo-jun’s call, Haon’s mind snapped back to attention.
This wasn’t the time.
Cha Seo-jun tried to grab Haon’s arm, but Haon quickly pulled his body away first.
“You stay there.”
“No, I’ll also……”
“Stay there, Cha Seo-jun.”
Without even hearing Cha Seo-jun’s answer, Haon started running.
Only one thing remained in his head.
Cha Jeong-won. Cha Jeong-won. Cha Jeong-won.
Only while running did he finally realize. Why he was acting like this.
Why his body turned cold just from a sound coming from afar.
At first, he felt sorry for him as an unfortunate person. But from some point on, pity alone couldn’t explain it.
It was a feeling that only made sense if the word ‘like’ was attached.
‘So I like that person.’
As soon as he acknowledged that fact, his heart beat even more loudly. It wasn’t a flutter; it felt like a warning alarm.
Shouldn’t your vision brighten every time you think of someone you like? But instead of brightening, his darkened.
He was more scared than happy. It wasn’t a fear born of not knowing the reason, but a fear born of knowing all too well.
The fear that something might happen again to the person he liked.
The fear that he might be too late running toward the person he liked.
And the fear that this misfortune might someday take a truly irreversible form.
Haon gritted his teeth and increased his speed.
Now wasn’t the time to hold onto his emotions and stand still.
Even though he had realized that the more his fondness grew, the greater his fear became, in the end, there was only one thing Haon could do.
Whether he was far from or close to Cha Jeong-won, it was to reach Cha Jeong-won first.
83 – NOT 83