PUCKD Ch 32

“Let’s go. Can’t you hear me? Get up.”

“What’s wrong, all of a sudden? CEO-nim, I’m sorry. I think Shin Hojae ate something weird.”

“Get up and walk. Put your shoes on.”

Shin Hojae relentlessly pulled his brother up and pushed him out into the hallway. Shin Yeonjae, who was being pushed towards the entrance in a daze, offered a small protest.

“What’s with you, seriously. You must be crazy…. I don’t have my shoes, you idiot!”

For a moment, Hojae thought, Oops, but figured he could just make him wear his own sneakers for now. The important thing was to get out of this house as quickly as possible, even by a minute.

No matter how urgent the situation was, he shouldn’t have brought his brother to this house.

He should never have let his Alpha younger brother be seen by a vulgar and shallow man who would do anything to become an Alpha.

Curses directed at himself lingered on the tip of his tongue.

“Yeonjae-ssi. You can wear the slippers at the entrance. They’ll be big, but you should be able to walk in them.”

Just then, Junghyun’s calm voice came from behind.

“Don’t listen to him. Wear mine.”

“Huh…? Then what about you, hyung…?”

“Put them on, quickly. Let’s go.”

By then, Shin Yeonjae seemed to have sensed the unusual atmosphere. He glanced at his older brother and did as he was told, slipping his feet into Shin Hojae’s large sneakers.

Shin Hojae, wearing only his socks, went outside and called a taxi, putting Shin Yeonjae in the back seat first. Then, after telling him to wait a moment, he turned back towards Kwon Junghyun’s house.

Kwon Junghyun was standing in front of the door. It seemed he had watched him call the taxi and put Shin Yeonjae inside from there. Shin Hojae walked straight towards him, looking him in the eye.

Unfiltered words surged, trying to force their way out of his throat. Normally, he would have tried to suppress them somehow, but now, he felt no need to.

Kwon Junghyun had crossed a line. The absolute last line he could tolerate.

“I will only tolerate this until today.”

Standing one step higher, Kwon Junghyun looked down at Shin Hojae with his arms crossed.

“Don’t you ever think of laying a hand on Shin Yeonjae, no, on my family, again.”

“…….”

“Whatever it is the CEO wants, I will play along sufficiently, so I’m telling you to be satisfied with that.”

Shin Hojae said with a growl. Kwon Junghyun simply watched him without a word.

His cheek twitched with anger. As if to soothe him, the lukewarm air of the early summer night brushed past Hojae’s cheek.

Beep-!

The horn of the taxi Shin Yeonjae was in blared.

Shin Hojae slowly pulled his gaze away from Kwon Junghyun, then turned sharply and left his house. Until Hojae got into the taxi and closed the door, Kwon Junghyun just stood there, silently watching.

Only after the car started moving did Shin Yeonjae, who had been cautiously watching until then, speak carefully.

“Why did you do that…? I feel so sorry towards the CEO….”

“Don’t you ever say that person’s name again. Don’t even think about it. No, if possible, just forget what happened today altogether.”

“Why should I? He was trying to help me so much. Even earlier….”

“Shin Yeonjae,” Hojae’s low, warning voice made Yeonjae flinch and shrink back.

“You still haven’t learned your lesson after what happened today.”

“…No, that bastard today was a really bad guy, but the CEO is-.”

“That bastard is the same kind of bastard. No, he’s worse. Seducing a naive Alpha like you…. Haa. Anyway, nothing good will come from being close to him.”

The thought of Kwon Junghyun doing the same thing to his younger brother that he did to him made the back of his neck grow stiff with heat.

They were acts so vulgar and dirty that he couldn’t even bring himself to explain them to his brother.

“But you’re close to him….”

Shin Yeonjae pouted his lower lip and fiddled with the hoodie of the bear-shaped keychain on his bag.

“I’m not close to him because I want to be. That person is my-.”

Shin Hojae cut himself off and squeezed his own knees tightly.

The view outside the car window, now night, was pitch black as if a curtain had been drawn. The only light was the cold-colored moon floating in the sky.

The small dust particles that had glittered like gold thread and the warm color of the man’s eyes had long since vanished under the sharp, silver moonlight.

Shin Hojae looked out the window and muttered softly.

“He’s the team owner.”

As if to drill it into himself.

Shin Yeonjae glanced at his brother’s side profile, which felt somewhat unfamiliar, and leaned back against the seat himself.

Not even the common sound of a radio flowed inside the taxi.

“Gangneung?”

—Yeah. Next week, after the practice match, for one night and two days. You can make time, right?

Shin Hojae, lying in bed, stared into the air for a moment.

He hadn’t understood Minchul’s words at once. To be precise, the context of a conversation about suddenly going on a trip to Gangneung.

Had they ever talked about going on a trip? He tried to recall but couldn’t remember anything specific.

Lately, he had been trying to empty his mind, even on purpose, to focus on training.

