SWAP 44

Breaking off friendship, you say.

The appearance of a completely unexpected word meant he had no time to compose his dumbfounded expression. The single syllable, “What?”, which he barely managed to utter, fell to the floor with a thud, and Seoul, slowly blinking, stammered a few seconds later.

“Sud—suddenly, what is that… breaking off friendship?”

Breaking off friendship wasn’t the name of some big bridge, was it? Was it really the word he knew? Seoul, asking again, hastily rebooted his stopped brain. So, we’re breaking off friendship, and I’m the one who… He thought up to that point, then Seoul suddenly frowned.

He didn’t need to look far. The justification Seo Saheon had suddenly given for appearing on this program. If he thought about why that stubborn ‘National Best Friend Declaration Plan’ came out, the answer was ultimately one.

Seoul, who never dreamed that he would have said that, no, that he would call it breaking off friendship, pressed down a sigh that rose to his throat. Whatever it was, an explanation came first.

With that resolve, he clasped his hands tightly, but his flustered state was already completely exposed. Seoul, whose once pale earlobes were now tinged with a reddish blush, awkwardly opened his mouth.

“Ah… that’s not it, I just suggested we slowly start living separately, but it seems there was some exaggeration. How is independence breaking off friendship, Saheon? Please speak properly.”

[Q. Why did you start thinking of slowly—no, living separately from Mr. Saheon?]

“…Are you making fun of me? It’s not really breaking off friendship, ha…. There isn’t any grand reason. It’s just, I’ll be thirty next year, and you can’t live with a friend forever. My schedule happened to be all wrapped up… the timing was right in many ways, so I suggested it first. But I didn’t know he’d explain it that way….”

Just a few minutes ago, Seoul had been pleading for people to understand that Seo Saheon was a good person. It felt like a sandcastle he had painstakingly built was crumbling from the side, and the back of his head was throbbing. What on earth did he say during the pre-interview? The sudden question made his throbbing head instantly turn cold.

It was because Saheon’s temperament, which would thoroughly complete whatever he started, came to mind. Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, once he committed, he never did just one thing.

Seoul’s complexion rapidly paled. Even as he thought, ‘Surely not,’ the image of writer Kang Sukyung rummaging through the questionnaire earlier strangely bothered him. Even those expressions that changed with every moment.

“Excuse me… Did Saheon say anything else?”

So he had no choice but to ask.

Praying that the answer would be that it was the end.

At Seoul’s somewhat anxious demeanor, Sukyung, who had just glanced down at Saheon’s pre-interview Q&A sheet, had a complicated expression. The content agreed upon by the production team beforehand was to only give a hint about this ‘breaking off friendship’ part for the teaser. By principle, individual interview content should not be disclosed to each other, but….

Sukyung’s gaze stopped at a passage on the paper. As she began by saying, “I’m really not supposed to tell you,” Seoul’s Adam’s apple bobbed. To flatly refuse here, she was the main writer who understood how to frame a broadcast better than anyone.

[Q. If this isn’t abandonment, then what is it…….]

At that, Seoul squeezed his eyes shut.

Seo Saheon, you crazy bastard.

He didn’t know what state of mind he was in when he finished the interview. Seoul, exiting the annex with a dazed expression, walked while firmly clutching his head, which felt like it would burst from all sides. Because the interview ran longer than expected, it was already dark outside. The lights embedded in various places for the beautifully decorated scenery sparkled like a painting, but unfortunately, he couldn’t possibly notice such things.

Abandonment, what abandonment?

Thinking about it again, the absurd choice of words brought on a headache.

He wasn’t some pet, and he only wanted to pinch Seo Saheon’s cheek hard for instantly turning him into a wicked abandoner. The most chilling part was that if the production team hadn’t given him a heads-up, he would never have known until the actual broadcast, making Seoul rub his chest.

He usually watched horror movies without batting an eye. Even while watching ghosts with twisted limbs rushing at him, his heart remained calm, but now it was pounding wildly, asserting its presence. That Seo Saheon could be scarier than a ghost… Even in the midst of it, he let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity.

Opening the front door, he saw the living room, empty as before.

Wondering if they hadn’t finished tidying up yet, he headed towards the kitchen and was puzzled by the busy backs of people inside. What was going on? Didn’t they say they had no talent for cooking at all?

“…What are you doing?”

“Wah!”

