/
“Sorry, but I tried my best
” Yoonshin started, but Sehun interrupted.
“Of course you did—for the victim.”
“I also took the client’s position into account. I can’t help that you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth.”
Sehun sighed. “Can I really let you handle work? This is a small public interest case, but my cases are on a different level.”
“I can do it. I’ll prove it to you.”
Yoonshin could tell that Sehun wanted to retort by saying that regardless of the size of the case, Yoonshin’s basic attitude wouldn’t be different. However, instead of saying that and turning this inexplicably uncomfortable atmosphere into thin ice, he held himself back. Sehun didn’t want to waste their time together that way. This avoidance made Yoonshin truly recognize that he and the older man were going out with each other.
Regardless of this thought process of Yoonshin, Sehun gazed at the younger man for a while then calmly said, “Song-sunbae doesn’t like being embarrassed. She pretends to be all easygoing, but during critical times, she’s a lot more coldhearted than me. Wrap it up well.”
Yoonshin ruminated on Sehun’s advice then paused, feeling that something was off. “So you call her sunbae.”
“Is there a problem with that?”
“She’s that close to you, yet you told me that she was someone who could turn her back on you anytime and asked me if I slept with her? Who exactly did you want to go out with?”
Yoonshin expected Sehun to casually ignore the question or answer vaguely as he usually did. Sehun didn’t welcome other people being interested in him on a personal level. However, today was different.
The older lawyer stared at himself in the reflection, full of thought. As if that wasn’t enough, he leaned his chin on his hand. It seemed like Sehun needed some time, so Yoonshin waited quietly while sipping his overly sweet coffee.
“I like when kisses taste sweet.” When he recalled those ambiguous words, his heart grew more tumultuous. It wasn’t the most enjoyable, but for some reason, he felt obliged to drink it. The moment he put his lips to the cup again, he put the cup down in diffidence.
As Yoonshin dabbed his lips with a napkin for no reason, Sehun finally said, “I don’t know what that feels like—trusting someone.”
The Sehun Kang that Yoonshin had seen so far was the prime example of a perfectionist. He trusted himself and had the ability that was proportional to his confidence. To be so perfect that he had never trusted another person—was that poison or an antidote to him?
Yoonshin trusted many people—his father, sister, friends, peers, and teachers. Not only them, when he had just earned his lawyer license, he put faith in his seniors in the industry—who accepted him with open arms—and believed his clients, who were in difficult situations. Yoonshin survived by trusting and believing the people around him. He couldn’t begin to fathom what not trusting anyone even felt like.
“Maybe you just didn’t realize. I’ve experienced this myself, but perhaps you didn’t realize you trusted someone. People say love is also the same. Sometimes you only realize after it has faded away,” Yoonshin explained.
“There’s nothing I don’t know,” Sehun shot back.
“Maybe there are some exceptions?”
“Nope.” Sehun nodded to himself in conviction and added in a low voice, “There was one time that I thought that I could leave my matters in another person’s hands.”
The feeling of being able to leave something in someone’s hands—Yoonshin felt this way toward Sehun. He felt a broad boundary of faith in Sehun. Yoonshin could only think of one person who might have made Sehun feel that way. “Attorney Song?”
“Your father,” Sehun said.
The words that Yoonshin had never expected to hear made him close his lips.
Just like a sudden gust of wind, the memory of the day he saw his father off flooded in.
Sehun had paid his respects in a sharp black suit and was coming out of the service hall. Yoonshin was bawling so hard that he couldn’t greet the visitors. He was crying at the end of the hallway when he impulsively grabbed Sehun.