NAME 36

“Come out.”

After the doctor left, Baek Kanghyun hurried Seowon. Glancing at the clock, he slid his car key onto his finger and spun it around.

“Come out? Where are you planning to go?”

“Do you honestly intend to live in my house?”

“No! Of course I’m going to my own home. There is no need for the Team Leader to go through the trouble of accompanying me.”

“When someone is being nice to you, just accept it graciously. Don’t act proud when you don’t even know your place. You wore the clothes well enough, so why start now?”

At his speech that looked down on him, Seowon grit his teeth and looked up sharply. How could a person speak so spitefully? Did he learn it somewhere?

“The clothes were because I had no choice. But I am more than capable of going home on my own.”

In his heart, he wanted to strip off the clothes Baek Kanghyun had given him. But he couldn’t exactly go home buck naked. Once he got home, he planned to take off the clothes, launder them thoroughly, and return them. If possible, he wanted to wash everything—even the blankets and sheets he had slept on.

“Just listen to me. I’m not that much of a bastard.”

Baek Kanghyun barked out the words with a deep frown. The moment Seowon heard the word “bastard,” his mind went a bit blank. Had he said that in his sleep last night? While Seowon stood there dazed, Baek Kanghyun was already opening the front door. Seowon quickly followed behind and caught him.

“What now?”

Facing the man who was clearly annoyed, Seowon hesitated before finally speaking.

“Please… lend me some shoes.”

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Seowon wiggled his toes, which were sticking out from the slippers. He was clutching a blanket tightly. It was the very blanket Baek Kanghyun had wrapped him in when he took Seowon from his house.

‘I should have just stayed quiet.’

He felt ridiculous—one moment he was screaming that he didn’t need anything, and the next he was wearing Baek Kanghyun’s borrowed shoes and getting a ride in his car. He felt pathetic for bringing his blanket along in the midst of it all, but he had no choice. It was one of only two blankets he had at home. The remaining one was for winter and was absolutely not something he could cover himself with in this weather, and the blanket he was holding now was newly bought, so it was a waste to give up on it.

“… .”

Seowon glanced at the time displayed on the navigation screen. The distance to Seowon’s house was about 10km; it wasn’t that far, but the estimated arrival time was 21 minutes away. Since it was the weekend, the city roads were crowded with cars. The traffic lights kept turning red, horns were honking from all directions, and Baek Kanghyun was sitting in the driver’s seat. A bed of nails would be more comfortable.

If there were something to talk about, this awkward atmosphere might let up even a little, but he couldn’t think of a single topic of conversation to share with him. It seemed absurd to talk about the weather or politics with Baek Kanghyun, and talking about work was equally unpleasant. He would be working his head off at the office starting tomorrow anyway, so he didn’t want to talk shop on his day off. Since Baek Kanghyun also remained silent, there was no reason for Seowon to speak first.

“What was it like when you were in school?”

When there were about 15 minutes left until their destination, Baek Kanghyun spoke up abruptly.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that all of a sudden… .”

Seowon guessed that the “school” he was referring to was “Korea University,” but he intentionally feigned ignorance.

“Assistant Manager Jeong, I’m asking what it was like when you attended Korea University.”

He couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know what kind of story Baek Kanghyun wanted to hear or why he brought up school so suddenly, and he didn’t particularly have anything to say about it. For Seowon, university life was divided only into the time before and after meeting Baek Kanghyun. For two out of the four years, he liked him, and for the remaining two years, he lived trying to erase him.

“There isn’t much to tell you. It was ordinary.”

“Did you do any clubs or anything?”

Thump-thump, thump-thump. His heart rate rose steeply. He wanted to act nonchalant, but his palms were quickly becoming wet. Clubs, elective classes—the common denominators he had forced into existence flashed by like a revolving lantern. They were things that were once Seowon’s everything.

“I did a little… then quit. I wasn’t very diligent about it either. I was too busy during school. I didn’t have the luxury to care about other things.”

“You must have lived diligently.”

“I made an effort.”

Baek Kanghyun gave a short laugh. Seowon, answering calmly without wavering, pointed ahead. They happened to be near his house. Since he didn’t want to talk about school anymore, Seowon pointed right in front of them and spoke.

