By Zephyria 
===
“Executive Director…?”
The way he was staring at me in silence felt somehow different from usual. It seemed as though he was in a slightly bad mood.
“Ah, yeah.”
“…By any chance… are you upset?”
“Huh?”
“…Because I brought something like this home….”
Eun-won awkwardly lifted the piece of paper in his hand. Cha Se-jin’s gaze flickered over the paper for a moment before dropping away.
“No.”
Cha Se-jin gave a short answer and shook his head with a smile. But that smile, too, looked a bit different than usual. Instead of looking playful or affectionate as he normally did, it looked as if… he was forcing himself to act like everything was fine despite being displeased.
“Why would I be upset? It’s not like Darling asked for my number first, or contacted me. And it’s not like they’re going to contact me.”
Cha Se-jin straightened up from where he had been perched and shrugged, as if to prove he really wasn’t bothered.
Watching him, Eun-won folded the paper again and threw it in the trash. The light piece of paper vanished from sight without making a sound.
Only then did the irritation swirling in Cha Se-jin’s heart subside slightly.
Fuck, it’s really nothing, so why am I like this?
It truly was nothing. It was one-sided attention, and the recipient seemed to have no intention of responding; it was something so devoid of value to Eun-won that he had even forgotten he received it. And yet, he hated it. More than when he had unfolded the note alone, his heart surged more violently now that he had seen Eun-won check it.
He hated the very fact that some unknown bastard had looked at Eun-won, developed feelings, and written down things like how he was his type or how he wanted to get close. And the situation—where that person had kept the note folded, waited for Eun-won to arrive, and then, with a fluttering heart, made eye contact and confessed their feelings—was absolutely fucking disgusting. What he hated most was that such a thing had happened in a place where he wasn’t present, where he didn’t know.
“Is it a cafe you go to often?”
He had intended to put it aside and not mention it further, but in the end, the question he tried to suppress slipped out. Eun-won, who was taking clothes out of his bag, looked up and met Cha Se-jin’s eyes.
“Yes…. It’s a place I go to often with my friends.”
“Then that guy must have seen you often. Right, of course. It would be strange not to notice a face like that walking in.”
Asking and answering himself, Cha Se-jin tapped the dresser with his fingertips. He tilted his head slightly, biting the inside of his lip as he looked at Eun-won.
“Don’t go there anymore.”
“…….”
“It’s uncomfortable. Unless that bastard stops, he might bother you again, and if you’re in the same space, you’ll keep catching his eye.”
Even as he spoke, he knew. He knew he was doing something absurd and incredibly childish. No matter how much younger Eun-won was than him, he wasn’t a child. Eun-won could handle something like that on his own, and whether he went to that cafe or not wasn’t something Cha Se-jin should be controlling.
“Okay, I will.”
It was a compliant answer. Even though he got the answer he wanted, his heart didn’t exactly feel at ease. However, since Eun-won had agreed, there was nothing more to say about the matter. Cha Se-jin nodded and approached Eun-won, stroking his back once.
“Go wash up, you must be tired. I’ll wash up over there.”
“Okay….”
Leaving the room first, Cha Se-jin thought of Eun-won’s answer—that he wouldn’t go to the cafe—the entire time he was washing. Saying it was a cafe he visited often meant it was in a convenient location. Not going there was essentially agreeing to accept an inconvenience. He would have to intentionally find another cafe instead of the one he usually frequented.
While he liked that Eun-won agreed, it weighed on his mind. He felt like he had made Eun-won uncomfortable over something trivial. Would he have felt better if Eun-won had replied that there was no need to go so far since he had no intention of contacting the person and didn’t care?
No, if that had happened, he would have felt strange for a different reason. Shaking his head at the endless thoughts, Cha Se-jin brushed back the stream of water flowing from his hair and stepped out of the shower booth to press the button. Drying his body and hair roughly with the soft, warm air coming from the ceiling, Cha Se-jin applied skin toner and put on a robe. Still, after washing, the thoughts cluttered with childish emotions seemed to have settled more calmly than before the shower.
Returning to the room, Cha Se-jin glanced toward the bathroom where the sound of water was coming from and walked toward the trash can. Inside the empty bin, the single note Eun-won had thrown away lay lonely. After looking down at it for a moment, Cha Se-jin picked up the paper. Then, displaying one last bit of childishness, he tore it into shreds.
