Chapter 17
When their eyes met and he smiled, Jian’s face turned red. She murmured, “Yes,” then bit down on her lower lip and abruptly turned her head away.
“Hello?”
This time, Sa-heon greeted the male student first. The boy looked at him with an annoyed expression, gave him a quick once-over, and answered half-heartedly.
“Yes.”
“You should greet me properly.”
Perhaps he had sensed something ominous lurking beneath Sa-heon’s pleasant smile, because the boy hesitated for a moment before bowing his head.
“…Hello.”
“Good.”
After accepting the greeting with little interest, Sa-heon turned to Jian and asked in a gentle voice,
“Jian, could you put those inside?”
“Yes.”
Jian opened the rooftop door and went inside. Paul, apparently unable to bring himself to enter, stood outside awkwardly, repeatedly poking the ground with the toe of his sneaker.
“Hey! Kim Paul! Where are you?”
At the sharp shout of a girl coming from below, Paul leaned over the rooftop and waved his hand.
“I’m here! On the roof!”
What is this, their own house?
Leaving the noisy kids behind, Sa-heon followed Jian inside the rooftop room and closed the door.
Jian placed the bags on top of the sink and began taking out the pastries one by one—a croissant, a mocha bread, and a madeleine.
“Han Jian.”
Standing behind her, Sa-heon slipped one hand into his pocket and tilted his head.
“There’s something I’m curious about.”
“What are you curious about?”
Jian asked without even turning around.
One of Sa-heon’s eyebrows rose, then lowered again.
“Why do you let him call you ‘noona’?”
“Huh?”
Jian, who had been carefully wrapping the opened mocha bread, finally widened her eyes and turned around.
“Paul? He’s my younger brother.”
“Isn’t he much younger than you?”
“Of course. He’s a high school student.”
“Then why don’t you let me call you noona? The age difference between us is even smaller.”
Jian’s busy hands suddenly stopped.
She blinked a few times, then laughed incredulously and lowered her voice slightly.
“Because you’re not twenty-one. You’re in your thirties.”
“Then you should call me oppa.”
Jian gave him a brief glare, as if his words weren’t even worth answering, then coolly walked past him.
“Where are you going?”
“To help my sister.”
She brushed past him with enough icy force to make a cold wind seem to blow through the room, opened the rooftop door without hesitation, and trotted down the stairs.
“Han—!”
Sa-heon nearly called after her at the top of his voice, but instead let out a hollow laugh.
So she’s being all prim and aloof today.
She was always embarrassed around him, and now she was trying to charm him in a completely different way.
Realizing where his thoughts had wandered, Sa-heon frowned and laughed at himself.
What the hell am I doing?
He was practically putting on an entire one-man show.
Meanwhile, the students who had apparently settled themselves on the wooden platform without permission were eating popsicles and watching Sa-heon. They whispered among themselves, muttering things like, “He got rejected,” and, “No way…”
Sa-heon crooked one finger.
“You. Come here.”
“Me?”
Sa-heon didn’t answer.
He simply stared at him.
Paul pointed at his own chest and looked around, then reluctantly approached while holding his popsicle, his lips pushed into a pout.
“Wh-what do you want?”
Standing close by, Paul was nearly a head shorter than Sa-heon.
Sa-heon looked down at him with a cold gaze.
“From now on, don’t keep calling Jian ‘noona.’”
“Wh-why?”
“Just because.”
“Then what am I supposed to call her…?”
“Don’t call her anything.”
From Paul’s perspective, this was completely absurd.
What kind of territorial nonsense is this?
Some random guy had suddenly rolled into their lives and was already acting like he owned the place.
But in the end, even humans had no choice but to bow before the law of the jungle.
“Understand?”
Sa-heon lowered his gaze as he stared down at Paul.
Paul instinctively shrank back.
If he had a tail, it probably would have curled tightly between his legs.
His own timidity made him feel pathetically cowardly, but Paul eventually nodded.
“…Yes.”
“Go.”
Paul merely bowed his head and straightened again, but Sa-heon could hear him grumbling even after he turned away.
The boy stomped down the stairs, huffing with every step, his sulky back making it abundantly clear that he was deeply dissatisfied.
That little mutt.
Anna, who was sitting cross-legged in her gym clothes, watched the whole thing and rounded her lips in amazement.
“Ooh.”
Sa-heon ran a tired hand through his hair.
“Aren’t you leaving?”
“Am I really not allowed to call you oppa either?”
“You’re getting cheeky.”
“Why!”
Jeez. Why are teenagers so loud these days?
The echoing shout made Sa-heon rub his throbbing temples before lying back down on the sun lounger.
“Go study. Aren’t you going to college?”
Even as he said it, he knew he sounded like an old-fashioned adult.
But as far as appearances went, he was a man in his thirties, so it couldn’t be helped.
Anna shrugged and smiled innocently.
“I’m not going.”
“Do whatever you want.”
