#53
Recently, Hyun-oh had been coming home around 8 PM. Eunsol hurriedly got up from his seat and opened the refrigerator door to examine the ingredients packed inside.
Today, he hadn’t called the household staff. When he didn’t have plans to go out, Eunsol spent his time doing household chores.
“I think I can make steak and pasta…”
He felt that just having a cake on the table would seem too sparse. Though it felt awkward to prepare his own birthday meal, he wanted to light the candles and have dinner with Hyun-oh, as Kang Ye-ryeong had suggested.
Perhaps… Hyun-oh might wish him a happy birthday.
Imagining Hyun-oh congratulating him in his low voice, a warm flush instantly spread up to the nape of his neck.
Eunsol laid out various ingredients on the counter, intending to make a salad as well. Checking the time, there were about two hours left until Hyun-oh’s return from work.
He would need to move diligently from now to complete an elegant meal before Hyun-oh arrived.
His hands moved busily, washing each ingredient one by one. Without even realizing it, his lips had bloomed into a smile full of anticipation.
* * *
“Mr. Kim, I was wondering…”
―Ah, there’s an urgent matter at headquarters, so it seems the Director will be spending the night at the office today. I should have contacted you earlier, I apologize.
“…It’s alright.”
Around the time the clock’s small hand passed the number 11, Eunsol finally gathered the courage to call Kim Myungjun. It was because there hadn’t been any contact from Kim Myungjun today, of all days.
On days when Hyun-oh couldn’t come home, Kim Myungjun would usually send Eunsol a text message instead, but today there hadn’t been even that. After fidgeting with his phone for a long time, he had managed to press the call button with difficulty, but the news he heard was that Hyun-oh wouldn’t be coming home tonight.
The sounds coming through the phone were chaotic. It seemed something had indeed happened at the company, just as he had said.
―Bring that over here.
Kim Myungjun was continuously giving instructions to someone even in the middle of his conversation with Eunsol.
“I’ll hang up now. Sorry for disturbing you.”
―Not at all. Please don’t wait for the Director tonight and go to bed first.
“Yes.”
The call ended abruptly as soon as Eunsol responded. Eunsol couldn’t easily detach the phone, from which no sound was coming, from his ear.
His wavering gaze fell on the food that had grown cold.
From the steak topped with bright red cherry tomatoes and asparagus to the tomato seafood pasta and the salad with plump shrimp arranged around the plate.
All were dishes that Eunsol had made while beads of sweat formed on his forehead. When he touched the tip of his index finger, which had a flesh-colored bandage on it, a stinging pain arose. It was a wound from preparing ingredients for the pasta.
The place where his eyes, which had been restlessly roaming the table, stopped was the beautiful cake in the center of the table.
The cake, with pearl-like white chocolate embedded inside sky-blue petals, was so much like a sculpture that it seemed a shame to touch it.
“…It’s a gift from Mother.”
Eunsol forced himself to lift the corners of his mouth. He took out the candle that had been enclosed in the box and carefully inserted it at the very top of the cake.
There was only one candle. The light blue candle, as if color-coordinated with the cake, matched perfectly. When he lit it, the flame bloomed so beautifully that he wanted to take a picture to record it.
The crimson light of the flame flickered over his black pupils. Eunsol rubbed his eyes vigorously to push back the tears that threatened to extinguish the flame.
“…Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.”
His small voice echoed in the spacious room. Even though it was his own voice, the sound reaching his ears felt strange.
Eunsol briefly gripped his throat and composed his voice. The voice that had been breaking at the end now flowed between his lips with a smoother tone.
“Dear Eunsol…”
The birthday song that had been faintly echoing was suddenly cut off the moment his name rolled off his tongue.
His dazed gaze wandered over the cake where droplets of melted wax were being scattered. He should blow it out quickly. That way, the beautiful cake wouldn’t be ruined any further.
Even though this practical thought occurred to him, his lips, half-parted and frozen, couldn’t bring themselves to continue the next words.
In the end, Eunsol couldn’t finish the birthday song until the candle was completely smashed and buried in the cake. The flame that wasn’t blown out disappeared as if seeping into the whipped cream.
“…Happy birthday, Lee Eunsol.”
