“Bring the firm ones. Two boxes.”
[Are you insane? W-what, firm ones?]
As if he’d just heard his department head say the word “nummy,” Jinwon groaned in horror. Yi-beom’s voice sank low.
“Can you make it in two hours?”
[What is this, my schedule for the afterlife?]
“If the peaches don’t arrive, that’s exactly where you’ll be headed.”
There was no reply. Even half-asleep, the mention of the afterlife seemed to jolt him awake; rustling noises came through the phone, like he was getting dressed.
Jinwon talked back sometimes, but he was undeniably a capable secretary. Maybe he’d become that way after being ground down under Yi-beom for so long. Jinwon’s hurried voice came through.
[Should I use the helicopter?]
“Do whatever you want.”
When the call ended, Eunho was still craning his neck from Yi-beom’s arms. The moment their eyes met, he hid the lips he’d been smacking together.
“Too late.”
“You could’ve pretended not to see.”
One of Yi-beom’s eyebrows lifted. It was an expression he made whenever he was annoyed.
“Forget it. Don’t expect that from an ex.”
I didn’t mean it seriously… Eunho muttered under his breath as Yi-beom carried him over to the closet. He pulled out the thickest jacket and wrapped Eunho up tightly.
Passing the terrace, Yi-beom crossed the swimming pool. Not a single person appeared along the way. With no lights around, it truly seemed that Yi-beom’s house was the only one on the island.
After that came a place even Eunho had never been. They passed a trail with a small park. A carefully tended garden circled the walkway, clearly the result of long effort. After a while, the ocean spread out before Eunho’s eyes.
“Wow…!”
A gasp escaped him without realizing. The moon reflected sharply across the sea. In time with the rushing sound of the waves, Eunho breathed in.
“Ahjussi…”
When he turned his head, his eyes met Yi-beom’s. It seemed Yi-beom had been watching him the whole time.
Moonlight fell across his face—messy hair, eyes filled with affection beneath it, lips tilted slightly. He looked much like he had that day in the alley behind the bar when they’d first met. Yi-beom probably still didn’t know, but even then his gaze had never left Eunho’s steps. Just like now.
Poking his head out from the jacket wrapped around him, Eunho pressed a soft kiss onto the back of the hand holding his stomach. When he looked up again, Yi-beom’s eyes had widened slightly.
“Ahjussi.”
He called him in a gentle voice.
“I can’t let you go.”
Letting out a small laugh, Eunho tilted his head.
“My hyung said people end up with their own kind.”
“……”
“You hate calling me your ex, right? I hate it too.”
At that moment, a sharp tremor ran through his legs. Huh? Before he could react, Eunho’s body changed.
In the blink of an eye, he turned human and collapsed into Yi-beom’s arms, hugging him tightly. Strong arms wrapped around his body.
“You…?”
A startled voice followed.
Eunho’s body fell against him, and Yi-beom naturally caught the small figure that fit perfectly into his embrace.
Smooth skin that made his fingertips slide gleamed in the moonlight. Even though no one was around to see, Yi-beom hurriedly covered Eunho’s body with the jacket he’d been holding.
“Fuck, I should just laminate some clothes at this point.”
Glaring at the legs exposed beneath the jacket, he grabbed at his waistband and then asked for permission.
“Want to wear this?”
“…If you take that off here, you’ll get charged with public indecency.”
“What does that matter?”
Yi-beom’s gaze still refused to leave Eunho’s legs.
“Your ex is someone who could live without laws anyway.”
At the word ex, Eunho’s eyes snapped upward sharply. He tried to glare, but his naturally soft eyes made it look anything but threatening.
When Yi-beom didn’t react at all, Eunho bared his teeth. A habit left over from when he’d been a rabbit. He leaned forward and bit down hard on the chest right in front of him.
“What’s with the temper?”
“……”
“You’re the one who called me an ex first.”
Though he muttered harshly, Yi-beom adjusted his hold to keep Eunho’s feet from touching the sand. The action completely contradicted his tone, and Eunho pulled his mouth away from his chest.
“Done biting?”
Instead of answering, Eunho wrapped his arms around Yi-beom’s neck. His legs coiled around Yi-beom’s waist, pressing his face firmly into his chest without leaving even the smallest gap. As he inhaled, a familiar scent filled his nose.
The simple woody fragrance made him feel like he could finally breathe again. It was Yi-beom’s scent. Closing his eyes, Eunho let out a small laugh.
It was funny how he’d suddenly turned human, and funnier still that the first thing he’d done after becoming human again was bite Yi-beom. As Eunho grinned to himself, Yi-beom raised a brow.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘nothing.’”
