Chapter 25

“What the hell is your problem?”

His wrist was seized, spinning him around abruptly.

Startled, Gi-hyeon instinctively looked not at Yeon-oh, but past him. Yeon-oh’s sharp gaze immediately swept over Gi-hyeon’s face, searching it as if wondering who exactly Gi-hyeon was looking out for.

“I came all the way here to pick you up. Where do you think you’re going?” Yeon-oh demanded, his tone thick with displeasure.

Even as the bastard spoke, Gi-hyeon remained hyper-aware of the clinic staff staring at them from over Yeon-oh’s broad shoulders. Everyone knew they were friends, but wouldn’t it look bizarre for the Chairman to abruptly cut off a conversation with his employees just to sprint after a therapist?

Jo Yeon-oh was undoubtedly aware of Gi-hyeon’s anxiety. Yet, grabbing his wrist in public and confronting him like this was Yeon-oh’s way of saying that since Gi-hyeon had crossed him, he was going to do whatever the hell he wanted.

Gi-hyeon released a heavy sigh.

“Why did you come without calling?”

He was exhausted.

Bone-deep, soul-crushing exhausted.

Just blinking his eyes felt like it was draining his life force. He had endured a miserable day, and it was a cruel paradox that the absolute hardest thing to endure was the sight of Jo Yeon-oh staring down at him with such intense, palpable worry.

Entirely oblivious to the suffocating weight in Gi-hyeon’s chest, Yeon-oh let out a dry, breathy chuckle.

“What a killer welcoming speech.”

Seeing the bastard looking perfectly fine today after bolting out without a word in the dead of night left Gi-hyeon feeling hollow.

“People are watching,” Gi-hyeon muttered, pushing Yeon-oh’s arm down and turning his head away.

In a flash, a rough hand snatched his jaw.

“What are you—”

“What the hell happened here?”

Yeon-oh’s complexion had turned deathly pale, his eyes scrutinizing Gi-hyeon’s face with a terrifying frost. Only then did Gi-hyeon realize the violent midday slap had left a lingering mark.

I really didn’t want to cause a scene… Biting the inside of his lip, Gi-hyeon jerked his head, trying to pry his chin free from Yeon-oh’s unyielding grip.

“Answer me first before you try to run, yeah?” Yeon-oh whispered, his voice dropping an octave as his fingers tightened around the jaw Gi-hyeon was desperately trying to twist away. The grip was forceful enough to carve a faint crease between Gi-hyeon’s brows.

“I bumped into a strength measurement machine. It’s nothing, so stop making a massive deal out of it. I told you, people are staring.”

Brushing Yeon-oh’s hand away as if it were a minor annoyance, Gi-hyeon was surprised when the bastard actually let go without a fight. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The lack of an immediate interrogation meant the lie had passed smoothly, but Gi-hyeon knew better than to fully drop his guard. Yeon-oh was a predator who always bit down when his prey felt safest.

Wearing a mask of complete indifference, Gi-hyeon brushed past Yeon-oh, approached his colleagues, and bowed respectfully.

“I’ll be heading out now.”

He deliberately omitted the fact that Jo Yeon-oh had come to pick him up. The piercing, disapproving glare Team Leader Lim was currently drilling into his back was already giving him a migraine. Does he have a crush on Jo Yeon-oh or something? Gi-hyeon simply couldn’t fathom why the man resented him so passionately.

Just as a weary sigh threatened to part his tightly pressed lips, a hand reached out from nowhere, lightly tapping against his mouth.

“I gave you the corporate card, did they not feed you enough snacks? Why are you chewing on your own lips?”

“I told you to wait in the car.”

Gi-hyeon’s brow furrowed automatically as he noticed the shocked, wide-eyed expressions of the staff. Lee Beom-hee was nowhere to be seen, having apparently vanished into the night. It irritated him to no end that the director was absolutely useless when he actually needed a distraction.

“Alright, alright. Stop being so cranky,” Yeon-oh retorted with an easy smirk.

Contrasting sharply with Gi-hyeon’s heavy heart, that light, effortless smile made the cold spring wind feel suddenly refreshing. Yet, witnessing it only made Gi-hyeon sink deeper into the dark, like a man forced to embrace soot.

