By Zephyria 
At first, it was certainly bearable. After all, Cha Min-ho belonged to me.
However, the jealousy disguised as indifference never ceased. Even while riding his motorcycle, he would suddenly pull over to the side of the road and attempt to call via speakerphone. The jealousy, mingled with the noise of the road, flowed unfiltered through the phone.
‘But seriously. When it comes to doing a job cleanly, aren’t I better?’
—What? I can’t hear you. Text me, just text me.
‘…….’
Once the call ended, he would bite the edge of his glove to pull it off and then begin typing fervently. How quickly and efficiently he handled his assigned tasks, how he wrapped things up without leaving any loose ends, and what kind of relationships he maintained with the people he worked with. To any outsider, it would have looked like he was writing a cover letter.
After sending a text packed with earnest detail, he would wait anxiously for the number 1 to disappear. Even after the number vanished, he would glare at the screen for another five minutes.
[♥Cha-Cha-Cha♥ : Just do your job]
It was a half-hearted reply, but he convinced himself that Min-ho must have read it thoroughly before responding. Only then, feeling a bit relieved, would he put his gloves back on.
When a surge of resentment woke him from sleep, he would spend the night wide awake. Then, he would stay by Min-ho’s side with bloodshot eyes, staring intently until Min-ho woke up. The moment those sleep-laden eyes turned toward him, he would open his mouth as if he had been waiting for it.
‘Don’t forget, Hyung.’
‘……Huh? Ichiban?’
Holding Min-ho’s cheek as he mumbled half-asleep nonsense, Gyu-oh forced their eyes to meet.
‘Cha Min-ho is a married man. Live your life with the mindset that you are mentally married.’
Min-ho gave him a look as if to ask what kind of nonsense he was talking about in the middle of the night, but Gyu-oh was dead serious. When Min-ho answered “I get it” with an annoyed tone, it wasn’t enough for him, so he gripped Hyung’s chin and shook it slightly up and down. He only felt at peace once he had squeezed a definitive confirmation out of him.
And besides, he felt he wasn’t being that obvious with his jealousy. He was only showing it maybe two out of ten times, which was less than usual. Moreover, since it was the kind of conversation that could naturally happen between lovers, he asked whenever he was curious.
‘Hyung, you love me the most, right? I’m second after Ji-ho, right?’
Even while eating.
‘In movies, if you hit someone hard with a frying pan, they lose their memory……. Are you interested? Let’s make a fresh start.’
Even after locking the door to the executive office and indulging in a deep, lingering kiss.
‘I heard the energy of this place isn’t great. Are there no plans to move the office?’
Every time he asked, Hyung would make a face as if he were fed up, but he always gave an answer.
Since Min-ho no longer ignored him or let the words slide like before, Gyu-oh thought he was acting maturely. To be honest, he wasn’t in a mental state to evaluate himself objectively. His head was filled with images of that clean-cut, fit, seemingly wealthy man who had been praised incessantly.
‘Hyung, but do you prefer my body or my face?’
Knowing full well that Min-ho was showering, he flung the bathroom door wide open. Min-ho, with wet hair and wrapping a robe around himself, shot him a sharp look and replied coldly.
‘Stop it.’
‘You’re fucking sexy right now. Can I take a picture?’
The hand that had instinctively reached for a pants pocket froze. Cha Min-ho’s usually calm and quiet eyes flared. It was a look that made Gyu-oh instantly understand what it meant to “curse with one’s eyes.”
‘……Mm-hmm. Take your time coming out.’
He closed the bathroom door without regret and licked his lower lip. As he walked toward the living room, a flicker of regret hit him. Since he was going to get cursed at anyway, maybe he should have taken the photo first.
The clumsy boundary between jealousy and curiosity vanished completely. He remembered vowing to act as nonchalant as Hyung at first, but that feeling had become so faint it was hard to find a trace of it. He had just been slow to start; once he did, he raced forward without brakes, much like the usual Won Gyu-oh. Still, since he was aware of this trait, he tried his best to restrain himself.
Until the moment he witnessed that man buying coffee for Cha Min-ho.
It was on his way back from a brief construction site inspection. Thinking it was the time of day when Hyung would be tired, he entered a cafe while calling him to see if he should deliver a cup of coffee. But as if by fate, he spotted a familiar figure standing at the counter. Beside him was the man who had been grating on Gyu-oh’s nerves for days.
“……What is this scene?”
The man smiled as he handed over a card, and Min-ho bowed his head slightly with a somewhat awkward expression. To anyone, it looked like the man was paying for the coffee.
The man already had a takeout cup in his hand. It seemed he had run into Min-ho on his way out after buying his own coffee and decided to buy one for him.
Standing in the entrance of the cafe, Gyu-oh froze like someone in shock. The phone continued to ring—trrr, trrr—but Min-ho didn’t respond. Meanwhile, someone behind him let out a dissatisfied grunt.
“Ah, damn. Can you move out of the way?”
“…….”
