Romantic Gangster

#35

“It’s okay. It’s not like we have to do it together anyway.”

“No, that’s not it.”

As he cut off his words, Ji-woo’s gaze touched his face. Lee Hyun-joon slightly lowered his eyes to the floor.

“It’s not like I go to the convenience store every day to work with you.”

“…”

“I go there to see you.”

The conversation paused for a moment. Thinking he might have said something unnecessary, he chewed on the inside of his lip. Under his lowered gaze, he could see Ji-woo’s face. He had tilted his head to enter Hyun-joon’s line of sight.

“That day… want to meet after work?”

“…”

“Let’s have dinner together.”

With Ji-woo’s words, the disappointment quickly turned into excitement, starting to race in Hyun-joon’s heart. This was a disease. It couldn’t be anything but a disease. His emotions went haywire with just one word, his heart tightening and loosening painfully – if this wasn’t a disease, what was it? Though he wasn’t upset, Hyun-joon nodded with a quickly brightened mood.

Meeting after work? Having dinner together?

No one in the world would ask a vitamin supplement on a date like this. He felt his heart swelling. His whole body felt hot.

“Ah…”

Suddenly, a sweet scent brushed his nose. As the strength in their interlocked fingers slightly loosened, he heard a small groan. Looking to the side, he saw Ji-woo’s ears and cheeks flushed. Hyun-joon quickly adjusted his pheromones to be a bit weaker.

It seemed he got too excited at the suggestion of meeting after work. He wondered how he could be like this every day. Getting so messed up by just one word from Ji-woo, what use was being an alpha or having good control?

“Are you okay now?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Sorry. I’ll get it together. This keeps happening. It’s embarrassing to brag about controlling my pheromones well.”

Ji-woo chuckled and tilted his head slightly, covered in Hyun-joon’s pheromones. It was quite impulsive and something he wouldn’t normally do, but right now, he felt like doing it. Even though he was holding hands with Hyun-joon, he wanted to be a little closer. Ji-woo’s head lightly touched near Hyun-joon’s shoulder.

“…Damn.”

A small curse-like exclamation escaped between Hyun-joon’s lips. Of course, it was so quiet that it was buried in the surrounding noise and didn’t reach Ji-woo.

He wondered what pheromones really were. He felt grateful for the pheromones that made someone who would never normally act like this hold his hand and walk together, even resting his head on his shoulder. But he also thought he wished Ji-woo would touch him without hesitation even without the pheromones.

He wished Seo Ji-woo would like him, that his heart would melt with longing when they were apart even for a moment, that he would crave more touch even when they were touching, that he would hold his hand and lean on him like this even without pheromones.

As they got closer little by little, he kept developing more greed. He started wanting things one-sidedly, not satisfied with what was given. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, his first taste of love was so sweet and desperate that he wanted to fill his growing heart more and more.

With Ji-woo’s feelings exactly the same as his own for Ji-woo.

Seeing that they were not far from home, Hyun-joon subtly slowed his pace. Hoping this road would never end.

* * *

After perfectly finishing his part-time job at the pool hall again, Ji-woo sat at the counter at the owner’s invitation to have lunch before leaving. There wasn’t much to eat at home anyway, and there was no reason to refuse when offered to eat together.

“It’s such a chore to decide what to eat every day, a real chore. Why is it mealtime every time I turn around?”

“I know. On weekends, I feel like I spend all day wondering what to eat after working just a little.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I order delivery every day during the week, and now I’m even tired of opening the delivery app. Every place tastes the same, I can tell the taste just by looking at the store name. Sigh. Here, eat. Eat a lot.”

The owner sighed and put a lot of braised chicken on the plate in front of Ji-woo. Ji-woo also put some chicken, potatoes, and wide noodles on his plate. He usually didn’t order delivery food because the portions were too large and he often had to eat it over several meals or end up throwing away what he couldn’t eat even after dividing it up, so it had been a while since he’d eaten food like this.

“Ah, is Hyun-joon busy these days?”

“Hyun-joon?”

“Yeah. I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s not coming to the pool hall either. Is he busy collecting money?”

