DP Side Story 2, Episode 1
by BrieDeep Pivot Side Story 2, Episode 1
- Baby, Darling, Baby
Cha Yeon-woo is stubborn to the bone.
Once a title stuck to his tongue, it was like a cursed doll—no matter how many times he tried to toss it away, it always came back, refusing to leave. Once a team leader, always a team leader. Once a lieutenant, always a lieutenant.
“Yes, hyung.”
…Or so Ji Seo-joon thought.
“Oh, really? On Wednesday? Yes, hyung. Yes, yes, oh, really? The lieutenant and I are fine with that. Alright, then we’ll see you then.”
Early summer’s vague warmth had just begun to peek out. And because of a single syllable that came from Cha Yeon-woo’s mouth, Seo-joon was struck with the blazing heat of mid-summer.
“…Yeon-woo.”
He stared at Yeon-woo, who had just put down his phone.
“Who were you talking to just now?”
With a calm and innocent expression, as if nothing had happened, Yeon-woo replied.
“Cheong-oh hyung. He said we should push the meeting back by one day next week.”
Seo-joon doubted his ears once again. He felt like the blood from the crown of his head drained straight to his toes.
“Cheong-oh… hyung?”
“Huh? Oh… he said I should call him that from now on.”
Ji Seo-joon was burning up inside. Since the day he received carnations from Jeong-woo and Yeon-woo on Parents’ Day, and the time he found “penile reduction surgery” in Yeon-woo’s portal search history—only to be told, “If we just take off a couple inches, wouldn’t it be way safer to make love?”—he hadn’t felt this level of shock.
A vein popped at Seo-joon’s temple. He loosened the tension in his clenched jaw and asked with a smile,
“I’m still ‘Lieutenant’ to you. But Cheong-oh is… hyung?”
Seeing his face, Yeon-woo suddenly rushed over for some reason.
“Uh, well… should I stop calling him hyung?”
“You already called him that.”
A hundred days after the end of the Gate. It had been nearly two months since the world flipped upside down and the humans, Ji Seo-joon and Cha Yeon-woo, returned home—but to Cha Yeon-woo, Seo-joon was still “Lieutenant.” The only exceptions were when they were in bed, or on rare occasions when Yeon-woo would indulgently call him “darling.”
But now, Jin Cheong-oh got to hear Yeon-woo call him “hyung”—something Seo-joon had never once heard from him. The very title Yeon-woo had once deemed strange, said he hated because it felt too much like they were brothers—he now handed it off to someone else without a second thought.
Seo-joon quietly turned on the air conditioner. It was the first time he’d used it that summer. The heat crawling up his nape flared up to his forehead. Trying not to look petty, he forced a brighter smile.
“Song-hee noona, Yeong-kyo noona, Cheong-oh hyung, Min-geon hyung… Everyone in the world gets called hyung or noona by you, but I’m still ‘Lieutenant’?”
But seeing that expression on his face, Yeon-woo grew restless and grabbed at the sleeve of Seo-joon’s shirt.
“Lieut… Darling… are you mad?”
“No… no, really, I’m not mad.”
Seo-joon gave a deliberately light laugh and sank onto the couch. Only in times like this did he get called “darling.”
“I’m not the kind of petty guy who gets upset over something like this. Keep calling Cheong-oh hyung, if you want.”
He unconsciously swept a hand down his face, unsure of how his expression looked to Yeon-woo. Then he adopted the kindest voice and smile he could muster.
“I’m just saying—it’s kind of weird, isn’t it? You can’t drop the rank with your partner, but you can with someone else so easily. Doesn’t that seem… unnatural?”
But his brain, already half-lost to the words “Cheong-oh hyung,” was drifting farther from reason.
“I’m your family, Yeon-woo. I’m the one who’s both your family and your partner. So why am I the ‘Lieutenant’ while Cheong-oh gets to be ‘hyung’? Is Cheong-oh your brother? Legally speaking, you’re my eldest son now. And me? Isn’t it kind of funny that I’ll never get to be called your father or your brother for the rest of my life?”
His blue eyes trembled.
“…Father?”
“That’s not the point right now… Yeon-woo, come down off your knees and sit comfortably.”
Yeon-woo, who’d somehow ended up kneeling on a single-seat ottoman in front of him, awkwardly unfolded his legs and sat down.
