By Zephyria 
“…What? What do you mean by that?”
Mo Yeon-hu, flustered by the cold expression, asked in a trembling voice, but Kwon Mi-eon only stared at him with a strangely distorted face instead of answering.
What on earth was the context of this conversation? Why was he suddenly asking if he was dying of happiness over Kang Mi-yeong? While Mo Yeon-hu hesitated, unable to find his bearings, Kwon Mi-eon’s sneer pierced sharply through his ears.
“Are you so thrilled you’re going crazy because Kang Mi-yeong said she wants to be introduced to you? Are you losing your mind?”
“Kwon Mi-eon, I have no idea what you’re talking about…”
“Look at your face. You look like you’re about to burst from joy.”
Fixing his gaze on Mo Yeon-hu’s flushed cheeks, Kwon Mi-eon began to sarcasm.
“How did you manage to hold back the urge to run to her the moment you heard she was interested in you? How did you resist the urge to run like a dog and confess the second she said she wanted an introduction, huh?”
Why was he acting like this all of a sudden?
“Why are you in such a bad mood? What did I do wrong?”
Why was he cornering him with a face so full of irritation?
“Then you think I’d feel great about this?”
Mo Yeon-hu trembled. In truth, he had never imagined that Kwon Mi-eon would hate him.
Kwon Mi-eon had always been the one to approach him first. Even when he played pranks, there was always a tenderness beneath it, a desire to take care of him, and even when he looked angry, he usually cooled off quickly. But now was different. This was a look in his eyes that Mo Yeon-hu had never once imagined seeing.
“You two are practically dying for each other; do you think I’d be okay with that?”
Behind the murderous gaze that looked as if it would destroy everything in sight, the hidden emotion was clear contempt. And even someone as dense as Mo Yeon-hu knew the cause.
“Do you… hate the idea of me getting together with your cousin that much?”
Kwon Mi-eon was simply irritated.
“Of course I hate it. Fuck. Stop talking nonsense, Hyung.”
Because Kang Mi-yeong, the family member he cherished.
“You and Kang Mi-yeong are a fucking terrible match.”
Because he hated the idea of her being with Mo Yeon-hu more than death itself.
Kwon Mi-eon’s eyes were not just cold, but cruel. His gaze was so full of sincerity, as if warning him not to even dream of being with her, that the new emotions Mo Yeon-hu had been feeling toward him until a moment ago were dragged through the mud.
‘Did I look that lacking to him? To the point where he’d curse me like that?’
Was he such an inadequate and pathetic person that he wasn’t even worth an introduction, to the point of provoking such insults?
Somehow, Mo Yeon-hu felt as if he had no self-esteem left to be chipped away. He walked past Kwon Mi-eon and strode toward the entrance.
“Where are you going?”
Just as he was roughly shoving his feet into his shoes at the door, Kwon Mi-eon grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. Only then did a surge of sorrow wash over Mo Yeon-hu.
No matter how much he hated him or found him lacking, there was no need to go that far.
“…Hyung.”
There was no need to use such foul language and say he and Kang Mi-yeong didn’t suit each other.
“Are you crying?”
He wasn’t exactly crying, but seeing his face distorted with a sense of unfairness—looking like a soggy dumpling—Kwon Mi-eon paused, then pulled him slightly toward himself as if he found the situation absurd.
“Why make that face over Kang Mi-yeong? Do you want that introduction that badly? Huh? Do you want to get with her so much that a single comment about you not matching makes you want to cry…”
Slap! At that moment, Mo Yeon-hu brushed away Kwon Mi-eon’s hand from his arm and glared at him. Kwon Mi-eon looked down at his rejected hand and shut his mouth tight.
It wasn’t even a hard hit, but Kwon Mi-eon curled his fingers as if he had been seriously injured, and Mo Yeon-hu finally spoke.
“…Kwon Mi-eon, you.”
In a voice mixed with irritation, resentment, and an indescribable sorrow.
“I hate you.”
After telling him he truly hated him, Mo Yeon-hu whipped around. Kwon Mi-eon immediately reached out to grab him but froze at the fierce voice.
“Don’t even try to contact me. I’m never seeing you again.”
Slam! In the moment Kwon Mi-eon hesitated, Mo Yeon-hu stormed out the door without looking back. The sound of the door closing echoed through the hallway. Kwon Mi-eon stared blankly at his retreating back, then let out a sigh and rubbed his face with his hands.
Ruffling his hair with a conflicted expression, he parted his lips but then lowered his head deeply. The face that had been full of ferocity until a moment ago…
“Why do you like her, why…”
…instantly transformed into a face full of sorrow, remaining that way for a long time.
“I definitely think my style is Korean. Honestly, the rounding was kind of boring, right? But wow, I seriously loved the food. As expected, breakfast has to be soup, soup.”
