CRANK 19

I stared blankly at Woo Dobin, who had turned his back and was washing vegetables. Beneath his broad shoulders, I could see his subtly slim waist, leading down to thick, muscular thighs. I had thought his body was slender for his height, but looking at each part separately, that wasn’t the case at all.

“The tracksuit?”

Woo Dobin turned his head. This time, the contours of his firm chest were revealed.

“Isn’t it a bit small?”

I glared at him with unnecessary dissatisfaction.

“It was the largest size they had. It’s a Korean brand.”

Oh, is that so? You might as well just brag. Seeing Woo Dobin stating the fact so calmly, I couldn’t help but let my expression twist.

“Why does a model have such a great body? No, that sounds weird… Aren’t models usually a bit on the thin side?”

“It varies, of course. Well, like I said, I was in haute couture, so I was quite thin back in my modeling days.”

“Then did you build up your body while becoming an actor?”

“Yes, as I mentioned, my first role was… a criminal, so.”

Come to think of it, he did say he referenced my psychopathic acting. I took my phone out of my pocket and typed Woo Dobin’s name into a search portal.

“Sunbae-nim, what are you doing?”

“Searching you, what else.”

“Why are you searching for me when I’m right here in the flesh?”

“I was going to look at your model photos and your filmography…”

Pfft—a laugh escaped through my teeth. It was because I saw the photos of Woo Dobin from his modeling days.

It was… well, it wasn’t that they weren’t cool. He was clearly tall, handsome, and had a slim figure, but the problem was the clothes… they were of a variety hard for an average person to understand.

A padded vest made of see-through plastic (I wondered what kind of insulation effect that could possibly have), a dress that reached his ankles (it looked so narrow it would be hard to take even a single step), bags hung all over his bare body (I didn’t know you could stand on a runway wearing nothing but bags)…

“What are you looking at?”

Woo Dobin circled around the island counter and leaned his head in next to me.

“What is this?”

“Ah, that was Milan SS.”

“Huh?”

“The one next to it is Seoul, and that one is the same show. Do you see how they used PVC material to create a sense of uniformity? It was all the rage back then.”

Woo Dobin explained, pointing out the plastic padding and the dresses I’d been sneering at one by one. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go…. I’d expected him to be embarrassed, but it didn’t seem like Woo Dobin was embarrassed at all.

Right. It wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about. This was just work, and as he said, since it was high-end haute couture brand stuff, it was something average people wouldn’t understand. It was, in a sense, a form of art. It was true that I, the one mocking him, didn’t know what I was talking about. Yes, that was all true, but….

Why? I thought of Sunset Beach Angel. The time he’d shoved his debut album at me, or when I’d praised the concept for being good. I should have explained it as confidently as he did. That the bridge was like a medium connecting this world to the digital world, and the goggles were like a symbol that humans couldn’t see the digital world with their bare eyes.

Why couldn’t I do that? Because I was embarrassed. Of my past, of my idol days, of Sunset Beach Angel.

An unnecessary wave of annoyance rose up, so I pushed away Woo Dobin’s face, which was leaning against mine.

“Why?”

“Get lost.”

“Whyyy. Why are you in a bad mood all of a sudden?”

Woo Dobin rubbed his hair against my chest as if acting cute. I’d thought he was like a dog, but now he was behaving as if he’d actually turned into one.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re clearly unhappy about something. Why? What is it?”

“I said forget it.”

He was a guy who never gave you a moment to feel depressed. Or even a moment to think. Even in that, his lack of situational awareness—wait, his sharp intuition—to hurriedly lighten the mood annoyed me.

I pushed Woo Dobin away roughly and tapped my phone. As I exited the image search, Woo Dobin’s profile page popped up. Below the painfully handsome profile photo, his height of 189cm was displayed proudly.

I thought, I should stop looking, and was about to close the internet tab when something caught my eye.

“Huh?”

“Why?”

Woo Dobin, who was still hovering next to me, tilted his head.

“Do you have a personal social media account?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Not the one run by your agency?”

“I find it more comfortable to manage it myself.”

When I clicked the address linked to his personal information, it switched to the social media app.

