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#Side 2. 5 years later (3)
Dawoon woke up but didn’t want to move a finger. The afterglow of intense sex always lingered until the next day. Whether due to lack of stamina, this was one thing that didn’t change much even with familiarity. He took a deep breath while lying down, staring at the ceiling.
The sunlight flooding the bedroom was so intense it was almost blinding. What time could it be? It was clearly later than usual. Clearing today’s schedule was definitely a good choice. He had hoped the staff would rest since they returned from filming yesterday, but thanks to Hayun’s return, it became a much-needed break for himself.
Just as he started to feel hungry, a savory smell wafted in. He wondered if Hayun was making toast. Hunger overcame laziness. He got up groggily, slowly put on some clothes, and as he came out to the living room, the food smell intensified.
“You’re up. I was about to wake you.”
Hayun spoke first. Going to the kitchen, as expected, toast and fried eggs were nearly ready.
“Let’s eat something simple and have a proper lunch out. You’ve been eating carelessly while I was gone, right? There’s nothing to eat here.”
The fridge would have been empty since the last grocery shopping was before Hayun left for his business trip. Though Dawoon had learned to cook various things since first coming to London, when alone, he didn’t feel like cooking anything. So he’d usually eat out nearby or make do with bread.
“I was also away for a few days for filming.”
He tried to make an excuse, but it didn’t work at all. When Hayun pointed out that the filming was only for two days, Dawoon had nothing more to say. It wasn’t surprising that someone who had been in Seoul knew his schedule so well.
“When are you going to upload the video you shot this time?”
Hayun asked while pouring milk into Dawoon’s cup.
“It’ll probably take a week to edit.”
Dawoon answered halfheartedly while nibbling on the corner of his toast.
“That’s longer than usual?”
“There were more places I liked than I expected. I shot a lot of things, so it’ll take time to organize. I was considering extending for another day but rushed back.”
He was about to say that if he had returned without notice like yesterday, they might have missed each other. However, seeing Hayun looking at him intently with a curved smile, he felt there was no need to continue. If Dawoon had stayed at the filming location for one more day, Hayun would have come looking for him there instead of at home.
“Who is it? Who keeps selling me out to you?”
It was clear that one of the filming staff was on Hayun’s side. When Dawoon pressed to know who it was, Hayun’s smile deepened.
“Curious?”
“Of course.”
“If you knew, would you fire them?”
Seeing him ask with a cheerful smile, Dawoon let out a short sigh. There was no way he could fire them. The people currently helping as staff were more friends than employees. It was a team composed of graduate school classmates and people they brought in. They were capable individuals who understood Dawoon’s filming style and captured what he wanted to express during editing. He couldn’t distance himself from such people just because they were leaking information to Hayun.
Hayun knew this fact too well. That’s why he could act so confidently now. It was annoying, but it was so typical of Jeong Hayun that Dawoon didn’t even feel like scolding him.
“If you’re going to fire someone, you’d have to fire almost everyone.”
Dawoon’s eyes narrowed, wondering what this meant. Hayun waved his phone.
“They take turns informing me. To them, I’m your one and only loving partner.”
Seeing him smile with satisfaction and confidence, Dawoon wanted to punch himself for introducing Hayun as his boyfriend to Theo and Lily five years ago. Thanks to that, everyone he met afterwards already knew Jeong Hayun as Jeong Dawoon’s partner through Theo and Lily, even before Dawoon could explain anything about Hayun.
Dawoon snatched the phone from Hayun’s hand to check the screen. It was locked, but without hesitation, he entered his own six-digit birthday, and it unlocked immediately. Opening the messaging app, it was just as Hayun had said. Several staff members were taking turns informing Hayun about the current filming location, when it might end, and what time they might arrive in London.
“Did you bribe them with money?”