“You can drop me off right there. There’s no need to go into the alley.”

“I’m already here, might as well just go in.”

“No, I’m really fine. There will be many cars because it’s the weekend. It’ll be hard for you to get the car back out, so I’ll just get off here.”

Seowon waited anxiously for Baek Kanghyun’s answer. Fortunately, he didn’t insist and pulled the car over submissively. Seowon said thank you in a voice as small as a crawling insect and hurried out of the car.

As soon as Seowon got out, Baek Kanghyun’s car departed immediately and sped away. Seowon felt relieved instead by his appearance of having not even a shred of lingering attachment. If he had been stubbornly insisting on going into the house together… just thinking about it made his head ache.

“Huu… .”

He dragged the slippers, which were far too large for Seowon, along the slope. Passing a convenience store, a laundry shop, and several villas, Seowon finally arrived home. He rested two or three times on the way up to the 5th floor. A loud growl came from his stomach. Thinking about it, he had barely eaten anything.

Beep-beep.

When he opened the door lock and entered the house, Seowon faced a home that bore the clear traces of his roll in the hay with Baek Kanghyun. He saw the bed that looked as if someone had trampled over it, clothes and pillows strewn about haphazardly, and towels crumpled up like scouring pads. But what shocked Seowon the most was Baek Kanghyun’s pheromones remaining in every corner of the house.

The thick, sticky scent of desire.

Covering his nose, Seowon opened every single window in the house and even turned on the fan. The humid midsummer air gradually filled the home.

He gathered the laundry roughly, threw it into the washing machine, and plopped down in a kitchen chair. He knew he had to eat something, but he had no appetite at all, as if sand were rolling around in his mouth. He hadn’t realized it while he was with him at Baek Kanghyun’s house, but now that he was home, it was clearly realized.

The fact that he had slept with him.

The expression the man wore as he ruthlessly pierced through him came back vividly.

<Do you like it?>

“I’ve truly gone crazy, crazy.”

Seowon leaned over the table, pressing his burning cheeks against the glass surface to cool them down. He was sincerely afraid of tomorrow arriving.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

He had only rested for one day, but the work was nearly ten times more than usual. On top of that, there was a departmental meeting on Monday morning, making time even tighter. Amidst the mountain of tasks that had to be handled by today, Seowon couldn’t even drink a sip of water properly and stared only at the monitor all morning.

“Assistant Manager Jeong, it’s lunchtime. Do that later. Are you very busy?”

“Yes, I’ll just finish up what I’m doing. You can go ahead first.”

“I thought your complexion would look better after taking leave, but it looks even worse. Make sure you eat lunch.”

“Thank you, Assistant Manager Seo.”

At Assistant Manager Seo Jiyeon’s kind consolation, Seowon responded with a bright smile. Even though the work was busy and difficult, he didn’t hate it. If he were idle, he would have just been worrying about Baek Kanghyun.

Glancing over the partition, his seat was already empty. The only people left in the office were Seowon and Assistant Manager Kim.

Yesterday, he had just hung up the laundry and dived straight into bed. After sleeping for nearly 12 hours, Seowon had recovered close to 80% of his stamina and was in fairly good condition. However, since he had to work hard again in the afternoon, he needed to rest during lunch, so he made up his mind to just eat somewhere nearby.

‘What’s on the menu at the cafeteria?’

Hoping for something with broth, like seolleongtang or spicy chicken soup, he got on the elevator. While going down to the cafeteria on the first basement floor, he fiddled with his mobile phone and read news headlines.

Ding!

It stopped once in the middle, and when he reflexively looked up, he saw a familiar face. Lee Jaehwan. It felt like it had been quite a long time since they met, so Seowon gave a faint smile and raised his hand.

“Long time no see.”

“Yeah.”

But Jaehwan’s attitude was a bit strange. He, who usually would have offered a warm greeting, laughed uncomfortably today and didn’t even raise a hand. Not stopping there, he stood far apart from Seowon, kept his mouth shut, and stared only at the LCD screen inside the elevator.