By Zephyria 
===
“You don’t hate misugaru, do you?”
“I like it.”
“Drink up. You need to drink things like this and put on some weight. Eat this too. The burritos here are damn delicious.”
Eun-won took the half-cut burrito Yoon Ji-woon handed him and took a bite of the cheese-filled wrap. It tasted of tomato sauce and the cheese stretched out, making it feel like he was eating a real pizza. In the morning, even eating a single slice of melon had been a struggle, but now he was eating quite well.
“…….”
Looking at Yoon Ji-woon, who was thinking of him and taking care of him, Eun-won hesitated over whether to share the news that he would soon be getting married, eventually swallowing the words that lingered in his mouth.
Although they had discussed marriage, there hadn’t been any concrete progress yet, making it difficult to speak openly. He felt it would be better to talk a bit more and wait until things were more decided before mentioning it.
Thinking about marriage reminded him of the Madam, who had spoken with a face full of excitement today, saying she was meeting Cha Se-jin’s mother.
And….
‘Look at the empty spot beside me. That’s my place now.’
It was just words, and he wasn’t actually beside him, yet Eun-won recalled how he had tossed and turned for a long time because it felt as if he really were. He shook his head slightly.
“Why? Is it not good?”
“No, it’s really delicious.”
Eun-won smiled at the worried look on Yoon Ji-woon’s face and put another piece of bread in his mouth. The sweetness spreading across the tip of his tongue quickly erased the complexity in his mind.
After finishing his last class, Eun-won remembered the assignment he hadn’t completed yet. Normally, he would have thought about going home to do it, but not now. He felt that he should just stay at school and work on the assignment until late, returning home at night.
Since it would take a while for Yoon Ji-woon’s class to end, Eun-won decided to head to the laptop room in the central library and left the building where he had taken his elective. As he was typing a message to Yoon Ji-woon saying he would be at the library, he suddenly felt a presence on his shoulder, and a voice brushed against his ear.
“Who is Ji-woon?”
Startled to the point where he couldn’t make a sound, Eun-won stopped in his tracks and barely managed to turn his head toward the voice. There stood Cha Se-jin, with a casual expression as if nothing had happened. Seeing Cha Se-jin, whom he hadn’t expected to be here at all, Eun-won instinctively took a few steps back.
“…How… are you here….”
“That’s why I asked for your timetable. We have to prepare for the wedding, Darling.”
Surprised that Cha Se-jin called him ‘Darling’ so naturally even inside the school, Eun-won scanned the surroundings. Fortunately, there was no one close enough to have heard.
“Let’s go.”
“…Yes….”
Thinking it would be better to move elsewhere than to stay at school, Eun-won silently got into Cha Se-jin’s car. As he inhaled Cha Se-jin’s signature scent filling the car, his thighs instinctively pressed together, tensing slightly before relaxing.
“By the way, who is Ji-woon?”
“Ah…. He’s a friend.”
“What kind of friend?”
Eun-won didn’t immediately understand Cha Se-jin’s question. What kind of friend…? What kind of friend was Yoon Ji-woon….
“…A friend I became close with after coming to college….”
“One you have sex with occasionally?”
“…What? No…? Why would I do that with a friend…. He’s really just a friend. Not a strange friend, just a real friend….”
Hearing such an oddly blunt remark, Eun-won recalled the numerous scandals he had seen regarding Cha Se-jin last night. Of course, not all of them would be true… but seeing how the question suddenly veered in a strange direction, he felt that Cha Se-jin was a very liberal person in that regard. Normally, people don’t ask if you have sex with someone after you answer that they are a friend.
“Right, I was just asking. Ah, I’m hungry. Let’s eat dinner first. Do you like meat?”
“Yes, I do.”
“It’s a bit early for dinner, but can you eat?”
“Yes, I can.”
At Eun-won’s answer, Cha Se-jin immediately changed lanes and made a U-turn. At the abrupt movement, Eun-won gripped his bag tighter. He didn’t know the destination, what conversations they would have over the meal, or what words and actions Cha Se-jin would use to surprise him again, but he didn’t feel that he disliked it.
