Even Oh Jongtae, who sat beside him, was uncertain whether his boss was actually sick or not.
Although he knew Oh Jongtae was staring at him with a somewhat rebellious gaze, Seok Beomjun didn’t care.
He simply wanted to go home and get a full rest.
Only then would his shitty mood improve even a little bit. Of course, there were no guarantees, though.
Seok Beomjun endured while tightly holding back the surging pain.
“Boss, we have arrived.”
Opening his eyes at Oh Jongtae’s words, Seok Beomjun frowned.
He had clearly ordered him to go home, but what appeared before his eyes was a restaurant building.
And a restaurant that Seok Beomjun frequented, at that.
“I’m certain I told you to go home?”
“I am sorry, Boss. But you haven’t eaten anything for three days. I wanted you to have at least a little bit…”
Oh Jongtae had altered the destination to the restaurant while being prepared to get beaten up by Seok Beomjun.
It was obvious he would get hit plenty, but he couldn’t leave his boss alone like this.
Due to the esper side effects, the duration Seok Beomjun had sustained an empty stomach was crossing over three days.
“You are fucking… ha, forget it.”
Seok Beomjun refrained from striking Oh Jongtae’s skull.
It was because his headache had grown more severe in the meantime.
This time, he had used his anomalous ability for just a very brief moment, yet it felt like the side effects were worse than usual.
He grew tired of arguing.
Instead, spitting out a thick curse, he stepped out of the car.
Passing by Oh Jongtae, who was still reading his expression, he walked into the restaurant.
As soon as Seok Beomjun stepped inside, the restaurant employee recognized him and guided him to a reserved private room.
Behind Seok Beomjun, Oh Jongtae and a few organization members followed closely.
Entering the room under the employee’s guidance, Seok Beomjun slumped into a chair.
Then, he kept his eyes closed until the food arrived.
Oh Jongtae stood nearby to wait, while the rest of the organization members waited outside.
The room was exceptionally serene.
The silence was broken only after the server brought out the food.
Opening his eyes, Seok Beomjun looked down at the dishes placed on the table with a gaze completely devoid of interest.
Perhaps because his physical condition was piece-of-shit, he had absolutely no appetite.
Picking up his fork insincerely, he cut a piece of steak and put it in his mouth.
The meat was clearly juicy and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, but he couldn’t really taste it.
They said loss of taste was among the esper side effects, and his current state seemed to be exactly that.
“For Christ’s sake, fuck.”
There was truly no case as goddamn shitty as this.
He had taken care of his older brother—the bastard who talked trash behind his back calling him a bastard child—without a soul knowing.
After rising to the position of successor, he had even killed his biological father to sit in the boss’s seat, yet he felt a fire burning inside his chest at the thought that the end result was him kicking the bucket too.
Remaining here like this, an impulse to demolish the restaurant building surged, so he rose from his seat.
“Where are you going, Boss?”
“Going to the shitter, you bastard.”
Glaring fiercely, Seok Beomjun strode out of the room.
He headed straight past the hallway toward the restroom at the very end.
Because it was an awkward time past the lunch hour, there was no sign of presence in the hallway other than an occasional passing employee.
‘Bang!’
Entering the restroom, Seok Beomjun closed the door roughly.
True to a high-end restaurant, the interior of the restroom was clean and fragrant.
Heading straight to the sink, Seok Beomjun turned on the water and brought his face directly under it.
His face was soaked into a mess by the stream of water.
The collar of his dress shirt grew damp with water, but Seok Beomjun didn’t care.
If he had the leeway to care about that, he wouldn’t have come to the restroom in the first place.
‘Gush.’
Because he had turned the water on to the maximum, the stream poured out fiercely.
Seok Beomjun kept his face to the water for a long time.
It was to cool down the heat that refused to subside.
It would be even better if his senses returned in the process.
While he was burying his face in the sink like that for a long time, the sound of the door opening occurred.
It was right at the moment Seok Beomjun swiftly snapped his head up.
“What kind of bastard comes in running his mouth…”
The one who entered the restroom was none other than a man with his hat pressed down deeply.
He was clearly an adult male, yet his head could not possibly be any smaller.
His hat was pulled down halfway, covering even his eyes, but somehow his gaze was drawn to him. Perhaps it was because of the faintly visible, red, and plump lips.
The man was moderately tall.
He clearly looked over 175 cm, but seemed to be under 180 cm.
Even though his entire body was wrapped tightly in clothes without any exposure, it was evident to the eye that he possessed a slender frame.
Now, his gaze shifted toward the long, straight neckline like a deer’s.
The herbivore-like neckline was truly beautiful.
The skin faintly visible was also excessively white, like snow.
His face wasn’t even properly visible, yet he didn’t know why it was so difficult to tear his eyes away.
Frowning at his own strange condition, Seok Beomjun knitted his brows.
“…Ah, I’m sorry.”
The other party apologized, perhaps misunderstanding that Seok Beomjun was angry because of him.
The voice laced with a gentle tone was incredibly soft.
To the point where his heart felt tickled, somehow.
“Why the hell is a bastard with a dick talking so softly, for fuck’s sake.”
His momentary true thoughts slipped straight out of Seok Beomjun’s mouth.
“…Pardon?”
The man’s bewildered voice was heard.
Seok Beomjun thought ‘uh-oh,’ but decided to act brazenly.
His physical condition was piece-of-shit anyway, so whether the other party was flustered or not was none of his business.
“I wasn’t talking to you?”
“Ah…”
“Mind your own business.”
Seok Beomjun roughly brushed off his wet face.
Water droplets still remained, but there was nothing to wipe it with, and everything was a hassle.
Just as he was about to walk out, that soft voice echoed once more.
“Excuse me…”
Seok Beomjun’s head turned automatically.
The man seemed to hesitate, then tried to pull something out from his shirt pocket.
‘Fuck, is it an ambush?’
It seemed some worthless member of another organization had secretly followed him after all.
Right at the moment when Seok Beomjun, his face scowling fiercely, reached his hand out intending to snap the man’s neck—a pale pink handkerchief was extended forward.
“What the fuck!”
Simultaneously with a rush of absurdity, Seok Beomjun’s frame suddenly slipped and tilted.
Swiftly extending his hand, Seok Beomjun braced against the wall instead of the man’s neck that he had originally intended to grab.
By doing so, he abruptly ended up trapping the man against the wall.
“…”
The man was equally flustered, merely parting his lips without being able to say anything.
A subtle silence continued for a brief moment.
It was the man who moved first.
He began to carefully wipe Seok Beomjun’s cheek with the handkerchief held in his hand.
The man’s fingers barely brushed against Seok Beomjun’s cheek.
Ordinarily, Seok Beomjun would have immediately smacked the hand away, asking what kind of stunt he was pulling, but strangely, he couldn’t budge at all.
It felt as though his breath was hitched.
A sensation where his heart throbbed, his pulse fluctuated wildly, and his mind felt like a whirlpool.
‘Fuck, what is this?’