Gyu-oh, with the phone pressed tight to his ear, slowly turned his head. After lowering his gaze for a long moment, he locked eyes with the man. The man, who had been irritably assertive a moment ago, suddenly changed his expression. His voice quickly dwindled.
“Ah. S-sorry.”
“I’m… more… sorry, right?”
Gyu-oh slowly lowered his phone and turned his body completely. The words, chewed up as he suppressed a burning rage, squeezed through his teeth. The man cleared his throat once and shrunk his shoulders as he passed through the entrance.
Only then did Gyu-oh snap back to his senses. He strode forward, staring at the back of the man’s head with an intensity that looked as if he might drill a hole through it. Min-ho was the first to notice him. While staring directly into the man’s slightly widening eyes, Gyu-oh plopped his hand on Min-ho’s shoulder.
“Director Cha. You should have answered your phone.”
“Ah.”
A calm voice, not particularly surprised, flowed into his ear.
“Ah, hello. Did you come to get coffee?”
The man acted as if he were about to buy a coffee for Gyu-oh as well, but Gyu-oh shook his head firmly.
“Yes, I’m doing just fine. But my business isn’t with coffee; it’s with the Director.”
“Ah. Oh dear, I must have been standing here too long. Well, good luck with your work today.”
The man checked his watch and gave a small fist-pump. In Gyu-oh’s already twisted eyes, that looked like nothing other than a signal for a fistfight.
“Yes, thank you for the coffee.”
Even in that state, a polite greeting followed. Gyu-oh licked the inside of his cheek as he watched the man leave the cafe with long, brisk strides. He felt he should have snapped something back by now, and perhaps that’s why he felt Min-ho’s glancing gaze, wondering why he was staying quiet.
“……It was just a coincidence of timing.”
“Uh, of course it had to be that.”
How else could he explain the scene of him with another loafer if it wasn’t a coincidence? If there had been any other business, Min-ho would have just uprooted the entire company and moved it elsewhere. Frowning with narrowed eyes, Gyu-oh hurriedly searched his pockets.
“One iced americano, please.”
He usually put things on a tab at the executive office whenever he had the chance, but not this time. He bought another coffee using a card in his own name. He felt the gaze on the side of his face, but he stubbornly finished the payment and headed to the pickup counter.
He snatched the coffee ordered with the other man’s card and shoved the americano that came out next into Min-ho’s hand. Regardless of whose card was swiped, coffee was just coffee, but he couldn’t stand the thought of even a hundred won’s worth of that man’s sincerity being attached to his Hyung.
“Why didn’t you answer the phone immediately? Didn’t we have a mutual agreement to answer before the third ring?”
“……I left it behind. I just planned to buy coffee and go straight back up.”
Gyu-oh’s eyes widened, his expression suggesting he was about to chew through the remaining ice in his cup. He swallowed the mouthful of coffee and raised his voice.
“Hyung, are you crazy? Do you know how scary the world is these days? You came out empty-handed without any fear? Do you know the height difference between the first floor and the ninth? Who knows what could happen in between?”
“……What are you talking about.”
“Do you know or not that I flip a switch if I can’t reach you for more than ten minutes? Huh?”
He pressed his advantage, threateningly shaking the takeout cup filled with ice. However, Min-ho didn’t even look his way, as if there were an invisible barrier between them.
“Sorry. I’ll make sure to carry it from now on.”
“Listen here. If a simple ‘sorry’ could fix everything, why would we need the police?”
As he poured out his passionate argument alone, he felt it was absurd. What if he hadn’t witnessed this? Today, Hong-ju wasn’t at the cafe, so there were no witnesses, and there was no way that man would tell him the details. If Hyung had just kept his mouth shut, he would have never known in his wildest dreams.
The fire of jealousy, which had been simmering, finally ignited. It overflowed all at once, as if everything he had suppressed until now was flooding out.
From then on, whenever Min-ho mentioned going to the cafe, Gyu-oh would bolt upright even in his sleep. Min-ho, who had initially brushed it off for a day or two by making Gyu-oh run the coffee errands instead, gradually began to realize the severity of the situation. The climax occurred just a few dozen minutes before Gyu-oh was set to leave for a four-day, three-night business trip.
“Are you really going?”
Gyu-oh, who had been stroking the back of Min-ho’s head while perched on the window seat that had now become his designated spot, quickly stepped down to the floor. In that gap, Min-ho stood up without hesitation.
“It’s an appointment. You can come along if you want.”
“Tell him to come here.”
Since they weren’t close enough to make it convenient to call him to the executive office, it seemed the appointment was set at the first-floor cafe. Of course, he could just sit at the next table and monitor him, but the problem was that he had to leave for work soon. And not just for a moment, but for four days and three nights. Hyung didn’t seem to grasp at all how anxious that void would make him.
That loafer seemed damn leisurely, given his position. What if he comes for coffee again while I’m gone? What if he acts familiar again, giving those greasy little eye-smiles?
Where’s the guy who’s always with you?
He’s away on a business trip.
That’s great. Then shall we go somewhere quiet and talk?
What if the atmosphere flowed like that! Even though it hadn’t happened, a fire of dread flared up before his eyes.