TSG 86

“You two seem to get along really well?”

It was already clear that Park Ha-seong was an extroverted person who liked people, especially from how he would go on business trips without notice or take an interest in Se-hyun’s personal matters. But it was surprising to see Yoo Jin-ha, who was usually cautious around strangers, opening up like this.

“Ah, maybe it’s because you seemed familiar from the first time I saw you, so I felt more drawn to you?”

“Oh? Now that you mention it, have we met before?”

As soon as Park Ha-seong mentioned that Jin-ha looked familiar, Yoo Jin-ha suddenly seemed to remember something and raised his voice in surprise.

“At the L Hotel charity party!”

“Oh? I did the interior design for that place!”

“Really?”

Jin-ha’s eyes widened, and he even clapped his hands.

“I thought the interior design there was really well done at the time. I stayed for a long time and looked at it in detail.”

“Really? What did you like about it?”

“The use of space. It was a limited area, but you made it feel so much bigger. I was really impressed.”

As Jin-ha excitedly murmured his thoughts, Se-hyun glanced at Park Ha-seong with a sense of unease before letting out a sigh.

‘Of course.’

Talking about interior design with someone who took pride in their work was bound to make Park Ha-seong practically beam with joy.

“Jin-ha, you have a good eye. Don’t you think so, Se-hyun?”

“He works in the design department, after all.”

Se-hyun rested his chin on his hand, half resigned. It was clear that day that they’d get along even better since they did similar work.

He was already used to observing the world going on without him from a step behind. Se-hyun absently withdrew from their conversation.

As the two were engrossed in discussing design, Se-hyun focused on the beer in front of him. He drank one glass, then another… The empty beer glasses were taken away by staff each time, so he didn’t know how much he’d drunk, but it was quite a bit.

‘I wonder if Shin Tae-oh has left work?’

Did he get home okay?

‘Is he upset that I didn’t drive him home?’

It’s just driving, what’s the big deal? Or so he tried to tell himself, but he couldn’t help but sigh. Just a small turn of his head, and he could see Shin Tae-oh, and see his lips—so how could it be nothing?

“So, now that you and Jin-ha are getting along, and things are warming up…”

As Park Ha-seong trailed off, Yoo Jin-ha turned to look at Se-hyun, almost as if it had been planned. Receiving the gaze of both Park Ha-seong and Yoo Jin-ha at the same time, Se-hyun awkwardly put down the beer glass he had been holding.

Suddenly finding himself the center of attention snapped him out of his thoughts.

“I’m curious about Se-hyun’s love life.”

“What love life? I’m not even dating, what love are you talking about?”

If this hadn’t been a meeting to hear about his personal life, he would have just kept quiet.

Se-hyun put down his half-finished beer glass and recounted the story of his business trip to Ulsan as dryly as possible.

He went to Ulsan with Shin Tae-oh and solved the problem quicker than expected due to Tae-oh’s quick thinking. They had some time left, so they had coffee and came straight back to Seoul. Nothing happened— was his highly subjective explanation.

“You just had coffee and came back?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because we were done with what we needed to do.”

“So you’re saying nothing else happened?”

Yoo Jin-ha seemed to want to hear the untold part of the story, but Se-hyun kept his mouth shut.

“If it’s Tae-oh hyung, I’m sure he would have done something.”

Faced with this subtle pressure suggesting that surely something must have happened, Se-hyun pretended not to notice and turned his head away. Then Park Ha-seong spoke.

“Jin-ha, you must have a personal relationship with the CEO too.”

It seemed Park Ha-seong started piecing things together after hearing Jin-ha refer to Tae-oh as ‘hyung.’

“I know Tae-oh hyung and Se-hyun hyung the best.”

“You do, Jin-ha?”

“Yes, of course.”

When Yoo Jin-ha confidently asserted this, Park Ha-seong tilted his head in curiosity, sensing something was off. Just as Se-hyun was about to step in to diffuse the tension, Jin-ha’s next words made the situation even more awkward.

“I think I might know them better.”

Park Ha-seong muttered this to himself, but Yoo Jin-ha immediately clenched his fists, his forehead furrowed as if he absolutely couldn’t accept it. Se-hyun, who had been attempting to calm them down, now expressed his own confusion.

‘Why are they like this? I should be the one who knows best.’

Se-hyun couldn’t understand why the two were competing like this. Trying to defuse the escalating tension, he attempted to intervene.

“Both of you, please stop…”

“Just a moment, Se-hyun. I can’t let this slide.”

“Me neither.”

Park Ha-seong and Yoo Jin-ha responded to Se-hyun in turn, their words different yet eerily similar. Se-hyun looked at them both in disbelief, as if they were telling him to stay out of it.

“But I’m the one involved—why are you leaving me out?”

“Because the person involved usually knows the least.”

When Park Ha-seong gave this reasoning, Yoo Jin-ha nodded in agreement, seeming to share the same sentiment. Jin-ha then spoke directly to Ha-seong, enunciating his words clearly.

“I knew first that Tae-oh hyung liked Se-hyun hyung.”

“Really? I heard something directly from Se-hyun.”

“What did you hear?”

Yoo Jin-ha asked suspiciously upon hearing that Ha-seong had heard something directly from Se-hyun. Ha-seong scratched the back of his head.

“I’m not sure if I should say this…”

Both Se-hyun and Jin-ha felt equally frustrated as Park Ha-seong hesitated to share what he knew. Curious about what Ha-seong was about to say, Se-hyun urged him on.