It was a profound sense of deprivation. The hospital politics that were suffocating and agonizing for Gi-hyeon were nothing but trivial, weightless games to Jo Yeon-oh. The sheer deprivation born from standing there like an idiot, watching the chasm between their realities. But Gi-hyeon had his own burdens to bear—burdens Jo Yeon-oh never needed to understand.

“Mr. So, are you leaving with the Chairman?”

“Have a safe trip home!”

Sensing Gi-hyeon’s palpable discomfort, Seung-hee and General Room Team Leader Ahn Hee-min mercifully stepped in, gently pushing him toward the exit. Relieved by their tactful intervention, Gi-hyeon bowed one last time and turned away. Whether a jealous gaze was still burning a hole in his back or not, it no longer mattered.

“Looks like your grand adventure in corporate socialization is finally over,” Yeon-oh chuckled, falling into step beside Gi-hyeon after waiting a few paces ahead. His face was practically radiating amusement. He looked genuinely happy.

Jo Yeon-oh loved watching Gi-hyeon scramble to navigate hospital society. More accurately, he seemed deeply fond of simply watching Gi-hyeon work.

Perhaps he still occasionally pictured the So Gi-hyeon who had lay completely immobilized in a hospital bed after ruining his ankle, staring blankly at the ceiling for months. Because of that ghost, Yeon-oh aggressively welcomed any sign of Gi-hyeon moving, working, and living.

It was staggering to think one human being could worry about another to such an absolute degree, but Jo Yeon-oh treasured So Gi-hyeon. And that treasuring was very much an ongoing, active pursuit. You’re a really great guy, but the fact that you’re occasionally cruel is the real problem. Mumbling the thought entirely in his head, Gi-hyeon headed toward Yeon-oh’s car.

Manager Yoo clearly hadn’t driven today, as the vehicle was different from their usual ride. The rearview and side mirrors were perfectly adjusted to Yeon-oh’s towering height, indicating this was the car he exclusively drove himself. Without a single word, Gi-hyeon slid into the passenger seat, buckled his seatbelt, and immediately closed his eyes.

“Hey. Take this hangover medicine before you sleep. This one, and this one.”

Rounding the hood and dropping into the driver’s seat, Yeon-oh immediately launched into his nagging routine. The center console was practically a pharmacy, littered with various hangover cures. Gi-hyeon let out a breathy scoff. He had barely drank a drop; prescribing hangover medicine was absurd. You needed an actual hangover to cure one.

“I don’t need it. I barely drank.”

“Just take it. I swear, you love completely shitting on my efforts, don’t you? I didn’t send a lackey for this. I personally turned on my blinkers, pulled over on the shoulder, ignored the assholes honking behind me, walked my ass to the pharmacy, picked out the medicine, paid for it, asked for a plastic bag, got rejected because the bag cost an extra 100 won after I’d already paid, and brought it here with my whole fucking heart, okay?”

Refusing the medicine would inevitably trigger a three-day-long guilt trip, so Gi-hyeon reached out with a look of absolute sheer boredom. Smirking, Yeon-oh cracked open the small glass bottle with a crisp snap and handed it over.

…Where did he even pick up a habit like this?

Gi-hyeon wasn’t some fragile creature with wrists too weak to twist a bottle cap. He didn’t need this hyper-attentive level of care.

Having stood faithfully by Jo Yeon-oh’s side for seven years, So Gi-hyeon had come to realize that the Alpha was far more affectionate than people assumed, subconsciously treating Gi-hyeon with the same habitual pampering he used on his former lovers.

But dwelling on that fact only ever resulted in Gi-hyeon’s own emotional ruin. Saying nothing, he accepted the bottle, downed the bitter liquid in one gulp, and carelessly tossed the empty glass back into the center console. Yeon-oh meticulously picked it up, screwed the cap back on, dropped it into the designated car trash can, and finally pressed the ignition button.

A sudden, unbidden curiosity seized Gi-hyeon. Resting his elbow on the window sill and propping his chin in his hand, he turned his head to study the man beside him.

“When you date… who usually initiates the breakup?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

It was a perfectly detached response. Yeon-oh hadn’t even processed the weight of the question, simply batting it away by pure reflex. Gi-hyeon stared at him intently. Focused entirely on merging into the road, Yeon-oh’s sharp profile was visible in the side mirror. The glow of oncoming headlights briefly washed across his high-bridged nose, plunging into darkness before illuminating him all over again.

