Chapter 17

As he parked and prepared to step out, he spotted a familiar car pulling in directly across from him.

It was Gong Jio’s car.

Gyuhan’s eyes lit up as he got out and waited.

Today, Gong Jio wore a dark beige suit. Watching him hook his sunglasses onto his breast pocket, Gyuhan grinned. Though he was his friend, the guy was genuinely impressive. Thinking that someone like that might have opened his heart only to him made him feel a little—no, a lot—smug. Then suddenly, quite naturally, he imagined Gong Jio opening the door to his heart not just to him, but to someone else as well.

Hold on.

Gyuhan rubbed his chest. It felt like lying under a blanket with the subtle discomfort that the top and bottom were mixed up. That ambiguous unease where no matter how many times you rotated the blanket, something still felt off.

“You’re in early.”

That discomfort was quickly forgotten at Gong Jio’s casual greeting, tossed out without a hint of surprise. More accurately… it was deferred. Leaving behind only the murky unease of forcing oneself to sleep with a misplaced blanket while knowing one’s toes were cold.

“Yeah.”

Gyuhan plodded over to stand beside Gong Jio.

While waiting for the elevator, Gong Jio was completely absorbed in his phone. A quick glance at the screen revealed a mountain of emails. Gyuhan marveled at how Gong Jio tore through his inbox at staggering speed.

By the time the elevator arrived, a good portion of his inbox had been cleared. Gyuhan snapped to his senses only when Gong Jio stepped in first and asked, “Aren’t you getting in?”

Being an executive elevator, the interior was quiet. Pretending to fix his hair in the mirror, Gyuhan stole a glance at Gong Jio. Even his profile was without a single flaw, this bastard. Shaking his head in awe, Gyuhan took his phone from his pocket. Unlike Gong Jio’s, his inbox remained quiet. Just as he smacked his lips in disappointment, a notification popped up. It was the Merry Matchmaking manager.

❮Merry Matchmaking Manager⠇

—Ms. Lee Sohee has requested a follow-up date. Congratulations.

Could the reason it sounded somewhat exhausted be because it was a Monday morning…? Gyuhan guessed. The important thing was that a second date had been requested. Seeing Gyuhan’s grinning, slack-jawed expression, Gong Jio asked with an indifferent air, “Grinning like that on a Monday morning means you’re either a psychopath or you hit the Saturday lottery. Did you win the jackpot?”

Gyuhan spun around and thrust his phone screen toward him. Jio, who had been studying his triumphant expression, slowly shifted his gaze down to the display.

Unable to wait for the silently staring Jio to react, Gyuhan’s impatient nature took over. “It’s a second date! A second date!”

Unlike Gyuhan, whose lips practically popped with energy as the words burst out, Jio’s reaction was virtually nonexistent. Right up until the elevator doors slid open.

Hurrying after Jio as he stepped out first, Gyuhan pressed him. “Why the blank face? You played a part in this, too.”

“You’ve made it to date three before,” Jio replied in a flat, blunt tone. Exactly the temperature one would expect for a Monday morning commute.

“I’m telling you, this time feels different.”

Gyuhan was on the verge of blurting out that she had shown interest in Jio too, and asking if that didn’t clearly make this different from before, but held his tongue lest he count his chickens before they hatched. Besides, if he brought that up, he felt he would end up rattling on about everything that had happened at the alumni gathering, along with the swelling pride he had gained from it. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to boast about that right in front of the man himself? He was, after all, an extraordinarily delicious person.

Cha Gyuhan, who seemed doomed never to memorize the word delicate, continued with a proud puff of his chest, “This time, I’m really gonna make things wo—oof.”

His strides, taken while smugly admiring the screen, came to an abrupt halt when he collided with Jio, who had suddenly whirled around to block his path. It was a body so rock-hard it left Gyuhan’s nose stinging. I told you to get some fat in your diet… Before Gyuhan could voice a single word of nagging, Jio parted his lips first.

“The spark.”

“Huh?”

“Did you feel a spark?”

“Uh… No. Not yet.”

“Not yet? I thought you said there had to be a spark the very second you laid eyes on each other.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“Did you change your mind in the meantime?”

“Um…”

“Was that all your conviction amounted to?”

Beating Gong Jio in an argument was impossible. Tongue-tied, Gyuhan could only dart his eyes around. Of course, that didn’t mean Jio was going to go easy on him.

“Pretty flimsy, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Your conviction. It didn’t mean jack shit.”

“What did you say?”

As Gyuhan bristled with temper, Jio let out a quiet smirk and drove in the final nail.

“At this rate… isn’t everything about you a filthy whore except your dick?”

The pale tip of Jio’s finger jabbed Gyuhan firmly in the chest. Whether it was because he was boiling with rage, or because he had unwittingly conceded that the words rang true, or simply because his chest hurt so badly… Gyuhan froze like an idiot, unable to even muster proper anger. Leaving him behind, Gong Jio vanished beyond the glass doors…