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Inseop parked the car in the basement parking lot of the fitness center where Lee Wooyeon was exercising, and he checked his watch. For Lee Wooyeon to come down, he had to wait thirty to forty minutes.
Choi Inseop pushed the seat back and pulled the blanket over him. While waiting for Lee Wooyeon, closing his eyes for a while was sweet like honey to him. He also played his favorite music, so Inseop was able to close his eyes and fall into a deep sleep after a long time.
There was white noise in the audio before moving on to the next song. Inseop liked that moment. The songs were always set to shuffle. This was to make sure that the next song which was to come out was not predictable. It was nice to wait for the prelude of his favorite song to come out after the white noise was over.
However, when no sound was heard after a while, Inseop intuitively thought that something was wrong. He had to open his eyes, but it was not as easy as he thought because his body felt heavy.
Inseop groaned for a while, then finally opened his eyes.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Seeing Inseop struggling with the blanket while screaming, Lee Wooyeon laughed briefly. Inseop’s goosebumps rose at the sight of him smiling happily, revealing his white, even teeth.
“Are you surprised?”
“…of course… I’m surprised.”
When he woke up after sleeping, the fear he suddenly felt when he realized someone was watching him was something he wouldn’t get used to no matter how many times he experienced it.
“When did you come?”
“Just now. I thought the audio was a bit strange, so I got in the front seat to turn it off.”
“… ”
His heart was still pounding in shock and it hurt to the point feeling pain. He didn’t know if it was a mistake, but these days, Lee Wooyeon surprises him more often. He felt like his heart was being strained, which was still not good. Inseop was about to talk about this, but he just shut his mouth, wondering if it might be seen as excessive self-consciousness.
“Would you like to go home?”
“Yes. I’ll go to sleep. At this time.”
Lee Wooyeon tapped the clock with the tip of his finger, it was well past midnight. Choi Inseop held the steering wheel of the van and glanced at Lee Wooyeon, who was sitting next to him. After taking a shower at the fitness center, his wet bangs were covering his forehead. Whenever Lee Wooyeon moved, the strong smell of shampoo dispersed in the car.
“…”
Choi Inseop looked at the back seat and Lee Wooyeon alternately. It was an unspoken urge asking him to go back.
“Let’s go.”
Lee Wooyeon fastened his seat belt. It was an expression like he did not want to go back. Inseop sighed and started pulling out the car slowly. As he left the parking lot and drove down the road, Choi Inseop pressed the play button on the audio and turned up the volume.
It was the usual seat position that blocked the silence in the car. However, when they were sitting side by side like this, he was so worried that he could not concentrate on driving. At times like these, it was best to turn the music up loud.
“Historia de un amor.”
Lee Wooyeon tilted his head slightly and muttered the name of the song.
“This song. Historia de un amor. What a love story. It’s my favorite song.”
“Yes, I know…”
Choi Inseop bit his lip without talking. Lee Wooyeon’s soft laugh mixed with the female singer’s voice and echoed in the car.
“How do you know?”
“… Because I am a fan.”
“Really? Did I say that on TV? I can’t remember.”
“One day, just a passing word… ”
Actually, he didn’t hear it on the radio or on TV. So Inseop strangely obscured the source of the story.
“You have a good memory. Mr. Inseop.”
“Just trying.”
Choi Inseop always wrote down things to remember. The daily routine was meticulously organized in a notebook. It was a daily routine and a habit. Today’s diary was all about Lee Wooyeon. He wrote down all the details about Lee Wooyeon in a notebook, enough to be mistaken for a stalker’s diary if anyone saw it.
“You are working hard for me. It feels good.”
When the sound of Lee Wooyeon’s words reached him, his ears lit up.
It was for Jenny’s sake, but it was not easy to deceive someone in this way. It felt like his shaky conscience was being stabbed with the tip of a knife.
“Do you know the lyrics to this song?”
Lee Wooyeon, who was looking at the manager holding the steering wheel with a complicated face, suddenly asked.
“Only…”
“It made me understand all good and evil and gave me a light in my life, but now I just turn it off.”
Lee Wooyeon interpreted the lyrics to the song that was playing.
Inseop breathed in as if to stop breathing. Even though he knew that Lee Wooyeon was not that kind of person, his heart raced at the sweet voice that came out of his mouth.
“Oh, my life is really dark. I can’t live without your love.”
After completing the interpretation of the lyrics of the song, Lee Wooyeon turned his head to Inseop.
“Do you understand how someone cannot live without the other’s love?”
“… well.”
There were days when he understood. But not now. Now, he didn’t want to understand how they were going to live and die for love.
“It’s quite something. I really don’t understand that.”
Lee Wooyeon continued speaking with his voice low as if he was telling a great secret.
“The role I’m playing this time will eventually die because of love. But even if I read the script dozens of times, it’s not really easy to understand. It’s a big problem.”
“Yes… It’s a big problem.”
Lee Wooyeon, who heard Inseop’s answer, laughed out loud.
“Hahaha. Yes. That’s a big problem. But don’t people usually comfort someone by saying that it’s okay? You can do it, or something. Ha ha ha ha ha.”
