Chapter 49

Whether the other man did that or not, Mo Yeonhoo looked ready to crawl inside the menu.

What can I eat quickly?

He wanted very badly to escape this awkward seat.

Thinking the best option would be to order, eat quickly, and leave, Mo Yeonhoo scanned the list.

Fresh pasta... pizza...... wine..........

But every single dish looked like the kind that would take a long time to eat.

It’s all Western food. Not bad, exactly.

This was the restaurant Kwon Mieon had chosen.

He had kept sending all kinds of useless messages to Mo Yeonhoo, who had barely answered any of them, then left a message saying he had made a reservation here for Saturday at three.

Of course, Mo Yeonhoo had not even clicked the link. Anywhere would have been fine with him anyway, but looking at the cute interior and the tableware made him feel strange.

Why did he bring two guys to a place that looks like you’d come for a date?

He did like Western food, but... the problem was that the other person was the uncomfortable junkie. As Mo Yeonhoo picked through the menu with a reluctant face, Kwon Mieon asked,

“What are you having?”

“I’ll have the ragù pizza and lychee ade....”

Mo Yeonhoo looked at the pizza photo with a serious expression. It said it was baked in a brick oven, so it would probably take a while to come out.

I’ll fold the pizza and eat two slices at a time.

He would listen to the story, eat, and end the meeting immediately. Once they finished eating, they would have no choice but to get up. Just as he was hardening that solemn pig’s resolve, a staff member approached.

“Are you ready to order?”

Kwon Mieon, who had been turning the menu pages with a soft, habitual flick of his hand, stopped. Then he asked, “Can I order?” and Mo Yeonhoo nodded.

“We’ll have the Caesar salad, steak ragù pizza, prosciutto arugula pizza, truffle cream pasta, and garlic shrimp pasta. For dessert, the mascarpone tiramisu. For drinks, one lychee ade and one orange basil ade, please.”

...What?

Mo Yeonhoo doubted his ears. What were all those dishes supposed to be?

“I’ll confirm your order. Caesar salad, ragù pizza, arugula pizza, truffle cream pasta, garlic shrimp pasta, mascarpone tiramisu, and for drinks, one lychee ade and one orange basil ade. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

Unlike Mo Yeonhoo, who was shocked, Kwon Mieon answered calmly and finished the order. As soon as the staff member left, Mo Yeonhoo naturally widened his eyes and asked back,

“Can you eat all that?”

“You looked like you lost some weight, so I ordered a moderate amount.”

At that, his gaze naturally went to Kwon Mieon’s body. Mo Yeonhoo tilted his head. Had he lost a little since then? He could not tell just by looking, but his body seemed far too solid to call it weight loss.

“Not me. You, Yeonhoo.”

When Kwon Mieon noticed his gaze and corrected him, Mo Yeonhoo was even more speechless. Then he had ordered all that for him to eat? How was he supposed to eat all that?

“I didn’t lose weight.”

“You did.”

“How would you know?”

“I can tell at a glance. So eat a lot.”

And he was so firm about it. If Mo Yeonhoo denied it one more time, Kwon Mieon looked ready to stand up on the spot and take him somewhere to weigh him.

“What does me losing weight have to do with y—”

Mo Yeonhoo, who had been reflexively arguing back, moved his lips, then shut his mouth.

“...Let’s get to the point.”

Kwon Mieon was strange. Whenever he was with him, the conversation kept slipping down strange paths. He needed to keep his head on straight.

At the words “the point,” Kwon Mieon quietly looked at him too.

“What exactly happened that day? And why don’t I remember it?”

When facing someone like this, the best plan was to leave as quickly as possible before he got swept up.

Kwon Mieon stared fixedly at Mo Yeonhoo, then leaned forward.

Closer than before, he asked,

“You remember Seunghwan Lee, right?”

It was the name he had expected to come up.

“...Yeah. We met at Seunghwan Lee’s party a year ago, right?”

“You remember, Yeonhoo.”

Kwon Mieon smiled. Since Mo Yeonhoo, who had been feigning ignorance all this time, had admitted their meeting for the first time, he seemed rather pleased.

But Mo Yeonhoo did not like that smiling face, so even as unease stirred in him, he unnecessarily flicked his gaze elsewhere and acted indifferent.

“I don’t think anything special happened that day, so what do you keep saying happened?”