He briefly considered burning it, but decided that would be a bit too ridiculous, so he settled for this. Crumpling the small pieces of paper and stuffing them back into the bin, Cha Se-jin sat on the edge of the bed with a slightly more relaxed mind. Before long, Eun-won emerged from the bathroom with a clear, fresh face.
“Darling.”
“Yes?”
“That cafe.”
“…….”
“Go if you want to. I just said that earlier because I was a bit annoyed. Thinking about it, there’s no reason for you to avoid it or not go. If he looks, just ignore him.”
He couldn’t say it was a hundred percent sincere, but after saying it, his heart felt much lighter. Seeing that Eun-won’s hair was still damp, Cha Se-jin brought the dryer out from the bathroom, had Eun-won sit on the bed, and positioned himself behind him.
“…I’ll do it.”
“No. I want to.”
Setting the dryer to a lukewarm rather than hot breeze, Cha Se-jin slid his fingers through the wet strands of hair. The warm air passed through the soft locks. With a flushed face, Eun-won didn’t know what to do, casting his gaze downward and fidgeting with his hands.
No conversation continued through the noise of the dryer. Cha Se-jin slowly dried Eun-won’s hair. He meticulously blew air onto the parts that were still slightly damp at the ends, ensuring there were no cold spots. Soon, the fully dried hair flowed smoothly through his fingers.
Cha Se-jin turned off the dryer and stroked Eun-won’s hair again. Even the fine texture of the hair slipping through his fingers was beautiful. Truly, there wasn’t a single part of him that wasn’t beautiful.
“All dry now.”
“…Thank you….”
“Why are you always so thankful for everything?”
Pulling Eun-won’s waist from behind, Cha Se-jin leaned Eun-won against his chest and buried his face in the exposed white nape of his neck.
“You don’t have to do everything I tell you to. You can do things you like, but you can say no to things you hate. You don’t have to do everything just because I told you to.”
His hand, sliding under the loose t-shirt, caressed Eun-won’s flat, warm stomach. Kissing along the neckline, Cha Se-jin lifted his head, rolled his tongue over the reddened earlobe, and bit it gently. Eun-won let out a long, trembling breath.
“…It wasn’t that I did it even though I hated it….”
“Then?”
“I just… ah…. It was a place I went to… and thinking that he kept watching me there… I thought it would be a bit uncomfortable to go again. And… I thought the Executive Director… wouldn’t like it….”
“Even if I just said I hated it and told you not to go for no other reason, would you still not go?”
“…Yes….”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to… ngh, ah…. do something you hate….”
At Eun-won’s answer—that he didn’t want to do things the other hated—the childish emotions remaining in his heart slowly melted away. That didn’t mean they disappeared without a trace. When he thought of the pathetic sentences written on that paper and the name Sun Woo-hyuk or whatever, he still felt disgusted, but he liked feeling that Eun-won’s focus was on him, not them.
Eun-won’s breath rose and fell slightly under his hand. After kissing the nape of his neck deeply, Cha Se-jin gripped Eun-won’s chin and turned him slightly to look back. As he lowered his head, the gaze that intertwined clingily without a single gap of escape hid behind closed eyelids. Tilting his head down, Cha Se-jin pushed his tongue between the lips opening toward him and kissed him.
Whether the strange feeling sparked by a single piece of paper was irritation, jealousy, the unpleasantness of someone touching his things, or something else he didn’t know, one thing was clear.
Eun-won was within his firm arms. Eun-won’s warm breath was in his mouth, and Eun-won’s hand was gripping his arm.
That sensation pulled Cha Se-jin back to reality.
The heart that had been unsettled by an unknown emotion began to slowly find its place, simply because of the fact that Eun-won was in his arms right now.
Once again, that ‘right now’ was Cha Se-jin’s answer.
* * *
Jealousy. Eun-won had been immersed in that thought all morning. It was because the emotion Cha Se-jin had shown him yesterday seemed to be jealousy.
Yoon Ji-woon, gripped by a hangover after a fantastic weekend, headed to a cafe claiming he needed an immediate transfusion of watermelon or tomato juice. Eun-won took Yoon Ji-woon not to the cafe where the male employee had given him his number, but to a different cafe next to it.
“What about you?”
“I’ll have an orange ade.”