It’s your life, not mine.
He answered carelessly, and Anna’s eyes widened.
“Wow. You’re the first adult I’ve met who doesn’t nag me when I say I’m not going to college.”
“…”
“Kim Paul will probably get into a good university through special admission, but he says he won’t go because of money. He’s really smart, so why doesn’t he just get a scholarship? He’s totally a genius with the brains of an idiot.”
Sa-heon frowned without answering.
Anna suddenly leaned her body toward him and chewed on the popsicle stick she had finished.
“You like Jian, don’t you?”
That boy had been wagging his tail every time he saw Jian, and now this girl was being a nuisance too.
Sa-heon closed his eyes wearily and answered without hesitation.
“Yeah.”
“Really? I was just taking a guess. Holy crap.”
“That’s why you kids should stick to liking each other. Don’t interfere with adults.”
“Want me to help?”
“Go away.”
“Jian unni likes cute things.”
“I know.”
That’s why she smiles so sweetly even at tacky little things like turtle keychains.
“Oh, right. Jian unni’s ex-boyfriend lives around here.”
“What?”
Sa-heon’s eyes snapped open.
When he turned toward her with a frown, Anna stuck out her tongue.
“I’m kidding.”
“Heh heh. I finally got you to look at me.”
She giggled mischievously, but a vein throbbed on Sa-heon’s forehead.
Annoying teenagers…
Without answering, Sa-heon closed his eyes again.
“Did you know? Jian unni and Hee-jin unni are basically family to me.”
How would I know that?
When Sa-heon remained silent, Anna continued talking animatedly on her own.
“I don’t have a mom, dad, or any relatives, but those two really feel like actual cousins to me.”
Sa-heon remained still, his eyes closed.
“Hmm…”
After a brief pause, Anna continued.
“Jian unni has a soft heart.”
“…”
“She’s really good at understanding how other people feel and comforting them. She’s incredibly kind. If she ever took an MBTI test, she’d probably get F 100.”
“What’s that?”
“Huh? You don’t know MBTI?”
“No. Keep talking.”
Sa-heon’s response seemed to excite her, because Anna even clapped her hands as she raised her voice.
“Anyway! That’s what I’m saying! If you want Jian unni to like you, pretend to be pitiful. Act lonely and miserable too. You know, make her instinctively want to protect you.”
Loneliness and solitude, huh.
He couldn’t say he had ever experienced feelings like that.
In the fierce succession battle over who would become Hyungang’s next leader, was there really any reason for him to indulge in such trivial emotions?
Sa-heon snorted in disbelief.
“You’re telling me to lie?”
“You seem like you’d be good at it.”
At those words, his eyebrow rose crookedly.
The little brat has a surprisingly good eye for people.
“Need some pocket money?”
Sa-heon pulled his wallet from his pocket and handed her a fifty-thousand-won bill.
“Now go.”
“Yes! Thank you!”
Anna eagerly snatched the money, slipped her feet into her sneakers without properly tying them, bowed at the waist, then straightened up.
With the popsicle stick between her teeth, she happily ran down the stairs.
That night.
Jian hadn’t shown even the slightest trace of herself all day apart from bringing over the bread earlier.
Whenever Sa-heon went downstairs to see if she was there, he was told she had gone out to run some errand.
She had even eaten dinner separately.
This is outright neglect of her duties.
Feeling annoyed, Sa-heon picked up his phone.
The screen displayed:
[Saturday]
So today was the weekend.
Was she protesting because he had made her work on the weekend?
Or was she simply refusing to show her face because it was Saturday?
Grrrrr—
Meanwhile, Chief Choi was snoring loudly beside him, as though he had exhausted himself doing absolutely nothing.
Maybe I should wake him up and send him straight back to Seoul.
The man who was supposed to leave kept refusing to go, while the woman who was supposed to stay kept wanting to leave.
Sa-heon kicked off the blanket and got up, stepping outside the rooftop room.
Bang.
He shut the door, and only then did the snoring finally quiet down a little.
Hoo.
After inhaling the lukewarm night air, Sa-heon turned on his phone and opened the messenger app.
Are you asleep?
The moment he sent it, his expression twisted.
Wasn’t that the exact kind of text some drunken classmate who had once caused a huge scandal with his campus girlfriend had sent to his ex?
At the time, that woman had been confessing her feelings to Sa-heon. She had shown him the message on her phone with a disgusted expression.
She had said she absolutely hated men who sent messages like “Are you sleeping?”
And she had even said she liked men like Sa-heon because she thought he would never do something like that.
Apparently, she would end up being the one desperately clinging to him, which wounded her pride but also made her want to conquer him.
Or something like that.
Of course, Sa-heon had listened with one ear and rejected her.
But I’m doing exactly that right now.
Sa-heon gave a hollow laugh.
There was a read receipt, but no reply.
In the end, Sa-heon typed one more message and sent it.
Want to grab a beer?