“Eek!”

He asked somewhat carefully, but the reaction was unexpectedly loud. Seoul, more startled than they were by their fright, widened his eyes and stiffened his shoulders. Ye Juyeol and Yun Hyeok quickly turned around, hurriedly hiding something behind their backs. It was a suspicious situation no matter how you looked at it.

“Gasp… You came, you came?”

“Yes. But why are you so surprised?”

“Ha. Hahaha. Just, you suddenly talked to us… The! How was the interview? It took quite a while. Is it because it’s the first interview?”

Seoul kept his mouth shut about that. The first part seemed to have gone fairly well, but the latter part was definitively ruined. Where did Seo Saheon go? He turned his head to look for the culprit of the failure, but he was nowhere in sight, so he turned his gaze back to the two. He had just confirmed Saheon’s shoes neatly placed and entered.

“…Where did Saheon go?”

“Ah. He’s on the second floor for a moment to put away the carrier. We were so chaotic earlier that we left everything on the first floor.”

Indeed, there had been many things before moving the carrier, including the move-in guide and the trickery. After that, they had gone out, so there was no time to organize.

Seoul, realizing Saheon had gone ahead to handle it before he could, turned to head towards the stairs, then sharply changed direction.

He thought about going up pretending not to notice, but it clearly looked like they had caused trouble, so he couldn’t just stand by and watch.

“Whoa, just a moment…!”

The expressions of the two, who had been relieved they wouldn’t be caught, instantly turned pale. They were thrown into a panic by Seoul’s action of heading straight for the sink without a word. They desperately tried to block him, yelling, “Sunbae-nim, hyung!” but it was no use. Perhaps because Ye Juyeol was bothered by the incident of grabbing Seoul’s hand and charging at him during their first meeting, he flinched before even touching him, and Yun Hyeok also couldn’t resist and cautiously backed away.

Seoul chuckled briefly at the situation, which was equivalent to them just letting him through, regardless of their size, and lowered his gaze. And only after seeing the scene unfolding before his eyes could he understand their actions.

“Ah….”

On the brightly lit countertop, ham and sausages, dismembered in a messy state, lay scattered like corpses.

They must have originally been similar in shape, but the pork had somehow acquired its own unique characteristics. Faced with the wreckage, Seoul was momentarily speechless.

They seemed to have tried to slice them diagonally, but instead of diagonal slices, the sausages were cut in half and dead, the canned ham was cut crookedly, and so were the other vegetables. Nothing was in a normal shape.

It was a major disaster that occurred while trying to prepare the ingredients in advance.

Perhaps their overconfidence was the problem, wondering, ‘Seoul’s interview is taking longer than expected, it’s not like we’re cooking, can’t we at least slice some ham…?’ The two, who had once again overestimated their cooking skills, threw up their hands in dismay.

“Uh, over here, we weren’t playing around. We just really tried to just slice them, but….”

“Yes. We really just did the knife work, but the shapes kept getting weird…. We tried to fix it before you arrived, but uh. It was a bit of a failure… but we’re really not guys who mess with food! Why would we, when we’re busy eating?!”

“Okay, you worked hard. You did well.”

“We did well…?”

Ye Juyeol’s expression, who had been pouring out explanations that weren’t quite explanations like a machine gun, briefly turned blank. Did well? How could he offer such encouragement after seeing those ham corpses?

Thinking he might have misheard, he looked at Yun Hyeok in front of him, but his face was no different from his own. From there, Ye Juyeol, rewinding whether Seoul’s tone was ‘You did very well’ or ‘Wow, you did SOOOO well~,’ teared up. Our sunbae-nim wouldn’t be sarcastic like that, sniff, sniff…. But what if he was really angry?

Without knowing Ye Juyeol’s inner turmoil, suffering from these two possibilities, Seoul calmly checked the quantity of ingredients.

Even amidst this, perhaps the will to eat a lot was at play, everything was piled up like a mountain.

Estimating that it would have taken quite some time if he had prepared it alone, he opened the cupboard. Where was the largest pot? Musing on that inwardly, he said in a kind voice.

“It’s budae jjigae, so what? As long as it hasn’t been washed with detergent, it’s fine.”

“…”

“The finely chopped pieces can be used as minced meat, so it’s okay. And the vegetables… Ah, these were just washed with water, right?”

“…”

“…”

“…No?”