“President, did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That our little client lives in Shin Seyoung’s building.”
Seojin chattered away as they walked back from dropping Kkokko off with their little client.
“I saw the street address and kept thinking, no way, it couldn’t be...”
“Who’s that?”
“Sorry?”
“I said, who’s Shin Seyoung?”
“Huh? The guy we ran into back there.”
Seojin was so startled his feet stopped dead. Yoon Haegang kept right on walking, though, so there was no reading his face.
Does he really not know, or is he pretending?
“You’re the one who told me to dig up information on Shin Seyoung.”
“I did?”
Well, no. Manager Kim was the one who handed it over.
Seojin knew how the two of them were connected in the original story, so of course he’d assumed the order had come down from Yoon Haegang.
Then why was he staring at him so hard back there?
Wasn’t that obviously because he recognized him?
“No... well, technically it was Manager Kim who gave it to me.”
“So who is he?”
“Uh... I-I wouldn’t know.”
All Manager Kim had told him was to learn the man inside out, and Seojin hadn’t asked why. To be precise, he hadn’t felt the need to. And then it hit him.
“Ah! Of course! The timing’s different!”
“What?”
Yoon Haegang looked back over his shoulder. Only when their eyes met head-on did Seojin realize he’d let his mouth run.
“No, I mean... the time. The time’s gotten late! Haha... it’s already way past lunch!”
He was scrambling to drag the conversation somewhere, anywhere, else.
“President, since we’re out anyway, should we eat before we head back? My treat, my treat! Let’s go! What do you feel like?”
Yoon Haegang looked down at him, steady and unblinking. It was a sharp enough stare to break a cold sweat under.
“How about bunsik? Or jjajangmyeon...”
Seojin rattled off menu options, toes wiggling furiously to beat back the fear.
“Let’s go get sundaeguk.”
“Sorry? Yes, yes. That works too.”
A yandere-top alpha whose whole image screamed ordering steak rare at some upscale restaurant and carving it with elegance... eating sundaeguk.
Seojin spent a moment wondering whether that even fit the character setting.
Eh, who cares.
As long as he got past the immediate crisis in one piece, he’d eat anything.
And so, entirely against his expectations, Seojin ended up claiming a table with Yoon Haegang in a sundaeguk place packed wall to wall with customers.
“You’re here? No Manager Kim today? Same as usual, right?”
The owner came over in his apron, friendly as anything. Before Seojin could get a word in, Yoon Haegang finished the order with a tilt of his chin, and the owner turned straight back around.
“Uh, uhh...”
The fluster was Seojin’s to carry alone. Same as what? What on earth did he just order? The question answered itself the moment the owner brought the food out.
Set down in front of the two of them were bowls of sundaeguk so red they bubbled like lava.
“...”
Seojin stared blankly down into the earthenware pot, then slid his eyes up. Across from him, Yoon Haegang tipped a bowl of rice into his soup, added perilla powder and salted shrimp, scooped up a huge spoonful and put it in his mouth.
There was so much force in the way he chewed that he could’ve filmed a mukbang on the spot and cleared tens of thousands of views without breaking a sweat.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
Dipping his spoon back in, Yoon Haegang seemed to have only just noticed Seojin sitting there prim and motionless. His voice was as unhurried as ever.
“It’s hot.”
“Can’t handle hot food, huh?”
“No. And it looks spicy, too.”
“Can’t handle spicy either?”
Somehow the more they talked the more embarrassing it got, so this time Seojin just nodded instead of answering. A hmph came from across the table, either a laugh at his expense or a snort.
He glanced up, not quite believing it, and found the corner of Yoon Haegang’s mouth curled ever so slightly.
“What a little kid.”
“I am not a kid.”
“How old are you, then?”
“You hired me without even looking at my résumé?”
“Who knows. That’s not really my department.”
What kind of company president says that with a straight face? Seojin gaped at him; Yoon Haegang went right back to eating, indifferent. He ate with such relish it made you hungry just watching.
Why did his competitive streak have to flare up over something this pointless?
Seojin plunged his own spoon deep into the soup. What he actually fished out was a single piece of sundae and nothing else.
“Hoo... hoo...”
Yoon Haegang stole a look at him blowing on it to cool it, and his mouth twitched again, caught between smiling and not.
Seojin missed it entirely, too busy putting the sundae in his mouth with the gravest expression in the world.
“Ugh...”
The instant it touched his tongue the sharp burn spread and Seojin’s eyes screwed shut on their own. He swallowed it down without managing to chew, but the heat didn’t fade so easily.
