By Zephyria 
===
Since there was no traffic, Cha Se-jin arrived earlier than expected. After handing over his car for parking, he entered the hotel. A staff member who recognized him bowed deeply and hurriedly called for the manager.
To pass the hour or so remaining, Cha Se-jin stepped into the patisserie. He picked out a cake that Eun-won would likely enjoy, a cake his mother and Se-na would like, and a tart he remembered his sister-in-law had loved. As he was setting the pickup time for tomorrow afternoon, the manager, who had rushed over after hearing of Cha Se-jin’s arrival, greeted him politely.
“Welcome, Executive Director.”
“Yes. I just stopped by for a quick pickup, there was no need for you to come all this way. You don’t have to come greet me personally on days I don’t notify you in advance.”
“Not at all. This is a pleasure for me. Ah, if it makes you uncomfortable…”
“It’s not that I’m uncomfortable. I’ll be staying quietly, so please go back to your work.”
“Yes, I will be at your service again whenever you contact me next. Please call me anytime if there is anything you need, Executive Director.”
Cha Se-jin shifted his gaze from the manager, who bowed and stepped away, confirmed the pickup time once more, and scanned the chocolates in the showcase next to the counter. He recalled Eun-won eating chocolates with great relish before. Choosing the most beautiful and plentiful set to take immediately, Cha Se-jin checked the time. He thought he had taken his time, but only ten minutes had passed.
Wondering what else to do, Cha Se-jin ordered black tea from a brand he liked. If he slowly emptied the teapot, an hour would pass easily.
Sitting at a patisserie table facing the lobby, Cha Se-jin crossed his legs and watched the people passing through. Soon, a tray with an elegant teapot, a cup, and accompanying cookies was placed before him. He gave a slight nod of greeting to the staff, poured the black tea into the cup, smelled the aroma, and moistened his mouth. A clean, smooth scent spread throughout his mouth.
After drinking one, then two cups of tea slowly, Cha Se-jin picked up two well-packaged butter cookies. He intended to give these to Eun-won. It would feel nice to have him munching and rustling away beside him on the way home. With a smile, Cha Se-jin set the cookies down and tilted the teapot again. The black tea, now a slightly deeper hue, shimmered in the cup. It was the moment he realized that waiting for someone could be this fragrant.
Just as the teapot was nearly empty, his phone rang. Cha Se-jin quickly checked the vibrating phone on the table.
[Executive Director, I’ve come down to the first floor now]
[Where are you? I’ll go to you]
Cha Se-jin, who had been leaning deep into his seat, straightened his posture. He saw Eun-won emerging from the elevator area into the lobby. It was cute how he turned his head left and right, looking around for him. Wearing a backpack packed with far too much luggage for just one night’s stay, he scanned the area meticulously, looking exactly like a puppy that had lost its owner.
A puppy shouldn’t lose its owner.
A mischievous urge to watch him search a bit longer arose because he looked so pretty, but knowing he shouldn’t let him wander too far, Cha Se-jin quickly grabbed the cookies and left the patisserie. Then, he approached quietly so Eun-won wouldn’t notice and grabbed his shoulder from behind.
“I’m here.”
Startled by the sudden appearance but delighted by the familiar voice, Eun-won turned around and looked up at Cha Se-jin. Smiling as their eyes met, Cha Se-jin took the heavy bag off Eun-won’s shoulder, slung it over his own, and stroked Eun-won’s hair.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yes.”
“Is it okay that you’re heading home first? If you asked when I was coming and came early because of that, you didn’t have to.”
“It’s not like that. We talked so much yesterday, and today we had lunch, went to the pool again, ate pizza there, went to a cafe… we kept talking even through dinner, so now I just want to go home. My throat hurts a lot…”
“What on earth did you talk about so much that your throat hurts?”
Laughing, Cha Se-jin wrapped an arm around Eun-won’s shoulder and left the lobby. As he listened to Eun-won’s soft voice explaining how they talked about everything—school, friends’ dating lives, games, series they saw on OTT, sports, and so on—the staff brought the car around.
Even inside the car, Eun-won diligently answered the questions Cha Se-jin asked. His face looked incredibly happy as he shared small stories about playing at the pool with friends, how the champagne tasted good, and how he felt he started drinking mostly soda after that because he got drunk too quickly.
Having listened intently to that voice the whole time, Cha Se-jin pondered for a moment. In truth, he had intended to start by apologizing for the slip of the tongue he’d made yesterday. The atmosphere was better than expected, and he wasn’t sure if bringing it up now was the right choice, but it also bothered him to just let it pass as if nothing had happened.
“Darling.”
“Yes?”
“About the phone call yesterday.”
Eun-won stopped talking for a moment and looked at Cha Se-jin.
“I’m sorry for picking up without checking who it was. And for making you hear things you didn’t need to.”
“Ah… it’s okay. Yesterday was a bit… strange, but after sleeping and talking to you, Executive Director, I forgot all about it.”
“Still, I’m sorry. I won’t just end it with an apology; I’ll be really careful with my words from now on.”
Cha Se-jin spoke seriously once more. He felt that explaining the situation in detail would sound like a long-winded excuse and make things weirder, so he didn’t add anything more. Eun-won didn’t ask further and gave a small nod.
Only then did Cha Se-jin take out the two butter cookies he had tucked in his pocket and held them out to Eun-won.
“Ah, right. These.”
As Eun-won’s hand touched the cookies, a rustling sound echoed in the car. Strangely, that sound broke the slightly awkward atmosphere.
“I was waiting while drinking tea, and they gave me these. I thought you’d like them.”