After driving for about 30 minutes, they arrived at a hotel in Namsan called
When they went up to the 30th floor, a staff member was waiting in front of the steakhouse. Eun-won bowed to the staff member who greeted him kindly and followed behind Cha Se-jin.
The room they were guided into had a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked all of Seoul. Feeling as if he were at an observatory, Eun-won gazed outside, then hesitated slightly before sitting down as Cha Se-jin approached and pulled out the chair for him.
He felt that Cha Se-jin didn’t need to go this far, but thinking it would be rude to say it out loud, he silently watched Cha Se-jin sit opposite him.
“I’ll handle the ordering.”
“Okay….”
Although he had visited places like this a few times following his father and the Madam, he was still clumsy at choosing the menu or ordering proactively. Unlike him, Cha Se-jin ordered very skillfully, mixing in difficult terminology without any hesitation.
“Darling, do you like carrots?”
“…No….”
At Eun-won’s answer, a staff member who appeared to be of high rank smiled and replied that they would change the carrot puree to apple puree. He didn’t particularly like carrots, but it wasn’t that he couldn’t eat them; he felt a bit embarrassed, as if he had become a picky child.
“It’s okay. I asked because I don’t like them.”
Surprised that Cha Se-jin read his thoughts so accurately, Eun-won looked at him. Cha Se-jin gave a smirk and glanced at the staff member as they left after finishing the order.
“Did you think about what I told you to think about yesterday?”
“…Yes…. I thought about it a little.”
“Then tell me a bit. Where do you want to live after we get married?”
“Um…. Rather than moving out entirely… I think it would be better to live together first….”
“Why? Even if we live together, we’d be in a separate annex so we’d have freedom, but if we don’t live separately, you’ll be seeing my parents, my sibling, and my Hyung’s couple often.”
The exact reason Eun-won thought it would be better to live together was for the reason Cha Se-jin mentioned. Since it was an arranged marriage, they didn’t know much about each other, and since it wasn’t a marriage based on mutual love, he felt it would be far too awkward if they lived alone together.
He thought that if there were other family members, they could at least meet during meals, which would lessen the awkwardness of having to be alone with Cha Se-jin all the time.
Furthermore, since Eun-won had always lived either alone or with just one other person, he wanted to live in a bustling house. Of course, the house was very large and everyone had their own space, so it might not be that simple, but he felt it would be better than a house where only two people lived.
“…I thought it would be nice to get close to your family…. Until high school, I lived with my mother, and after she passed away, I lived alone. So when I see friends with many family members, I think it would be wonderful.”
His voice wasn’t loud, nor was his tone confident, but as Cha Se-jin watched Eun-won quietly and softly explain his thoughts, a sudden streak of mischief rose within him. He knew it wasn’t a situation to be playful, but the image of Eun-won’s sobbing face flashed by, and he kept having bad intentions, wondering what would happen if he made him cry again.
“My mom and dad are terrifying. My Hyung is scary too, and my sibling has a really weird personality. I’m the gentle one in our house. I get scolded every day for being so gentle that people wonder how I survive in the world. Can you handle that?”
“……Really? You’re really… the most… gentle?”
“Yeah. Everyone is fierce and scary, which is how they grew the company that much. I don’t like work much, so I’m less influenced by it.”
For a moment, Eun-won was completely at a loss for words. From Eun-won’s perspective, Cha Se-jin was also a quite scary and unconventional person. While working various part-time jobs, he had encountered countless rude customers and all sorts of perverts, but there was no one in the same category as Cha Se-jin.
Of course, he couldn’t call him a ‘bad’ person. He spoke bluntly, acted like a pervert, and pushed things to the extreme… but he still didn’t think he was a bad person. However, just because he wasn’t a bad person didn’t mean he was a gentle one.
…The most gentle one at home…?
The word ‘gentle’ didn’t suit Cha Se-jin at all, and it was so unimaginable that Eun-won almost forgot what the word meant. Was he using the right word…? Cha Se-jin… is gentle…?