Exotic Love (Novel)

67

"I'm going to get a cup of coffee. 'What's going on?' Shouldn't I'm the one who is supposed to ask that?"

  Lee Kyung-won's eyes were on me. Somehow, his eyes are shaking while looking at my hair, which is still wet after drying it. His gaze seemed a little funny, but my mood subsided. It was a different matter for me to admit that I was under Yoon Hee-gyeom and for a third party to know about it.

  "I called him to talk about his work."

  "Oh, did you call him? Are you going to eat? Chinese food here is delicious. Shall we eat shark's fin?”

   '....Shall we eat?' The guy who asked that question had already implied that he wanted to join to eat together.  Lee Kyung-won has always been such a cheeky guy, and I used to condone it.

  “I haven't had dinner, I. I will pay for it. Let's eat together, okay? Since the filming started, its been a while since I've seen Hee-gyeom ssi.”

  Hee-gyeom ssi, Hee-gyeom ssi. He calls him as if to sound friendly. Smiling and laughing. What's this, this situation now? Jung Jae-han, Yoon Hee-gyeom, Lee Kyung-won. The three of us were never a good combination to meet together. Regardless of whether it is Lee Kyung-won's passionate affection for Yoon Hee-gyeom, what is Lee Kyung-won to Yoon Hee-gyeom?  What was the relationship between the two, or how far did they go?

  "…I'll contact you later."

  It was Yoon Hee-gyeom who refused. What do you call me, sponsor? I don't really do any helping in describing it as Yoon Hee-gyeom's sponsor, so it's grand to call me a sponsor, but anyway if you call me a sponsor, isn't it Lee Kyung-won the one who was Yoon Hee-gyeom's sponsor before me? Even if Lee Kyung-won wants to help Yoon Hee-gyeom, Yoon Hee-gyeom turned it down but to be honest what do I know? In fact, it is Lee Kyung-won who introduced Yoon Hee-gyeom to me. Even if you're not in a relationship where you get sponsored, you can't say no to body-mixing relationship. The relationship between me and Yoon Hee-gyeom now.

  "Hee-gyeom ssi, is this important? I also want to apologize to Jaehan for that day. It seems that the misunderstanding between the two of you seems to have been resolved, so I think it would be good to have a meal together.”

  "Today…….”

  Yoon Hee-gyeom didn't seem to like Lee Kyung-won's company. Why. What kind of relationship you two have that it is uncomfortable for us to eat together?

    The inside of my head feels cold.  The more my mood hits the floor, the more the chill spreads through my head and chest.

  "Let's just eat together."

  Looking at Yoon Hee-gyeom, I pulled up the corners of my mouth smoothly.

  "Oh? Its okay? Hee-gyeom ssi, Jae-han wants to eat together."

  "Thats right, Director Yoon."

  At my positive words, Yoon Hee-gyeom's thick eyebrows twitched slightly.

    "Ah. Is it uncomfortable with me tagging along?”

  He's not sure what I meant by my question.  Yoon Hee-gyeom face, who looked at me for a moment, clearly changed in that moment.

  "…No."

   In the room, in the hallway, in the elevator, it was as if those expressions was an illusion. Those expression disappeared from his face. His hardened face was completely expressionless.

This restaurant was decided because I thought it would be good to have a course meal, but when I arrived, I ordered an ala carte dish.  Even if the course I came last time and ate it thinking it was nice and has to make a reservation for it separately, the regular course meal was not bad, but Yoon Hee-gyeom, who had a hard face, refused the course, saying it was too much.

    Lee Kyung-won chose the menu. Why don't we have a meal with Kkanpunggi*? Hee-gyeom ssi, you eat Kkanpunggi well. Director Jung, you're okay with it, right? Hee-gyeom ssi eat the crab meat fried rice too. It's delicious here. (Kkanpunggi is Korean spicy garlic chicken)

    Yoon Hee-gyeom's answer was simple.  Yes.  He gave a brief reply, but looked busy, glancing at the watch on his wrist.  It was something I had never seen before.

    "How's it going with Hyun-ji? Did she give you a hard time?"

    Lee Kyung-won was paying keen attention to Yoon Hee-gyeom's figure. Even before the meal came out, he asked how he was doing, and he was looking at Yoon Hee-gyeom only and asking about the situation of the filming as if he had forgotten that he was with me even after the meal came out. Yoon Hee-gyeom, who was less talkative, answered in a short-answer form, saying it's okay, it's worth it, and so on.  Even though it look like they were uttered without sincerity to me, Lee Kyung-won only looked at Yoon Hee-gyeom like a sunflower*. He smiled with a silly smile on his face. Yoon Hee-gyeom seemed to concentrate silently on his meal. (Like a sunflower means that you're admiring something or try to follow that specific something like a sunflower which admire and try to follow the sun. In this case,Jaehan is refering to Kyungwon as sunflower and Heegyeom as the sun)

“I’m really glad that Hee-gyeom ssi is shooting a movie.”

    It would have been nice if he stop there. Turning his head my way as if he remembered that I was there, Lee Kyung-won said,

   "Oh, Jaehan ah. Thank you so much."

   …Why is that something you should be thankful for. Reflexively I pressed the bouncing words down my tongue.  The sour taste of the Kkanpunggi sauce left in my mouth was just as irritating.  However, my temper was suppressed once because I wanted to hear what Lee Kyung-won had to say again.  To be precise, I was curious about Yoon Hee-gyeom's reaction to Lee Kyung-won's teasing. Lee Kyung-won is babbling like that, but I wondered if Yoon Hee-gyeom would react to his small talk.

   "Did I do anything? I just put it on the board because the work is good.”

   "Eyy, hey. Hee-gyeom ssi, how hard working you must've been. Anyway, did you two clear up the misunderstanding?  But what was the misunderstanding?  What did Hee-gyeom ssi have to apologize for?”

   It was a pure question. There was no nuance from Lee Kyung-won that seemed to know the relationship between Yoon Hee-gyeom and me. Rather, he is wary of me. Showing off the friendship between him and Yoon Hee-gyeom, and secretly mentioning that Yoon Hee-gyeom suffered because of me. He couldn't stand the fact that there was a story between him and me that he didn't know.

   "That's enough, Lee Kyung-won."

   I cut his words in a cool tone.  He has something to dig up from me but he didn't have to talk about me.  It's a story he doesn't need to know and I doesn't want him to know.  Lee Kyung-won, who knew my personality, shut his mouth in an instant.  He was at least quiet while chewing, eating the leftover Kkanpunggi that had been left on the plate as he barely ate because of his non-stop chattering.