“…….”
“Instead of bread, soup, and ham, eating something hearty is just the best. And the water is so great, look at my skin. Man, I really… Hey. Mo Yeon-hu. Are you listening to me?”
“……Huh?”
Mo Yeon-hu, who had been sitting blankly in front of the excitedly chatting Park Taek-yoon (Jay), raised his head as if snapping back to reality after Jay nudged him.
“What the hell have you been thinking about to not even hear me? You’re the one who called me out.”
“Ah, sorry…”
To an outsider, it might have looked like Jay had called him out, but in reality, it was Mo Yeon-hu who had called him, as Jay had just returned from Jeju Island yesterday. But Mo Yeon-hu was acting strange. He was barely listening to Jay and was constantly on stargram.
‘What is he doing?’
Jay stole a glance at the screen. Mo Yeon-hu was indeed behaving strangely.
K > 
rnjsaldjs47
He would stare at someone’s DM window, exit, and enter again repeatedly.
Cafe Nova >
cafe_NoVa.
Then he would refresh a certain cafe’s DM window. After letting out a deep sigh, he would drink alcohol like crazy and then repeat the same behavior, which Jay watched with bewilderment.
“What’s going on? Why aren’t you talking and just chugging booze? You okay?”
Mo Yeon-hu, leaning back into his chair, looked like a mess. Although he was a decent drinker, he seemed drunk, perhaps because he had consumed too much. Seeing this, Jay let out a small sigh, sensing that he would inevitably be the one cleaning up the aftermath today.
“Hey, listen.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“…Do I look that bad to you too?”
Jay thought he was finally going to hear something proper, but…
“Am I the worst, to the point where you couldn’t even introduce me to your younger sister?”
Because the words spoken in a sullen, sunken voice were so random, Jay asked back in confusion.
“What are you talking about? Who said you were bad?”
“Just… I wondered if it would be hard for you to introduce me if you had a sister.”
What is this? Where did he hear something like that? Jay blinked and tilted his head.
“I’m asking because I don’t know the situation, but did you ask someone to introduce you to their younger sister?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“But the situation itself is a bit similar…”
“Aha.”
So that was it. As if he finally got the gist, Jay grinned and draped an arm over Mo Yeon-hu’s shoulder.
“Why are you so discouraged? That’s basically the universal rule. No matter how close you are, the moment the topic of introducing a sister or younger sister comes up—it’s like, ‘Ah, that’s a bit much,’ right?”
“…Really?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Jay tried to comfort him, telling him to forget about it and have fun today, but he froze at the following question.
“Then is it normal for them to feel like shit just imagining the two of you together, call you a fucking terrible match with curses, and then cut you off?”
“……What? No, they wouldn’t go that far. Usually.”
“Right.”
“They’d just express it indirectly.”
“Right…”
At that moment, Mo Yeon-hu’s face became profoundly sad. With a slumped expression, he gulped down his drink again.
About a week had passed since he stormed out of Kwon Mi-eon’s house, and in that time, there hadn’t been a single message. Seeing that the contact, which had been almost obsessively frequent, had stopped abruptly, it was clear that Mo Yeon-hu had been cut off.
‘How could he go as far as cutting me off?’
Mo Yeon-hu felt wronged and upset. Was he really that terrible? To the point where just imagining him with Ms. Mi-yeong would make someone recoil in disgust and pour out insults?
‘Of course, it’s true that I’m a bit flighty, but…!’
Naturally, from the perspective of a family member, his fondness for women could be seen as creepy.
‘And in the first place, I wasn’t even thinking about Ms. Mi-yeong! Does he even know who I was actually thinking about?’
Mo Yeon-hu felt even more wronged because he hadn’t said a single word asking to be introduced to Kang Mi-yeong.
‘If he’s that disgusted just by the thought of me with family, he would have hated it even more if I told him I had strange feelings while looking at him.’
Would he have just hated it? Convinced that the other man would have beaten him to death, Mo Yeon-hu reached for the bottle in a surge of emotion.
“Hey, slow down! Mo Yeon-hu!”
Forget it, just drink and die. Just as Jay was frantically trying to stop Mo Yeon-hu from pouring alcohol into himself by the crate.
“……Mo Yeon-hu?”
A platinum-blonde man sitting at another table stood up at the commotion and approached them.
“What’s this?”
Soon, with a short whistle, he abruptly pulled Mo Yeon-hu by the shoulder to straighten him up.
“What the—who are you?”
“Hey. Long time no see.”
As Jay tried to stop the man, Mo Yeon-hu’s expression stiffened even amidst his drunken dizziness. A masculine perfume mixed with the scent of grass. As he looked up, long, slanted eyes entered his vision, leaning in close to look at him…
“It’s been a while, Mo Yeon-hu?”
It was Lee Seung-hwan.