“What do you think, Yeon-woo? About this whole situation?”
Still wearing a soft smile, Seo-joon asked. Yeon-woo, unsure what to do, clasped his hands together.
“Um… I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“I told you, I’m not mad.”
Seo-joon ran a hand through his hair, smiling again.
“There’s no need to apologize. I’m just asking what you think.”
“But…”
Yeon-woo muttered, shrinking in on himself.
“You’re my partner, and it’s different from how I am with others…”
“Ah, I see. So you’re going to keep distance with me, and be family with the other guys?”
“No, no, that’s not it… I’m sorry… I was wrong…”
His legs, which had been lowered, folded again on instinct. Back on his knees, Yeon-woo pressed his palms together.
“Yeon-woo, I’m really not scolding you. I’m just curious… You said you didn’t like calling someone hyung because it felt too much like family, and you didn’t like ‘darling’ because it sounded too sexy. But now you’ve made Cheong-oh your brother?”
How did that happen, exactly? Loosening the tension in his face, Seo-joon gave a very gentle smile.
“So, Yeon-woo, does that mean you don’t like sleeping with your hyung, but it’s fine if it’s the Lieutenant? That’s a really strange fetish… no, don’t turn away. That was my bad. Come here and sit properly. Why do you keep kneeling like that? I’m not even scolding you right now.”
He gently took Yeon-woo’s hand and pulled him close. Yeon-woo shuffled over and sat beside him like a scolded puppy, avoiding eye contact.
Anyone could tell he looked like he was getting told off.
Seo-joon took both of his hands and said softly,
“Yeon-woo, think about it. We’ve now been together as lovers longer than we ever worked as field partners.”
“Yes…”
“You act like I’ve been a lieutenant since birth, but do you even know when I got promoted? Just a little over two years ago.”
“Yes…”
“So if we’d met before that, what would you have called me?”
“…Second Lieutenant?”
Seo-joon’s smile deepened. If emotions had a physical form, he’d be a boiling kettle right now.
“That’s not what I meant. How old was I when we first met, Yeon-woo? Thirteen, right? What did you call me back then? What did you call the Ji Seo-joon you imagined? You called him hyung, didn’t you?”
“…….”
Seo-joon pretended not to hear the barely audible response—“just Ji Seo-joon…”—and gently pressed on with his original goal, his tone still sweet.
“If we had known each other since back then, what would you have called me, Yeon-woo? I wasn’t even a second lieutenant or a lieutenant at the time.”
“…….”
“You would’ve called me hyung, right?”
Yeon-woo thought for a moment, then gave a quiet nod. Seizing the opportunity, Seo-joon calmed the excitement that briefly surged up and asked, slow and gentle,
“Then what would you still be calling me now, Yeon-woo? Say it with your own mouth.”
“…Hyung.”
Yeon-woo reluctantly answered, turning his head slightly. He mumbled so quietly it almost sounded like “hing.”
Taking a deep breath, Seo-joon replied with the patience of a monk,
“That’s right, Yeon-woo… Even now, you’d still be calling me hyung. Yeong-kyo noona, Cheong-oh hyung, Song-hee noona, Min-geon hyung… Seo-joon hyung. Right?”
He was just about to build a solid argument that, by the time they became lovers, it would’ve been natural for “hyung” to shift into “darling.”
“But I still don’t like it.”
But then Yeon-woo suddenly turned away. Seo-joon, clenching his molars again, forced a smile while trying to relax the muscles in his face. Yeon-woo looked at him with a wronged, puppy-like expression.
“Don’t you remember? That time at the café, a woman came up and asked you for your number, right? How did you turn her down? You smiled all cool and just said, ‘Sorry.’ You didn’t say you had a girlfriend. Even though I was standing right there next to you…”
Oddly enough, this time Seo-joon felt like he was the one being scolded. When did I ever drop my voice and smile cool like that? As Yeon-woo slowly turned back toward him, he spoke firmly.
“If I call you hyung, then I’ll always just be your younger brother. I want everyone—anyone walking by—to know just by the way I call you that we’re in a special relationship.”
Still, Seo-joon wasn’t about to let that slide.
“But that doesn’t mean we’re in a master-slave relationship, Yeon-woo.”
“Dar… ling…”
“Darling? What is that, a hobby club? Do I look like pottery to you?”
