“Jeongje-hyung.”
I swallowed the saliva pooled in my mouth and looked up at the sound of someone calling me. There stood Yang Garam, looking disgruntled, as if he had finished showering some time ago.
“What? Did something happen?”
Yang Garam stared at my face intently before shaking his head.
“It’s nothing.”
Did he get upset because I wasn’t there after he rushed to shower, thinking I might be waiting?
Yang Garam’s face, even when viewed in the most favorable light, was certainly not the face of someone for whom nothing was wrong. He sat across from me, and Jeong Seyeon, who appeared last, naturally took the seat beside me.
At that moment, I saw Yang Garam’s eyebrows rise and fall in apparent displeasure, but that was all.
Throughout the meal, Yang Garam didn’t say a word and maintained a sullen expression the entire time. No, he looked somewhat hurt. Having spent five years with Joo Seolhyeon where I constantly had to read his mood, I couldn’t miss Yang Garam’s expressions, which were openly showing his feelings. I had become skilled at noticing even the subtlest changes in Joo Seolhyeon’s expression.
‘I should talk to him separately after dinner.’
With a spoon in my mouth, I glanced at Yang Garam, then eyed Jeong Seyeon sitting beside me. He was diligently chewing and swallowing like a machine, as if Yang Garam’s presence—which was souring the dining atmosphere—didn’t matter to him at all. When I had watched him cooking earlier, he seemed to put considerable care into it, but his face showed such little emotion that I wondered if he could even taste what he was eating.
‘If he couldn’t taste, such delicious food couldn’t be made.’
Neither Woo Jeonghyun nor I had any talent for cooking, so we had inevitably hired a housekeeper just to prepare meals for our survival. The housekeeper’s skills weren’t bad, but they couldn’t compare to Jeong Seyeon’s cooking. Honestly, though I feel sorry for my mom, this was even better than what she used to make for me.
“Seyeon-hyung, did you learn cooking separately? This is really delicious.”
I decided to break the desolate atmosphere and spoke up, which drew Jeong Seyeon’s attention to me. He finished chewing what was in his mouth and quietly shook his head.
“I didn’t learn it separately.”
Having given the necessary response, he resumed eating.
His chopsticks, held in the proper form, picked up just the right amount of side dishes when they touched them, and he didn’t open his mouth too wide when eating. There was absolutely no smacking sound; the only noise he made was the occasional crisp sound of vegetables being chewed. Not only was he good at cooking, but his table manners were also impeccable, giving me a sense of the environment in which he grew up.
Perhaps I was focusing on him too intently, because Jeong Seyeon put down his chopsticks and looked at me. His eyes seemed to say, “Speak if you have something to say,” which made me slightly embarrassed.
“Your mother must be a good cook.”
“My father was a good cook.”
“Your father must have been a family-oriented man.”
As I started conversing with Jeong Seyeon, I felt Yang Garam’s gaze as he lifted his head to look at both of us.
“Family-oriented… I suppose you could see it that way.”
“I envy how well you cook. I’m really hopeless when it comes to cooking.”
Excited by Jeong Seyeon’s attentiveness to my story, I would normally have stopped there, but I added more.
“Whoever is with you must be happy. They can eat such delicious food every day.”
After saying it, I truly felt envious. Although Woo Jeonghyun and I had lived together for just over a year, I quickly realized that when two men who can’t cook live together, survival becomes threatened. Even when I lived with Joo Seolhyeon, we were able to sustain ourselves because the household helper hired by the government took care of our meals. Without that, I would have died of starvation faster than from power runaway.
“Hyung, I cook well too!”
Yang Garam, who had been watching our conversation, suddenly interjected. His previously sullen face was gone, and he appealed to me about his cooking skills with an urgent expression. Though I was taken aback by Yang Garam’s sudden interruption, I acknowledged his comment.
“Really? What dishes are you good at making, Garam-ah?”
Yang Garam, seemingly unprepared for my question, drew in a sharp breath as if caught off guard. I had thought Jeong Seyeon wouldn’t be interested in such things, but his gaze also turned toward the flustered Yang Garam.
“I’m curious about that too.”
Jeong Seyeon had merely made a casual remark with his usual indifferent expression, but Yang Garam’s eyes suddenly blazed.
“I’m good at boiling eggs!”
For such a forceful response, the content was so trivial that I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Yang Garam was truly an unpredictable ball. During our first meeting, he made me laugh by asking for an autograph, and now it was boiled eggs. Not even fried eggs, but boiled eggs. Even I, who wasn’t good at cooking, was beyond the level of boiled eggs.
“Ah, really Garam-ah, haha, do you like boiled eggs?”
I asked him while wiping away the tears that had formed at the corners of my eyes from laughing.