“Wow....”

At the small exclamation, Mo Yeonhoo glanced over and saw Kwon Mieon smiling as if he found it absurd.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you? Or are you pretending not to because you want to?”

“Yeah, I really don’t remember. I probably drank too much....”

“You hit on me.”

And chaos struck out of nowhere.

“What?”

Mo Yeonhoo doubted his ears. Hit on him? Who hit on whom?

As he blinked at the expression he had never expected at all, unfamiliar combinations of words poured into his ears one after another.

“You said you’d take responsibility for me. You said you’d keep me with you from now on.”

“I-I did?”

“Yes.”

Unlike Kwon Mieon, who answered decisively, Mo Yeonhoo was naturally horrified.

“Why would I do that to you? No, when did I ever—”

“It’s true....”

Kwon Mieon looked a little hurt. Looking at that sorrowful face alone, Mo Yeonhoo could almost mistake himself for someone who had actually hit on Kwon Mieon and run away.

“Why would I say something like that to you!”

Mo Yeonhoo felt wronged. Kwon Mieon slowly blinked a few times, then his face turned dejected. With his eyes lowered, he let out a soft sigh and continued.

“You helped me, asked me to stay beside you, told me to come with you, said you’d take responsibility. So I believed only those words and waited for you to contact me....”

Kwon Mieon’s long fingers tapped the phone screen lying on the table.

“But the person who said he’d contact me disappeared. Do you know how hard it was for me to forget you after that?”

The more Mo Yeonhoo listened, the paler his expression grew.

“Then you showed up right in front of me like it was nothing, so I thought we could finally talk, but you didn’t even remember... and I couldn’t reach you again....”

So, in other words, that was completely....

He’s saying I really hit on him, isn’t he?

Why the hell would I do that to you, a man?

Mo Yeonhoo had never once in his life viewed a man as a romantic possibility.

When his eyes met Kwon Mieon’s as he spoke almost in a murmur, Kwon Mieon stared fixedly at him. A smooth, white face like porcelain shaped by a master craftsman, features so perfect they looked painted.

Well, his face is... pretty, I guess....

Mo Yeonhoo, who had been admiring that face again as if bewitched without realizing it, froze.

What did I just say?

The moment he realized he had thought that about the junkie, he stiffened completely.

“Yeonhoo?”

Kwon Mieon called him, as if Mo Yeonhoo’s sudden silence was strange, and Mo Yeonhoo snapped back to his senses.

“Aren’t you just making things up because I don’t remember?”

He could not let himself get dragged along like this. With a grim expression, Mo Yeonhoo rattled off,

“There’s no way I would have done that to someone whose name and age I didn’t even know. Do you have proof that I said that?”

His gentle face sharpened at the eyes as he pressed him firmly. Kwon Mieon quietly listened to Mo Yeonhoo’s disbelief, then let out a small breath.

“Wow....”

Kwon Mieon smiled bitterly.

“This one actually hurts.”

His face looked so genuinely sad that Mo Yeonhoo shut his mouth for a moment, but Kwon Mieon wiped the expression away as if it had never been there. Then he lightly leaned his chest against the table and smiled at Mo Yeonhoo.

“I didn’t make up anything. And you know my name and age. We stayed up all night talking about all kinds of things that day. And proof? Of course I have proof.”

As if he had been waiting for this, Kwon Mieon tapped his phone a few times, then held it out.

Mo Yeonhoo blinked at the screen.

“CCTV?”

The CCTV footage showed a hallway where part of a staircase was visible, and when he looked closely, the place was familiar. It was the very club where Seunghwan Lee had held the party.

Tap, tap. Kwon Mieon’s long fingertip pointed to the lower right. When Mo Yeonhoo followed his fingertip with his eyes, a strange scene came into view. Two people sitting on the stairs were not just hugging each other—they were practically overlapping.

“Hey, why are you showing me some couple’s vid—huh?!”

Wait.

Mo Yeonhoo, who had stretched only his neck forward like a turtle, shot up from his seat. The chair scraped roughly backward. Ignoring that, Kwon Mieon held the phone and zoomed in.

The side profile of the larger of the two overlapping figures was obviously Kwon Mieon, no matter who looked at it.

The problem was the other person sitting on Kwon Mieon’s thigh and giggling....

“Were we a couple, Yeonhoo?”

Fuck! That was me!