As always, Eunsol celebrated his birthday alone.
Unlike before, he wasn’t sitting alone in a dark room now, but in a house so luxurious it was almost extravagant, with a cake that matched this house in front of him, but…
He was still alone.
The silence flowing so quietly that it was scary was familiar, yet strangely, it felt as if a tower of matches that could collapse at any moment had been built inside his chest.
He put the cake, not even a bite taken from it, back into the box and neatly arranged the untouched food with calm hands. The dining table, which had been set for two people, was cleaned up as if it had never been set.
Eunsol walked with slow steps to the bedroom he shared with Hyun-oh.
The same silence flowing around him now would be curled up tightly on the other side of the firmly closed door too. In fact, it would probably be the same no matter where he went, but strangely, he was reluctant to enter the space with the wide bed.
He turned and headed to the space given to him. As he entered the room shrouded in darkness, his breath, which had been blocked, burst out between his lips, making his chest heave.
“…It’s cold.”
The house was maintained at an appropriate temperature.
Even though it wasn’t at all a temperature to feel cold, Eunsol trembled as if facing a cold wind with his bare body. Eunsol went to a corner, leaned his back against the wall, and sat down on the floor.
As he hugged his knees and buried his face in them, the pitch-black darkness welcomed him.
His thin back began to heave slightly. Yet no sound flowed in the room. The room, faintly illuminated only by moonlight that had climbed through the window, remained quiet until the sun rose.
* * *
“Hello? Nice to meet you for the first time.”
Eunsol tightly gripped the champagne glass he was holding as he watched the man approaching and speaking to him. Although the man was greeting him as if seeing him for the first time, Eunsol remembered having seen him from a distance before.
Just like then, the softly waved brown hair naturally flowed down, gently revealing his round forehead whenever he moved his head.
Unlike Eunsol, who had visited a salon and styled his hair with obvious effort, the man had groomed his appearance just enough without being excessive.
But that’s what caught Eunsol’s attention more. The man possessed a striking appearance that could draw people’s attention without any embellishment, and even now, wearing just a comfortable knit and cotton pants, he exuded an unmistakable nobility.
For some reason, Eunsol felt embarrassed about the suit he was currently wearing. Even though he had carefully selected the outfit, standing before this man made him feel like a duck trying to look fancy in front of a swan.
“I’m Min Sehyun. You’re Eunsol, right?”
“…Yes. Hello.”
Min Sehyun smiled brightly, his large eyes half-closing. Eunsol looked at the white hand extended in front of him and hurriedly reached out.
With a grip stronger than expected, Min Sehyun shook Eunsol’s hand and then clinked the glass in his other hand against Eunsol’s.
Eunsol glanced at his hand, which now had a red mark, and adjusted his cuff. Due to Min Sehyun clinking the glasses, champagne splashed up to the rim before sliding down.
Fortunately, his clothes weren’t wet, but a streak of champagne that had run down the surface of the glass moistened his fingertip.
“…He looks even more ordinary up close.”
“Pardon?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Before Eunsol could understand what that fleeting comment meant, Min Sehyun gave him a bright smile. His plump cheeks were tinged with a peach color, making him seem lovable despite being an omega like Eunsol.
“Hyun-oh Hyung is quite blunt, isn’t he? Your married life must not be very smooth.”
Min Sehyun casually mentioned Hyun-oh’s name as if discussing the weather. The tips of Eunsol’s fingers holding the champagne glass turned white.
“Hyung has been like that since he was young. He tends to be especially cold to people he’s not interested in.”
Eunsol wanted to say that Hyun-oh treated him kindly. For some reason, he didn’t want to admit that he was an insignificant existence to Hyun-oh. Especially not in front of Min Sehyun, of all people.
However, recalling the lonely birthday he had spent by himself recently, Eunsol couldn’t find the right words to say.
“This is a gift for Hyung. Isn’t it pretty?”
A watch exuding restrained sophistication was thrust in front of the frozen Eunsol. The watch in the elegant black velvet box looked quite expensive at a glance.
Normally, he might have been slightly impressed by the design of the watch and the logo visible inside the crystal glass.
The problem was that the watch in the box Eunsol held in his arms was of the same design as what Min Sehyun was showing now.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