I also wanted to tell him that he was the first person I’d ever met who boasted about being good at boiling eggs, but I missed the timing because I was laughing too hard. The more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
After laughing heartily, I looked at Yang Garam again. Though I was the one with tears in my eyes, it looked like Yang Garam might cry soon. He was looking at me with an expression that seemed to say I was being too harsh.
“……”
Seeing his tightly closed lips set rigidly, I felt sorry for Yang Garam, thinking I might have laughed too loudly. I hadn’t intended to make fun of him, but I felt I had been too mischievous. As I covered my rising smile with my hand and cleared my throat, Yang Garam suddenly called out to me.
“Jeongje-hyung.”
His low, subdued voice fortunately didn’t sound reproachful. Rather, it had a gloomy, somber tone that carried a hint of gray.
I was a bit surprised that the pure, innocent Yang Garam would use such a voice, but it seemed like he had more to say. I looked at him with an expression that encouraged him to continue, and Yang Garam smiled sadly as he pronounced each word clearly.
“I like it.”
For a moment, I recalled his expression in the bathroom when he spoke with a firm tone. That heated gaze when he said, “I’ll shower.”
Though it seemed different, there was something similar about that gaze, making me feel like I was missing something.
After making “I’ll shower” sound so significant, was he now doing the same with boiled eggs?
It occurred to me that Yang Garam might be a more serious person than I had thought.
‘Then I should respect that instead of responding with jokes.’
Though his physique was as massive as Woo Jeonghyun’s, the more I looked at Yang Garam, the more I wanted to take care of him. From a woman’s perspective, he might be the type to stimulate maternal instincts.
Looking at Yang Garam, who was so sincere about boiled eggs, I briefly considered my own feelings. Boiled eggs were also one of my favorite foods.
“I like them too…”
Crash!
I was startled by a sharp noise that interrupted my words, and my eyes widened in surprise. When I turned my head, I saw Jeong Seyeon looking down indifferently at a water glass that had fallen with a loud clatter.
“My hand slipped.”
The glass tumbler had fallen under the table and shattered into pieces. I jumped up in surprise and went to Jeong Seyeon’s side. The floor was a mess with glass fragments and water.
“Are you hurt anywhere, hyung?”
“I’m fine. Let’s continue with our meal. I’ll clean this up.”
“I’ve finished eating. Stay still so you don’t hurt your hands. If I use my ability, I can handle this quickly.”
Through efforts to maximize the efficiency of my ability, I had become increasingly adept at manipulating flames. The most recent skill I had acquired was the ability to choose what to burn and what not to burn. By mastering the “Hellgun” skill, I could raise the temperature of the fire to its maximum and control the ignition point as I wished.
After clearing away the large glass pieces, I used fire to completely disintegrate the remaining small fragments. Not a single speck of soot remained on the floor.
“Impressive.”
Jeong Seyeon made a comment as he ran his fingertips over the floor, which had instantly returned to its state before the glass fell, with even the moisture completely evaporated.
At first, I was a bit surprised to receive praise from someone who seemed unlikely to give compliments, but I soon felt uplifted.
While I waved it off as nothing special, I didn’t stop the corners of my mouth from rising. To an outsider, it might not seem like much, but this was an ability that required highly advanced control. Naturally, I couldn’t dislike someone who recognized that.
“To handle it so skillfully, you must have put in a great deal of effort.”
“Even with such praise, I’m just a person with nothing but my body to offer, hyung. Nothing else comes out.”
I said it jokingly, but it was true. There was a reason I was designated as an S-class Esper. At my words, I noticed a slight change in his otherwise indifferent expression. It was such a fleeting change that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been observing him closely. But thinking back, I didn’t feel like I had said anything that should have stirred him. Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious, I didn’t see a reason to press the issue, so I pretended not to notice the change in his expression.
‘Garam is quiet.’
For some reason, Yang Garam remained silent. I shifted my gaze from Jeong Seyeon and discreetly examined Yang Garam’s face.
‘He hasn’t been staring like that the whole time, has he?’
His gaze was directed at Jeong Seyeon. But the problem was that his expression was the complete opposite of how he looked at me. His stiffened lips were twisted up at one corner, and he was looking at Jeong Seyeon with an unpleasant expression, creating wrinkles not just between his brows but also on the bridge of his nose. Moreover, his eyes, glowing fiercely like those of a wild animal, clearly showed that he perceived Jeong Seyeon as an enemy.
He had been eating just fine until now, so I couldn’t understand why he was acting this way.
‘Why? Were they on bad terms originally?’
But hadn’t they just met today for the first time?
Or maybe something unpleasant happened between them today before I arrived?
All kinds of thoughts crossed my mind.
Jeong Seyeon seemed completely indifferent toward Yang Garam, while Yang Garam was unilaterally showing hostility toward Jeong Seyeon.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