“Do you use it, too, Sunbae-nim? You have the app?”

“I just have an account. It’s inconvenient if you don’t have an ID when you want to browse occasionally.”

I gave a vague answer and scrolled through Woo Dobin’s social media. Most of it was his own photos. When I clicked on the most recent one, there was Woo Dobin, smiling brightly while holding a trophy and a bouquet of flowers. Seeing the familiar hair and outfit, I knew for sure it was the SAW awards. My ridiculous first encounter with him came to mind.

“Did it come out well?”

Woo Dobin leaned his face in again and swiped the photos to the side. I saw Woo Dobin kissing the trophy, then Woo Dobin hugging the bouquet in his arms, in sequence.

Underneath, there were hashtags like #SAW and #WooDobin.

“You’re a king of communication more than I thought….”

“People told me I had to do this?”

“Well… I suppose so.”

In reality, I didn’t know much about it either, so I brushed it off. Below the hashtags, there was a post Woo Dobin had written. It was similar to his acceptance speech. The agency manager, the director, the staff, the fans….

“You even put here….”

Just like in his acceptance speech, my name was mentioned there, and there was even a heart attached to the side.

Lastly, thanks to Hoyoon sunbae who presented the award♡.

A heart, a heart….

“Are you insane?”

Without realizing it, I looked at Woo Dobin with my mouth wide open. Woo Dobin just smiled sweetly with a look that said he didn’t understand what the fuss was about.

“Why?”

“Why would you put a heart?”

“It’s my heart.”

He didn’t even forget to say it shamelessly. I turned my gaze back to the phone in a hurry. Along with the 100,000+ likes, there were about 2,500 comments. When I clicked the icon, the comments sorted by most likes unfolded one by one.

Most of the comments were congratulating him on the award and admiring Woo Dobin’s handsome face. Among them, one stood out. It was a comment that had 98 likes.

Comments

doho123 — Mmm~ delicious.

Delicious? What on earth? Seeing the replies attached to it, I clicked it subconsciously.

Comments

doho123 — Mmm~ delicious.

doddydobin — Hoyoon sunbae-nim♡ sound of rapid clicking…. Hoyoon sunbae-nim♡ sound of rapid clicking…. Hoyoon sunbae-nim♡ sound of rapid clicking…. Hoyoon sunbae-nim♡ sound of rapid clicking….

haochi — Slurp-gulpslurp-slurp cough… cough…

e.west.sea — Please eat slowly, the person above;

xxxhuxxx.xx – Mister, you eat well, don’t you?

katarina_lovely — oppa, eng plz:)

Besides that, it was full of comments overflowing with ‘lol’s. — except for the last one — Even though it was clearly Korean, I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

What does all of this even mean? Delicious? What Woo Dobin uploaded was his own selfie. There was no mention of food anywhere. On top of that, these replies were obsessed with me and the heart.

“Do you know what all this means?”

“Mmm…. I wonder.”

Woo Dobin slipped away from my side and entered the kitchen.

“What is supposed to be ‘delicious’?”

“I told you, I don’t know?”

Woo Dobin took a long piece of salmon out of the fridge, placed it on the cutting board, and began to slice it. Just a moment ago, he had been stuck to my side leaning his face in, but now he seemed as if he really wanted to change the subject.

The more he did that, the more my interest burned. Delicious, delicious…. On top of that, telling someone to ‘eat slowly.’ What was delicious, and what were they eating?

Mmm…. Is he handsome enough that people want to ‘eat’ him? Like the feeling of ‘he’s so cute I want to bite him’?

I turned on the portal and searched for things like ‘why is delicious comment’ or ‘reason for delicious,’ but only cafe posts like ‘I tried it because they said it was delicious… please comment~,’ or columns titled ‘Is the grass greener on the other side, why?’ came up.

“What on earth is it?”

Before I knew it, my useless curiosity took precedence over the fact that Woo Dobin had attached a heart after my name. While I continued to search by changing search terms, Woo Dobin sliced all the salmon, made the dressing, trimmed the vegetables, and finished the salmon salad.

“Go ahead and start eating first.”