“Boss, one sundaeguk over here, not spicy.”
He was holding a mouthful of cold water against his stinging tongue when he heard Yoon Haegang, out of nowhere, putting in an order with the owner.
Before he could process it, a long arm swept in and whisked the pot away from in front of him.
“Huh? What’s got you ordering the plain one?”
“This one’s got a kid’s palate. Can’t take spice.”
“Ah, is that so? Should’ve said so sooner. I’ll knock one off the bill.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll eat it, so leave it.”
“Well, that’s much appreciated.”
What sat in front of Seojin now was a sundaeguk with a milky white broth instead of lava. The bowl he’d taken one bite from and then lost all nerve for became Yoon Haegang’s.
“What are you doing? Eat.”
When Seojin only sat there staring, Yoon Haegang prodded him. Then something else seemed to occur to him, and he let out a short laugh.
“Ah! Right, you can’t do hot either. You’ve really got a whole list, don’t you.”
It was strange. The tone sounded like mockery, and yet the look on his face seemed genuinely pleased. What was he supposed to call this? Unable to pin the odd feeling down, Seojin just stirred his broth around and around for no reason.
It really was the strangest meal.
“Huh? Shin Seyoung? Yeah, he’s a managed client.”
Manager Kim said it while flapping his shirt to fan himself. He’d just gotten back to the office, passing the baton, as it were, with Yoon Haegang, who’d vanished saying he had business outside.
“Client management? So you’re saying you two know each other?”
And after all that, he stood there playing dumb without so much as blinking?
“It’s less that, and more... let’s say he’s an omega the President has taken an interest in lately?”
“Ahh...”
Seojin stared blankly at Shin Seyoung’s face on the screen. He’d pulled the file up just in case, and sure enough, it was the same man he’d met earlier.
This is ridiculous.
Yoon Haegang’s face surfaced along with it, that mischievous grin as he swiped the earthenware pot away, and Seojin shook his head slowly.
“No, I mean... I’m only saying this so you don’t get the wrong idea, Seojin, but that file’s just something I put together in advance, on the off chance.”
Manager Kim must have caught the what are you talking about look Seojin was giving him, because he hurried to add more.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen our President show that kind of interest in anybody. So I figured I’d get a read on the guy ahead of time, that’s all.”
“Then why give it to me?”
“Because I figured the President would bring it up with you sooner or later?”
“Ahh...”
Maybe the lukewarm response bothered him. Manager Kim squared himself up in his seat, ready to explain further. But Seojin got there first.
“So what you’re telling me is, the President hasn’t actually made a move on Shin Seyoung yet?”
“Huh? Well, yeah, I guess you could put it that way?”
“When did the two of them meet?”
“Not long ago. Last Thursday.”
Seojin’s eyes went to the calendar. Today was Tuesday. Which meant he’d dropped into this body on the fifth day after the two of them met.
“Where?”
“Uh... the President and I had each grabbed a bowl of sundaeguk for lunch, and we were heading back to the office.”
Manager Kim launched into a long-winded recounting of the whole scene.
“He was carrying so much stuff he couldn’t see in front of him, and right then a delivery bike came up behind him...”
Seojin had no intention of sitting through all of it, so he cut in.
“And the President saved him at the critical moment, I take it?”
Nine times out of ten that was how these things started, someone helping the protagonist out of a jam, so naturally he assumed this was no different.
“Nope? Shin Seyoung got startled and dropped every last thing he was holding.”
“The President didn’t help him?”
“He just looked at him like he was pathetic?”
Manager Kim seemed to notice the sheer disbelief in Seojin’s eyes, because he tacked on one more detail.
“He did tell me to go pick it all up afterward, though.”
“The President did?”
“Yeah. So I ran right over, and that’s when it hit me. An omega!”
That’s it? That’s what made you decide Yoon Haegang was interested? Manager Kim must have read the question in Seojin’s eyes, because he opened his mouth again.
“He’s an omega, right? I figured if the President ever said he needed one, I could set the two of them up.”
“Set them up?”
“Yeah. A face he’s seen at least once has to beat a total stranger, doesn’t it?”
So Yoon Haegang had never regarded Shin Seyoung as anything special at all. The whole thing was a product of Manager Kim’s overzealous loyalty.
Bunsik: cheap Korean snack-bar fare — tteokbokki, gimbap, fried snacks.
Sundaeguk: a hearty soup of pork broth and sundae, Korean blood sausage.