Ji-woo, blowing on a bite-sized piece of potato before putting it in his mouth, thought of Hyun-joon who had been with him every day. The pool hall owner said he hadn’t seen Hyun-joon at all, but Ji-woo had been with Hyun-joon almost all day, every day.

Even when going to school, Hyun-joon would be in front of his house to go together, and of course, they did everything together while at school. Except for the couple of hours after school and sleeping time, they were together all day.

“Hyun-joon’s been going to school these days.”

“What? Hyun-joon is going to school?”

“Yes. He’s been coming regularly for quite a while now.”

“That’s amazing. Hyun-joon going to school every day. He’s following you around, isn’t he?”

“It’s not following, we’re going together. We’ve become close.”

“Looks like Hyun-joon likes you, Ji-woo. Seeing as he’s going to school with you and all.”

Ji-woo couldn’t understand why everyone, including Choi Young-jae, always thought this way when they saw Hyun-joon with him. There are so many friends who go to school together in the world, why do they think there are more than friendly feelings when he and Hyun-joon go together? It was so similar to when Choi Young-jae asked if he was dating Hyun-joon that Ji-woo was now really curious.

“It’s not like that. I just told him I thought it would be good to graduate, and Hyun-joon made the choice.”

“So why do you think Hyun-joon made that choice? It’s because he likes you.”

“…Can I ask why you think that?”

The owner burst into laughter at Ji-woo’s careful question, slurped up a noodle, and tapped the edge of the braised chicken container with his chopsticks.

“The Hyun-joon I know isn’t the type to do something just because someone tells him to. He has to like it himself, he’s not the type to do something he doesn’t want to just because someone else said so. And he hates school so much. He’s tried to go to school a few times before. You think we didn’t try to send him to school? We kept persuading him that even if he does gangster stuff, having a high school diploma looks better than just middle school, and these days the trend is to go to college and be an intellectual gangster.”

“…”

“But it didn’t work out. He stands out in many ways. His face, his physique, the rumors. He said he hated that everyone was always staring at him wherever he went all day. And there’s this teacher at your school who always talks nonsense about him, calling him a bastard and saying he’s living recklessly because he has no parents.”

Ji-woo easily recalled the face of the PE teacher. Even when the homeroom teacher asked him to take care of Hyun-joon before, this person had unnecessarily intervened and spoken badly of Hyun-joon. Being that kind of person, he must have said even worse things when Hyun-joon’s name came up or when he saw Hyun-joon.

“So when he said he was just going to drop out, the homeroom teachers tried to stop him and it was a mess trying to persuade him. But Hyun-joon must have some luck with homeroom teachers because from first year until now, the homeroom teachers have been trying to give him credit for just showing up at school. Saying they want to make a person out of this kid.”

“Ah…”

“So it’s obviously strange that a kid who wouldn’t listen to anyone is now going to school regularly. It means he’s listening to you.”

Ji-woo was about to say that wasn’t the case, that maybe his timing was just good, when Hyun-joon’s voice flashed through his mind.

‘I’m going to school because of you. So you take responsibility for me.’

Remembering how accurately Hyun-joon had said he was going to school because of him, Ji-woo was left speechless. Of course, that didn’t mean Hyun-joon liked him.

“I did pester him a lot. Following him around telling him to come to school, asking him to hang out with me. He might be coming just because it’s annoying.”

“Ji-woo, you still don’t know Hyun-joon properly. He’s not the type to fall for that kind of thing. Before I ran the pool hall, there was a time when I saw him almost every day. The homeroom teacher would send kids who could connect with Hyun-joon, like classmates from first year. They’d all come scared. You think he listened to those kids? If they annoyed him, they’d get beat up. Have you ever been hit, Ji-woo?”

The owner laughed heartily again as Ji-woo shook his head no. His eyes were full of immense confidence. Eyes that seemed like they wouldn’t change their mind no matter what was said.

“Now I can feel that Hyun-joon is still a kid not even twenty yet. It’s a good time. That’s when it’s all fresh and nice.”

“It’s not like that, boss.”

“We’ll see if it’s true or not as time goes by.”