If he let his mind relax just a little, the events of that day, at the tailor shop and at Kwon Junghyun’s house, would mix together indiscriminately and churn his insides.

As he was lost in thought and silent for a moment, a chiding voice came from the other side of the phone.

—Shin Hojae…. Don’t you dare tell me you really forgot. It’s Doomin’s birthday.

“Ah.”

—Not ‘Ah.’ You didn’t really forget, did you? You really-.

“Of course I know Yook Doomin’s birthday. I just didn’t know it was next week.”

—What kind of nonsense…. Anyway, you better clear your schedule.

Shin Hojae picked up the desk calendar from the table beside his bed. The calendar, which his mom had gotten from the bank at the beginning of the year, was stopped three whole months ago.

The desk and bed he had used since middle school were now too small for Hojae. The desk, bought in elementary school, was only used for putting his bag on anyway, and changing the bed was too much of a hassle. He barely ever looked at the desk calendar.

Hojae flipped over three pages to the July calendar. The practice match was next Thursday, and the following two days were training-free.

“Alright. But why Gangneung?”

Normally, he would keep his days off free to fulfill his contract with Kwon Junghyun, but Hojae answered affirmatively first. He didn’t want to see Kwon Junghyun for a while.

The unfulfilled time would be carried over, which was a burden in its own way, but for now, that was better.

—You know that game prize we got during field training? The MJ Gangneung Resort accommodation voucher. I’m planning to use that. Doomin seemed to really want to go, he asked me a few times who I was going to use it with.

“Ah, right.”

He vaguely remembered.

The prize Ji Minchul had received for winning first place in the teamwork training. At the mention of an accommodation voucher, Yook Doomin’s eyes had lit up like a hyena’s. That was back when Ji Minchul was being awkward with Doomin.

—Where would I use it? I was planning to use it with you guys anyway. Oh, but don’t tell Doomin yet. I told him we’re going for a night, but I haven’t told him the location yet. I think he’ll like it as a surprise.

“Yeah. He’ll like it. Yook Doomin is obsessed with his birthday.”

—Hey, it’s only once a year, isn’t that natural? You know he’s really looking forward to it even if he doesn’t say it, right?

“Yeah.”

Hojae let out a small laugh. He remembered being chewed out for ten years after missing Yook Doomin’s birthday party in middle school.

He had heard that in the year Shin Hojae missed the birthday party, Ji Minchul had gone to great lengths for the unusually depressed Doomin.

Hojae found out only later that Doomin, raised strictly by busy parents (Minchul and Hojae thought Yook Doomin’s current personality was a reaction to being raised by such parents), had never had his birthday properly celebrated.

Indeed, even when he thought back to their children’s hockey club days, Doomin’s parents had never once come to pick him up.

For Hojae, for whom it was natural for family to celebrate birthdays grandly, it was an unimaginable thing.

Since then, Ji Minchul had taken it upon himself to celebrate Yook Doomin’s birthday with a sense of mission.

In their first year of high school, he randomly sent a group text to the entire student body saying, ‘I want to create an unforgettable birthday for my friend Doomin,’ causing Yook Doomin’s phone battery to die from all the congratulatory messages (Yook Doomin loved it). In college, he had scraped together his allowance and part-time job money to come to Canada with him on a flight that took 36 hours and three transfers (it was exceptionally cheap).

It would have been better if they came to Canada during the hockey season, but it was purely because he wanted to celebrate Doomin’s birthday together with Shin Hojae.

To be honest, Shin Hojae didn’t have anyone he could call a friend other than those two. So of course, the two were special to Hojae as well, but there was something much more special about Minchul and Doomin’s bond. Something he could never intrude upon.

As he was thinking this, Hojae said, “Ah,” as if something had occurred to him.

“But is it right for him to spend it with us this year too? He’s a taken man now.”

—Ah…. About that. It seems his boyfriend said he’s not free on the day itself.

“Really? His birthday is the most important thing to Yook Doomin. I guess he doesn’t know that yet.”

—Yeah. From the way he sounded, it feels like they fought a bit. Just last week, he came back from a date all excited and was rubbing it in our faces.

“Last week?”

—Yeah. Didn’t you see his Insta Story? They basically toured Seoul from end to end all day. Ate at a buffet at some hotel in Sogong-dong, hit up a café in Seongsu-dong, then went to a club in Hongdae. Isn’t he crazy?

Hojae, who had been listening to the conversation absentmindedly, looked up at that.

Last week, Sogong-dong?

Was that the day he saw Yook Doomin at the tailor shop?

Shin Hojae recalled the image of Yook Doomin he had seen. The way he had affectionately linked arms with the person he was walking with at the crosswalk.

Thinking about it now, it was a scene that anyone would have identified as a couple. However.

“…….”

A faint vertical line creased Shin Hojae’s brow.

—Anyway, Yook Doomin is feeling a bit down because of his boyfriend, so let’s have a ton of fun so he doesn’t have time for depressing thoughts. Ah, what are you going to buy for a present?

The person he had seen at that time was definitely….

A man.