It was surprising that he had all their contact information. Publicly, Jeong Hayun was indeed a very sociable person. Dawoon knew that occasionally when Hayun came to pick him up at filming locations, he would distribute coffee or simple desserts to the staff and act friendly, but he didn’t know Hayun had managed to get everyone’s contact information like this. Even if they had exchanged contacts, to give such detailed information, they must have received something. When Dawoon asked this reasonable suspicion, Hayun just grinned without giving a straight answer. It seemed he had given some gifts, if not cash.
“It’s too much that they’re all selling me out for money.”
As Dawoon grumbled, Hayun reached out and lightly ruffled his hair.
“Think of it as your people trusting me that much.”
Dawoon glared at him briefly at the word “trust,” but feeling it wasn’t worth elaborating, he just shook his head. To others, there was no man as perfect as Jeong Hayun in every way. The only flaw in his life was that he was in love with his “younger brother,” Jeong Dawoon.
After finishing the meal that was neither breakfast nor lunch, Dawoon turned on his laptop. He was trying to transfer the videos and photos he had taken during this shoot, but for some reason, the laptop wouldn’t turn on.
“Is it broken?”
He picked up the laptop and looked at it from various angles, but couldn’t figure out what the problem was.
“Get a new one. That one’s quite old now.”
Hayun said as he placed a freshly brewed cup of coffee in front of Dawoon. He offered to have a new model from Haedo Electronics brought over today, but Dawoon let out a groan. It was true that he had been using this laptop for three years, but he didn’t feel like changing to a new one. Others might wonder why he wasn’t changing it when money wasn’t an issue, but he disliked the process of adapting to something new. He preferred things he had used for a long time and was familiar with. If Hayun hadn’t brought him new phone models every time they came out, he would have used his phone until it stopped turning on.
“Can I use your computer?”
He needed to upload all the files to a shared site so other staff members could check them. Since the laptop wouldn’t turn on, he had no choice but to use the computer in the study.
“Go ahead.”
With Hayun’s permission, Dawoon took his camera and entered the study. He turned on the power, connected the camera, and copied the video and photo files to the computer. The file size was quite large, so it took some time to transfer. In the meantime, he checked materials and emails sent by other staff members.
Even before graduating from graduate school, Dawoon had started filming videos and photos around London and uploading them to YouTube. At first, it was just for record-keeping. They weren’t famous landmarks, but rather insignificant places that others might easily overlook, places where Dawoon’s eyes had lingered.
But as word spread, subscribers began to increase one by one. At first, most were acquaintances from graduate school. They found it fascinating that even though they had lived in London for a long time, Dawoon’s videos made it seem like a different place. After that, Dawoon’s YouTube started appearing in the search algorithms of people visiting London, and the number of subscribers grew rapidly. Now, he had nearly 10 million subscribers.
As the number of subscribers increased, requests to see places other than London grew. Thinking it was too much to handle all these requests alone, Dawoon recruited a few other creators and created separate categories for them. With more people able to film, the filming locations, which were initially limited to within the UK, recently expanded to Western European countries. As creators sometimes filmed simultaneously in various locations, the number of staff had to increase as well. Thanks to this, they were now operating a proper studio. Although it was still just a YouTube Creative Studio, its scale was not small at all.
Dawoon was also doing the final confirmation of other creators’ videos before they were uploaded to YouTube. While they were free to choose any filming location, this was to be cautious of any content that might cause disputes.
After checking another creator’s video that was already edited and giving feedback, an hour had already passed. The coffee he had brought into the study was more than half full but had gone cold.
As he was about to get up to brew fresh coffee, he noticed an envelope on one side of the desk. It was an envelope without the Haedo Group logo. Usually, the documents Hayun received were almost all work-related, so one without the Haedo Group logo was odd.
The envelope had a mailing address on it. The recipient was indeed Jeong Hayun. It wasn’t the home address, but the address of the London branch. The sender’s address was also written in English.
“America?”
He tilted his head at the American address, not British. But it wasn’t a Haedo Group branch in the US either. As he was frowning, feeling more than just puzzled but sensing some kind of scheme, there was a knock at the door. He looked up to see Hayun leaning against the doorframe, looking at Dawoon.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