“Hey, hey, put your card away. I’m buying.”
Waving his hand at Eun-won, who was taking out his card, Yoon Ji-woon tapped the menu on the kiosk and moved his hand decisively. Standing beside him, Eun-won fell back into a daze, thinking of Cha Se-jin.
‘Don’t go there anymore.’
The words Cha Se-jin had said, the expression he wore then… it was definitely something Eun-won recognized. When he had heard that Cha Se-jin had spoken on the phone with someone he had met before, he had felt the same way. He had hoped he wouldn’t answer, and he hated the idea of him talking to someone he used to see in that way.
Jealousy wasn’t an emotion that anyone could feel at any time. At least, that was the jealousy Eun-won knew. It was a feeling of hating it when the person you like looks at someone else, being bothered when they get close in a place you don’t know, and a heart that always reveals itself through expressions and tone even when trying to act indifferent.
If so…. Was what Cha Se-jin showed that kind of feeling? Was it really jealousy? If it was jealousy…….
…Could it be that the Executive Director likes me too?
As the thought reached that point, his heart beat strangely fast. He tried to suppress the feeling, knowing there was no benefit in getting ahead of himself and that great expectations often lead to great disappointment, but this time it wouldn’t settle easily. Like bubbles rising to the surface, they popped one by one, tickling the surface of his heart.
“Ah…. I’m dying. I ordered a liter of watermelon juice.”
“A whole liter…?”
“Yeah…. What if I’m still like this after drinking that? Ugh, my stomach hurts. If I mix drinks again, I’m not human.”
Yoon Ji-woon, who had been slumped over the table, sprang up the moment the vibration bell rang and headed for the pickup desk. Eun-won, who had half-risen to go since Ji-woon looked so exhausted, sat back down seeing that Ji-woon was faster. Unable to bear it any longer, Yoon Ji-woon gulped down the watermelon juice the moment he received the drink and returned to the seat.
“Ah, I feel like I can live now that I’m drinking this.”
Having emptied half the cup in one go, Yoon Ji-woon chewed on some ice and then collapsed back onto the table, saying he felt like he was dying again.
“Should I buy you some medicine?”
“No…. There’s no cure for this. I just need time. Ah, I’m going to close my eyes for a bit, sorry…….”
“What are you sorry for. Tell me if it gets too hard. I’ll go buy some medicine.”
“Yeah…. Thanks….”
Taking a sip of his drink while looking at the back of Yoon Ji-woon’s head, Eun-won took out his phone after feeling a vibration in his pocket. A message from ‘Husband’ was on the screen.
[Husband: Have you had lunch?]
Eun-won stared at that short sentence for a long time. It was an ordinary phrase, but today, strangely, that one sentence felt like a small stone thrown onto the surface of his heart. Pop. Another bubble burst on the heart that was trying to become calm.
[Not yet, I’m at a cafe with Ji-woon]
The message was read immediately after he sent it, but the reply didn’t come right away. As if he were pondering what to say. Jealousy. Once again, the unfamiliar yet vivid word filled his mind. If that was correct…. If the emotion inside Cha Se-jin’s heart really was jealousy…. Eun-won wrote an answer that he felt he wanted to give, even though he hadn’t been asked.
[I’m not at that cafe, but the one next to it]
Again, Cha Se-jin read the message immediately. And unlike before, the reply came quickly.
[Good job]
This, too, was an ordinary phrase. But Eun-won couldn’t stop smiling. Feeling embarrassed to be smiling alone, he quickly flipped his phone face down on the table and tried to hold it back, but the smile kept returning. Something small and soft swelled up inside his chest.
If he’s jealous because he likes me….
If he wanted to ask because he likes me, and couldn’t ask because he likes me too much….
“…Why are you suddenly smiling to yourself?”
“Huh…? Oh, it’s nothing.”
Yoon Ji-woon, who had lifted his head to drink his juice, tilted his head in confusion. Eun-won smiled awkwardly and bit the inside of his lip, hiding the ticklish feeling spreading through his heart.
Nothing was certain yet. He hadn’t asked him how he felt, nor had he heard his answer. And yet, strangely, he wanted to believe it today.
That the affection Cha Se-jin showed him, the jealousy he couldn’t hide, might not just be his own delusion.
That just like the love he had experienced, the other’s heart seemed to be starting to show itself on the surface, little by little.