ETP Ch 73

Knock, knock.

After finishing his morning wash, Sungyeon knocked on Yoohyun’s door.

“Sunbae-nim? It’s morning! You have to wake up!”

Knock, knock, knock.

He knocked on the door once more, but there was no sound from inside.

“Hmm. As expected.”

Based on his past experiences waking Yoohyun up in the morning, a few knocks on the door wouldn’t do the trick. So, he was just about to put all his strength into his fist when—

“Good morning.”

The door slid open, and Yoohyun appeared.

It was surprising enough that Yoohyun was already up, but he was perfectly dressed as if he had already finished all his preparations. He was wearing a neat, charcoal-colored henley neck cashmere sweater and black slacks, showing off his long legs to their fullest.

Looking as if he was ready to leave at any moment, Sungyeon stared at him with a surprised face.

“Sunbae-nim……?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you have a 10 o’clock class today?”

“I do.”

You do, so why did you wake up and get ready so early? With a look full of puzzlement, Sungyeon walked towards the kitchen. Well, it’s nice that he’s up without me having to wake him, anyway.

“What should we have for breakfast?”

Sungyeon asked, opening the refrigerator door as usual.

“Let’s eat what you like. Rice with fried eggs should be good.”

“Uh……?”

“What, you don’t feel like rice today?”

Strange.

Sungyeon tilted his head once again. He’s not the type of person who speaks with such specific consideration for others, so why is he acting like this today?

While Sungyeon was puzzled, Yoohyun picked up four eggs with his large hand.

“I’ll make the fried eggs.”

“Gasp, no! Sunbae-nim, I’ll do it!”

“No.”

Yoohyun raised his arm high, avoiding Bokseung who was reaching for the eggs.

In front of him, Bokseung jumped up and down, trying to snatch them. But no matter what, Kim Bokseung was Kim Bokseung. There was no way the kid’s fingertips would even touch the eggs.

Meanwhile, Taeon, oblivious to everything, also stretched his paws and meowed, following Bokseung.

The combination was so cute that Yoohyun couldn’t hold it in and let out a laugh.

“Ack! Sunbae-nim, the eggs! The eggs will break!”

Contrary to the cheerful Yoohyun, Sungyeon was worried about the well-being of the eggs precariously perched on his palm. It was obvious that if left in Yoohyun’s hands, they would become scrambled eggs with shells, not fried eggs, so he desperately wished for Yoohyun to return the eggs to him.

“They won’t break. And I can at least make fried eggs. I sometimes do it when I work part-time, you know.”

“Sunbae-nim.”

“What.”

Sungyeon, who had given up after a few more jumps, exhausted, called out to Yoohyun in a gloomy voice. Yoohyun, still holding his arm up with his tireless muscles, tilted his head.

“When did you ever make fried eggs, Sunbae-nim?! The only thing you’ve done is make scrambled eggs a few times for the chicken mayo rice bowls! How many eggs have you thrown away trying to make fried eggs!”

“No, I succeeded when you weren’t here.”

Once.

Swallowing the last word, Yoohyun insisted he was right until the end and quickly poured oil into the frying pan. Then, he pushed Bokseung away with his rock-hard shoulder.

“The stove is dangerous. Go stand over there.”

“Yes, it’s dangerous, so I’ll do it.”

“No.”

Defeated by Yoohyun’s intensity—no, pushed back by his shoulder check—Sungyeon headed to the dining table with a dissatisfied face. And, as if to say ‘I’ll be watching how well you do,’ he stared at Yoohyun’s back without blinking once.

Tsk, his back is damn broad, though.

Yoohyun’s back, bathed in the sunlight coming through the window, looked truly dependable. It was the kind of back any man would want. Envy and jealousy soon filled Sungyeon’s eyes, which had been glaring at him sharply.

“Done.”

How much time had passed? Yoohyun wiped the sweat from his forehead with a proud expression, as if he had accomplished something grand, even though he hadn’t done anything particularly difficult.

“Success?”

“Of course.”

In the frying pan Yoohyun presented, the yolks were all broken, but there was something that could, at least, be called a fried egg. Sungyeon clapped lightly and gave him a thumbs-up.

He hadn’t trusted him enough to even let him near the kitchen before, but now it seemed he could be entrusted with simple things.

He also thought that he should teach him how to make rolled omelets next time.

“Oh, it’s a real success?”

“This is nothing.”

A small laugh spread between the two, their heads close together over the 20cm diameter frying pan.

Sungyeon quickly brought plates and they divided the eggs, two for each. Then, he put Yoohyun’s fried eggs and soy sauce into a large bowl and mixed it up skillfully. As he was busily moving his hands, Yoohyun called out to him.

“Kim Bokseung.”

“Yes?”

Sungyeon shifted only his eyes to look at Yoohyun. Yoohyun gave a small cough and then asked something out of the blue.

“You, what do you like?”

“Uh…… huh?”