“I’m asking who initiates the breakups. You or them?”

“Did you chug a whole goddamn gallon of booze?” Yeon-oh clicked his tongue in annoyance, reaching out blindly to press his palm against Gi-hyeon’s forehead, checking for a fever. His tone implied Gi-hyeon was sprouting pure nonsense, yet he kept his eyes glued to the road while his heavy hand clumsily kneaded Gi-hyeon’s face. Annoyed by the palm smearing his features, Gi-hyeon swatted the hand away.

“I asked who usually ends it.”

Even back when they were just friends, Gi-hyeon knew Yeon-oh cycled through lovers frequently, but he had never heard the intimate details of those relationships. In high school, he had been too busy surviving beside the prickly bastard, and in college, he had been too consumed by the grueling life of a military cadet to care.

He had loved Jo Yeon-oh since they were young, but watching him swap partners had never actively rotted Gi-hyeon’s insides, so he had never felt compelled to ask. …It wasn’t like I wanted to chase down that kind of gossip anyway. So, just as Yeon-oh pointed out, Gi-hyeon found his own sudden questioning bizarre. He completely understood why Yeon-oh was scowling at him like he had lost his mind. Maybe, as the bastard suggested, he really was a little drunk.

And yet, the curiosity remained.

“I said, who is it?”

“Aren’t you tired? Stop waking up randomly just to spout bullshit.”

“I didn’t wake up randomly, you woke me up. Just answer the question.”

“Go to sleep.”

It was a conversation fit for elementary schoolers. Two grown men with massive builds bickering over absolute nonsense in a luxury car. A hollow feeling expanded in Gi-hyeon’s chest.

…Right. What would I even do with the answer?

It was utterly useless information. Gi-hyeon simply clamped his mouth shut.

A heavy gaze immediately prickled against his skin. Glancing over, he found Yeon-oh steering lazily with one hand, his dark eyes locked onto Gi-hyeon.

“Why the sudden curiosity?” Yeon-oh finally asked.

Gi-hyeon was struck speechless. In truth, there was absolutely no reason for him to be curious. Even if Jo Yeon-oh’s current partner was technically Gi-hyeon, prying this deeply into his exes felt like a breach of etiquette. Having never dated anyone else as an adult, Gi-hyeon was severely uneducated in the rules of romance.

He simply assumed that since the guy with all the experience was glaring at him, he must have crossed a line. As Gi-hyeon’s lips parted slightly in hesitation, Yeon-oh shifted his gaze back to the windshield. His voice dropped, low and dangerously quiet.

“Then you answer me first. I’ll tell you after.”

“Answer what?”

The sudden pivot caught Gi-hyeon off guard. He turned fully toward the driver’s seat just as the car glided to a smooth stop. Looking forward, he saw the red glow of a traffic light. He turned back, locking eyes with Yeon-oh. The crimson light bled across one half of the Alpha’s face, while the other remained submerged in pitch-black shadow.

With eyes that completely concealed whatever storm was brewing in his mind, Jo Yeon-oh spoke.

“Who slapped you across the face?”

Gi-hyeon summoned every ounce of his willpower to keep his expression from shattering. Exhaling a slow, measured breath, he offered a dry, cynical chuckle. It was a flawless performance.

“What slap? I already told you, I bumped into a strength measurement machine.”

Yeon-oh’s eyes narrowed into lethal slits. It was a gaze designed to dissect So Gi-hyeon’s true intentions. Gi-hyeon felt as though his facial muscles were actively spasming. What kind of expression am I even making right now? Just as the panic peaked, a faint honk sounded from the car behind them.

Slowly, deliberately, Yeon-oh withdrew his gaze. He lifted his foot off the brake and pressed the accelerator, gliding smoothly into the intersection.

“Right. I suppose I did hear you say that.”

The response arrived after a suffocatingly long silence. Gi-hyeon had already firmly anchored his gaze to the scenery blurring past the passenger window. He had long forgotten that he was owed an answer to his own question.

Which was the more bizarre catalyst between them? The fabricated lie, or the withheld truth?

That was the only thing Gi-hyeon was curious about now.

***