"I'm glad you don't want to."
Kim Dokja ran his tongue over the back of his teeth absentmindedly. "I know how it makes me sound, but—"
"I understand," Yoo Joonghyuk spoke over him. "And I get it. I don't think it's an issue at all."
"Rather, I think it's a good thing," Yoo Joonghyuk sounded rather pleased. "Both of our interests match up. It's perfect."
"Right?. . .I guess I'll just give them some excuse."
"Tell them I'm going on a business trip," Yoo Joonghyuk suggested.
"Are you?" Kim Dokja asked.
"No," said Yoo Joonghyuk. "But if anyone asks, I'm not in the country."
"Okay," Kim Dokja said brightly.
"What else happened?" Yoo Joonghyuk said, carrying the conversation.
"Mm, Lee Jihye's of age now, so she drank with us. Everyone thinks she's innocent and has been waiting to reach the legal age to start drinking, but I know she snuck in alcohol when was seventeen," Kim Dokja said. "They worry, and she knows it too, so she keeps it a secret. She's a lightweight though. Her tolerance has increased by a teensy amount, but she still gets knocked out soon."
"You worry too, don't you?"
"Yeah, I guess. I don't really know how it came to be, but it just happened. And, oh, well, it is what it is, I suppose," Kim Dokja couldn't stop the shrug. He didn't know why he got so animated whenever he spoke to Yoo Joonghyuk. He wasn't like this normally.
Whatever. An issue for another day. He shoved it into the back of his mind.
"They were sleeping on the floor when I left," Kim Dokja continued. "It's usually the last person to fall asleep gets the bed. But I couldn't sleep so I let my friends, Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah have the bed."
Kim Dokja strangely found the dull rhythmic thunks of what he supposed was a knife hitting the cutting board in the background comforting. He could tell the sounds apart, the way tofu got cut was different from how green onions were getting chopped.
"Sooyoungie had babysat the kids since morning and she'd skipped on sleep for a few days because of deadlines she had to meet. And Sangah-ssi had to do overtime for all last week, she must've been tired. She's usually a heavy drinker, but yesterday she got knocked out pretty soon. I thought I'd let them sleep comfortably instead of squashed into an armchair."
"What did you do instead of sleeping, Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Joonghyuk asked.
"Ah, I just went for a walk," Kim Dokja said. "To the convenience store, got some hangover cure for everyone, some snacks and candy for the kids when they wake up, a coffee, and then walked back. It's like a half an hour walk from my friend's place, so I had a nice walk. Then I cleared up the mess we'd made because I was bored. And then I found this web novel, it's pretty nice, so I was reading that all this time."
"So you didn't sleep at all?"
"Nope. But it's not a problem. I was planning on crashing the second I got home."
"Do you have a hangover?"
"Not really, I didn't drink a lot last night."
"I see. . .Why couldn't you sleep?"
"Stuff happened," Kim Dokja sighed. "I was going to fall asleep, really, but oh, well. . .How do I say this? It was his birthday, they're a couple madly in love. Everyone was asleep, the lights were out, and I had my eyes closed. And things just happened."
"With everyone present?" Yoo Joonghyuk sounded rather offended, getting the gist.
"No, no, they went to their room quickly," Kim Dokja said. "It's sort of inevitable, to get to the bedroom from the kitchen, you've got to walk through the living room and I just happened to be in the living room. . .So I left the house to take a walk."
"In the middle of the night?"
"Yep. I was checking my phone in the convenience store and I saw your profile pic change," Kim Dokja shifted his phone to his other hand and let this one fall, resting his muscles.
"Like I said, it's a nice picture," said Yoo Joonghyuk. Kim Dokja heard the water running again. "My secretary will probably have words to say about it when she notices it."
"My friends too. I expect Han Sooyoung to text me about it. I'm going to leave her on read."
"Won't that make her mad?"
"Yeah, that's the idea."
He thought Yoo Joonghyuk was probably smiling a little at what he had said. He had no way to confirm it though.
"I'm feeling hungry now," Kim Dokja said when he heard sizzling from Yoo Joonghyuk's side. He could almost smell the aroma of the onions on the pan or pot, whatever Yoo Joonghyuk was using at the moment.
"Why don't you get yourself something to eat?" said Yoo Joonghyuk.
"Yeah, I was thinking I'd go to the convenience store."
Yoo Joonghyuk clicked his tongue loudly, clearly disapproving.
"I reek of alcohol, I don't want to walk into some restaurant like this. And they're probably all closed anyway. It's not even eight o'clock," Kim Dokja grumbled.
"So? Are you going to eat that horrible kimbap again?"
"I was thinking more ramyeon, it's been a while since I've had instant noodles."
Yoo Joonghyuk sighed heavily.
"It's not that bad," Kim Dokja said, a little exasperated. "I eat healthy mostly now. I've got more than enough side dishes at home and all I have to do is make rice. Ramyeon once in a while isn't going to kill me."
"You've been living on such horrible dietary habits, Dokja-ssi, it actually might just kill you," said Yoo Joonghyuk and Kim Dokja rolled his eyes, though Yoo Joonghyuk couldn't see it.
"Don't cast my words aside with disdain," Yoo Joonghyuk chided, as though he knew what Kim Dokja's reaction was without seeing him physically.
"No one's casting anything anywhere," Kim Dokja huffed. "I told you, I am eating properly."
Yoo Joonghyuk didn't say anything in return and only the pan in the background made any sound.
"Fine," Kim Dokja groaned. "I'll get a sandwich instead."
"Better," said Yoo Joonghyuk.
"You sound so smug right now, I have the urge to throw something at you," Kim Dokja scoffed.