“I know the truth, so just tell me.”

Se-hyun sounded determined to hear the truth and judge for himself, prompting Park Ha-seong to speak lightly.

“You mentioned something about a love story. It’s real, isn’t it?”

“…”

Se-hyun was speechless.

“I told you we’re not dating.”

While Se-hyun couldn’t deny that Shin Tae-oh liked him, what Park Ha-seong was suggesting wasn’t true. He wondered on what basis Ha-seong was claiming that Se-hyun and Tae-oh were dating.

“But… Se-hyun, you like the CEO too, don’t you?”

“Liking someone doesn’t mean you’re dating them.”

“That’s not what I meant…”

As Se-hyun tried to draw a clear line, he suddenly reflected on what he had just said.

‘Do I like him?’

He had just casually remarked that liking someone doesn’t automatically mean you’re dating. He had said it as if liking Shin Tae-oh was a given.

‘Have I ever admitted to liking Shin Tae-oh?’

Se-hyun likes Shin Tae-oh.

It wasn’t just a slight wavering; he had completely fallen for him. There was a big difference between acknowledging his feelings and not. His rapidly beating heart refused to calm down, jumbling all of Se-hyun’s thoughts.

“I’ve only been thinking that we shouldn’t date.”

Knowing the original story, a secret that set him apart from others, had become a barrier that prevented Se-hyun from accepting his own feelings.

⍣⍣⍣

“What’s so great about him?”

“He’s perfect. I’m smitten.”

“Perfect? You’ve got some rose-tinted glasses on.”

At Lee Jin-ho’s incredulous response, Shin Tae-oh silently smiled and took a sip of his drink. Despite the high alcohol content of the whiskey, it tasted strangely sweet like honey.

“It wasn’t me, it was Ahn Se-hyun who was the honey.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Se-hyun said I was like honey.”

“Se-hyun did?”

Lee Jin-ho looked at him with doubtful eyes, as if he couldn’t believe it. But Shin Tae-oh was confident. It was true, after all.

“If you can’t believe it, go ask him yourself.”

“It’s weird. You’re so insistent that I can’t even say it’s not true.”

Lee Jin-ho tried to find another meaning behind Se-hyun’s words, wondering if it was meant in a sticky or clingy sense, but deep down he knew it was just forced reasoning.

“Why am I so hung up on this? If you’re happy, that’s good.”

Seeing Shin Tae-oh continue to smile made it seem like things might actually work out between the two. But then, Tae-oh suddenly frowned and cursed under his breath, catching Lee Jin-ho off guard.

“You were smiling just now. Why are you acting like this? Are you crazy?”

“I don’t know if it’s okay to like him this much.”

“What nonsense is that?”

“What if he disappears because I like him?”

Normally, when someone spouts a certain level of nonsense, you’d dismiss it as just that. But when it’s genuine nonsense, you can’t even bring yourself to say anything. Jin-ho found himself in that exact situation.

Just as Jin-ho was thinking about hitting Tae-oh on the back of the head, Tae-oh muttered quietly.

“The world is a bit harsh to me.”

“From what I see, it’s been very generous to you.”

Looks, wealth, ability… the world had given Tae-oh everything, so hearing him say it was harsh made Jin-ho slowly raise his fist. If he kept saying things deserving a punch, he’d give him just one.

“If I were the main character, it would have been better, but I’m not. It keeps taking things away from me.”

“You’re drunk. That’s why you’re talking nonsense.”

Lee Jin-ho unclenched his fist and gently patted the back of Shin Tae-oh’s head. Caught off guard by his own foolish words, Tae-oh gave a bitter smile and took another sip of his drink. He wanted to be happy, but he couldn’t fully embrace it.

“This time, he won’t disappear.”

At Jin-ho’s blunt words, Shin Tae-oh regained his lost smile.

⍣⍣⍣

Se-hyun tilted his beer glass back and forth, lost in thought.

Knowing the original story was a huge advantage for him. For one, he could identify which characters to avoid, and he had achieved enough stability so that his parents wouldn’t have to struggle too much.

What he wanted was to live a very stable life by Shin Tae-oh’s side. Whenever Tae-oh bought him gifts that were too extravagant to handle, he would return them and only keep the ones that seemed appropriate, treating them like bonuses.

He thought he could just live like that.

But everything got tangled up. Shin Tae-oh expressed his feelings for Se-hyun instead of Yoo Jin-ha, and part of the original story Se-hyun knew went off track.

His knowledge of the original story became shackles constraining him.

‘How foolish.’

He felt pathetic for clinging to it and watching it unfold as if it were entertaining.

“I think you’re drinking too fast… You’ll get drunk at this rate.”

Park Ha-seong said as he tried to take the beer glass from Se-hyun’s hand, but Se-hyun took it back.

“I’m not drunk.”

“You’ve had over 3000cc by now, and you say you’re not drunk? You must have an incredible tolerance.”

Park Ha-seong roughly calculated the total amount and looked a bit overwhelmed. As Se-hyun lightly wiped his damp lips with the back of his hand, Yoo Jin-ha cautiously asked.

“You do like Tae-oh hyung, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t…”

Se-hyun shook his head, and Jin-ha’s eyes showed a hint of tension. Was Se-hyun really ignoring his feelings, just as he feared?

“If I say I do, will everything be undone?”