Perhaps the answer from the manager was interesting, Lee Wooyeon never stopped laughing. He raised his shoulders and laughed until the light changed and he turned right.
“I think Inseop is a fun person the more I know him.”
“Is that so?”
It felt complicated. He felt like he was being teased, so he couldn’t even say thank you… Oh, he thought he should go home quickly and register for that academy. No, if it was like this, even if he registered for an academy, he won’t have time to attend.
While Inseop was thinking about various things, Lee Wooyeon’s cell phone rang. Lee Wooyeon said, “Hold on for a moment,” and politely apologized and answered the call.
It was fast and fluent English. Perhaps he thought Inseop, who was sitting next to him, couldn’t understand, and he made the call without hesitation.
<I sent you a montage. Make sure to find out and call me back. I hope we can talk on the phone next time with good news.>
He couldn’t hear what the other side was saying, but it was certain that Lee Wooyeon was looking for someone. After a few more words, he hung up. Inseop began to guess in his head who Lee Wooyeon was looking for.
After finishing the phone call, Lee Wooyeon glanced at the side view of the manager who was driving. Inseop, who looked like he was thinking hard on his own, but didn’t ask questions, was now considered peculiar.
“What time do I have to come down tomorrow?”
Lee Wooyeon hadn’t checked his schedule these days. In the past, he had to check every single detail to manipulate the schedule to fuck with  the manager, but he gave up after realizing that it was impossible with Choi Inseop. This was because Inseop went directly to the office and received the schedule from the person in charge of the schedule. He couldn’t mess around in the middle. In order to cut Choi Inseop, he needed a different method from other people.
“Five thirty.”
“Then, when do you sleep, Mr. Inseop? Do you have office hours?”
Tomorrow, they have to start filming early in the morning, so they had to start earlier than other times. Inseop took Lee Wooyeon home because of the preparation time, and then he had less than two hours to go home and sleep.
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t think it will be okay. How long does it take to get home by car?”
“I do not know.”
“You don’t know? What do you mean?”
“I park the car in the office and walk.”
“Why?”
The office was located in the middle of Choi Inseop’s house and Lee Wooyeon’s house, but it wasn’t a walkable distance every day.
“There is no space to park the car. It’s an expensive car and it’s big…”
The van that Choi Inseop was driving now cost more than 100 million won. If anything happened after parking it anywhere, it was not an amount that Inseop could afford.
“Do you walk like that every morning?”
“Yes. Exercise is good too… We’re here.”
Inseop said as he parked the car. However, Lee Wooyeon did not intend to get out of the car.
“Would you like to go to my house and sleep? Just park the car here. I have to leave early in the morning.”
He asked out of courtesy. He did not have a hobby of bringing men or women into his house.
But did that asshole manager turn red to the nape of his neck and hurriedly waved his hands? Like a virgin who hated that he accepted an offer to sleep with a pervert.
That hurt Lee Wooyeon’s feelings.
“It’s fine. I will just go home.”
“Why? You’re tired from going back and forth.”
“No. It’s fine. The house is comfortable.”
In other words, it meant that Lee Wooyeon’s house was uncomfortable. He got impatient. The behavior of the manager who drew a strange line against him strangely angered him.
“Sleep at my house.”
At this point, he was getting tired.
Lee Wooyeon smiled kindly and held out his hand to the manager. But the manager didn’t even budge.
“No. I have work to do when I get home, and I have to give Kate some water…”
Inseop, who was speaking, quickly shut his mouth.
“Kate?”
“… good bye.”
Inseop reached out and opened the door of the passenger seat where Lee Wooyeon was sitting. But Lee Wooyeon slammed the door shut.
“Who is Kate?”
Choi Inseop was perplexed.
How can he say that he missed people so much that he bought plants, gave them names, and talked to them?
“She’s just an acquaintance.”
When he uttered the word “person,” Inseop shrugged his shoulders and set his gaze elsewhere. Lee Wooyeon intuitively recognized that he was lying. However, the point he observed the lie was that it was not just a person but an acquaintance.
“Really? You’re meeting them this late. Is she waiting at home? Kate?”
“… Yes.”
“Hmm.”
It was surprising. Last time it was Jenny, this time it was Kate.
Lee Wooyeon looked at the manager who was struggling, as if scared and not knowing what to do. He looked like a fool who didn’t know anything besides looking here and there, but he couldn’t believe he was living with a western woman.
“Didn’t you say you don’t have a girlfriend? Or is it just like that?”
“No, nothing like that…”
Living with someone who was not his lover.
It was getting progressively worse.
Lee Wooyeon looked at Choi Inseop’s trembling face that looked like he was saying, “I don’t know anything.”
“Okay. Then see you tomorrow morning.”
Lee Wooyeon smiled and opened the car door. And before Inseop could answer, he closed the car door aloud and disappeared.
Choi Inseop said, “Ah,” and scratched his head. It seemed that Lee Wooyeon was not in a good mood, but he could not figure out the reason why he was angry.
“What… what else have I done?”
After all, the conversation should have been in a short-answer format. The longer the words, the more mistakes.
He sighed and slowly backed up the car. It was about a 10-minute drive from where Lee Wooyeon lived to the office.