"You can try," Yoo Joonghyuk said and Kim Dokja was a hundred per cent sure that he was smirking. "Though if you managed to hit me right now with someone you'd thrown, scientists would take you away to study your supernatural powers. Or you could go for the Olympics, javelin throw."
Yoo Joonghyuk laughed at the short, annoyed sigh Kim Dokja had let out.
"I really wish I had superpowers just so I could throw something and hit you right now."
"What you're saying is, if a wish-granting fairy appeared in front of you, you'd wish for the ability to throw something and hit a person miles away?" Yoo Joonghyuk joked.
"Yeah," Kim Dokja said without missing a beat. "I'm going to say, please grant me the ability to throw something from here and it'll go hit Yoo Joonghyuk in the head."
"And then my younger cousin ends up in the hospital with a concussion."
Kim Dokja let out an ugly snort, and clamped a hand over his face quickly, clearing his throat. He heard Yoo Joonghyuk laugh as he moved away from the phone's speaker.
"Don't be too angry," Yoo Joonghyuk placated him. "I'm just worried about you."
"I'm not angry, just annoyed, because even right now, I'm sure, you're probably smirking, all smug about this," Kim Dokja huffed, not actually as miffed as he sounded.
"Incredible," said Yoo Joonghyuk. "Maybe you do have a superpower. Seeing things far away without being physically present."
"Oh, shut up," Kim Dokja rolled his eyes. Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to be close to the phone because he could hear his soft chuckles clearly.
"How's the soup coming along?" Kim Dokja asked.
"Good," Yoo Joonghyuk answered. "I can send you some. Or I can send my driver to pick you up right now, just send me your location."
"No, no, that's alright," Kim Dokja said quickly. "I'm fine. They'll probably wake up soon and I did promise the kids that I'd be there for breakfast."
"You care a lot for them."
"I do," Kim Dokja said. He'd never been shy to admit that fact. "They're growing up too soon and once they become teens they'll probably stop being so adorable, trying to stick to me all the time. I think I'll find them lovely even then. . .They were having a sleepover last night and went to bed late. They'll take a while to wake up."
"Did they paint your nails this time too?"
"Haha, no, not this time. They were busy with some computer game, levelling up apparently, so that they could get some gacha item or something. They told me a lot about it, but I zoned out halfway and have no clue what it's all about."
Kim Dokja bowed at the different cashier at the convenience store when he walked in and by habit headed towards the to-go meals and then he remembered his promise to Yoo Joonghyuk and bought a sandwich instead. He picked the chicken salad one, hoping that it would taste as good as it looked.
He was still talking to Yoo Joonghyuk on the phone as he grabbed another cold coffee and paid for his purchase. He sat in the same seat he had taken a few hours prior and ate his sandwich with Yoo Joonghyuk on the other end, having his own breakfast.
Honestly, they should have ended the call, but neither of them seemed to want to take the initiative to do that, so they kept talking about anything and everything that came to mind.
"I looked at the reviews of the movie we watched yesterday," Yoo Joonghyuk was saying. "Majority seems unsatisfied with the ending."
"Obviously," Kim Dokja said swallowing his mouthful of sandwich. It was a tasty sandwich, thankfully. "It was a crappy ending. They were hyping it up so much throughout the first half, the conclusion was a letdown."
"It was."
"What genre do you like, Joonghyuk-ssi?" Kim Dokja asked.
"Anything that's not too noisy," Yoo Joonghyuk said. "I'm not a big fan of action."
"We could've watched something else yesterday then," Kim Dokja hissed out. "You should've told me."
"I enjoyed it regardless," Yoo Joonghyuk assured him. "It was fun with you."
"It was fun with you too, Joonghyuk-ssi," Kim Dokja sighed. "I usually tend to nod off at theatres. I find movies a little too time-consuming and boring for my tastes. But I watched it all yesterday."
"Do you like action movies, Dokja-ssi?"
"A little. If you ask me to choose between melodrama and action, I'd pick action. What gave it away?"
"Uriel picked the movie, she would have picked something you liked."
"Ah, haha, sorry about that."
"No, don't be. I would have picked something you liked as well."
"Next time let's watch something nice and quiet."
"That sounds like a good idea."
Jung Heewon woke up because she felt the pull of gravity. She stuck her leg out when she felt her stomach drop suddenly. Her foot thumped against the floor and groaning softly, she opened her eyes.
God, the place was uselessly bright. What the fuck?
It took her a few moments to make sense of the situation and she shuffled back into the sofa, saving herself from falling off it.
What the fuck? Where was this?
Memories of the previous night rushed in.
She remembered laughing about something with Yoo Sangah last night. She remembered trying to crumple a whole beer can with a single hand under Lee Jihye's insistence. She remembered putting Hyunsung's head on her shoulder when he passed out.
But right now, Hyunsung wasn't next to her. Come to think of it, how the heck did she get to the sofa? Wasn't she sitting in front of the TV, on a chair?
A vague memory of Kim Dokja calling out to her came to mind.
Ah, of course. That jerk would have done that. Did he take the guest bedroom? Good, that guy had a constant problem of slouching, he was going to ruin his back at this rate.
Jung Heewon lay there on the sofa, wanting to go back to sleep, but she had a nasty headache and some motherfucker was snoring so fucking loudly, she didn't know how she had fallen asleep in the first place.
She supposed she had dozed off again at some point regardless of the snoring, because the next time her eyes opened and she stared at the ceiling, it was because of rather loud footsteps.
"Pipe down, will ya?" she grumbled, pushing herself up into a sitting position on the sofa.
"Sorry," she heard Yoosung's soft squeak.
"Ah, it's alright," Jung Heewon said, her annoyance ebbing away. She couldn't really get mad at Shin Yoosung, she was a well-mannered child.