The phone was quiet.
Sitting at his desk at precisely the correct time as always, Jaehyuk glanced at his phone.
By now, Junghyun should have arrived at his office, but there was still no contact from him.
It was unlike him—even if he sent scheduled messages, he always made sure to send them exactly on time.
Jaehyuk wondered if there had been an accident, but that seemed unlikely. It was only a five-minute drive. And if there had been an accident, he should have been notified already as Junghyun’s partner.
So had he simply forgotten? Feeling inexplicably anxious, Jaehyuk tapped his fingertips on the desk.
Junghyun was probably fine, but today something felt off.
For the past three months, no matter how busy he was, Junghyun had never missed sending his morning message…
[Not arrived yet?]
Unable to wait any longer, Jaehyuk sent a message first and put his phone down on the desk.
He shifted his gaze back to his laptop, but his phone remained silent.
Checking the time, he saw that five minutes had passed with no response.
This was definitely strange.
Though he wasn’t sure why, something didn’t feel right. As he reached for his phone again, his office line rang first.
“Yes.”
― Attorney Jang Junyoung is here.
Only then did Jaehyuk remember that Junyoung had mentioned dropping by with some documents last night.
To be precise, it wasn’t so much an appointment as a notification, but there had been contact.
“Tell him to come in.”
― Yes.
It wasn’t something Jaehyuk had requested first, so he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic, but Junyoung occasionally created work for himself this way.
Sometimes Jaehyuk felt that Junyoung was getting too close to him, but since he was ultimately helpful, Jaehyuk told him to come in and leaned back deeply in his chair.
Then he immediately found Junghyun’s number and pressed the call button.
One ring, two rings… and five rings…
But the call didn’t connect.
The fact that it was ringing meant the phone wasn’t turned off.
Was it on silent mode again? But recently, Junghyun hardly ever used silent mode.
He said there was no need since he had blocked all numbers except a select few.
Of course, the Chairman had been briefly displeased when his number was among those blocked, but as usual, Junghyun didn’t care.
At this point, Jaehyuk wondered if Junghyun actually enjoyed blocking people, given how enthusiastic he was about it.
Thanks to that, the number of blocked contacts had exceeded the hundreds, but Junghyun said he didn’t need silent mode since all unwanted calls were already cut off.
So there was no reason he wouldn’t answer the phone.
That thought nagged at Jaehyuk, and he anxiously tapped his fingertips on the armrest when the door opened and Junyoung walked in carrying a bag.
Though he clearly heard the sound, Jaehyuk didn’t even look in his direction, only flicking his right hand slightly.
It was a signal to sit down.
“What’s this? No greeting when someone arrives?”
Junyoung complained with a face that didn’t match his words at all, then asked the secretary who had shown him in to bring coffee before sitting on the sofa.
But Jaehyuk was still focused on his phone, frowning.
He didn’t appear to be on a call, but rather waiting for someone to answer—and looking somewhat anxious about it.
This behavior was unlike Jaehyuk. As Junyoung glanced at him, Jaehyuk let out a small sigh and moved the phone away from his face.
He pressed the end button, stood up from his seat, and approached Junyoung.
“What’s going on? Not answering? Who is it?”
“The chihuahua.”
“…Junghyun?”
“He said he’d message when he got to the office, but there’s been no contact.”
Even as he sat down in the main seat next to Junyoung, Jaehyuk’s gaze remained fixed on his phone screen.
As if he couldn’t stop worrying about it.
Junyoung found this refreshing.
“I knew you’d get along well, but you’re doing even better than I expected. You two must be a good match?”
“There’s no reason we wouldn’t get along.”
“But aren’t you spending too much time with just Junghyun? Everyone’s complaining lately. They say it’s hard to see your face.”
“It’s not like they were faces I saw that often before, was it?”
Still looking at his phone, Jaehyuk answered as if to say these weren’t faces he particularly wanted to see anyway, when a knock was heard.
The two stopped their conversation as the secretary entered and prepared coffee in front of Junyoung.
Acknowledging this, Junyoung picked up his cup and naturally continued the conversation.
“I hear you haven’t been to Glam lately either? I was talking to Yejun hyung yesterday, and he said he was disappointed. You haven’t shown up at Glam even though you used to go every month, and hyung contacted you about going to Tahiti for underwater photography, but got no response.”