Eun-won stared down at the two cookies Cha Se-jin had given him, then lifted his head to look back at Cha Se-jin. The words ‘waiting while drinking tea’ stuck in his mind. If he had waited long enough to drink tea, it meant he hadn’t just waited for five or ten minutes. People don’t usually drink tea while waiting for a short period.
“Did you… wait long?”
“A bit. I figured waiting at home or waiting here was about the same, so I came out a bit early.”
“How long did you wait?”
“A bit over an hour?”
“Over an hour? If you had told me, I would have come down sooner… why… didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d come down early if I told you.”
Speaking nonchalantly, Cha Se-jin changed lanes and glanced at a car in the next lane accelerating through a left turn signal. Eun-won, quietly watching Cha Se-jin’s face as it briefly brightened under the light from outside the window, fiddled with the cookies.
“I didn’t come here to protest for you to come out faster; I just thought it would be better for me to wait there, so you don’t have to feel sorry. If I had waited at home, that hour would have felt even slower.”
Eun-won was confused by Cha Se-jin’s actions and words. Did this also fall within the realm of the kindness he showed? He wondered if this kind of waiting was something one did simply because they were married.
‘A bit over an hour?’
One hour. The time Cha Se-jin spent waiting for him. Normally… wouldn’t you have to like someone to wait like that…? Even if he doesn’t like me, even if we’re just in a relationship where he should be considerate… can he go this far? I… don’t think I could.
There were certainly things that could only happen because it was Cha Se-jin, and because he liked Cha Se-jin. Although they were in an ‘arranged marriage,’ he could sleep in the same bed and feel fluttery under his touch because he liked him. Kissing, and doing things deeper than that, were also possible because he liked him.
He knew that for Cha Se-jin, kissing or more were things that could be done even without affection. However, while those things were possible, he didn’t think Cha Se-jin would easily come and wait for over an hour, stroke his hair, or bring him cookies.
“…….”
His heart kept growing. At this rate, it felt like everything would be revealed before his eyes very soon, without much time left to hold back. Eun-won’s heart was now like a balloon inflated to its limit. It felt as if it would burst if something sharp so much as grazed it, and thus, he felt he would soon reveal all of his fluffy, soft inner feelings to Cha Se-jin. What kind of face would Cha Se-jin make when faced with those feelings?
He wanted to see him be happy. He hoped that this heart—the one that wouldn’t stay down even when he tried to press it, the one that kept floating away from his grasp and drifting toward Cha Se-jin—would bring excitement to Cha Se-jin as well.
He wanted to dream of the smile he would wear. Like his friends said, and like the various moments he had experienced, he hoped that the special and kind trajectory Cha Se-jin showed him was not a delusion.
The scales in Eun-won’s heart had now dropped the weight of fear and tilted completely toward anticipation and excitement. The tilted scales pulsed. Looking down at his hand where the thumping could be felt, Eun-won slightly tore the jagged corner of the cookie wrapper. As he took a bite of the soft cookie, a rich butter scent spread through his mouth.
“…It’s delicious.”
“Really? That’s a relief.”
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Cha Se-jin’s hand reached over to the passenger seat. After stroking his hair, the hand lingered on his cheek before finally pulling away.
Thump, thump. The balloon inflated a bit more. His heart, so overwhelmed it felt like it would burst just by breathing, felt as if it would come crashing down before him without any preparation. It seemed he would have to be careful of sharp objects for the time being.
Once he entered the annex with Cha Se-jin, he finally felt like he was home. He hadn’t noticed it while staying here, but perhaps because he had spent a night outside, the annex felt incredibly comfortable.
That feeling grew stronger as he entered the bedroom. He wanted to wash up quickly and fall asleep in the bed he slept in every day, not some other bed.
He took out his phone and placed it on the console, and as he was about to organize his luggage, he saw a folded piece of paper lying on top. Without thinking, Eun-won picked up the paper and unfolded it.
[You’re exactly my type, so I wanted to talk to you every time you came. I want to get close, please contact me.]
It was an unfamiliar message. The name Sun Woo-hyuk written below, and the number, were both strange. Eun-won tilted his head in confusion and looked back at Cha Se-jin. Seeing him, Cha Se-jin spoke nonchalantly.
“Ah, I heard that came out of your clothes while collecting the laundry.”
“Inside my clothes? Why… ah…!”
Wondering why such a thing was in his clothes, Eun-won remembered the staff member who had spoken to him at the cafe. That day, the employee had given him a folded piece of paper like this. He had put it in his pocket to throw away later because it felt wrong to discard it right in front of the person. Then, he had completely forgotten its existence, so he was a bit flustered that the paper had come out of his clothes and ended up here.
“…Uh, I got it at the cafe, and I told them I had no intention of contacting them… I put the paper in to throw away later, and I forgot I put it there….”
“You don’t have to explain that much. It would be strange if guys didn’t swarm a face like yours.”
Cha Se-jin, who had taken off his outer coat and set it aside, turned around and sat perched on the dresser, gazing quietly at Eun-won’s face. It was a fresh realization, but he was truly beautiful.
Even a sane person’s frontal lobe would inevitably melt upon seeing that face. He was that beautiful, and that much of a magnet for attention. Just one look was enough to carve him into one’s mind, making anyone else seem unattractive. It was truly a face of that caliber. A face so beautiful that one could dare to hope he would only look beautiful in their own eyes.
He knew. He knew better than anyone that it was shameless to be annoyed by this… but fuck, why was it so irritating that some other bastard was clinging to him?