“I’m asking what you like.”

A sudden interrogation? Sungyeon, who had been moving his spoon diligently, put it down and observed Yoohyun. His expression was impassive, but the tips of his ears were slightly red, and the pheromones he could feel were also ticklish.

Wh-what the! What’s with this atmosphere so early in the morning!

Contrary to his inner self that was screaming in horror, Bokseung’s body, attuned to his emotions, responded faithfully. His fingertips tingled, and a slight heat rose to his face.

Sungyeon, worried his flushed face would be discovered, fanned his cheeks with his palms and shot a sidelong glance at Yoohyun.

“Sunbae-nim.”

“Yeah.”

“Th-the pheromones, please…….”

Startled by Bokseung’s words, Yoohyun quickly reined in his pheromones.

Yoohyun was flustered as well, as he had never once made such a mistake before. If Bokseung hadn’t told him, he wouldn’t even have known he was releasing his pheromones.

“Sorry, is it very uncomfortable?”

“No. Rather than uncomfortable…….”

“Rather than uncomfortable?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

Sungyeon had never experienced this kind of atmosphere or situation before. Such direct and blatant emotions were hard to endure with a clear mind.

How do people with secondary genders endure this kind of embarrassment?

People who are dating must be emitting pheromones at each other even more intensely than this! How do they go about their daily lives when they must feel embarrassed and hot just by breathing?!

Then, because Yoohyun immediately apologized, that in itself was also embarrassing, so Sungyeon was busy fanning his face with his hands to cool the heat.

“It’s not unpleasant, is it?”

“No, it’s not unpleasant.”

They weren’t that sticky or dark a pheromone. That was honestly why he was even more unsure of how to react.

If yesterday’s confession had been a lie, he could have continued to live comfortably as before. Or if it had been said with impure intentions, he would have been on his way to the police station right now. But unfortunately, neither was the case with Yoohyun.

It meant that the confession he made yesterday was a confession filled with his sincere feelings.

“Then that’s fine. I’ll be more careful from now on. Sorry.”

Yoohyun offered another apology.

“Aaack! That too!”

“What.”

Sungyeon pointed a finger at Yoohyun with a look of disgust. Yoohyun’s eyebrow twitched at that, but that was it; he didn’t have any other particular reaction.

“Sunbae-nim, why are you apologizing to me so meekly?! That wasn’t your character!”

“Character? What kind of character was I.”

“What kind of character, you ask! You wouldn’t return my greetings, you’d just scoff at me, you wouldn’t reply to my texts, and at the PC bang, far from being kind to the customers, you’d just glare at them with a scary face!”

Bokseung’s small, white fingers folded one by one. It seemed he had quite a lot of complaints, as the kid was even fuming through his nose.

Ah, I shouldn’t laugh here.

While his head was thinking ‘don’t’, Bokseung’s tantrum was just too cute. Yoohyun, naturally, failed to control the corners of his mouth from creeping up.

Because of that, it was as clear as day that Bokseung’s temper would flare up even more.

“Are you laughing?! Sir?!”

“Keuk.”

Whether Bokseung was flabbergasted or not, Yoohyun was amused. He liked that he had made the side dish that was about to go into Bokseung’s mouth with his own hands, and he quite liked the atmosphere, which wasn’t as awkward as he’d expected after yesterday’s confession.

Best of all was the fact that Bokseung’s pheromones, reacting to his own, were not bad.

It was a faint and blurry pheromone that barely brushed the tip of his nose, but the emotion contained within was clearly positive. Yoohyun took a deep breath, wanting to find the scent lingering in the air.

“Kim Bokseung.”

“Yes, wait, I wasn’t speaking informally…… I added the honorific at the end, you heard that, right?”

Yoohyun wiped the expression from his face and called the kid’s name. At that, Bokseung, feeling guilty, flinched.

Yoohyun rested his chin on one hand and smiled deeply.

“I’m courting you right now. If I can make a good impression with words like these, I can apologize 100 times, 1,000 times. What’s the problem with an apology? If you want, I’ll pluck the stars and the moon for you.”

After Yoohyun’s long speech, silence fell around the dining table.

And 3 seconds later.

“Crazy!!”

Bokseung spat out a curse, thoroughly disgusted.

The kid’s face was scrunched up as if he had heard something truly unspeakable. Bokseung rubbed his arms, which were covered in goosebumps, nonstop.

“Yeah, you’re right. I think I’m crazy about you. Kim Bokseung.”

Yoohyun laughed even more cheerfully than before and placed the spoon back into the hand of the still-trembling kid.

Yoohyun was delighted. It was several times more enjoyable than what he had vaguely imagined when he thought, ‘It would be nice to be sweet with Bokseung.’ Is this why people say seeing is believing? Yoohyun nodded his head as if he had come to a great realization.

He even found Bokseung’s genuinely disgusted reaction endearing and wanted to engrave it all in his mind.