Only then did Jaehyuk look up from his phone with a sudden realization.
“I forgot. I’ve been busy. I’ll be traveling with that guy this year, so I probably won’t be going with hyung. I’ll let him know.”
“Why? Go together. It’s a chance to introduce them. Doesn’t he get along well with his brothers too? He seems quite sociable for a chihuahua.”
“It’s better to avoid contact with family if possible. Well, he’s good at avoiding them without me having to say anything.”
Although it meant accumulating resentment here and there, Jaehyuk hoped that Junghyun would avoid meeting his family as much as possible.
Meeting them would only be tiresome.
“At least show your face at the shop. It’s the place that connected you two, after all.”
“Not for the time being. He’s abstaining from alcohol.”
“…Abstaining?”
“He drinks too much, so we’re managing it. If left alone, he’d become an alcoholic immediately.”
“Ah… come to think of it, he did like alcohol, didn’t he? Drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.”
“He likes it too much. The documents?”
Feeling it was time to get to the main point, Jaehyuk asked him to produce these documents that supposedly required his personal attention. Junyoung put his cup down on the table and leaned back on the sofa.
Then he spoke leisurely.
“Before that, there’s something I want to check… Has Junghyun ever mentioned meeting you somewhere else?”
As Junyoung narrowed the condition by adding “besides 15 years ago,” Jaehyuk frowned as if understanding the intent of the question.
“He hasn’t mentioned it, but since he surfs, we must have met somewhere. All the places surfers gather are pretty much the same. Since he even worked part-time at my regular shop, it would be stranger if we hadn’t met at all.”
Suggesting this was obvious, Jaehyuk looked back at his phone screen.
But there was still no reply from Junghyun.
He seemed completely unable to focus on the conversation.
Despite this inattentive attitude, Junyoung didn’t mind.
He would be focused soon enough.
His attention would be fully captured.
“Then, let me change the question. If you both moved within such predictable areas, why couldn’t he recognize you?”
“Since I don’t remember either, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, you did remember.”
At Junyoung’s confident tone, Jaehyuk turned his gaze back to him.
Under Jaehyuk’s stare, which seemed to be demanding what he meant, Junyoung finally took out the documents in question from his bag and placed them on the table.
“See for yourself. It seems that chihuahua isn’t a pet dog but a search dog.”
***
It was just for a moment. It felt like he had only closed his eyes briefly, but he found himself lying back on the sofa.
He seemed to have closed his eyes momentarily due to thoughts that kept circling like being trapped in a complex maze, and apparently fell asleep in that position.
For a while after opening his eyes, Junghyun couldn’t even recognize where he was, but then remembered he was in the on-call room and got up.
Arranging his hair, which had become a mess while sleeping, he checked the time and realized it was already lunchtime.
He had slept for nearly four hours.
Feeling alarmed, Junghyun quickly got up from his seat and put on the coat he had thrown on the sofa.
As he put his hand in his coat pocket, he felt his phone.
A sense of dismay hit him immediately.
He had promised to contact Jaehyuk when he arrived at the company but had completely forgotten.
“Damn it…”
Knowing how sensitive Jaehyuk was about such things, he hurriedly took out his phone and checked it. Sure enough, there were missed calls and several messages.
[Mountain Ginseng: Not arrived yet?]
[Mountain Ginseng: Call me if something’s wrong.]
Seeing Jaehyuk’s worried messages, Junghyun quickly sent a reply.
[I forgot my phone in my coat pocket. I arrived safely. Contact me when you leave work.]
After sending the same reply as always, Junghyun stared blankly at his phone when it suddenly rang.
Seeing the name that appeared on the screen, Junghyun pressed his lips together firmly.
He wasn’t sure if he should answer the phone now.
His thoughts were still a jumble, and he didn’t know what to say to Jaehyuk.
Knowing that Jaehyuk would immediately notice if anything seemed off, Junghyun hesitated for a moment but eventually pressed the call button.
If he didn’t answer now, Jaehyuk would find that even more suspicious.
Being surprisingly worry-prone, he might even come to the office to look for him.
“Hello.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
