/
Yoonshin reconsidered contacting Sehun again and just took out his phone from his pocket when the headlights of the car in front of him flashed on. Following that, he heard the engine starting. Surprised, he looked around. The owner of the car was walking toward him in a suit as black as night.
Sehun must have been at home. Yoonshin watched as the figure grew closer. However, something bothered him.
Sehun was in all-black attire and had a black overcoat draped on his arm. Over his dress shirt was a dapper and snugly tied black necktie. His outfit was very solemn. Images that related to this sort of attire cropped up. They were images of moments that Yoonshin didn’t want to think about.
‘That man has never worn a black tie in over half a year,’ Yoonshin noted.
Yoonshin had an exceptional memory, and he truly did not recall Sehun ever wearing a black tie. He swallowed back his questions, and Sehun stopped right in front of him. Yoonshin was the one who spoke first. “Are you leaving now?”
“Are you stalking me? This isn’t your building’s parking area. What are you doing here?”
“I was doing something similar on impulse,” Yoonshin replied straightforwardly.
“And?”
“I believe there may be a reasonable cause on why you and I met like this right now.”
“What is it? Let me in on it too.”
“I thought deeply about it for a while, but I think we’re destined to be,” Yoonshin stated confidently.
Sehun cast a wordless stare at Yoonshin. Then, he walked by with disinterest, throwing an insincere reply, “Too cringeworthy. Move.”
Yoonshin couldn’t send the other man away like that. It wasn’t just because of Sehun’s dreary outfit. It was because Sehun looked overburdened, an expression he had never seen the older man make before.
He wasn’t sure if Sehun was caught off-guard or if he was voluntarily showing this face to Yoonshin. In any case, it was clear that this situation was out of the ordinary. Based on his observations of Sehun so far, no matter how busy he was, he was always mentally and emotionally relaxed. But right now, something about Sehun gave Yoonshin the impression that the older man didn’t know what to do in this situation.
As a workaholic, Sehun wouldn’t have taken the entire day off if he had to leave just past noon. Yoonshin was hit with the imaginative speculation that perhaps Sehun sacrificed this entire day because he didn’t want to show this side of himself to others. Spontaneously, he clutched onto Sehun’s sleeve before dropping his hand to hold the other’s hand.
“What are you doing?” Sehun asked.
“Are you going on a blind date? I don’t like the thought of that, but since I also went on one, I’ll overlook it just this once. I can wait at home,” Yoonshin replied.
Sehun looked flummoxed. “Why would I go on a blind date? I’m not planning on getting married.”
“Not even with me?”
“With you, it’s not that I won’t, it’s that I can’t.”
“Then, if that’s not the case
” Yoonshin looked dark, unable to bring the other possibility to his lips.
One only ever wore such a black tie with a pitch-black suit on sad occasions—occasions like when his father died, when his friends or their parents passed away, or when his client passed away due to a tragic accident or took extreme measures. Each time, his heart ached and hurt.
Given that Sehun had recorded it on his calendar for several years, it probably wasn’t marking a future event. According to Secretary Tak, Sehun had always taken this day off, so this was probably a repeated event since a long while back. When he came to this conclusion, Yoonshin hesitated, then he carefully asked in a depressed voice, “You were also wearing something like this when we first met. I remember that well.”
Instead of replying, Sehun merely gazed at the younger man. However, the words that never came out of his mouth were written all over his ashen face.