“Sometimes there is.”
There were many things in the world that simply happened that way. His parents dying in an accident, himself falling in love with Yi-beom—those were just things that happened. No one was particularly right or wrong; life simply unfolded that way.
“You’re ridiculous.”
Yi-beom tightened the jacket around him with both hands so he wouldn’t get cold. Perhaps because the sun had long set, the wind still felt chilly.
Holding Eunho in his arms, Yi-beom walked along the night sea. With every step, his feet sank into the sand, yet his body never wavered.
It felt like a brief ceasefire. They didn’t speak, but both thought of the same things at once—the running, chasing, crying, resentment, and confinement that had happened for the first time in five years.
Leaning into Yi-beom’s embrace while listening to the waves made everything feel like a dream. When Eunho shifted his feet restlessly, Yi-beom tightened his hold.
“You know…”
“Yeah.”
Eunho lifted his head and looked out at the sea. The dark water resembled the ocean near the neighborhood where he’d lived long ago.
“When my aunt and uncle fought, my hyung used to take me out like this and hold me.”
“……”
“We’d come out at night, talk, splash in the water, build sandcastles…”
Since they’d suddenly taken in two children, conflict in that household had been inevitable. Complaints about rising living expenses, about how the house was already too cramped—whenever the shouting got loud, Jung Eunchan would take Eunho out of the house.
Remembering the days they’d left without even proper clothes, Eunho smiled faintly.
“Even when it was cold and hard, I liked it because hyung held me.”
“……”
“And we talked about the future together, you know?”
“Yeah.”
Yi-beom nodded.
“Did you already say back then you’d date someone ten years older?”
“No, not that!”
Back then, he’d never imagined dating someone ten years older. If he’d said that, his butt would’ve been on fire—Eunchan would’ve smacked him and left him buried in the sand.
“Not that. We said we shouldn’t let our kids go through things like that.”
“……”
“We said the sea shouldn’t be a place you get chased out to, but a place you go to play. We promised we’d love them for real.”
Yi-beom’s steps came to a stop. Tilting his head back, Eunho met his gaze.
“That… I want to do that with you, Ahjussi.”
Eunho’s eyes curved into half-moons. It was a smile Yi-beom found unbearably adorable.
“The baby’s already on the way, so all that’s left is getting married.”
Yi-beom’s eyes wavered. In that brief moment, countless emotions flickered through and disappeared.
For an instant, the scene Eunho described appeared before him: a child perched on his shoulders, Eunho running around laughing, and himself holding Eunho’s hand tightly.
“I…”
Just as Yi-beom’s lips parted to speak—
The thunderous roar of a helicopter filled the island. Looking up, a small light approached from the distance.
“President!”
Jinwon waved frantically from inside the helicopter.
“This counts as reimbursable fuel costs, right?!”
Even in the middle of this, Jinwon was worrying about expenses, and Yi-beom’s expression twisted instantly. Wrapping Eunho closer to block the wind, he muttered a curse.
“That vicious bastard.”
“What did you say? That bastard?”
Normally he couldn’t hear a thing, yet at moments like this his ears were sharp. Whether Yi-beom answered or not, Jinwon would surely add night pay, hazard pay, and expenses to make sure he got every won he could.
Jinwon firmly believed he was the only sane person in this organization, but from Yi-beom’s perspective, he was far from ordinary. Even that helicopter had been seized by Jinwon after chasing a debtor to the ends of the earth.
[If you don’t have money, you must have a rich friend!]
Even tracking down a friend of a friend, Jinwon would collect. That persistence was exactly why Yi-beom kept him around—but hearing him talk about reimbursements at two in the morning inside a helicopter still gave him chills.
The helicopter landed on the helipad by the sea. At the same time, Eunho’s head turned toward it.
“Peaches?”
Smack, smack—at the sound of Eunho licking his lips, Yi-beom quickened his steps. As they approached the helicopter, Jinwon had just stepped out.
“Oh! Good evening, sir!”
“The peaches.”
Ignoring the greeting, Yi-beom leaned forward.
“The firm ones.”
Hearing such a cute word come out of someone who normally cursed nonstop at the office made Jinwon feel unbearably awkward. When he just stood there blankly, Yi-beom’s face crumpled.
“You don’t have them?”
“As if that could happen.”
Shuddering once, Jinwon reached inside and pulled out three boxes.
“You have no idea how much I ran around to get these. The department stores were closed, even the produce shops were closed so—”
Before he could finish, Yi-beom shoved his hand straight into one of the neatly packed boxes.
